Making It Real

Our Lay Reader Lillian has been co-ordinating a small group reorganising the entrance area to the church, where we display a variety of notices, on a more rational basis. We were clearing up some of the notices and discarded bits and pieces this week when we discovered a small magazine. Making It Real Part 6, it’s called, and consisted mainly of a cartoon version of part of the Gospel of St Luke and an article by Ben Griffin, a former SAS soldier who started the UK version of Veterans For Peace as a result of his experiences in the Afghanistan War. On investigation this publication turns out to have been produced by a very small collective of Christian anarchists based not at all far away in Guildford: thus Surrey continues its strange tradition of harbouring this way-out form of radicalism (shades of the Diggers at Weybridge nearly 400 years ago).

This group, it turns out, are freegans, guerrilla gardeners, supporters of whistleblowers and pacifist veterans, and altruistic organ donors, among other things. I don’t agree with a lot of their analysis. ‘We see the richest and most powerful people in the world killing for, consuming and then wasting most of the world’s resources, and destroying the planet in the process, why do we work for them in the vain hope to be more like them?’ Making It Real asks. I don’t see many people I know who are motivated in that way. They don’t want to be like the super-rich, they just want security and peace, more even for their children than for themselves. There is certainly a ratchet effect that escalates our expectations of what a good standard of living means; but basically most people are content with modest quantities of basic things – food, clothing, shelter, recreation, and self-realisation. But complaining about this group getting that wrong is a bit picky. Frankly they’ve got a lot of the big picture right.

Most of us are moderates, cavillers and compromisers; and without the occasional extremist I suspect nothing much would ever move forward. I’m not going to start foraging for food out of Swanvale Halt’s bins, but I’m not going to have a go at them for trying to live like that. I will even remember them in my prayers because that kind of extremism is what the world needs.