A tale of two paradoxes

Two news stories have struck me this week. 

One is the extraordinary ineptness of the contractor employed to carry out tests for PIPs (Personal Independence Payments) for disabled people in the North East, who has hired rooms in a luxury spa owned by multi-millionaire, Duncan Bannatyne, for the purpose. I can imagine few things worse than being pushed in my wheelchair through a place thronging with healthy and wealthy spa-goers padding around in fluffy slippers and snow-white bath robes on their way to a massage, a manicure, and a meal of coleslaw and prosciutto, or working off their excess weight on cross-trainers, or showing off their finely toned bodies between the swimming pool and the sauna. It is hard to imagine a more inappropriate venue for what is already a humiliating enough experience - an assessment designed to save the government £1.3bn by 2020, by cutting the number of people who receive DLA (Disability Living Allowance, being replaced by PIPs) and in particular the mobility element which gave disabled people freedom to get out and about. 

It is true that supporting the disabled costs us all a lot of money. It's also true that the introduction of PIPs has already caused a lot of personal harm and hardship. "PIP assessments have so far led to Motability cars being taken away from 50,000 disabled people.  
When the new assessments were announced to replace the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in 2016, it was estimated that entitlements would be cut by up to £150 a week for more than half a million people." See Huffington Post article.  See Huffington Post article. The irony is that the sum result of a lot of misery for a section of the population will in the end barely dent our social services bill a jot, if at all.

I do realise that a while ago I made a resolution not to whinge so much. But really! Sometimes it all gets too much. So here's my second one. It's about Theresa May's much touted Florence speech. I'm not entirely clear why her minders chose to stage it there. I gather it might have been because of the trading/banking history of the city, or it might have been some sort of convoluted symbolism to do with the Renaissance. Here she was, in the tradition of Michelangelo and the Medicis, launching a second Renaissance in Europe, Mrs May's Renaissance. From the news reports that seems to have been the gist of her message. Brexit is not an end; it's a beginning. It's not a divorce; it's a new glorious "partnership". There were precious few details of what the partnership would look like, just like nothing we had seen before and we need some more time to think about it. What must puzzle objective observers is, then what Brexit was all about. In the referendum campaign we were constantly told that it was about breaking off with the EU, having done with it, breaking free from its shackles. Which sounded very much like a divorce, a very acrimonious one at that. It sounded like "a plague on all your 27 houses".

"Brexit," Mrs May intoned, like a mantra, "is Brexit." Now it appears, "Brexit is Brentrance." Whether Europe will allow us to have our cake and eat it remains to be seen.

A rainbow world

In May 2004 we travelled with our great friends Anthony and Ruth to Florence, staying in the Hotel Berchielli near the Ponte Vecchio. Jane's and my bedroom, I remember looked down on this quiet square, Piazza del Limbo, with the 11th century Santi Apostoli church opposite. That was the first time that I appreciated the relief and the hazards of wheelchair travel. It was an unforgettable four days. Among the sights in one of the large piazzas there was a peace vigil - it was a year after the invasion of Iraq with all the messy mopping up. The vigil was largely young people and students. They were selling peace ('PACE') flags, and so I bought one as my souvenir of Florence, not as beautiful as Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence sextet, but there we go. I still have it.

I remember my family asking me when I proudly showed it them, "Do you know what it means, Dad?" So I told them it was an Italian peace flag and I'd got it from a vigil in Florence. They told me it also was the symbol of the lesbian and gay movement. (In fact I have now discovered that they were wrong for reasons I'll explain.) However at that time I was - I was going to say ambivalent about homosexuality, but that's too kind to myself - I was anti-gay. ("Love the sinner; hate the sin" - that sort of thing.) I put my peace flag away in a drawer. Readers of my blog will know that comparatively recently I have repented of my ignorant arrogance, as a result of encounters, study and reflection - see here, and here, and here. I've concluded that normally sexual orientation is not a lifestyle choice but an innate gift.

I was reminded of my flag with the great celebration in the media of the introduction of equal marriage at midnight on Friday. I was very glad when Archbishop Justin Welby went on record saying, "I think the church has reacted by fully accepting that it's the law, and should react on Saturday by continuing to demonstrate in word and action, the love of Christ for every human being." Strangely, for such a moderate statement, it will no doubt have exposed him to a good deal of hate mail and brickbats, probably from all sides. Nonetheless as The Guardian commented it did represent a shift in tone, rather as Pope Francis's "Who am I to judge?" answer did. I was surprised to read about the reaction to the American charity, World Vision's decision to open employment to people in a same-sex marriage. As one blog put it, the gates of the social media were stormed by people arguing for what they felt was the truth. "Additionally, and almost unbelievably, many chose to withdraw their child sponsorships in order to send a loud, clanging-symbol  of a message to World Vision." I suppose it was not surprising, albeit shameful, when World Vision quickly reversed its decision. A friend of mine was on the receiving end of very nasty trolling when she commented, "Someday the Church will look back on the fight over same-sex relationships with same incredulity & shame as with slavery & women’s suffrage." However, I hope she is proved right - in the not too far distant future.


Meanwhile I am looking forward to joining with lesbian friends of ours who are marrying on Friday. We feel very privileged to have been invited and are looking forward to congratulating them - and I shall be praying that God will bless them as they will have made their lifelong marriage vows to each other. Every such lifelong commitment needs every blessing, I reckon.

The LGBT flag has, you'll notice, the red stripe on top and the purple at the bottom and has the turquoise missing. The stripes represent (starting at the top): life, healing, sunlight, nature, serenity/harmony, spirit.

As I sit in my chair, I still value the rainbow as the reminder of God being utterly faithful and loving us too much ever to destroy the world, despite all our attempts. It reminds me of the eternal love that is at the heart of existence. It reminds me that even I am loved by the creator of everything. Hard to credit, but apparently true. "His steadfast love - for everyone - endures for ever."

PS The reason I have been quite vocal on the issue is the harshness of the criticism heaped on LGBT people, often sadly by followers of Jesus who had nothing to say on the subject but was very explicit on judging: "Judge not, that you be not judged." This is my way of saying I'm sorry.