Article
Ambition
Comment
3 min read

Hopes and fears for the year

Standing on the cold threshold of a new year, Graeme Holdsworth recalls past audacity and whether his aspirations are too timid.

Graeme is a vicar of Marsden and Slaithwaite in West Yorkshire. He also cycles and juggles.

A starry night sky below which a signpost is silhouetted.
Luca J on Unsplash.

Standing in the Vicarage garden, under the clear winter sky, I feel cold to my bones, as though Jack Frost has thrown his coat over my shoulders. I’ve been successfully shedding body-fat since early October when I began to cut out ‘added sugar’ foods from my diet, but it has come with a downside: I need some third-party insulation, preferably lightweight, breathable, wind, and waterproof. I love cycling under clear night skies, pausing away from towns and lights to let my eyes adjust sufficiently to see stars more in number than the sands of the sea, but my enthusiasm for winter riding is dampened by this bitter cold. 

My first truly long-distance bike ride was an overnight cycle across the North Pennines, about 300km. A good friend had turned 40 and invited me to his party at a nightclub in Glasgow. I lived in Teesside at the time and thought it would be great fun to cycle there. I loaded my bicycle bags with party clothes, a change of shoes, and an appropriately expensive bottle of whisky as a gift, then set off into the early evening sunshine. By Bishop Auckland it was raining. Passing across Yad Moss to Alston at midnight, it was snowing. 

I’m older now and experienced enough to know that there is a point where the discomfort of endurance tips over into the endurance of pain, but I still long for the adventure. Like Tolkien’s elderly Bilbo Baggins torn between the comfort of his hobbit hole, and his yearning to see mountains again: my mind returns to summer cycling and riding through the night in shorts and short sleeves. Bilbo’s first journey was one of inexperience and unpreparedness, but he faced his dragon and returned home with tales to tell. Moreover, he didn’t do it alone, he also shared the journey with those who were older and wiser, those who knew what to expect but travelled anyway. 

Will I limit my resolutions for the new year to those that can be achieved beside my metaphorical fireplace? 

As I reflect on this, I think about our church community: those whose faith has been tested by experience, and those who are afraid to take their first steps into a wider world. A mixture of people who tell stories of spiritual wonder and joy, and others who seek comfort and refuge in the familiar. I’m also reminded of the people in this local community who have needed comfort during times of suffering. My soul has become filled with experiences, and I know that there are more frightening ‘dragons’ out there than those I encounter on a long bicycle ride. 

As I stand in the Vicarage garden, shivering, I wonder if I’m at risk of becoming timid. Do my experiences, and those I’ve learned from others, teach me to tread more carefully in the year to come? Will I limit my resolutions for the new year to those that can be achieved beside my metaphorical fireplace? Do I hang up my cycling shoes for those furry lined Crocs my son bought me this year? 

As I type this I realise, I have no desire to surrender to slippers just yet: my aspirations for the year ahead are to fly recklessly in the face of my own painful experiences, to embrace boldness in cycling, faith, and ministry once again. I pray for joy in my heart, and youth in my soul. I hope that my faith filled foolishness will be infectious in our church and our community as I stand hand in hand with the Divine, on the edge of eternity… and jump together. And as for wisdom born of experience: next time I take the dog into the garden, I’ll put a jumper on. 

Article
Comment
Community
Nationalism
5 min read

I protested against the Unite The Kingdom protest

The need to see one another

Thomas is a writer exploring the intersection of faith, politics, and social justice.

CCTV footage show two rival protests divided by a line of riot police.
CCTV image of the rival protests on Whitehall.
Met Police.

I don’t know why I was so concerned about the horses. I kept noticing them swaying through the sea of shivering bodies. I was so drawn to them that I tried to take a photo, a rare occurrence for me, but I was too far away. The horses riders, dressed in full riot gear, were being pelted with beer bottles. Maybe the horses were getting hit too, but it felt like they were recoiling on behalf of their riders. 

In front of the horses, engulfing Trafalgar Square, were tens of thousands of “Unite the Kingdom” protestors. From what I could see, they were predominantly white men. Many of them were dancing and waving flags, but a sizeable contingent was furious, drunk, and insisted on attacking any unfortunate police officer in their way. 

Behind the horses, lining the streets of Whitehall, were five thousand counter-protestors, including me. Unlike our opposite numbers in Trafalgar Square, we were trapped, surrounded on every side by St George’s flags, Union Jacks, and, oddly, some Georgian flags too. Maybe the shop had sold out. To my right, I could see the counter-protestors defiantly dancing. To me left, I could see a group chanting “Nazi scum, off our streets” whilst swearing towards the St George’s flags. 

There in the middle, I found myself feeling a curious mixture of discomfort, sadness, and anger. Uncomfortable because I’d been trapped for four hours, stuck on a continuous cycle of rinse and drain. Sad, because I knew that much of the “Unite the Kingdom” violence was built on misinformation and the scapegoating of refugees, a group I know well, and because this fog of violence blew over the counter-protestors as they hurled insults towards the St George’s flags. And angry, because figures like Elon Musk were using their extraordinary wealth and influence to spread fear and lies: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die. You either fight back or you die. And that’s the truth. It’s only a matter of time till that happens to towns and villages. It will spread. And no one will have any peace.” Over the years, I have spent many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours with refugees and asylum seekers, both in my home and at my church. I had experienced no violence. In that moment, I was surrounded by “leftists”, socialists, and trade unionists, and the only violence I was experiencing was from the glint of beer bottles raining down on the police two hundred meters away. 

I was grateful for the interruption of an elderly lady asking if she could get past. I’d been asked a number of questions throughout the day, primarily because I was one of a group of four Christians holding signs like “Jesus was a refugee”, “love thy neighbour”, and “I was a stranger and you welcomed me”. At the start of the protest, an older lady and a young man joined our circle. The young man asked “I’m glad to see there are some Christians here. What do you think of Christian nationalism? Your religion doesn’t feel much like Jesus?” He was a brave Saudi Arabian refugee with a bright smile, earnestly questioning the fractures in my community of faith. Taken aback by the poignancy of the question, I fumbled a response before being rescued by one of my friends. 

Protest signs written on cardboard.
Tommy's protest signs before the rain.

 

After a while, the older lady started speaking. “Sorry for interrupting. I used to be a Roman Catholic, but I’ve lost my faith. On days like this though, I always want to pray. I don’t feel much hope for the church. A while ago, I went into a catholic church. I asked if the church could do anything about the divisions in our community and the anger at refugees. The priest shrugged and said no. I’m glad you’re here.” Her short, staccato sentences mirrored the tension of the day. I told her about how our church serves refugees, how I struggle with the anger of days like today, and how some of us have forgotten that the bible tells us to welcome the stranger dozens of times. As they walked away, I felt touched by the honesty both the young and old had gifted to four strangers, and I was glad to be carrying our smalls signs of hope. 

The megaphone brought the present back into view with another question. “Could everyone please get ready to leave up the left of Trafalgar Square?” it said. The police had cleared a path for us to leave, the sea of flags artificially parted by riot gear. We were escorted to Green Park tube station, at which point we turned off towards Oxford Street. My wife remarked at how quickly normality returned. I was devastated by the day, but felt too tired to weep. I wasn’t quite the same Tommy that I’d been that morning. The man who shares my name, and the chaos he wrought on my city, had turned a dial in me a little further than it had been turned before. 

I knew that I would have more days like this. In the midst of my discomfort, sadness, hope, and fear, I knew that I was supposed to be there, holding my soggy “Jesus was a refugee” sign, shivering in my damp clothes, and praying under my breath. I knew that I needed to gather other reluctant protestors alongside me, holding their own soggy signs and praying their own prayers. 

And I also knew that there was a better way to carry this fragile message of unity in our increasingly fragile land and increasingly fragile time. As a half-British, half-South African man, I’ve had the privilege of growing up with the stories of the anti-apartheid movement, stories which steward the hard-earned truth that defiant, tenacious, persistent love is the only antidote to hatred, misinformation and fear. As Desmond Tutu once said, “when we can accept both our humanity and the perpetrator’s we can write a new story”. Saturday left me feeling that we desperately need a new story, and that requires us to look beyond the swaying horses and see one another clearly. 

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