The Bremen Bod Blog

Today’s Gospel acclamation (6th Sunday of Easter) is ‘If anyone loves me he will keep my commandments’ John 14:15-24. I cannot help but hear those words from the Gospels, without thinking about the evocative and compelling film ‘Women Talking’ which I watched recently. If you haven’t seen it, ‘Women Talking’ is based on a shocking true story and is adapted from the book by the brilliant Miriam Toews, which tells the story of a group of women in a strict Mennonite colony in Bolivia who have been have been systematically drugged and violently sexually abused by the men of the community for years. The movie mostly takes place in hayloft where the women must decide what to do - Do they leave the colony with their children and start a new life away from the men? Do they stay and fight for justice and change the community? Or do they forgive the perpetrators who left the women waking up every morning feeling drowsy and nauseous, with ripped clothes, covered in blood, bruises and rope m

  Back in August last year, we learned the sad news that Tom Cornell, the well known veteran Catholic Peace Fellowship founder, had passed away. During his long years of activism,  Tom had been a member of the executive staff of Fellowship of Reconciliation and he was also on the executive committee of  Pax Christi  USA .   Tom was probably best known as a Catholic Worker and the editor of the Catholic Worker newspaper and for me, he leaves us two highly relevant lessons for our contemporary situation today, particularly in relation to what form our solidarity with movements such as BLM should take.   Deacon Tom Cornell once said - “The Civil Rights movement came to a head in 1965 and we had been involved in that consistently, all the way through but never in leadership positions, that would be inappropriate for white people, but when black people asked us and invited us, we go, we go all out!”   For me, this is the template for solidarity with movements such as BLM today,

  ‘In the beginning was the fear of the immigrant He's made his way down to the dark riverside He made his home there by the dark riverside The city sprang from the dark river Thames They made their home there down by the riverside The city sprang up from the dark mud of the Thames ’   The Liberty Of Norton Folgate by Madness   I’ve been spending both long and short periods of time in London for over 40 years, since I was five years old and each time I’m in the city for work or to visit friends and family, the place seems to change, sometimes in small ways and sometimes with seismic shifts. This is especially true of my beloved East End, not least in the stark difference between West Ham’s futuristic London stadium and the club’s old gaff at Upton Park, of blessed memory.   Indeed, since the recent London Olympics, parts of Whitechapel, Silvertown, Limehouse, Poplar, Bethnal Green, Stratford, Canary Wharf and Deptford are almost unrecognisable. A short trip along