Ownership

Owning but not possessing

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

As having nothing, yet possessing everything
(2 Cor. 6:10).

Those words are challenging, from the one who wrote that though poor he was making many rich. Fast forward, and I guess many of us are nearer to ‘owning everything’ and so I suggest we need to do a little reversal of the above:

As owning everything, but possessing nothing.

Our relationship to what we own, now there is a challenge. ‘It’s mine and don’t touch’ just does not cut it for those who follow Paul as he followed Christ. ‘It’s mine and I am going to steward it’ is a major step forward, provided stewardship does not remain in the realm of control.

GIFT. That seems how God operates. He gives. Gift is not charity, though there are many times we need to be respond with ‘charity’, increasingly so as so many have lost jobs and accommodation, and at times with no questions asked. But gift is something beyond that. It is given freely to help a person toward their destiny. Given without guarantee of something coming back personally, even though given with prayer and consideration.

The Jericho principle. At the point of entry to the land that was abundant gift the people received an instruction that was not repeated later. TAKE NOTHING, DO NOT PROFIT at all from the conquest of Jericho. We know the issue that ensued through Achan’s disobedience.

At the point of entry a strong decision not to profit is I believe very key. This has shaped me over years when making an entry to a place. I try to find what I might have profited from and then not touch it. For example, and such a small issue, not to profit from any books sold in another nation, not to receive royalties, nor an author’s fee. (Not being in the John Grisham league there is no need to be impressed!)

So up to date. A couple of days ago while we were praying over our re-entry to Madrid as to when and how, we were given a very helpful prophetic word over a zoom call from someone who knew nothing about our prayers and deliberations. This put a pause button to our plans. Then a couple of days later we were put in touch with a Colombian-born woman who we had never met who was losing her accommodation at the end of September and needed a place for 3-4 months. Owning everything…

Paying attention to any check in our spirits (not paying attention to the ‘what if’ questions in the mind), we knew that we cannot own everything and possess it as well. Keys in post. A gift to her… a small contribution to her destiny.

Yesterday one of really good friends and neighbours had his birthday. We had the afternoon together. He freaked out (not good on your birthday) when he found what we had done. His wife explaining that he finds it very hard to trust people.

Our gift to him? We believe in people, their destiny. And we believe in him and his destiny.

It takes time when the paradigm is one of witnessing not evangelising (yes there is a chapter in Humanising the Divine on that, but you all know that cos you have all bought a copy – right?!!!!). But the time witnessing takes is so important. A relationship is built and it is not one-way.

We do our small part, and you do yours, and together we can own but not possess so that what we do not own we can possess.

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Humanising the divine

VOLUME 1!

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Book is available… or ever so nearly so!

To download the eBook – two versions, one which will be for kindle products, the other for other readers; check out the site:

https://www.bozpublications.com/humanising-the-divine

To order the hardback version – either use the above site, or your normal in-country store (Barnes & Noble; Waterstones… and all the others). With most of those book store sites you will currently be able to do a ‘pre-order’ as they will say the publication date is 29/09/20. (The book is print on demand so will not be on the shelves of those stores, but available by mail order, or ordered into the store.) I am not making the book available directly on Amazon simply as my tiny protest against the nature of such organisations. My tiny protest will of course cause a great quaking in the boots of Amazon and Mr. B!!!! I appreciate that will be a slight inconvenience to some of you – such is life.

I am opening up discussion and engagement by zoom and in a forum.

Forum link.

Contact form to join a Zoom group.

I think the above pages are clear. I expect that it will be mid-October before the first Zoom group begins, and I plan for as many as are needed. My suggestion would be to get hold of the book in either format and if you consider there would be value in joining such a group to then send me your details via the contact form.

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Kenarchy!

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

A short while back Roger Mitchell (as lead editor) launched The Kenarchy Journal. Here is the link:

https://kenarchy.org/

Volume 1 has been there since the start, and now there is the drawing together of articles for Volume 2… and they are also welcoming submissions for that volume. (There is also a forum for the interaction with all current articles.)

Here is a short note from Roger:

If you are not aware of it already would like to draw your attention to The Kenarchy Journal, www.Kenarchy.org, a new online academic resource launched this summer embracing a wide and interdisciplinary perspective relevant to the politics and theology of love. Its purpose is to advance applied research, and it includes a forum that we very much hope will provide the opportunity for thinkers and activists beyond academia to engage with the online material. Volume 1, Starting Points, deals particularly with the theology of Incarnation, Trinity and Lament and then focuses on reinstating the feminine, advocating for the poor and reintegrating humanity and the creation. Volume 2, Spring 2021, will continue to explore Starting Points focusing on the remaining themes central to kenarchy, namely the priority of children, welcome for strangers, justice for prisoners, and health for the sick. We are currently inviting submissions exploring the theology of the child, immigrants and asylum seekers, restorative justice, and health and wellbeing. Please encourage students and colleagues or fellow researchers to consider submitting an abstract for an article relevant to these themes via the website, or to let us have sight of an unpublished article they may have already prepared on one of these themes. We would of course, be delighted to have a submission from you!

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A little closer

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

A few days ago Gayle and I went away for a few days. Those times have often been very fruitful with time to reflect, question, and pray. For sure the COVID lockdown has been good for us from the perspective of reflection. A while back I had (and thankfully still have) a connection with Authentic Business, who have an approach that is very people focused. Change is focused on the personal not the structural. One of the exercises they engage clients in involves discovering core process. So Gayle and I did this together.

It basically involves recounting three happy stories, then from them pulling out verbs that describe action involved in the stories and then nouns. Eventually it is narrowed down to one verb and one noun. Our process took us a couple of days, not constant, but ruminating. At the end of the two days we settled on (different) core process descriptions. It really had quite an impact.

It is great to be a little closer to discovering why one is on the planet (no need to say, ‘and you were born in 1955, what have you been doing all this time?’). Yes takes a little longer for some of us than others.

The three stories were very interesting for me. Gayle could pull out as many as you wish, I got to one story and couldn’t think of another one! The tendency was to pull on ‘when God did this’ kind of response, reflecting more a need to feel significant than discovering the happy time! With her help one of the stories I managed to get to was when she said – what about the time the police with armed rifle insisted on moving you on when you entered the zone they were guarding at the Congress building that had the barriers up? You came back from that bouncing with happiness.

What a great moment. I remember it well and it still brings a good smile to my face. The day I helped the police man be a good law-enforcing officer. My calling in life – or close to it.

Anyway… the verb I came up with was ‘provoking’. Gayle had the same verb.

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A Taster

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Been a while since I have posted here. I have been writing… Just completed the fourth of a proposed six-series set of book(lets). Below is the opening paragraphs, followed by the closing paragraphs, from the third volume and a chapter entitled, ‘A necessary chapter’. This volume seeks to engage with some practical areas of society, so the first chapter was on the Arts, others are on Health and Education, Business (as Unusual) and the Media.

A chapter on the arts was a nice gentle way to highlight how any communication needs more than words to bring about change. In that chapter I said that art has often been commodified, becoming the collector’s piece, sometimes because of a deep appreciation of the art but often because of the perceived investment value. One piece bought for monetary reasons while other artists, who put their heart and soul into something (not to mention many hours), cannot make a living from their gift to society. It leads me to this chapter, a necessary one, on money, work and value.
The archaeologists report that between the 10th and the 8th century BC there were many economic changes in the land of Israel. Over those two centuries a huge discrepancy grows between the size of houses. We might view it that prosperity abounded and that this was evidence as to how God had blessed, but the 8th century prophets viewed it very differently. This is the rise of the critical voices of the prophets who connected social inequality to a faithlessness to the covenant. A poignant example is in Amos 4:1-4,

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,
you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
The Sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness:
“The time will surely come
when you will be taken away with hooks,
the last of you with fishhooks.
You will each go straight out
through breaches in the wall,
and you will be cast out toward Harmon,”
declares the Lord.
Go to Bethel and sin;
go to Gilgal and sin yet more.
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
your tithes every three years.

Continuing to tithe and sacrifice in the appointed way was exposed as a farce as there was no justice, no semblance of an egalitarian society. In the life of Israel the law stipulated an intentional levelling through the system of Sabbath, the seventh year Sabbath and a radical Jubilee every fiftieth year when there was a reboot to the whole of society.

Before wading in to some of these major issues a gentle proviso that I will try and pick up in a later chapter. The gentle proviso is, ‘but we have to be practical.’ Agreed! We are not looking for something that is perfect for we wait for the day ‘when the perfect comes’; we live in a fallen world and in that world we have to learn how to compromise. The compromises that we are to be involved in though are to be redemptive. Redemption does not bring us to perfection in the immediate but re-aligns us so that there is a before and an after, so that we are not left the same, and the after is better than the before. Jesus quoted the Scripture that ‘the poor you will have with you always’ (John 12:8 quoting Deut. 15: 11), and that surely is true.

However, we cannot use it as if Jesus intended us to be unmoved or inactive about inequalities. The Scripture that Jesus quoted, Deut. 15: 11 says:

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

There is a reality that there will always be those who experience poverty, and in the light of that there has to be a spirit of generosity, for such was the commandment God gave them. The wider passage exhorts us to be generous, to cancel debts, to help liberate and to truly work toward the goal of eradicating poverty.

The gospel sets out the eschatological focus, and then deals with the present in both real and redemptive terms. It does not call us to live with a utopian vision, nor does it allow us to be passive. The ekklesia is present in the world to bring about change, and we are in a world that is all-but a runaway train hellbent on destruction. The original sin of consumerism, of moving boundaries for personal gain has to be addressed. This chapter is focused on money (or maybe better put as Mammon), but it could equally address the ecological crisis which is yet another sign that we have, as a race, been consistently moving boundary markers for personal gain.

………

The age to come, the one we are preparing for, and the one that we are preparing the materials for, will not be an age when there will be segregation along financial lines. Yet this age has increasingly sown into that financial divide. In closing this chapter, one that had to be written, let me simply ask how we should best sow into that glorious future. If I am privileged to own my own house should I pursue an even bigger stake in bricks and mortar? Should I look to store up more for myself with a pension scheme that will only increase the money distortions of society? Should I look to leave money to my descendants so that they might have the potential of moving further up the scale than I was able to?

Hard questions? Or looking at the reality that there is an age to come and how should we live in that light of that?

What remains clear is the concept of simply encouraging believers to rise to the top 3% of the mountain of influence without any critique of the existence of the ‘mountain’, could indeed release an influence, but the influence might not be an influence for the kingdom. The mountain remaining is not a signpost of the age to come.

We do not live in a perfect world and we await the age to come. While living in the in-between time, while we inhabit this imperfect world, we have to make compromises, yet we cannot simply compromise while refusing to look at the issues that pollute our world. Mammon and consumerism have been here since the beginning, but will not be here at the end. We live in between those two points. If we allow ourselves to be dragged back then, for sure, we are not of those who are contributing to the transformation of this world, and the preparation of the next.

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The Refiner’s Fire

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Charles Strohmer has been a friend, mentor (beyond what he realises) and encourager to many over not a few years. He has focused on the Bible as wisdom for life, applying that wisdom into… OK here is a better summary written by the man himself:

For many years I worked with individuals, small groups, NGOs, institutions, and churches to think about and to develop wisdom-based approaches in areas such as education, the business world, family and social life, cultural development, environmental stewardship, and especially the arts, communication, and inter-religious engagement. I continue to work in those areas but my chief focus in recent years entails advancing peaceable wisdom-based approaches for improving international relations, with a special focus on diplomacy, negotiations, and mediation in the context of the United States and the Middle East, including Christian, Muslim, and Jewish narratives in that big context.

In the video he is speaking into the American scene as an American / as a prophetic voice. Also take time to dip into his blog:

https://wagingwisdom.com/

Seems there are many deep concerns at this time.

  • If this is a storm, or winter, or the beginning of an ice-age (I think original to Andy Crouch) what response should we make? (And it is certainly not a storm…)
  • I was on a Skype call this week to Gary, a humble prophet who travelled with Bob Jones in his final years. Gary said he has been deep in Proverbs as there has to be a download of heaven’s wisdom to show us the way forward and through.
  • On the same Skype call was Chris, working in the media, who is saying the next wave has to be for the apologist to enable a connection. Communication and wisdom… with the media holding a key role.
  • Some talk of a mega shift every 500 years. Last one being the Reformation / Renaissance etc. Here we are now 500 years on.
  • November there are USA elections. Many nations are facing issues of immense proportion, but they are all facing the same crisis – what do we do now, not to clear up the mess of COVID etc., but to prepare for what is to come.
  • I wrote a few days ago about corruption and the deep level of corruption not being that of sexual or financial abuse but of the submission into political alignment of the church. That is being exposed – and has to be. I do not consider that John’s Gospel is deeply political but right in the middle of it there is an exposure of what that false alignment does… it was the turning point to send Jesus to the cross. If that were not to happen then they feared the Romans would come and take away their divine right!
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Almost Ready to Roll

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

First, an apology that the link on Gaz’s last post was not working… NOW CORRECTED. And well worth the read.

Many of you know that I have been working on a series of booklets – 3½ of an initial 6 are now written. The first one should roll out by early September, so a little advance note about what they are and what I hope to do with them.

Here is the blurb about the series:

Explorations in Theology, a series of short books that offer some fresh perspectives on common themes. They are certainly not the final word, but are intended to open possibilities beyond a theology that selects a narrow set of ‘proof-texts’ (while ignoring others). Written in simple language, never demanding agreement with the author, they will become a resource to develop one’s own convictions.

The first one is entitled ‘Humanising the Divine‘, here is the blurb:

In this first book in the series Scott begins by placing Jesus at the centre of theology. He maintains that Jesus is presented in Scripture as both the image of God and the image of true humanity. God was ‘humanised’ through the Incarnation, and through the cross a road block was placed on humanity’s road to destruction. In the middle chapters there are some fresh perspectives on Judas, Peter and Cornelius, suggesting that salvation is much more to do with a call to join the movement to work for the restoration of humanity, than a ticket to heaven.

They will be available in two formats: hardback print version and as an ebook that will be readable on most (if not all) ebook readers / tablets / phones.

I have run two zoom groups in the past months to try out the concept of what I plan to do, so I see three options:

  • The book in either format can be bought and read / or simply placed on the bookshelf (!).
  • The book can be bought and there will be a podcast on each of the chapters that will give a little bit of background behind some of the concepts, and suggest a few questions for reflection.
  • The book can be bought and one can opt to join a weekly zoom group (the first is not likely to start before October 1) where a chapter will be dialogued through each week. (This is what I have done with the two groups I mentioned above.)

[Once the first book is finally out I will give details of the above options – where to order etc.]

Also for those who have been on a zoom group they will be able to contribute to a forum for open discussion. Anyone will be able to read the discussion but only those who have zoomed will be able to contribute.

Who am I writing for?

Anyone… But I am looking to interact (zoom / forum) with people on a similar page. I am not for one minute suggesting I have the truth (as if!) and am not looking for those who will simply agree with me, but those who are willing to consider what I write, respond and then be able to disagree and come to their own conclusions. I am not looking for those who will quickly tweet ‘Goodbye Martin Scott’!!! (That last tweet was to a famous tweet from a famous person to a certain Rob Bell!) If someone of the Calvinist tradition wishes to read the book(s) and then review them they can feel free to do so on their own site – I have no objection to that, particularly as there will be enough in the pages to critique. There is no redemptive value in us trading blows – I am too fixed in my beliefs and ways for that to work and I think those of a deep Gospel Coalition perspective are too! So I am not looking for those who agree with me nor those who vehemently disagree!!!

Finally here is the bio attached to the books that will help position me and my (hoped for) interactors:

Martin Scott, married to Gayle, with whom he has lived in Spain since 2009; born in Orkney (islands off the north of Scotland) a number of years earlier! At times opinionated, arrogant and often slow to learn… not characteristics most authors profess to have! Believing in the image of God in humanity he is optimistic about the future. And his writings connect with a wide diversity of people, particularly those who are willing to think outside the box.

I see these books and the interactions as being a major focus for the next years / decade… so look forward to connecting with many of you.

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You Cant Co Opt This Story

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by Gaz Kishere
Posted in Stories

Note from Martin: Latest post by Gaz below and here is a link to a guest article he wrote for “iwitnesschildmigration / Understanding the journeys of unaccompanied minors in Europe”. (Click on Image.)

I used to be really into the Church Unity stuff, the one diverse church in the locality working together and all that jazz. I guess I feel there are bigger things at stake now than our ability to get on across tribes and doctrines, so it’s slipped from view for some years now.

Part of my desire was to see stories released which could be a collective mirror for the church to look into and know that good things are happening, new things, different paradigms and approaches. 

A team of us would pull together a glossy forty-page magazine and distribute 2,500 of them across our local Bournemouth churches. In truth it was naughty and subversive in that it told stories and opened up approaches to faith and action that were unlikely to be told from many of the those church platforms. 

What did it accomplish? We did 4 of these, perhaps 100 stories and simply put I have no clue at all as to who or what it impacted. Perhaps the church has to many stories already, which exist for its own edification.

I went through a paradigm shift of my own in the following years in terms of how stories could be told to my own housing estate. I had managed to secure some funding for a local community group to create a simple magazine for the immediate community of 5,000 in our split private and council home estate. 

The local church were involved, the pastor got to do a preach on the inside cover and then there were an uncomfortable amount of articles about things which took place in the church, and almost zero about what took place in the large community centre the opposite side of the same car park.

I found myself becoming resentful of the church co-opting a community resource to place its own story as centre stage. The conversation I had with myself was triggered when I heard a pastor I knew talking about his model for community, a story of having people come to live with him, for some close proximity invasive mentoring and other ideas.

What went through my mind was, ‘that’s another bloody church story’, as though we have the monopoly on stories of life and light, believing these are the key to transforming and loving our localities. In reality, I knew two women in my own street who lived in extended family situations, they took in other peoples kids, housed waifs and strays, not as a model, not for the next self aggrandising talk… just because.

I never did create a vehicle for my own communities stories, but every opportunity I had where I heard of a Christian group telling its own stories back to the community at large, I bullied them as best I could to allow the community to tell its own stories of life and light, back to itself. 

Why? Because they are there, those stories exist, they need affirming and perhaps the community has a more significant role in healing itself than we understand.

During this time of inner processing, I was helping Barry, the neighbour two doors down from me. I was doing some welding for his fair ground rides, games and other attractions. He took me in for a cup of tea and I was shocked to see all these pictures around the lounge, him with celebrities, him getting awards and medals from newsreaders and others. I was amazed that his quiet life just two doors down was actually one of raising hundreds of thousands to provide electric wheelchairs to those who could not afford them.

I think it was around 3 years before his death that he got a letter from the Queen to come and receive an OBE (order of the British empire) at the Palace, in recognition of his years of service to the disabled community.

The crazy thing is, there are magnificent layers of goodness you can find if you simply look and listen to those we often pass on our way to work or on our way to church. I was already screaming inside ‘these are the stories of life and light that must be told, of the ordinary extraordinary people around us. Stories, which will help a community view itself as ‘well’ and ‘living’ and inspire courage’. 

Then he drops this bit of news on me, as my dunked rich tea biscuit breaks off and floats too quickly out of sight for me to grab it, “That’s two of us in town now, that have OBE’s, the other one is Janet, she was doing really great stuff, we grew up together in the same orphanage…”! 

I was undone; I lived next to this guy for 15 years and knew little of the redemptive life that was taking place in and through this formerly abandoned son.

We do not have a monopoly on hope, life and self-sacrifice. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, it is not the story of the ‘separated off from life’ church that will bring a community to transformative beauty; it is the stories that it can tell back to itself.  

I’m not looking to diminish our own stories, but ours are one of many. It is my sincerest hope, that we do have stories to tell, which are of life and light.

Remember this though, I think we are in trouble if the best stories we ‘do’ tell, are someone else’s, or just plain old. That’s something I’m saying back to myself as I write this ☺

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It’s corrupt!

Something mixed

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I had an interesting reflection this week, provoked in preparing for a Zoom call. A few years back… oh yes here comes a story… while getting ready for some travel Gayle was walking and praying about what she should bring to the situation we would be in in a few weeks’ time. While walking she met an angel that she recognised, and recognised as being Gadir. The (female) angel related to our time in Cádiz whose ancient name was for a while, Gadir. She knew that the angel promised to come with us on the flight and together we knew that this angel had a particular gift to bring, the gift of digging! (Angels are fellow servants of the One true God. Partners for the release of the kingdom.)

Gayle carried a strong message with respect to misogyny and patriarchy. Of Latin America Gustavo Gutiérrez said that the women are ‘doubly oppressed and marginalised’. On one of the final evenings we knew it was the time, and that we were in the right context, to give our ‘Amen’ to the release of the angel – I am not suggesting we commission angels as they are sent from heaven, but we can align in agreement (Amen = so be it) so that they can fulfil what they have come to do. We released the digging with explanations that this was not going to stop any time soon. Since that time so much has been uprooted, so much corruption, first always inside the church then beyond. The level, to be honest, has been quite disturbing and taken a considerable amount of our time.

Corruption. Always I think money and sex when I hear that word. But as I talked this week I realised corruption is often so much more subtle. Digging, digging and mining brings up whatever needs to come up, then comes the purifying process. In certain situations this is known as smelting which takes place at a high temperature.

Corruption being exposed. The digging is revealing that the impure mix is that of ‘power’ with the Gospel. [Power corrupts…] When that happens all kinds of compromises are made with the political powers. I have a strong hunch that we will see some major implosions before this year is out, and with / without Gadir’s specific help this will take place in a number of compromised corrupted situations. What an era we are in. As digging takes place, sexual and financial issues will be exposed, but a deeper issue also – that is corrupt, what is mixed that should never have been mixed.

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Tight Rope Decisions

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Stories

The post below is reproduced by permission. It is posted anonymously and was published in an internal privately publication. It speaks deeply beyond the situation concerning decisions that have huge ramifications, and as it relates to the current pandemic speaks right into now. Knowing people who have lost loved ones to the virus, others who are still struggling with symptoms months after being tested positive, as well as those who have had the virus and recovered, all underlines how difficult an epoch we are living in. In difficult and easier times decisions that have ramifications remain.

The young girl in the back seat of our car stares out of the window. Her long hair frames a petit face that is almost completely covered by a large, surgical mask. A sad and strange silhouette in the encroaching darkness. This morning she was in lock down with her mother. Now she is being driven miles away from her home town by my husband and I. To the girl, we are surgically masked strangers, labelled foster carers. A Covid 19 related cardiac arrest has changed this 12 year old’s world in seconds.

Arriving home we view our small house and single bathroom. Protection from the virus is going to be impossible. We cannot wear PPE equipment 24/7. We cannot wear it in the bathroom.

We take our masks off and the action becomes a symbolic moment for me. Our exposed faces and the threat of the virus shows me, more clearly, that we have never been wholly in control of our lives. I also wonder how free we ever are from the false, ego masks we choose to wear. Masks that hide our truer selves from others.

The girl says, “I think it is my fault my mother died… If only I had called the ambulance earlier.”

Her self accusation and extreme loss, alongside our agony of not being able to physically touch her, is heart breaking.

We light a candle and pray together. The flickering flame mirrors our vulnerability and seems to connect us a little. For me, this quiet togetherness is both honouring and humbling.

The girl has a slight temperature and we offer her paracetamol and a hot drink before bed. I ask her if she has anything belonging to her mother with her. Something she can take to bed. Something of her mother’s she can hold. She says she has her mother’s rosary and then she climbs the stairs to her new bedroom.

I clear the kitchen, the death of the girl’s mother and the possibility of one of us falling ill or even dying is on my mind.

My teenage son looks into the kitchen and says, quite cheerfully, “You realise there are different forms of this virus and the one we’re exposing ourselves to killed someone? Just saying. Good night.”

Sometimes decisions are made on a tight rope between our responsibilities. Without hindsight to guide us we balance precariously on the rope, fearful of the consequences of our choices and, also, the judgements of ourselves and others. Self-forgiveness is difficult.

I blow the candle out and knock quietly on the girl’s door to say good night.

Over the next fourteen days we remain well and people commend us for our courage but if one of us had died, what then? What would people have said then?

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