Facing Violence and Hatred – with Gee, Juliet and Helen

There’ve been violent, angry riots in cities across the country. Right wing groups have targeted immigrants and Muslims in particular. Last night mobs set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham…

Yesterday in church Lou quoted the story of Anthony Walker, the Black British student who was murdered in a racially motivated attack in 2005.

Anthony’s Mum, Gee, said: ‘We’ll never get over this. Someone has taken a piece of my heart. How do you mend a broken heart?…’

Gee also described her Christian faith and forgiveness for her son’s killers: ‘I can’t hate. I brought up my children… to love, to respect themselves, and respect others. Hatred is a life sentence. What does bitterness do? It eats you up inside like a cancer…’

I was reading about Juliet Kilpin who, in 2015, started working with refugees and asylum seekers fleeing from conflicts in many countries – Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia… in the settlement in Calais, North France:

‘We wanted to learn how to be good news to the powerless and persecuted in this place… We wanted to follow the peaceful way of Jesus and understand how we could work for justice… We felt compelled to promote nonviolence and explore how to sustain peace between diverse individuals and nationalities…’

On Saturday I attended a Lowestoft Pride event. A wide assortment of stalls, colour and entertainment celebrated the LGBTQ+ community, encouraging love, diversity, friendship, acceptance, and inclusion. A Christian presence there offered hand massages, prayer, blessings, and an opportunity to chat.

Included in the Christian presence was Rev. Helen, who leads an explicitly inclusive church which ‘celebrates and affirms every person and does not discriminate. We will continue to challenge the church where it continues to discriminate against people on the grounds of disability, economic power, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity or sexuality.’

National violence and hatred challenge me to seek for a better, different way – the way of Gee, Juliet, Helen… the way of forgiveness, peace, acceptance and love… the way of Jesus.