Just one step at a time

Life is complicated. The only way to get through it is one step at a time

Alien (not a post about Doctor Who)

a·li·en

adj.

1. Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents.
2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. (Synonym: foreign.)
3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament.
n.

1. An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called noncitizen.
2. A person from another and very different family, people, or place.
3. A person who is not included in a group; an outsider.
4. A creature from outer space: a story about an invasion of aliens.
5. Ecology An organism, especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which it is not native.
tr.v. a·li·ened, a·li·en·ing, a·li·ens Law

To transfer (property) to another; alienate.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin - other.]
We talked about the alien at church this evening.
  • ” ‘Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.’” Exodus 22:21
  • ” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.’ ” Leviticus 23:22
  • ” ‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.’ ” Leviticus 25:23
  • ” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.’ ” Leviticus 25:35
  • “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.” Deuteronomy 10:18
  • ” Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice.” Deuteronomy 24:17
  • “Hear my prayer, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping. For I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all my fathers were.” Psalm 39:12
  • ” Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” Ephesians 2:19
The alien - or stranger - is mentioned a lot in the Bible; a lot more than the examples I’ve found here.
Talking about the alien is two-fold:
  1. How we treat the stranger among us.
  2. Who we are on this earth and where we live and work.
The alien and our neighbour are the same thing - and Jesus teaches us that our neighbour is not always the person we expect them to be. In fact: our neighbour is everyone. We have local neighbours and global neighbours. And if we are to love them as we love ourselves, then that puts a whole new outlook on how we live our lives. And that brings about a need for social justice.
But If we are the alien that also impacts on how we live our lives. We’re not called to blend in. We’re called to stand out, to be counter-cultural, to be relevant. Easier said than done, I know. I offer no suggestions, just thoughts.
And I did start thinking. I started thinking about how I live my life, who I impact, how I help the stranger or alien. Which I don’t think I do. And how can I? What are my giftings?
And then I started thinking about the one person I have been seeming to have an impact on. G is an alcoholic. He slipped again before Christmas, but is back in recovery again. He’s done it before, he can do it again. He’s been sleeping rough again for a while - he got into a fight and was thrown out of his hostel. He hangs around the gardens at church, which is where we, the church, first met him, before he sobered up about 18 months ago.
When I meet him it often seems to be significant for him. I seem to make a difference for him. I’m honest with him. I don’t talk the Christian clap trap that people often talk to those who have substance abuse problems. I tell it like it is to him. But he has a faith, we’ve been in a home group together, he came round for Christmas dinner two years ago. But I seem to make a difference in his life. However small that might seem to me.
And there’s a woman who comes to church, another recovering alcoholic, who likes my honesty, my f*** ups and the fact that I tell it straight how I see it, and don’t try to warp (I meant to write wrap there, but I think this is a better word for what I’m trying to say) things to fit a happy clappy Christian viewpoint.
And that got me thinking. Where do I like being, what do I like doing? Where have I most often felt at home in my life. And to be honest, it’s behind a bar. Which doesn’t really fit with a Christian lifestyle (and doesn’t really pay for a London lifestyle either). But we’re not called to fit in, to mould, are we?
If people ever ask what my ideal job would be, it would be a funny little old man’s pub (British people will know the type), with the locals that come in and spend the day there, where the barmaid is part barmaid, part psychotherapist. And, if you have the ‘luck’ I have, you get 80-year-old men trying to snog you when you’re only 23!
But I enjoy it. I can be that listening ear, if I’ve got a reason. The bar liberates me from my awkwardness and enables me to talk to just about anybody. The conversations I had a Greenbelt last year from behind the bar were amazing (but I’m not doing that again, as I didn’t get my proper Greenbelt experience. This year I’m going as a punter, but helping on the Workshop stand). Some people opened up in amazing ways.
So this is something to think about. Maybe it will be another one of those great ideas that comes to nothing, that I seem to have a lot of. But then God works in mysterious ways.

April 27, 2008 Posted by calia77 | Life, culture | | No Comments

Proud to be British (if that’s possible)

I found this somewhere.

ONLY IN BRITAIN…

Being British is about driving in a
German car to an
Irish pub for a
Belgian beer, then grabbing an
Indian curry or a
Turkish kebab on the way home, to sit on
Swedish furniture and watch
American shows on a
Japanese TV.

And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.

NOT TO MENTION…

3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts.

58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of
screwdrivers.

31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after Xmas cracker-pulling accidents.

18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A & E in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth.

5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.

and finally…

In 2000 eight Brits were admitted to hospital with fractured skulls incurred whilst throwing up into the toilet.

If you’re proud to be British, send this on!

Yup, that’s me. Proud to be British! ;-)

March 1, 2008 Posted by calia77 | culture | | 3 Comments

Welcome to Britain. Just try not to spit

I remember when we landed at Mumbai airport the first thing we noticed was the ‘Please do not spit’ signs. Are they what gave Hazel Blears her ideas for the welcome pack for migrants coming to Britain, do you think? Because obviously everyone needs to be told not to spit on British streets because they’d all do it otherwise. I mean, look at the dirty foreigner. It’s not as if you’d see us British do that? No, no! Never! Surely not. We don’t drop litter either. Or grope people on the tube. Or let our dogs poop all over the streets so I have to play a kind of hopscotch along my street. Or play our music too loud. Nope, not us.

But we do paint giant pole dancers on the fields next to Gatwick.

What must we look like to those landing on our shores? “Hello. Welcome to Britain. Now play nicely, give us all your money and here’s a handy booklet to tell you about how to be British. Because we’ve obviously forgotten. Oh, and about those jobs we’re all too proud to do - any chance you could do them for us? Just try not to make it look as though you’ve stolen them from a ‘real’ British person, though, there’s a good chap.”

I’m the only English person in my house, and have been for at least a year. One housemate is Welsh (which is definitely NOT English!), another German, one Malaysian and there’s a South African too. I’ve had Peruvians and many more Germans and South Africans, at one point or another. And I’ll admit, there are times when I get all huffy about being English-bashed in my own country, but it’s all in jest (in fact, my German housemate loves the Fawlty Towers ‘Don’t mention the war’ scene).

Fawlty Towers clip-Don’t Mention the War

Add to My Profile | More VideosHow can we demand that others adhere to our ‘culture’? What culture? I’ve lived here 30 years and haven’t seen much of a culture. Unless you count the great values of shop-till-you-drop, famous for 5 minutes (reality TV has reduced Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame), manufactured pop (though to be fair, I did enjoy the Spice Girls), worshiping football, and the idea of a good night out being to drink so much you can’t remember whether it was a good night out or not (though, some of my Polish & Romanian friends also seem to enjoy that, so it’s not necessarily a British thing).

And yet… With the rise of BNP (in the 2006 elections the number of seats doubled) we face a subtle - or not-so-subtle - backlash against those who are coming into the country, doing those jobs some of us are too proud to do (I’ll admit I’m too proud for some jobs) and paying taxes, supporting some of us ’superior’ Brits who would rather take state money than actually work. But we’re not all like that.

And despite all this, we’re opening up our arms and our minds to people of different cultures, and accepting them into our communities. I think where it gets dangerous is when ghettos of bulture form. But that can’t be helped. With the internal migration of Brits, communities have almost broken down, so when others bring their communities, their cultures into an area that become identified with their ethnicity. Where I live is well known for high numbers of Polish (including my ex) and Turkish (hmm… another ex!) migrants. We’ve spread ourselves so far from community that we’re scared when we see it.

There are times when I envy the easy familiarity I see in, particularly, the Turkish community around. Though it doesn’t make me want to move back to Devon and gather my family around me. It makes me think about what is community. And how can we make it something integrated and mixed - a real melting pot. When I look at my friends over the past few years:
South African

  • Hong Kong Chinese
  • German
  • Australian
  • Kiwi
  • South African
  • Greek
  • Polish
  • French
  • Romanian
  • Welsh
  • Scottish
  • South Korean
  • Portuguese
  • Slovak
  • Czech
  • Turkish
  • Peruvian
  • Roma (gypsy)

Isn’t that what community should be about? And isn’t that what the Church should be encouraging and enabling?

2 asides, before I wrap up and go to bed:

  1. I’m exploring the option of volunteering in India for 6 months later on this year. Now if I do, I would LOVE to know how to do things the Indian way, so as not to be offensive in their culture. (See comments from the mad momma and desigirl on our Britishness pack).
  2. And our Archbishop (claim to fame - I met him once and he shook my hand and said ‘very nice to meet you’!) Rowan Williams is backing sharia law for British Muslims. I’ve not had a chance to think more on this.

February 7, 2008 Posted by calia77 | culture | | No Comments