Chine McDonald

Good morning. You’re listening to this, so the chances are you’re not on holiday. You may be enjoying a staycation and devoted to early-morning radio, even when you don’t have to go to work; but for many Brits this is the peak season for getting out of the country, and indulging the luxury of a lie-in, as the summer loosens our usual routines. I really feel for those whose holidaying plans have been disrupted recently by travel companies collapsing into bankruptcy. Holidays are good for us, psychologically and physically; and though it’s less often noted, spiritually too. In which context, it’s worth remembering those countless other people around the world for whom they are simply an impossibility. The word holiday comes from the Old English and literally means “holy day”; and in a colloquial sense, many of us continue to think of our holidays as something sacred. But the old Christian holy days meant more than just time off work. They included formal worship, processions, pilgrimage. Their moods varied – from fasting and mourning, as on Good Friday, to feasting and celebration, as at Christmas or a saint’s day – but they all had a definite religious focus. A world away, in other words, from pina coladas on a sun-drenched beach, the cliché contemporary breakaway that’s focused instead on personal pleasure. That said, supposedly secular forms of escapism can sometimes offer spiritual nourishment too. J. R. R. Tolkien made the point that escaping from the immediate demands of your life can take very different forms. Whereas we might deplore the military deserter who abandons the fight he ought to face, Tolkien says, the flight of the person who’s been falsely imprisoned might be courageous and good. Reading certain works of fiction can, he thought, offer that positive sort of escapism. So too, it might be argued, can a beautiful walk, an intimate conversation, laughing with friends. Imaginative flights of all sorts grant glimpses of truth and goodness, refreshment for our souls. Andy Burnham has been criticised by some for taking a holiday this week – just six weeks after taking office. But his escape with his family on Monday may well provide him more than leisure, in the sense of doing nothing. His flight from Downing Street might, as Tolkien understood it, offer the kind of freedom that’s positively enabling. Whimsically, given that he’s Britain’s first Catholic prime minister, I like to think he’ll spend at least some of his holiday plotting a revival of merry old England’s medieval holy days. More seriously, and leaving all party-politics aside, perhaps everyone who loves this country should hope that time relaxing with loved ones will nourish his soul as well as his mind and body. There will surely be work requiring moral leadership awaiting him on his return.

06 AUG 26

Good morning. August is the month of exam results and education is in the news again. Each year, young people find themselves at the centre of debates about standards, academic versus vocational. Reform, opportunity and social mobility. And governments struggle with how we can equip young people for the economy of tomorrow and still give them a balanced education. But I wonder if we're asking one question often enough – what kind of human beings do we hope they’ll become? A couple of days ago my son phoned in the morning from his regular coffee shop. I could hear the chatter and tinkling in the background. "The coffee here is so good," he said. I replied, "Is this your little moment of joy before you start the day, settle down to work?" He said “joy - that’s a nice way of looking at it.” Afterwards I thought to myself: Why did I call it a little moment of joy? Why do we think that joy belongs only in the margins of life - before work begins or after success has finally been achieved? And I think that our education system reflects that assumption. We make so much effort to prepare children for exams, employment and success that it’s hardly surprising that many end up feeling their value is something they must constantly earn. The pressure and anxiety has made many incapable of seeing or letting any joy into their life – as if joy has now become a luxury. In a world where cynicism and pessimism is everywhere, even encouraged, devastating news a daily feature, to find joy for yourself, and to try to inspire it in others is an act of courage, even resistance. As a Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte pointed out it’s a waste when life is made more frightening precisely because that’s easy to do. For him, finding beauty was harder and because of that more important – as he said: ‘it’s much easier to terrorise than to charm.’ Perhaps this is what faith tries to remind us, that to ponder on the world means finding love and enchantment amidst our struggles and sorrows. The Qur'an invites us to look, to reflect and to marvel at the changing seasons, the stars, the diversity of humanity. The words `do they not see’ pull us constantly to what can be observed, imagined and made possible. Whether it’s in a morning coffee or a quiet walk, perhaps joy accompanies us all the time – we are simply too busy to notice.

04 AUG 26

03 AUG 26

'Good morning. “August angst” has begun. The phrase describes the stress caused by psychotherapists taking their summer break over the month beginning today. Actually, breaks are part of the therapeutic work - and that explains why August angst is felt by more people than just those in therapy. Breaks of any kind can be challenging. The summer break from work was longed for and then feels unsettling. A personal break from your phone feels positively alarming. So what's with breaks? An interruption to the usual pattern throws you on yourself and, psychotherapy says, recalls anxieties from the earliest periods of life. For there was a time during which routine with no breaks was a matter of life and death: when you were a baby. Then, with luck, you had someone ready, 24 7, to respond to your every beck and call. Sigmund Freud referred to “His Majesty the Baby” because the little darlings ensure that mum and dad never get a break. Continuity of care back then was vital, of course. When toddlers, we might have played peekaboo, to toy with the possibility that we can survive a break. There is also the developmental stage when a child realises that a ball rolling under the sofa isn’t lost forever but has temporarily disappeared. Curiosity replaces tears. To put it another way, to grow up is to transition from a frictionless world, in which needs are seamlessly met, to a world of friction, disruption. It's demanding but we develop. So August angst is a recapitulation of that phase. When the external routine stops, what will you find inside? The phenomenon explains something else: therapists worry about social media because it is designed to be frictionless, infantile you might say. The infinite scroll offers you a constant feed, like a bottle always close to the baby's mouth. Nowadays apps even offer 24 7 access to an online therapist and the effect is regressive. Go online, cultivate infantile states of mind. Breaks disrupt that slip back which is why they are built into spiritual traditions. Jesus told his disciples that he was to leave them, and that they would weep. But then another would come: the spirit of God who would dwell within them. After the disruption, which was traumatic, they would look inside and find more than they had ever expected. But they had to have the break. No friction, no discovery. So, the month of August and August angst. Take a break from your therapist. Take one from your phone, from work. And feel how the break from your usual routine upsets and then expands your soul'

Good morning, If you’re feeling in need of a little nostalgia for the 1980s, then the film, Wham! 10 Days in China that opened in cinemas this week might be just the thing. It’s a documentary about the 10 day tour of China that Wham!, featuring George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, made in 1985. They were the first pop act to visit the Communist country and it was devised by their manager as a way of garnering publicity for Wham!. In that it was ultimately successful. But as the documentary shows, there were other more profound consequences too from this encounter between cultures. In an interview this week Andrew Ridgeley talked about a behind-the-scenes clash between band members about China. He recalled that backing singer, Shirlie Kemp, was unhappy. At the time she told the music press that the tour was unfair to the Chinese because it threw a spotlight on freedoms they didn’t have. But for Ridgeley, it showed the Chinese that Western values were about freedom and a chance to fulfil dreams and aspirations. The Chinese agreed to let Wham! Into the country as evidence that it was opening up but the concerts were tightly policed. They have taken a similar approach to Christianity, creating an official Protestant and an official Catholic church, both regulated by the Government. Even then they view Christianity with great suspicion. When I visited official churches a few years ago, for example, my group was followed by government officials everywhere. Other Christian churches do exist, though they operate underground. And like those who follow other religions in China, their members face abuse and constant harassment. Part of the tension over Christianity is that even though there is evidence that Christianity first arrived in China around 625 in the Christian era, and today there are at least 44 million Christians, probably more, Chinese officials see Christianity as Western and alien to their culture. But Christianity does not belong to one nation or one continent; God does not have a passport identifying his nationality. It is as much for the Chinese as it is for anyone else. It offers dreams and aspirations, as Andrew Ridgeley said of music. But it needs a place to start. Four years after the Wham! tour, one of those who attended a show at the Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium, Cui Juan wrote a song Nothing To My Name, that became an anthem for student protesters at Tiananmen Square. What begins as a small lifting of the curtain to another world, can be a route to calling for far greater change. It may well cause some initial frustration, as Shirlie from Wham! feared, but it can lead to seeking something, whether music or faith that offers meaning, sometimes triggering a desire for liberty. It’s a chink of light in the darkness.

30 JULY 26

Good Morning, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people:’ these beautiful words from Isaiah open the Seven Weeks of Consolation which begin now, and lead up to the Jewish New Year. Yet only days ago was the bleakest date in the Jewish calendar, the Fast of the Ninth of Av, marking the destruction of Jerusalem. The embers of the fires that devoured God’s temple were still red hot in memory; the surrounding hills, once forested, were devastated. Yet the rabbis insisted on proclaiming Isaiah’s words of comfort. How dared they? How could they be so brazen! Would we say, “Take comfort!” while the flames near Madrid and Bordeaux are burning, bringing horror to the people, fire-fighters, animals? But the prophetic message was not: ‘Don’t worry. It’ll all be okay.’ Rather, it is ‘We must look on disaster, then take hope, not by turning away, but by living differently. ‘Prepare a highway for God,’ Isaiah continues: ‘Make the world better,’ he demands. I thought of his words as I cut turfs to help Tracy and Roger Mclachlan rewild their 91 acres at Bac Dhub in the Highlands. We were building leaky dams to raise the water level of a stream so that it would rewet and restore the peatland. In short, we were doing what beavers do naturally. ‘The peat will regrow one millimetre per year,’ Tracy explained. ‘But it’ll absorb more carbon than trees.’ It’s her pledge to the future. I compare that one millimetre per year to the forest fires raging forward and shudder. Where’s your comfort, Isaiah? But I know that countless local groups worldwide are saying: ‘This is our place, our park, trees, birds. We’re determined to do everything we can for our world, our children, our future.’ I speak to Simon Oldridge, Co-founder of the National Emergency Briefing UK, in which the country’s leading experts on security, health, food and weather tell the climate crisis as it is. The film of the briefing has already been screened to over 2,000 groups. ‘People feel better when they’ve seen it,’ Simon explains. They say, ‘The issues aren’t being boxed away. There are things we can do. People feel motivated.’ Action from the bottom up is great, Simon acknowledges. ‘But we need urgent, galvanising leadership from top down,’ because this is about everything: energy, agriculture, how we eat, travel, insulate homes. That’s Isaiah’s message. ‘Look up and see!’ he insists. This is God’s world. Take comfort, not by turning away, but by treating creation with the love, justice and respect it demands.

28 JULY 26