I've decided to write down the principles of the work that I do in Cardiff. These are not necessarily in order of importance but simply the order that they have occurred to me. The work, that I feel called by God to do in Cardiff, is a kind of pioneer ministry, community ministry, spirit-led activism. It works by a number of practices and principles that I have developed, borrowed from others, learnt from books, or made up as I've gone along! These principles might change as I am always learning and adapting, but these are my foundations right now.
The first principle of the work is the hyper-local. The first practice of my ministry is to live where I live - in Riverside. And to be a neighbour, a resident, a citizen, of my street, of my neighbourhood, of my city.
Riverside is just a few thousand households, you can walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes. Yet it contains multitudes - different identities, classes, ethnicities, ages.
But as an example of the principle of the hyper-local, I don't even want to talk about Riverside here. I want to get even more local. I want to reflect on just one street, Wells Street. I've been thinking a lot about Wells Street recently. It's not the street I live on, though I live on one of the nearby streets, and pass through Wells Street most days.
The principle of the hyper-local means looking and looking and looking at what's right under your nose. It's based on the spiritual principle that life is all about paying attention. And the more you pay attention, the more you see, and the more you see the more you understand. As Saint David suggested we do, I'm paying attention to the little things. What can we understand by paying closer and closer attention to what is right in front of us?
The street, like all streets in Riverside, contains a mixture of housing association, private rented, and private owned houses.
It's a residential street but there's one section where the houses kind of project out onto the road, and I think those all used to be shops. One house used to be a post office. Even though this area is quite close to other shops (and always was I'd guess) there obviously used to be a little shopping centre here - a post office and a number of shops. Now it is all gone, only one corner shop remains.
There was a church on Wells Street, but it is now converted into a business. Some quick googling suggests it was Saint Cadoc's Church, but I can't find out any more information.
There is now a mosque on Wells Street, Dar Us-Salam, but though I pass the men queuing outside on a Friday, I don't really know anything about it.
At one end is a hairdressers and an empty shop. At the other end is a tyre and car wash business.
But of course what matters most is the people. Wells Street tells a lot of stories. I've heard a few of them. As part of the project I'm working on I have interviewed one of the people on Wells Street, and I've listened to interviews from about six other residents of the street. One couple on the street are friends I have known for a couple of years.
The more you listen, the more you understand. Every door is an opening to somebody else's life with all it's complexities and interest. I've heard about the struggles, the loneliness, the the joys, and the funny moments of life.
There are some amazing people on Wells Street, amazing stories, but what has been lost is a lot of the "public" spaces of church, shops, post office where neighbourliness can grow, where community happens. Through working at the hyper-local, continuing to listen to the stories, and seeking spaces of community, this is one of things I'm trying to grow in my ministry.
Comments