A friend has just challenged my thinking. She comments on the notorious photo of President Trump holding a bible and says that it would be amazing if he read it, turned to Jesus as his saviour and became a humbled leader. I think fat chance - suspect that reveals my cynical lack of faith. I'm often challenged by my friends faith and hope and positivity. I often wonder why we are friends as we are so different and what she sees in me - I guess my ability to listen to her process her thoughts aloud!
I have no comment on black lives matter protests - another subject I feel woefully inadequate to comment on. It makes me aware of my own inherent racism - I'm a child of the 70s and a working class upbringing where Alf Garnet and the black and white minstrels shamefully featured as entertainment. But watching the excellent House through time TV programme this week reminded me of the riots in Bristol https://thebristolcable.org/2017/10/bristol-reform-riots-1831 in which the chartists violently took out their anger and fury at their lack of political representation and poverty in days of acrimonious rioting, looting and arson. We are not immune. In a different age Luddites smashed the machinery replacing their own skilled jobs - protests and riots are not an America only phenomena. In my lifetime I remember poll tax riots and miners strikes - Andrew Marrs history of modern Britain brought up my own furious anger against Thatcher. I am not immune. Given the right trigger, I have that same tendency in me to violent anger and a sense of injustice, however wrong the expression is I can understand the powerlessness that drives some of it.
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