Benefice-Priest in Charge
Katrina Dykes
MESSAGE from KATRINA
OCTOBER 2018
Some years ago I saw a short film about homelessness, the theme of which has stayed with me all these years later, whenever I think about this issue.
The strap-line of the film is that you are ‘lucky if you have a key’. A key means that you have a door you can unlock, open and go inside. A key means you have a place to stay. A key means that you can sleep safe at night. You are lucky if you have a key. The film also showed how very many people are not many steps away from being unlucky – no key, no door, no place to stay, no place to sleep safe at night.
Many of the reasons for homelessness are well documented, loss of work, debt, relationship breakdown, mental health problems, addiction. I’ve heard stories of young people made homeless when ‘step-parents’ kicked them out of the family home. One boy was trying to study for GCSEs while living in someone’s shed. I’ve heard of ex-servicemen suffering from PTSD, who found themselves living on the streets, heroes forgotten and unwanted.
We are the lucky ones. The vast majority of you reading this, will be sat at home, in an armchair or at the kitchen table, perhaps sipping from a hot mug of tea or coffee. Whatever else may or may not be going on in our lives, we have a home. As autumn rolls into winter and nights grow long and cold, spare a thought for those sleeping on the streets – there are growing numbers of them.
Earlier this year I heard someone describe an encounter they had witnessed in a church service in Oxford, at which the then archbishop, Rowan Williams, was preaching. Just as the service was about to start a lady walked in, her hair was long and tangled, her clothes were dirty and smelt and she was carrying an abundance of carrier bags filled with her life’s processions. She started to make a beeline for the archbishop, but was intercepted and steered away to a front row seat until a more appropriate moment. At ‘The Peace’, a moment in the service when people great one another, the archbishop went directly to the lady, warmly took her hand and said ‘Hello Janice, how good to see you! How long has it been? It must be twenty years. I can’t talk right now, but when this service is over we’ll sit down together and have a good chat.’
The person recounting this event, was impressed by the genuineness of the greeting. But not only was the archbishop demonstrating his inclusion of someone others would have dismissed, he had clearly known and treated this woman with kindness in the past. And even though he had not been in Oxford for years, he remembered her name. The archbishop was treating a woman, others would have regarded a nobody as a somebody!
Jesus famously said, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25: 40).
Homelessness Sunday this year is on 7th October.
We will be thinking and praying more about this issue and considering our response in our church services on that day. Do join us if you can.
The strap-line of the film is that you are ‘lucky if you have a key’. A key means that you have a door you can unlock, open and go inside. A key means you have a place to stay. A key means that you can sleep safe at night. You are lucky if you have a key. The film also showed how very many people are not many steps away from being unlucky – no key, no door, no place to stay, no place to sleep safe at night.
Many of the reasons for homelessness are well documented, loss of work, debt, relationship breakdown, mental health problems, addiction. I’ve heard stories of young people made homeless when ‘step-parents’ kicked them out of the family home. One boy was trying to study for GCSEs while living in someone’s shed. I’ve heard of ex-servicemen suffering from PTSD, who found themselves living on the streets, heroes forgotten and unwanted.
We are the lucky ones. The vast majority of you reading this, will be sat at home, in an armchair or at the kitchen table, perhaps sipping from a hot mug of tea or coffee. Whatever else may or may not be going on in our lives, we have a home. As autumn rolls into winter and nights grow long and cold, spare a thought for those sleeping on the streets – there are growing numbers of them.
Earlier this year I heard someone describe an encounter they had witnessed in a church service in Oxford, at which the then archbishop, Rowan Williams, was preaching. Just as the service was about to start a lady walked in, her hair was long and tangled, her clothes were dirty and smelt and she was carrying an abundance of carrier bags filled with her life’s processions. She started to make a beeline for the archbishop, but was intercepted and steered away to a front row seat until a more appropriate moment. At ‘The Peace’, a moment in the service when people great one another, the archbishop went directly to the lady, warmly took her hand and said ‘Hello Janice, how good to see you! How long has it been? It must be twenty years. I can’t talk right now, but when this service is over we’ll sit down together and have a good chat.’
The person recounting this event, was impressed by the genuineness of the greeting. But not only was the archbishop demonstrating his inclusion of someone others would have dismissed, he had clearly known and treated this woman with kindness in the past. And even though he had not been in Oxford for years, he remembered her name. The archbishop was treating a woman, others would have regarded a nobody as a somebody!
Jesus famously said, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25: 40).
Homelessness Sunday this year is on 7th October.
We will be thinking and praying more about this issue and considering our response in our church services on that day. Do join us if you can.
