safe

On Christmas-eve-day I was writing this for my blog:

walking home from the shops, I see two kids running and laughing ahead of me. They are about ten and eight. Or nine and seven. Something like that. Anyway…excellent! They’re happy and giggly in that kid-gurgly-way that just kills me. I love it.

Then later, I am reading How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson. (I like this book). He is discussing collective anxiety and notes that while crime rates have atually stayed pretty steady over the last 150 years, our fear of crime has soared. And, he reckons, society’s propaganda of insecurity has encouraged a state of perpetual anxiety.

So, I was writing this and I was almost finished! But stopped there because I was running late for a beautiful christmas eve dinner with My Lovely One and both our families.

Five hours later, I came home. To a burgled house.

Electronic.stuff.that.doesn’t.matter was gone. And that made me feel a bit angry. But this person, who had crept into Our Place while we were away celebrating all that is good, also opened presents that I had bundled with love for my favourite.people. And that, more than anything else, made me feel unsafe and sad.

Now, two days later, I am trying to focus on what I know and believe – that the world is fundamentally good. And I am struggling to reject creeping ideas: that my safety is at risk; that I have to protect my home from badness; that I need an alarm and lights and wires and bars.

I’m finding it hard.