Merry
Christmas to you if your day is starting – and if it’s drawing to a close, I
hope you had a peaceful and happy day.
I
wanted to share with you something that’s been a source of joy and hope to me.
To
set it in context – much of the time, these days, I carry with me the
degradation of the living earth and the cynically ruthless dismantling of human
community, as an aching sore in the centre of my soul. Yemen, Aleppo, Trump,
the present UK administration waging war on the poor and vulnerable, the growing
of poverty and corresponding amassing of riches, the destruction of forests,
oceans, air, species . . . War as a business model, oil as a god, flagrant
racism and religious persecution, sickening violence wherever you look. It
hurts to think of it, and I do every day.
What
can I do? I ask myself this constantly. One can donate money of course, and I
try to live as simply and frugally as I can so as to make spare as much as I
can to help wherever I can – but my resources are not significant.
Neither
do I have the temperament to plunge into social engagement: I live quietly,
even reclusively – by choice, you might say, but in truth of necessity. We are
what we are.
But
here’s a small thing that brings me delight, and grows goodness.
Hastings
(where I live) is a place of poverty. Employment is scarce, jobs few and low
paid. Yet here we have immense riches – just not the kind that have anything to
do with money. We’re on the coast, so we have the ocean – and what in the world
is more beautiful than the sea? We’re in East Sussex, gentle in climate, clad
in woodlands, replete with wild places, a network of lanes threading through
farmland and bluebell woods, where the Sussex Downs find their way to the
southern shores of England.
And
in Hastings – exactly because it is a poor town, unpretentious, short on
snobbery, alternative lifestyles flourish. Therefore art and music,
spirituality and creativity, diversity and imagination all do well here. It is
a cornucopia of artistic creation, and there are so many dancers, singers,
thinkers, makers, designers of every kind you could think of.
In
our family, you may remember, we stopped exchanging Christmas gifts some years
ago, and this year I stopped sending cards as well, except for a tiny handful.
But
we do try, at Christmas time, to bless some of the art and imagination that
lights a candle of protest against the encroaching midnight of hideous politics
and corporate greed. We sing carols at the supermarket, to bring a spark of joy
and wonder to the children, to remind last minute shoppers about melody and
harmony and spiritual tradition; Christmas is not primarily commercial. We go
to the ballet, to celebrate the disciplines of excellence – real live
performance, something blessedly free from computer generated images.
And
this year we had an excited and happy morning at the Beacon, where Hastings
artists had an Open Studios day.
Giving
to charity is both important and necessary, but equally essential is the
blessing of writers and potters, artists and weavers, tailors and woodworkers,
blacksmiths and silversmiths, milliners and bookbinders, by celebrating and
purchasing what they make. Unless we do that, the richness of human culture
will run out into the sand, and we shall be left alone with Monsanto and Rupert
Murdoch on a desert island of our own making.
At
the Beacon Open Studios, with great happiness I seized the chance to acquire
some of the work of Judith Rowe, a Hastings potter. She makes the loveliest
things, and is part of the co-operative that runs one of our best Old Town
shops – Made in Hastings.
So
I thought you might like a glimpse of how I start my days – here is my
Christmas breakfast, enjoyed a thousand-fold more because of Judith’s beautiful
pottery.
And
look – it stacks most neatly when I’ve done and it’s time to take it to the sink
to be washed up. I find that so pleasing.
Bless
the makers, friends; bless those who live by discipline and excellence and
imagination. Help the poor and needy, but save a little to give yourself the
joy of partnering art and craft in the community; a pot, a book, a pair of
shoes, a hat, a rug – something made by human hand and heart and eye; for
herein is treasure indeed.
