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notes from a small vicar
from a parish
in Liverpool, UK
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Monday, January 26, 2004
How good it must feel to be free
posted by John Davies at 8:56 PM
Synchronicity, or the spirit. Whatever, after yesterday's blog I was surprised and thrilled to bump into Jan in Glasgow today. I was there for an Iona Community Publications Committee meeting (good creative gatherings, I like them); Jan was down from the Highlands and Islands for a rather more trying appointment - in court to answer charges stemming from her involvement in a Faslane anti-nuclear protest.
So, just a pleasant day out for me, hearing among other things about good sales for Jan's book Out of Iona. But a pivotal day in Jan's life. If she'd have been found guilty of disturbing the peace it would have been massively ironic, considering the threat to peace that Trident poses. But it would have also perhaps meant a custodial sentence for Jan. The Warden of Iona Abbey unable to tend the living community in that ancient place of worship awhile, incarcerated in a Scottish nick instead. And we wouldn't have seen her today.
Jan was given 'not guilty'. So the hugs and smiles we shared in the lobby of the Community's offices involved great measures of relief. I doubt that will be the end of Jan's protesting, though. Not till the nuclear threat to peace and humanity is acknowledged by our leaders and Trident is scrapped. After a day in the cells in 2002 Jan wrote: "Living Word - thank you for setting me free / through pain and poetry..." After yesterday's silly aside, on the train home tonight I found some words for Jan:
how good it must feel to be free
only surfaces perhaps
at the tip
of the abyss
of captivity
how good it must feel to be free
something we free ones forget sometimes
sated, submerged
in our luxuries
of life and motion
 how good it must feel to be free
a goodness needing sharing
with those
denied choices
of life and motion
how good it must feel to be free
sustainance for the
forward struggle
at the tip
of the abyss
of captivity
[pic nicked from meish dot org: Jan & family on Bamburgh beach last weekend]
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john davies
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