Vision for change this christmas
REV. Nicola harris, Chaplain for housing, Bristol DIOCESE
At a time when we are deeply troubled by the news of thousands of children being killed in the Middle East & many more thousands displaced from their homes, the warm fuzziness that we’re ‘supposed’ to feel at Christmas seems at best irrelevant and, at worst, offensive.
And yet, millions around the world will be remembering a much more relatable story: a refugee family, forced to travel over 90 miles by foot to fulfil a political agenda, giving birth in unsavoury emergency accommodation, then travelling over 350 miles to flee persecution and genocide, living in unstable housing for between 4 months and 4 years.
The real Christmas story is more relatable to the housing insecurity and volatility faced by many, including the record-breaking numbers of people and children in England, over 106,000, spending this Christmas in the managed homelessness of Temporary Accommodation.
If you happen to venture into a church service this Christmas, chances are you’ll hear the words: ‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’
That refugee baby, despite the odds & the darkness in which he was born, grew up to make an impact on the world that changed history.
And it’s this principle of light shining in the darkness that brings me hope.
Whilst I am deeply angry at the widening gap between those that have and those who do not and the experience for so many at the sharp end of the housing emergency, my sincere hope is that the housing emergency has reached a point when doing nothing is no longer an option.
My hope is that we are in the darkest part of the tunnel, and the light is starting to appear.
To alleviate the challenges and ease the day-to-day anxieties and stresses of managing life in often insecure and overcrowded accommodation, we must hold onto a vision for change that means we commit to build a route out of the emergency we are in.
Change will come gradually like the dawn: decision by decision and step by step, in partnership and collaboration with one another so that by next year we can truly say that the light is shining in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.