In Birmingham, there is currently an exhibition of the ‘I See You’ tapestry for the charity Open Doors at St Martins in the Bullring – a kind of sowing together of an expression of love for women who are being tortured and killed across the world because of their faith.
In between work sessions I went to see it.
And then it came to me. The idea…
I could do this… Open Doors and persecuted Christians are so
neglected that there might just be a way for me to make the whole thing a little
more… public. Pragmatism. I stood outside St Martins in the Bullring, where the
event is taking place, and I realised that I could simply buy a plastic petrol
filled canister, sneak it into St Martins, pour it over the tapestry and set
fire to the whole expression of goodwill. Then they would listen. Then the tolerant
British people would be persuaded that all this is real and that we really need
to support charities like Open Doors. A little radicalised, I warmed to the
idea, like a fire burning in my brain. Sure, I would get caught most likely,
but it would be for the greater good, for a cause.
And, as my family know, I
have a track record of burning places down (so be very careful if you harm me
or mine… I have matches and sometimes make bad choices).
I thought I had better pray about it before the action
occurred as I didn’t want collateral damage and felt it might be seen the wrong
way. Unfortunately (and rather boringly), God seemed to be hinting that I
should not actually physically burn down this thing as I would be hated and
misunderstood. Instead, it seemed he wanted me to be writing the words that you
read right now.
I have to admit, my motives were not entirely pure. The
exhibition, some pictures of which you can see, seemed to only contain the very
best designs. Now… I’m not saying that the UK Christian community is
competitive, but in this case, I’m saying that Capitalism has infiltrated the
Christian church. Some of these designs were great. They were on fire. And
where was my design? It wasn’t there! I felt betrayed. Well, wouldn’t you?
Sure, I had been busy and had only used stickers and felt tip pens, but that
was no reason not to put my selfless artwork on show. Instead, supporters like
this, got the limelight, supporters who clearly were more interested in display
than anything else. What kind of cruel trick was this from The Almighty ©?
To give some context, as I fear I may have been a little
confusing so far... Last year there was a Christian charity campaign called ‘I
See You’ by a great charity called Open Doors whose task it is to help
persecuted Christians around the world from the relative safety of the West.
The campaign was aimed at suffering Christian women and supporters were sent
pieces of cloth and asked to embellish them with the words ‘I see you’, both to
show suffering female Christians that they were not forgotten and to show the
Government in the UK the amount of support there was for those who are tortured
and persecuted because of their faith. The cloths were presented to the great
and the good, to Parliament, and are now going on display in churches.
I was busy when I did mine. But I dutifully sent back the
cloth with my design and with a few tasteful stickers on it. I took pictures of
my design but sadly my phone and pictures got erased in a bathroom flood which
made my Samsung J3 go kaput. Which rather put out my fire. I emailed our MP,
Gavin Williamson, asking him to support the Open Doors event and meetings for
the umpteenth time and was only slightly alarmed today when for all of his
words of support I heard that he couldn’t be arsed to attend the event.
So I didn’t burn down the display. Instead I wrote these
words which you are kindly reading.
But the worst of it is this… I don’t actually know that God
really said in my religiously inclined brain: ‘Don’t burn it down, write a blog
about it instead.’ Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I fear I have made a
fundamental error and offended The Almighty © (as usual). I think my idea was probably
better. If I had carried out my plan I really do feel that I could have said in
a courtroom, at the end of my life and Judgment Day ©? , ‘I can explain everything… well, most of it’.
Anyway, if you want to support Open Doors, I could not
recommend them more. They need all the publicity they can get. But I bet my
idea would have worked better.
P.S. Please do not be tempted to burn down places. The repercussions
are a bad experience.
