When I was out, there was thin snow down to about 300m on the valley sides. The walk was similar to walks I’ve done many times, but this time the place looked more austere under the grey sky. It has many moods. Now I’m indoors and it’s gloomy and sleeting.
“Austerity” – when I was young (very young) its only meaning for me was to describe locomotives that were built during and just after WWII, designed to be cheap to build and easy to maintain. We had a load of the 2-8-0 freight engines on the line past our house, hauling coal in the old-fashioned straight-sided wagons, and they were the bread-and-butter of my trainspotting experience, along with Fairburn 2-6-4 tanks on the commuter trains, and a mixture of GWR 4-6-0’s on the longer distance trains. Slow trains went to Marylebone and fast ones went to Paddington, for ours was a joint railway from of old – so even companies can co-operate when it suits them. I like co-operation.
Now, “austerity” is often heard in something closer to its core meaning, to describe severe economic restraint. I accept that we sometimes need economic restraint – you can’t magic wealth out of nowhere, and at some point we’re going to have to pay the for all the extra money we’ve spent keeping things going during the pandemic. For me the key question is not should we control our spending, but who bears the burden? Why does it always seem to fall on the shoulders least able to support it, on people who are already poor? How can we control spending and at the same time achieve the twin goals of reducing poverty and supporting economic activity*? It might be easier if there weren’t already so many rich people with undue influence.
It’s looking more like wet snow now, not settling. I think being indoors is good, but some people do not have any place indoors where they can be safe.
God of love, protect everyone
who has to live with someone violent.
May women’s refuges have all they need,
all the money, all the staff,
all the support and respect they need
from their communities,
so that they can continue their work
without people being hunted down.
Give strength and hope
to people who work to protect
those in danger.
Living God, may your world
be a place of peace.
* By which I mean the creation of goods and services, not trading.