A SAYING of Edmund Burke which is often quoted is that "All that
is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Now, as a saved-by-grace-and-trying-to-be-good-in-response woman, I
have discovered this to be true.
Recently, I have come to appreciate that my moments of apathy
(and, oh! there are many) are not neutral, but indeed opportunities
for bad things to flourish in the place of an alternative good. For
me, this cosmic battle has been symbolised by my much smaller,
daily fight for my local phone box.
Right now, I am at war with a man armed with a Pritt Stick.
Each morning, on my way to work, I remove about 30 illegal,
graphic "tart cards", plastered on the inside of the phone box. And
each night, the man with the Pritt Stick defiantly returns to put
up fresh ones. It is a daily war of wills that, despite my best
efforts (I once, very Britishly, left him a polite note requesting
that he refrain from putting them up), appears to be locked in
stalemate. To be honest, I am getting tired.
There are days when I rip up the cards with zeal, and other days
when I have not got the energy, and simply walk on by. There are
days when I am prompted to pray for the real girls caught (perhaps
trafficked into) working behind the grotesque guises of the "sexy
Spanish senorita" or the "bouncy black bombshell".
But there are also many, many days when I feel as if what I am
doing is making absolutely no difference. After all, what are these
30 cards in comparison with the 35,000 or so cards that are
estimated to go up in Central London every day?
For me, the battle for the phone box has become something of a
metaphor for my broader engagement with aspects of contemporary
culture. I am acutely aware of my tendency to "become weary in
doing good", when the fruit of my actions feels far off (Galatians
6.9).
I find myself asking: "What is the point in taking the cards
down today, when they will only return tomorrow?" The battle for
the phone box is not a quick win, but requires a consistency of
action from me that is challenged daily.
Each day, before I remove the cards, I must first navigate my
own internal battle, rebuffing the protests of my apathy, which
tries to convince me that there is no point. I know the right thing
to do, but must first persuade myself that it matters before I will
act. If I am honest, there are other small acts that I easily tire
over - for instance, where I shop for food or go for coffee.
Still, I will continue to battle for this phone box. I might
increase the industry's printing costs by only a tiny fraction, and
spare only one passer-by the temptation of succumbing to lust.
Nevertheless, the act remains a statement of hope for a better
future - for a world without such bondage. To me, it is a small act
of revolt from a faith-filled activist who believes that the day of
true revolution is on its way.
Some people have suggested that I replace the explicit cards
with an alternative card of my own, perhaps featuring a Bible verse
or short gospel message. But my motives are not primarily
evangelistic.
It is more like a gardener uprooting the weeds that seek to
choke the garden's beauty. The weeding requires daily vigilance, as
the rot soon creeps in, but the gardener's perseverance is fuelled
by a vision of what the garden could be in its full glory. And so,
however wearisome the routine remains, I will continue, clinging to
the hope that the day is indeed coming when all things will be made
beautiful.
Sarah-Jane Marshall is the 18-30s project leader at the
London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC).
Another, shorter version of this piece featured in LICC's
weekly "Connecting with Culture" emails
(www.licc.org.uk/engaging-with-culture).