Epidemic of mistreatment in the asylum system

Yesterday, the Guardian reported allegations from lawyers that there is an "epidemic of mistreatment" in the asylum system.

Shamik Dutta, of the law firm Fisher Meredith, was one of the lawyers reported and said he had dealt with 15 or 20 cases in the past three years. "The callous and unlawful mistreatment of detainees is continuing, and is not just harming extremely vulnerable and damaged individuals but also costing the economy millions of pounds … it is clear there is an epidemic of mistreatment leading to civil claims going through the courts."

David Wood, strategic director for the criminality and detention group at the UK Border Agency, said the agency sought to exercise its power to detain people "reasonably and lawfully, [while] maintaining effective immigration control and protecting the public from harm". Yet officials accepted that the figure for special payments made in compensation over the past three years runs to millions of pounds.

From the limited contact I have had with UK Border Agency to date I fully support the case being made by these lawyers against the way in which the Agency and its staff carry out their responsibilities.
 
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Solomon Burke - None Of Us Are Free.

Windows on the world (121)

London, 2010

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Low - Silver Rider.

A unitive vision

This poem is a collage of phrases taken from artists and writers (so that the poem's form mirrors its content) exploring the artist's task in terms of the linking of fragments to form a unitive vision:

A collection of bits, series of fragments,
fragmented bits, chance scraps really,
records of things, vestiges of sorts and kinds of disciplinae,
different views, experiences, beliefs and prayers,
mental associations, liaisons, meanderings to and fro,
ambivalences, asides,
sprawl of the pattern, if pattern there is.

This is the way in which the mind does work:
consisting of connections, eliminations, selections:
such processes being reflected in, and by, the world.
The bits don’t fit together very well –
sometimes they even seem to be contradictory -
stories, poems, teachings, records, events and miracles
rub up against each other; contradictions I'm able to live with.
The only way is, instead of running from contradictions,
to run into them, wrap my arms around them and give them a big kiss.

So, like a disciplined scholar, I piece fragments together,
past conjecture, establishing true sequences of pain.
Trying hard to make this whole thing blend
these fragments I have shored against my ruins.
Though torn in two we can be one;
beyond the cacophony there can be higher connections
the attempt at language capable of embracing
seeming opposites from a higher point of view.

In contact with a network of propositions,
images, processes, natural pathology and what-have-you
that is like some vast ecology or aesthetics of cosmic interaction:
not only within the mind, but in connection with the world outside
of which the mind is conscious:
some circuitry going between, and around,
these inside and outside worlds
through the gathering, the linking, the seeing,
the shaping of different experiences into sequences.

This is the sort of occurrence that artists seem to describe –
the way that out of activities of randomness
there are formed structures as of a mind and by a mind: that such is life.
We build up constantly changing models of the world
from seemingly random thoughts and images.
Artists seem able, with practice, to build this information
into structures with meaning; they make things fit together.

Held together, they form a colourful and intriguing picture
that draws us into its own landscape
achieving a unity through the yoking of motifs
taken from different realms of given reality;
perhaps making a kind of coat of many colours,
such as belonged to 'that dreamer' in the Hebrew myth.
A central direction and a rich diversity
glimpsing something of the divine being and his life in the world;
a collage of God.

All things are held together by correspondence,
image with image, movement with movement.
Without that there could be no relation and therefore no truth.
It is our business - yours and mine - to take up the power of relation,
to develop a language or style
being elusive, allusive, not didactic
by which apparent contradictions might be held.
So ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in!

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Leonard Cohen - Anthem.

Our Community Festival

Climbing wall and cycling

Della with the churches information stand

Crowd at the stage

Information stands

Local councillor discussions

Churches and councillors information stands

Charity and Carmen on the churches information stand

The Seven Kings Safer Neighbourhood Team in conversation with the Seven Kings & Newbury Park Resident's Association

Steel Band on the stage

The Festival site

Ross, Pauline and Vida

Part of the Festival Art Exhibition at St Paul's Goodmayes

Community collages & the Windows on the world photographic display

Windows on the world photographic display

'Christ the Worker' Faith-Craft window and icon at St Paul's Goodmayes

Henry Shelton painting in the Festival exhibition

'Annunciation' window by Leonard Evetts and 'Resurrection' station by Henry Shelton at St Paul's Goodmayes

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The Killers - When You Were Young.

Celebration of Christian Poetry (2)

This year at St John's Seven Kings we have another engaging and interesting Patronal Festival programme at the beginning of October, which includes a Sixties Night (Saturday 2nd October, 7.30pm), Choral Evensong (Sunday 3rd October, 6.30pm), a Festival Communion with our guest preacher Revd. Alan Perry, Headteacher, St Edwards School (Sunday 3rd October, 10.00am), and a Celebration of Christian Poetry (Friday 1st October, 7.30pm) - this event is part of the London Borough of Redbridge's 'Word of Mouth' Festival.

Poetry is an aspect of the Arts where the influence of Christians has been felt particularly strongly. In thinking about why that might be and also why you might want to come to our Celebration of Christian Poetry event, the following thoughts from the US poet Gregory Orr may be of interest:

“The making of poems is the making of meanings. To write a lyric poem is to take the confusion and chaos inside you and translate it into words. Those words get organized onto a page; and if they’re being organised into a poem as opposed to a novel, they’re organized into an intense pattern, a concentrated coherence. When you suffer trauma, you mostly do that passively, as a victim. But when you translate that experience into words and shape it, you become active. You are no longer a passive endurer of experience, but an active shaper of it. You’ve redeemed something from that chaos.”

“We, as readers, most need poems, during our crises. We need poets when we’re deliriously happy, and the delirium threatens our stability, when we’re crazy with love. We need them when we’re crazed with grief and despair – then they’re a momentary stay against our confusion, a momentary clarification. Then they have the power to re-stabilize us. Wordsworth has a beautiful insight when he defines poetry twice in his “Preface to the Lyric Ballads”: first as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” – that would be a poem written in crisis – and than a few pages later as “emotion recollected in tranquillity” … “trauma revisited when it’s safe to remember it.”

For all these reasons “writing a poem can save your life, and reading a poem can show you that you are not alone. Someone else felt this. Someone else went through what you are going through and they survived, even triumphed. The poem is the proof of that survival and triumph.” Orr quotes a wonderful line about lyric poetry from Stanley Kunitz: “It’s the voice of the solitary that makes others less alone.”

If you are being drawn to poetry, as a reader or a writer, then he suggests finding out about your imaginative relatives – your poetic family – including “Great-great-grandfather Wordsworth, or mad Great-great-uncle William Blake, or strange and amazing Aunt Emily Dickinson.” Our Celebration of Christian Poetry event will be that kind of evening - an introduction to a poetic family tree offering the opportunity to “find your spiritual kin” and be “reborn into poetry” – through readings of poems from featured poets, favourite poems introduced and read by local clergy, and choral recitals of well known poems.

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Christina Rossetti - Love Came Down At Christmas.

Spirituality, Creativity & the Arts

‘... hearts and hands and voices...’ What’s it all about?

We are surrounded by music and image, and our everyday lives are permeated with words - both spoken and written. Creativity - our own and that of others - fills the space around us all the time.

This year’s Exploring Spirituality Day in the Diocese of St Albans, offers space and time to explore and ponder and wonder at all that surrounds us and all that fills us - calling us to respond with hearts and hands and voices.

You may recognise the phrase which forms the title of this year’s Exploring Spirituality Day from the hymn, Now thank we all our God, written by Martin Rinkart and translated by Katherine Winkworth. It is a wonderful hymn that recognises God’s wondrous works, calls us to praise His name, and prays for God to be with us through life in all its various ways.

The Workshops on this day will provide space to find new ways of exploring the Creative Arts and how we might pray and worship with and through them. Looking across the range of the Creative Arts, at the end of the day, the aim is that people to go away with tools for the journey that will inform and enhance the spiritual journey - the journey with God.

Doctor Nicholas Cranfield is keynote speaker. Nicholas is a parish priest in South East London (Diocese of Southwark) and for the past fifteen years he has contributed regular art reviews to the Church Times and led gallery tours and exhibition visits. He is a member of the Southwark Diocesan Advisory Committee for the care of churches (DAC) and is currently Hon Secretary of the British Section of the UNESCO body the International Association of Art Critics (AICA UK). He is writing a book on Roman Art from 1600 to 1610.

Workshop 1 : What can you see? What does Jesus show us? This workshop will explore how the Incarnation can inform what we deem as Christian Art and will suggest contexts for exploring this, drawing from the churches and experiences of participants. The Rev’d Nicholas Cranfield is Vicar of Blackheath and Arts Correspondent for The Church Times.

Workshop 2 : Writing the blues The Psalms for our own age. The Psalms have been, through the years, the ‘back bone’ of Christian worship: many hymns and prayers call upon their imagery and language. How might we respond to them today and, more importantly, how might we create our own? The Rev’d Jonathan Evens is Vicar of St. John’s, Seven Kings. He is also a published author, poet and artist.

Workshop 3 : "Touch me and see" An invitation to prayer using all our senses. Words of Jesus to his disciples as they grasped at the truth of the Resurrection. Words which remind us that the journey of faith involves all of our being and not just our powers of thought. This workshop invites us to experience and explore how we might pray through quiet corners and sacred spaces, and through the use of all of our senses. The Rev’d Ruth Pyke is the Children’s Work Advisor for Bedfordshire and Priest-in-Charge of All Saints, Caddington.

Workshop 4 : To be in your presence... Movement to speak the presence of God. Let the body speak: listen to it; learn from it. An opportunity to explore how, by developing greater body awareness, both in movement and stillness, we may find a way deeper into the presence of God. The Rev’d Carole Selby is Team Vicar with responsibility for St James, Goffs Oak, within the Cheshunt Team Ministry.

Workshop 5 : Images or Idols Exploring the use of images in worship. This workshop will explore the way in which images (Icons) are used in worship and how they contribute to the spirituality of the Eastern Church, where the interiors of Church buildings are richly decorated. Participants will have the opportunity to explore the tradition of icon painting by creating their own icon. No previous experience is required. The Rev’d David Ridgeway is Vicar of St. Stephen’s, St Albans.

Workshop 6 : Sing your heart out Singing the passion and emotion of faith. ‘They who sing, pray twice’, said St Augustine. Sometimes music can unlock passions and desires and heartfelt yearnings after God that we didn’t even realise were there. Come with some experience of singing or none - come with an ear to listen and a heart to be ‘strangely warmed’, and see what you might discover. The Rev’d Deborah Snowball is Priest-in-Charge of St. Mary the Virgin, Rickmansworth.

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Van Morrison - Hymns To The Silence.

The CF Celebrity Cookbook

Six years ago, my sister Rachel and her children had a really good idea to raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Partly because diet is really important in CF, they thought they would write letters to famous people and ask them for a recipe, and then put the recipes they got into a book, to sell and raise money. Well, to cut a long story short, they did it! The first print run of The CF Celebrity Cookbook raised over £6,000 and they are now well into their second run!

It is in full colour, with recipes from all sorts of people, including Gordon Brown, Rowan Atkinson, Ian McKellen, Ellen McArthur, and Andrew Flintoff!

They were really fortunate in getting a designer friend to do the layout and design for free, and my vrother-in-law's firm and others have helped with the printing costs - all of which means that ALL of the £5 cover price goes straight to the CF Trust. If you would like to buy a copy, just click here.

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Neil Young - Helpless.

Windows on the world (120)

London, 2010

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The Jam - Strange Town.

Our Community Art Exhibition (3)

Here are photos from the Our Community Art Exhibition at St Paul's Goodmayes which we set up this evening. The exhibition features collages on the themes of people and places, a display of local photographs from my 'Windows on the world' series and visitors will be able to see the permanent artworks commissioned for St Paul's Goodmayes including stained glass by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Leonard Evetts, new Stations of the Crown of Thorns by Henry Shelton and a sculpture by Jane Quail, among other works.

The People and Places collages were begun through an art workshop held at St John the Evangelist Seven Kings earlier in the year in preparation for next Sunday's Our Community Festival. Mark Lewis, of commission4mission, led workshop participants in creating self portraits and drawings of local landmarks. Artist and designer, Mark Lewis, firmly believes that in the pursuit of every artistic endeavour, one should always put drawing first.

The drawings from the art workshop have been supplemented by additional drawings from children at the Holiday Club held at St John’s over the summer and by notes giving thanks to God for particular people and places written by those in the congregation at St John’s for an All-Age Service on the theme of community.

These collages mirror the aim of the Our Community Festival by bringing together people and places within the local community. They have been formed through the input, ideas, prayers and creativity of the local community. They are have been made by and are also about the local community.

The Our Community Art Exhibition will be open Monday 20th to Sunday 26th September from 10 am to 2 pm. Light refreshments will be available. On the final day, Sunday 26th, opening times will be extended to 4 pm to coincide with the Our Community Festival itself.

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Robert Plant - All the Kings Horses.

The priority of relationships

Luke 16. 1-13 may well be the parable that it is most difficult to understand. The story and the teaching based on it seem contradictory and it doesn’t seem to fit with other things that Jesus said and taught.

A manager is wasting his employer’s money. He is found out and fired. The beginning of the story makes sense to us. It’s what happens next that causes a problem. The manager then reduces the debts that various people owe to his employer in order to get on good terms with them before he leaves his master’s employment. Although he is again wasting his master’s money, this time the master praises what he has done.

Jesus goes on to say that we should use our money to make friends and that this will help us to be welcomed into eternity. That seems almost the reverse of his saying store up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. Then to compound all the complications he commends faithfulness after having told a story in which the dishonest manager is praised for his dishonesty.

How can we find a way in to a set of teaching that seems contradictory and confused? It may be that the key is Jesus’ statement that we should make friends for ourselves. Although the dishonest manager remains dishonest there is a change that occurs in the story. And we can see that change most clearly if we think about the manager’s work-life balance.

At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on his list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but wasting his employer’s money. It is likely then that his life is focused around work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendship and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

The teaching that follows the story makes it clear that Jesus does not condone dishonesty; if this manager is dishonest in small matters then he will also be dishonest in large ones. The manager’s fundamental dishonesty does not change but the priority he places on relationships does. In other teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if fathers who are bad, he says, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this story is similar. He is saying that if shrewd, worldly people, like the dishonest manager, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

The Relationships Foundation sounds like it is likely to be a dating agency but is actually an organisation founded and run by Christians that believes that a good society is built on good relationships, from family and community to public service and business. They study the effect that culture, business and government have on relationships, create new ideas for strengthening social connections, campaign on issues where relationships are being undermined and train and equip people to think relationally for themselves. They are one example of an organisation that is seeking to prioritise relationships in life and in work as Jesus encouraged us to do. There are, of course, others, with the Mothers’ Union being among them, but the work that the Relationships Foundation attempts to do aims to encourage good relationships throughout society, not just within family life.

Why is this so important? Jesus throws out a hint when he says “make friends for yourself … so that … you will be welcomed in the eternal home.” Jesus seems to be hinting that the relationships we form now in some way continue into eternity. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes that faith, hope and love remain using a word for ‘remain’ which suggests that acts of faith, hope and love continue into eternity. Building relationships Jesus and Paul suggest may not just be good for the here and now but may also have eternal implications. All the more reason then for us to learn from this story and, whether we are at home, at work, or in our community, to prioritise the building of good relationships with those around us.

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Buddy Miller - There's A Higher Power.

Fairtrade & Harvest @ St Johns

The FAIRTRADE Mark is a registered certification label for products sourced from producers in developing countries. For a product to display the FAIRTRADE Mark it must meet international Fairtrade standards which are set by the international certification body Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International(FLO). These standards are agreed through a process of research and consultation with key participants in the Fairtrade scheme, including producers themselves, traders, NGOs, academic institutions and labelling organisations such as the Fairtrade Foundation.

“Fairtrade is a strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Its purpose is to create opportunities for producers and workers who have been economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system. If fair access to markets under better trade conditions would help them to overcome barriers to development, they can join Fairtrade.”

Fairtrade is a tool for development that ensures disadvantaged farmers and workers in developing countries get a better deal through the use of the international FAIRTRADE Mark.

Leviticus 19. 1-10 shows us that God cares about our relationships; with our parents, with our holy God, and with the poor. This whole chapter from the book of Leviticus is concerned with the social responsibilities of God’s people, with verses 9 and 10 dealing with the relationship between he abundance of the harvest and the needs of the poor. In celebrating the harvest God’s people should never forget those who are unable to celebrate.

In our time, this includes not forgetting those people who produce and harvest food for us but who may be badly treated or exploited in the process. The Fairtrade initiative attempts to bring us back into a relationship with the producers of our food, like that we would have had in the past when we grew our own food for ourselves, or knew personally those who grew our food.

Fairtrade gives us the ability to be able to shop for the things we like from around the world, knowing that those who produce those things have been treated fairly. As a result, we could say that Fairtrade shopping is holy shopping!

We have a tendency to think of holiness and being holy as somehow being different from everyday life. These verses in Leviticus remind us that that isn’t so. God’s people back then could show holiness by thinking of others when they collected the harvest. We can show holiness by thinking of those who produce our food when we go shopping for it; by buying Fairtrade. We can show holiness by remembering those who are homeless as we bring our Harvest produce to give to the Redbridge Night Shelter. We can show holiness by growing our own food and sharing any we don’t need with others as a transition initiative which is a response to the challenge of peak oil. We can show holiness by taking environmentally friendly actions in order to care better for God’s creation.

We have the privilege of an abundant food supply – fruit and vegetables in and out of season. Our harvest is abundant therefore we have a responsibility to those food producers around the world and to the environment, both of which make that privilege possible. Buying Fairtrade produce is just one way in which we can show that we take this responsibility seriously and one way in which we can be holy when we shop.

Because we haven’t always done that and because there is a tension between celebrating the abundance of God’s provision and remembering those in need, we now have a time of saying sorry to God for the ways in which we and our society have failed those in need and exploited our environment. So let us pray the following prayer of confession:

Heavenly Father, Lord of the harvest, we confess that we do not always know or even care where our food comes from. We confess that we do not always care for our neighbours or the planet as you taught us to. We confess that we do not always care for the welfare of those who produce our food as we ought to. Help us to take small steps in changing how we shop for our food. Help us to see that how we shop is still part of our worship of you. Help us to worship you with our life choices. Amen.

(Based on ‘Harvest’, The All-Age Service Annual, Vol. 1 2007/08, Scripture Union)

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Martin Smith - You Have Shown Us.

Let us be human

A small group of us from St John's Seven Kings spent the day on Mersea Island today with Sam Norton. Sam challenged us with his thinking about Christian responses to contemporary crises during the morning, we then enjoyed visiting the beach and harbour on what was a beautifully sunny day before returning to a St Peter & St Paul West Mersea which was attractively decorated for Harvest in order to share communion together as Christ commanded and as the formative act for us as Christians.

Much of what Sam had to say is summed up in this quote from his most recent post:

"The solution to our predicament does not lie in any scheme which has as its final purpose the preservation of the environment. Rather, our foremost task is to learn again what it means to live as a human being, by following the example of the one who lived a fully human life (hence 'Let us be Human'). The most important contribution that the church can make is to name the powers that are destroying us, to identify all the ways in which our civilisation has become disordered and which prevent us becoming fully human. In other words, it is discipleship that is lacking, not a particular program for planetary preservation. This has what might seem a surprising conclusion, but one that I mean with all seriousness: the God-given way to 'save the planet' is by celebrating the eucharist, and allowing it to form us. If we repent and return to faithful living then the environmental problems will resolve themselves (“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” - 2 Chronicles 7.14)."

Similarly, this Thomas Merton quote which Sam used in his talk:

"The only thing that can save the world from complete moral collapse is a spiritual revolution. Christianity, by its very nature, demands such a revolution. If Christians would all live up to what they profess to believe, the revolution would happen." (From: Ascent to Truth)


For more extensive notes of material that Sam summarised and shared with us, click here.
 
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Leonard Cohen - The Future.

Our Community Art Exhibition (2)

I've been preparing the Windows on the world photographs that I will be exhibiting in the Our Community Art Exhibition at St Paul's Goodmayes next week. The photographs were all taken in and around Gants Hill as part of the monthly painting and photography session that I have with Benjamin Wallis, Vicar of St George's Barkingside, to document the current regeneration of Gants Hill.

I will be exhibiting these photographs in old church noticeboards which are suggestive of the former things which are being removed in order that regeneration can come but are also an indication that redundant objects can be recycled to acquire a different existence. The photographs are pinned like notices within the boards but, instead of providing factual, written information, offer the ambiguity of visual images seen through a variety of frames.

Each photograph in the Windows on the world series features a foreground object providing a frame for what can be viewed beyond. By framing what is beyond, the photograph acts as a window on a part of our world and at the same time signals the presence of the beyond, thereby also acting as a window onto the divine in a way the way similar to that achieved by icons. Exhibiting the photographs in noticeboards adds an additional window through which they are to be viewed.

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Victoria Williams - This Moment.

Community Garden (3)

As the pictures above show, we now have our new noticeboards and benches installed in the garden at St John's Seven Kings and can begin working around these to create the areas of sensory planting and the remembrance garden. Our next work day is on Saturday 9th October when we will be joined by some local CSV volunteers. 

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Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone.

Exhibition round-up

At Tate Britain today I saw Fiona Banner's Duveen Commission where she has placed recently decommissioned fighter planes in the incongruous setting of the Duveen Galleries. The suspended Sea Harrier transforms machine into captive bird, the markings tattooing its surface evoking its namesake the Harrier Hawk. A Jaguar lies belly up on the floor, its posture suggestive of a submissive animal. Stripped and polished, its surface functions as a shifting mirror, exposing the audience to its own reactions. Harrier and Jaguar remain ambiguous objects implying both captured beast and fallen trophy.

Rachel Whiteread's collages and drawings provide a fascinating and intimate insight into the creative process behind her work. While her sculptures are often large-scale and involve a team of fabricators, these paper works provide a more personal, mobile counterpoint. Nevertheless, they also share many of the themes familiar from her public commissions: texture and surface; void and presence; and the subtle observation of human traces in everyday life.

To enter Mike Nelson's The Coral Reef is to enter a parallel world. Rooms, doors, passageways, all bear traces of habitation and decay. Different, often conflicting, ideologies or belief systems are presented through these traces. The implied occupants of Nelson's world appear to be detached from the political and economic centre, left to exist at the margins of globalised, capitalist society. The work's title alludes to this collection of complex, fragile belief systems that form an obscured layer - a coral reef - beneath the 'ocean surface' of prevailing orthodoxies. Nelson's absent protagonists occupy positions of resistance in the face of dominant ideologies. However, Nelson perhaps conveys a sense of inevitable futility about such resistance. In his words, he wants the spectator to feel 'lost in a world of lost people'.

Using vintage Coca-cola and Pepsi advertising signs as his canvas, Pakpoom Silaphan creates portraits of influential people using collage and illustration with marker pen and emulsion. High-profile figures including John Lennon, Che Guevera and The Queen populate the signs at the Scream Gallery, making a clear connection between icons and the advertising industry. Silaphan takes Warhol's elevation of everyday brands to high art, and combines it with his adoration of famous figures. The power of advertising and corporate branding is demonstrated by the infiltration of Coca-Cola, Pepsi etc. to countries outside Western culture. "Celebrity is really just a word. The people who not only find fame, but also learn the power of influence, and in doing so, make a huge impact on our culture - these are the icons to me." Pakpoom Silaphan, July 2010

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Robert Plant - Angel Dance.