Story Perspectives

There is a book. It is a good book. It is full of a lot of interesting stories.

These stories are important because they show what it is like to be human.

These stories have been told and re-told a lot…but often by men.

This is the story of Miriam.

Miriam was born in Egypt but she was not Egyptian.

Miriam was a refugee – her family lived in Egypt because it wasn’t safe for her to live in her own country.

The Egyptians didn’t like people like Miriam living in their country.

The Egyptian King – the Pharoah – decided that all baby boys should die.

He thought that only men were scary.

The Pharoah did not know about Miriam.

The Pharoah made a rule, that his soldiers would search for any baby boy who was not Egyptian.

And they would kill them.

Miriam did not agree with this rule.

Miriam’s mum had a baby. A baby boy.

Miriam’s parents were scared because they did not want their baby to die.

They made a basket out of reeds and put the baby in it.

They put the basket in the River Nile in the daytimes and brought him home in the nighttimes.

Miriam watched the basket all day.

When people came close, Miriam would distract them.

Miriam protected her baby brother.

One day, a boat came down the river.

The Pharoah’s own daughter was in the boat.

She heard a baby crying and found the basket.

Miriam was scared.

She wasn’t able to distract the princess and now the princess had her brother.

Miriam watched, hoping that she could help.

The princess saw the baby and she understood that he was being hidden from her father’s rule.

The princess also did not agree with her father’s rule.

The princess decided to keep the baby.

Miriam ran over to her.

‘Do you need a nurse? To care for the baby until he is old enough to live with you?’ She asked the princess.

The princess nodded.

And Miriam ran all the way home to get her mother.

The princess named the baby ‘Moses’ and Miriam and her mother looked after him until he went to live in the palace.

Moses learned to read and write like all Egyptians.

Moses learned to lead like all princes.

Without Miriam, Moses would not have been the leader that he was.

For God to use Moses, first he needed Miriam.

Moses saved all the refugees from Egypt and led them to their own country.

When they left Egypt, Miriam wrote a song about how they had been saved.

Miriam sang, she danced and she made sure that everyone knew their history. knew who had saved them and who held their future.

The story of Miriam reminds us that even when the story focusses on the man…the women are the most important part.

Miriam, her mother, the princess.

Without them, there is no story of Moses.

C19 and fun!

Its been a strange month!

At the end of February, the Brits aired. Dave and Stormzy (but especially Dave) absolutely killed it…in my head, they were changing the world in one night…and the next day it truly felt like something big had happened.

Dave at the Brits

But that was February.

Then March hit us. At the beginning of March there were discussions of a virus, discussions of problems, discussions of changes to come.

Messages from head office suggesting that we work from home if we could. More use of antibacterial gel…although, I’ll be honest, I used it every time I left a home visit…but now, I had to use it before going in!

Then social interactions such as Girls Brigade and Church meetings were cancelled, followed swiftly by a lockdown restricting leaving the house to essential outings only.

My church appeared to cope well with this. We had a pastoral system in place where every member was linked to two others. Everyone should be in communication with somebody else -isolation shouldn’t mean loneliness.

We had already been broadcasting services and weekly meetings were able to move online pretty easily with good success.

My work had already implemented agile working which meant we were able to video conference and work from home with very little change.

I live alone. In a flat listed as a studio flat. It is perfect for a working professional. Excellent for someone who spends most of their working week out of the home and their weekends sleeping to recover from their working work.

Really not designed for home working. Ask any manager I have had. I don’t work from home.

Ask Buzzfeed or the BBC, to work at home, you need to be able to find a space to work at home…. I don’t have space, I don’t have a table. I don’t have a garden.

But, I’m coping. I work from my beanbag, hula hoop behind me, sofa to the left of me, snail to the right. Here I am…

Stuck in the middle….with you

I’m pretty introverted. I’m ok with silence and ok without social interaction. Some of my favourite times is when I’m alone and not moving. Saturdays in bed are my favourite. No plans, moving to get breakfast and then returning to bed. Those are amazing days. And I think they are amazing because they are rare.

We have gotten used to how the world is. Like Dave spoke about at the Brits, there is a normality which is perpetuated by the dominate culture – which doesn’t actually represent everyone in the society. Dave spoke about how being Black in the UK is different to being White in the UK. Yeah, you say its the least racist but the least racist is still racist.

Now, during C19…lets consider the Keyworkers, the dustbin collectors, the care home workers, the nurses ….all of those people who just one month ago were seen as ‘unskilled’…. jobs that anyone could do…. yeah, anyone could do these jobs…but you know what, not everyone can actually do these jobs.

In Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a number of middle manager types…. the sort of useless people in society were sent away from their planet. The planet was ‘doomed’ and so everyone had to leave. These undesirable people were sent off first and programmed to crash land on a new planet (read it for full details).

This was all a lie, the original planet believed they would be better without these people, they decided they were not useful for society and so decided to send them off to die on another planet. The original planet, who sent everyone away, eventually all died because of a virus spread because germs on telephone (telephone sanitisers were sent away from the planet. People with anti-bac are gods, Am I Right?)

Who are important to society?

Because I don’t think it’s the corporations…. I don’t think it’s the companies run by millionaires.

If we are all in this together then why are some people on zero-hours contracts receiving nothing while millionaires are ensuring their companies are subsidised by the public?

Why are the NHS not getting PPE or testing while the Prince of Wales and the PM are?

Equality is a right, it doesn’t deserve credit. (See Dave Link above)