Brain dead

Birthday Boy, Marcus

I decided it was pride telling me I had to make a cake for a birthday in Zac's last night, so I defied pride and bought one.

I was leading on the topic of the Good Samaritan. I'd chosen it because of recent events and conversations I'd had. I wanted to particularly pick up on, 'who are the Samaritans in our neighbourhood?' and the 'don't believe all you hear' themes.

At one point I said that in the parable Jesus is encouraging - no, telling - us to love our enemies, and I asked if anyone found it hard to love their enemies.

One man said, "No," and another said, "I don't have any enemies."

Nobody else said anything. Just me again then!

On reflection I should have rephrased it and said, "Do you find it hard to love those whose views are diametrically opposite to yours?" Or something like that. I guess most of us won't think in the terms of enemy.

Anyway some good discussions - although it did threaten to derail at one point over the question of giving money to beggars. (They'll only spend it on drugs versus if it gets them through the night. I'm of the latter viewpoint. Admittedly the Samaritan saw to more than the man's immediate needs but most of us don't have the time, money, expertise, to resolve someone's addiction, even assuming they are ready or want it to be resolved.) I wish I could say all these things at the time rather than thinking of them in the middle of the night.

I did warn everyone that I was slightly brain-dead after being in a safeguarding course all day. 9.30 to 4.30 is a long day of learning, more than my brain can deal with. Unnecessarily long in my opinion. It could have been over in a morning. I think I learned three things:

a) Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility - although I learned that from Level A; 

b) See something, say something;

c) There wasn't a c, unless you count, it's not your duty to investigate or judge, simply to report concerns.

I do have a greater awareness now, and the question of consent (to report) was interesting, so I suppose it probably did benefit me. 

Needless to say there was that one person who kept interrupting the trainers and showing off her knowledge, but I didn't have my hearing aids in so was able to switch off easily.

I did find out two more things. That is a Level F specifically for trustees, and every organisation should have a whistle-blowing policy. Will have to check if that's covered in our safeguarding policy.

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I'm off for a walk with Daughter and Louie soon. She's suggested we might like to swim . . .