This one's at Friends House, the Quaker HQ where I work. I'm surprised I haven't left one at work already - as it's a place I generally spend quite a lot of time. But you can't go overboard with your Lenten hearts in one place, right?
Today was a gloriously sunny spring day in London with blue skies and blossom to die for. I didn't even need my gloves on the way home. Whoo hoo. And the courtyard at Friends House is one of those 'secret London' spots which you don't want to tell too many people about. A real oasis in an otherwise pretty boring part of town.
And then of course there's the work itself and the amazing colleagues ... when something happens locally or globally that we see as a threat to equality, hope, justice, mutuality it is so very good to turn up to work the next day and feel buoyed up by people working for the good of the planet, for the reform of the criminal justice system, for economic justice, for nuclear disarmament. There seemed to be a few of those moments in 2016. Brexit, obviously. Trump, ditto. Oh my did I need to be in that place with those people on the day after the night before.
Today one of those fab people alerted us to this article in the Guardian:
Protest and persist: why giving up is not an option. A 'long read' by Rebecca Solnit.
Yay. So good to remember that big reforms take such a long time. And that people protest and persist regardless of seeing the movement in the world they are looking for. And yet that persistent protest may be exactly the thing which plants a seed for the next generation, which gets the next movement started, which gives hope and new life to old movements. Inspiration indeed.
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