I shall not be moved

Phone in a nature call

Leaving church yesterday I found the need to visit the public conveniences in the shopping centre before making a collection which had me queue up on one floor only to be told the collections department was two floors below and again, another queue.

After I collected the goods, I stepped out of the shopping centre and reached into my side holster to retrieve my mobile phone, it wasn’t there, it could not be anywhere else, it had to be in the toilet cubicle on the toilet roll holder, something I have never done before, leave my phone anywhere but in my holster or my pocket when I am away from home.

Catching myself from the irrational

A flood of panic was about to overwhelm my thinking, you do everything on a phone, is it replaceable, how do you recreate the user experience and convenience curated and cultivated on your phone and a million other thoughts.

I had to catch myself, Akin keep your head and calm down, to override the hyperactivity of my imagination, I had no intelligent words to speak but to speak in tongues which focused me towards knowing whatever the case, I would have my phone.

Moved to thankfulness and gratitude

The cubicle I used was vacant and the phone had gone and immediately I thought of going to the information desk of the shopping centre as there was no toilet attendant about. I found the information desk and told the man there; that I had just lost my phone in the gentlemen’s toilets. He asked what brand it was, and as I told him he produced my phone saying someone had just handed it in some five minutes before.

Great relief and thankfulness, angels ministering even when you have done silly things. However, as I meditated on the situation looking for a place to sit down before calling Brian, I knew for myself and the many things that I have been through then, before, and after, I shall not be moved.

We can be angels with and of change

A scarcity of loose change

To the many disadvantaged and destitute in my city, I can only imagine how the pandemic and technological advancements have affected them. For instance, I used to have some change in pound coins or lesser value coins in my pocket somewhere that I could give when asked for some help.

I can think of the many times that I have not been able to give any change nor had the immediate means to collect and handle money physically. Everything is now done electronically either online or through contactless payments.

There was a time I was approached by one man who said he needed something to eat, I was just passing by a fish & chip shop, so, having my mobile phone that could complete a transaction, I put in an order for a meal and drink, paid for it and told him to collect when done. It probably is easier to just ask before I go into a supermarket if someone needs anything, and I get it for them, with a little extra.

Not much change for many

It is the little one can do because even the charities and social services are stretched, they almost always do not have enough places, beds, supplies or the essentials to meet the demands, and even if the supplicants did qualify many have to go through too many hurdles that humiliate and dehumanise them to get the bare necessities, if at all.

Direct help in my view is useful, if anything, it reminds us all, that we have the poor amongst us and that the milk of human kindness and angelic provision still exists in our tough times and tougher, if sometimes, indifferent society. I have purposed not just to give change, but to give money that can do something, to get a meal or a bed for the night, sometimes even more.

Change given without any judgement

Leaving church earlier, I was accosted by someone who wanted money for a meal, I could not even imagine if he had had a meal recently, but I had a monetary note in my wallet and as I was trying to get it, he went on about him only needing it for food, not for drugs or for alcohol. It is that person's prerogative what they use the money I give them for. Obviously, I would rather they applied to use and care rather than abuse, but that is left to them.

As I gave him the money, I told him, I am not here to judge you. It is an evolving lesson of maturing, if I dare, some empathy, that I would constantly entertain, I do not want to stand in judgement because I have means, opportunity, or privilege.

I know what it is to fall on hard times and I am grateful for all those who pulled me through those almost impossible circumstances, I have been blessed abundantly beyond words I can find to express, the much that I have enjoyed.

Give more than just change

Further down the road, a lady smiled at me from under her sleeping bag in the doorway of a building on one of main shopping streets and I determined to do something about that brief encounter, for I smiled back.

I walked up the road to find an automatic teller machine (ATM) and there were none for a good stretch of what is a commercial street. Banks are closing and removing the heretofore ubiquitous ATMs that they are becoming quite scarce to find. I had committed in my intentions to give her something, so, I walked back on myself to find an ATM, even that had a notice that it would be removed in just over 3 weeks.

That would mean that for most of the length of Deansgate in Manchester, there would be no ATMs, how and why that is allowed to happen is perturbing and disconcerting.

We are angels of change

However, I did get some money and walked back up to the lady and gave it to her. I probably should cultivate another thing; the habit of conversation and learning more about the people I have helped, for they all have a human story that I am usually disinterested in.

There is gratitude and uncertainty that crosses their faces, they cannot believe the generosity in the first place and wonder if I am sure I want to give them whatever I have given. I understand their plight, but I assure them, in the worst-case scenario, they have been visited by an angel. That seems to assure them, for whether we acknowledge it or not, we all seem to believe in angels, and that my friends, is a very good thing.

Cobbling Gucci for angels

Abandon the orthodoxy

The way conversations develop spanning anything from the serious to the trivial whilst being downright absurd with searing truth is quite fascinating to participate in and watch.

The constant protests one does field about people saying they are not divas and they do protest much. Then, as if to take advantage of our warped perceptions, one might even say they are an angel, as if that is associated with gentility, coolness, and immediate acceptance.

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth, the sudden appearance of an other being, gleaming with light in your crowded space, startling you as you are gripped with fear. The angelic being, unperturbed then says, ‘Peace be unto you, be not afraid’ as one has read from many a biblical passage.

Diva is all you see

An entrance that grand that you are startled by star or stardom with the immediate calming demeanour to put you at ease is everything you should expect of a diva. I conclude that angels are divas and that is end of the argument.

If you cared to look at the feet, if the devil wears Prada, do angels wear Gucci? Just asking for a friend, such information might come in useful when looking for hellish or heavenly footwear.

With A Little Help From My Friends

We are rarely alone

We sometimes forget that we could do with a little help, some advice, direction, or guidance. Having found a sense of independence with the resolution that we can have made it on our own, we face problems and issues alone, taking on the world with muscle, exerting strength we never knew we had with capacity that has never been used before.

Again, we should be careful that we have come to believe that we can tackle similar problems we have solved before presented in another setting, at another time, involving other people. We fall into the crude situation of taking a hammer to every problem that appears to be a nail, when the circumstance requires another tool like a screwdriver for a screw, a scalpel to remove a split, a spoon for soup that will not do for a steak.

Understand your situation

Consequentially, we must recognise the situation and the approach, significantly, we fail ourselves when we reject good offers to fight for us, especially from those who can represent interests so unconditionally with passion, sentiment, love, and devotion. Friends and parents along with stranger angels fall into that category, you never know, but it is wise to be open to the possibility.

They can plead your cause in ways you can never do yourself, especially where you are in trouble, have a knotty situation dealing with impossible or difficult people, they can do mitigation to ameliorate amazingly, and they could easily forfeit for shutting them out. If you share a problem, at least, make allowances for more engagement and input that sympathy and platitudes.

Bring on the guns

Let them, especially when your parents or friends are involved put the fear of God in your apparent nemesis, intractable people, or hindrances to your purpose that whoever or whatever gives you grief will not want to revisit another conversation with them. It also presents an escalation opportunity because you do not know what other strings they can pull beyond the constraints of your situation.

If their intervention does not yield the required result, often, you get a better reason for why things are stuck. Avoid as much as you can the incipient infirmity, ignorance, arrogance, or pride of fight alone when there is a cavalry mounted to charge for your cause.

Thought Picnic: The New Parable of the Prodigal Son

Angels of gathering

For angels abound that walk the earth in the form of people you and I see on the street, whose humanity has heart and soul, beating with compassion and empathy, leaving you speechless in gratitude, disarmed in thankfulness and helpless in the tenderness that can expressed by those who in their time have become another narrative of the Good Samaritan story.

As he left that office yesterday, having bit his lip in utter regret of the experience he had just suffered, you found on the busy street, a bench to sit, famished for hunger, he sat to gather his thoughts.

The gathering of the shards of his life shattered in a history that really had become a drama almost too liveable for words.

The new prodigal son

He left his country which had become his fatherland full of health, full of promise, full of hope and much else to the land of a different tongue, he lived, he prospered and he wasted his means – prodigal he had become that all he left with and what he had gained was lost – health, promise, prospect, status, job, home and desire – as each day appeared to hold no tomorrow, he came to himself like the prodigal son and decided to return home.

For he thought, at least at home they speak his tongue, his fatherland, maybe he might find shelter, boarding, sustenance and some new hope, he was not expecting open arms, but there were many open to arm him with much to see beyond the morrow – it started well, though with difficulty.

The truth is, unlike for the prodigal son, there was no father that ran into the fields having sighted his son from afar to fall upon his neck and cry for joy that the son that was lost was now found, no new robes, no welcome feast but a resentful and judgemental big brother with a long checklist of eligibility for this and for that.

Checking the boxes to hell

Single, no dependants, no local connections, able, no proof of address, no bank account, no local references, no recent utility bills, no priority, not eligible for security clearance, not our business, no way here – the list was as long as judgement day had arrived and the only way was the way to hell or without saying the words, what he did hear from them was – Go to hell.

And hell it would have been because as he sat on the bench before nightfall yesterday gathering his thoughts until his angels came by to bear him away to safety from crawling with the swineherd and enjoying the Michelin star gourmet of pigswill, he would have been on a bench through the night drenched by the watering of the heavens that fed the trees and he would have found no tears to flow with the flood of sorrow that would have overcome him.

Barely netting the whale of the problem

The times have changed, the rules have toughened, the righteous are resisted and the cunning have run rings round the system, whilst England has no place for prodigal sons – it is mercy of angels, far and near, in kind and in means that ushered in another day.

The new parable of the prodigal son is not reading like happily ever after, the assumptions we made about safety nets are fallacies because the below on the jagged rocks of life lie those who have fallen through holes bigger than the size of elephants, we see them daily, the ones that checkboxes discarded without consideration, the ones society forgot and the ones that have become invisible but are there, in rags of clothing and prospect, in hope for the next meal having had none for longer than they can remember – they probably were not prodigal but have been put on the speedway to hell by a system bereft of heart and soul.

Yet, the politician and the comfortable mounts soapbox, rostrum, podium and lectern preaching about those abusing the system but saying nothing about those abused by the system and they be many too bruised to ask for anything but for some spare change from you and I – what will be done for them – he asks, what?

Thought Picnic: We cry in the eyes of goodness

A friend in the way

For probably 5 or 6 years he has stood at the entrance of the supermarket on the ground floor of my apartment block, sometimes dishevelled but with an easy disposition, friendly and amiably from the first time I saw him my heart just melted.

He sells magazines apparently priced to help the homeless, I have never really seen anyone buy a magazine off him, but he stands, greets and never begs or forces his wares on passers-by – on occasion someone has struck up a conversation with him.

Pass the Dutchie

The magazines are in Dutch and my grasp of Dutch is elevated to the level of Double-Dutch such that I could well read most of what I see but never get the context right – Dutch has a way of reusing the same words and ending up with completely different meanings, I am always stumped.

The other day, I wanted a steak, the Dutch menu happily announced kogelbiefstuk – the biefstuk part I got as beef steak but the kogel I know is bullet, as my brain went into overdrive as to how on earth bullets will end up in a beef steak and get presented as food, I dared to give voice to my confusion – how bullets and rump correlate is beyond me – I stopped wasting brain power on it and found that rump and round are used interchangeably for the same kind of steak – so I ordered my rounds of bullet-steak medium-rare and carried on with my life.

Plenty and little

In any case, my friend, yes, I will call him friend because I have chatted to him a few times, learnt of his birthday, found out how his circumstances were changing for him to get his place, his hopes, not necessarily desires but he was a man I knew had many needs that selling the magazines will not meet.

In the years of plenty, I easily parted with a €50 note each time I went shopping and saw him, though it did occur to me that for whatever immediate needs he might have, it would have been better to break it down into smaller denominations.

Then years of famine came where even I had very little, there were times when I only had a meal a day and for a person surviving cancer and on medication, it was dire, difficult and hard, but my friend in my heart seemed to still have greater needs than I, he must have noticed that what I parted with was a lot smaller, I sometimes prayed he would not be at the entrance to the supermarket because I had so little and literally nothing to spare, I could not face him with my situation but I believe he understood that if I did have to give, I would definitely share.

An opportunity to share

Today, I visited the supermarket again and he was there, I had not seen him for a while, I warmly greeted him and went about my shopping, I also consciously wanted to give him something even though I do not have that much.

I cannot say how many hours he had spent standing there but I have even in my own life learnt so well that there is someone out there concerned, involved, engaged and empathetic about me, none of which I can explain than to be grateful and thankful that the most desperate situations just seem to have amazing solutions wending their way towards me.

So, I palmed some money to him, we seem to have developed to concealed exchange which was good enough for me and then I told him I am leaving Amsterdam for good - again, maybe he put two and two together, I cannot say but there was a quick expression of two emotions I did not miss, one of sadness as to why I had to leave and one of thankfulness for what we have shared – his voice trembled as he just about stopped himself from crying.

Floods of kindness

He grabbed my hand and shook it very warmly, wishing me well with whatever I go on to do. At the same time, I saw myself in him, in great need, almost desperate, almost destitute but always blessed for the people who cross my path with gifts, grace, favour and much more – I have many a time been lost for words as I have been overwhelmed with amazing goodness from other people.

It is like when I am at my wit’s end I begin to experience a flood of kindness that I am fully aware that nothing I could have done could have created what makes me smile, laugh, cry and give thanks – there is love in this world beyond compare and people who just give, give and give to give hope, to give happiness, to give joy, to give peace and to meet somewhat insurmountable needs.

Today, I learnt anew, the joy of giving and the joy of receiving all at the same time and because of the way some things work I believe that someone somewhere will fill in the gap created by my absence because my friend has an angel just as I do.