I sit here at my desk on the morning after the Solstice.The world outside my window is noisy. Two doors down, the clattering racket of renovation marks the progress of another East Marsh United house in progress. Usually, such a racket would fray my nerves, but today it sounds like a lullaby of possibility. It is the sound of a safe, forever home being made ready for a family in the New Year. It is the sound of the future we are choosing to make.
I am, by my own admission, a devout skeptic. I am a child of the sun, a lover of the spring and early summer but if I had to pin my heart to one short season, it would be Advent. There is something in the Hellenic simplicity of the Nativity in the story of the Holy Family, the young mother, the child refugee, and the angels singing into the darkness that resonates for me in a way that no other season can match. It suggests that the miraculous is found in the simplest, most overlooked places. It is a story that stands in absolute opposition to our modern perceptions of power and authority; a reminder that the radical can also be simple, transcendent, and gives us the faith to work for a better future.
The Social Cement of Joy
This December at East Marsh United has been a testament to that principle of simple transcendence. We have moved through this month at a pace that has left me, at 58 and a half, feeling every second of my time on this blue planet. But what a month it has been.
We have been busy growing our community with loving kindness. We’ve seen the tactile focus of wreath-making and crafting sessions where families came together to create beautiful things from scratch. We’ve shared joyful Christmas lunches and hosted a fabulous toy drop, where families could access lovely gifts donated to the NSPCC. We ensured that adults spending Christmas alone weren’t forgotten, and we took groups to see Santa and the panto.
These aren’t just events. They are the social cement that binds us. They allow us to engage in that precious sense of anticipation that Advent brings; the joy, the fun, and the simple beauty of being together. Across the team, there has been a relentless flow of compassion. The EMU team has given everything they have to give; they have been the Light of Love in a winter that feels particularly heavy.
Jazz, Legacy, and Finding a Voice
On December 5th, the roof was practically blown off the venue, Grimsby Central Hall, when my friend Gilad Atzmon and Organology came to town. Gilad is a warrior for justice and a kindred spirit; spending time with him and hearing him play is always a tonic for the soul. Alongside Ross Stanley and Joel Barford, truly the best of their generations, they brought a wild, free jazz energy to Grimsby that was nothing short of transformative. For me, sharing the gig with my jazz loving Dad made it extra special.
That same spirit of creative defiance carried through to the finale of our Hear Me RAW project. Named after the local legend Roy Arthur Wright, who spent decades helping Grimsby’s youth find their voices, the project was inspired and guided by his memory. Last Thursday, a group of young people who had formed their own band launched their song, Leap of Faith. With the support and guidance of local musicians and teachers, those young people achieved something spectacular
Too often, our systems tend to do things to young people, rarely trusting them to lead. Here, they owned the process. Watching them perform to a rapturous audience of families and friends was a profound reminder of what happens when you create space for people to thrive. Special credit must go to our EMU Outreach lead, Sue Baker, a true force of light and joy who made this all possible.
Photo Credit: Gordon Wilson
Poking Bears and Speaking Home Truths
While the heart of the month was in the Marsh, I found myself twice in London, rattling cages in rooms where power is usually spoken of in abstract and sanitized terms.
At The Shard, I had the opportunity to give a reality check to a room full of people talking about AI and tech automation. I spoke about poverty, the lack of literacy, and the 20-year gap in healthy life expectancy we face here. I know I made some people uncomfortable. That’s fine. I’ve spent too many years being a people-pleaser, frightened of speaking out. Now, I feel I have a moral responsibility to speak the truth as I experience it.
Power structures don’t act until they are discomforted by the harsh and ugly truth of life at the sharp end. We don’t need mealy-mouthed tinkering; we need radical change that puts the voices of the silenced into the rooms of authority and forces them to face head on the shame of systemic poverty and inequality.
The Foundation of Home
Our housing work is our most practical act of resistance. What we do as an ethical social landlord is a direct rebuttal to the wreckage of the free market, which has left us with 1930s style squalor and fear. By restoring tired houses into beautiful, secure sanctuaries, we are putting back the security that was stolen from the working class. A home is the very beginning, the place from which a person can feel safe enough to thrive. We are 16 houses into our goal of 100 houses for 100 years, and we will continue to build on our foundations next year.
The Righteous Rage of the Carol
Last night at St John’s and St Stephen’s, we sang Once in Royal David’s City. Not the 19th-century version of middle-class idealism, but a radical version rewritten with words of righteous rage about the state of our modern world. Our church, in the heart of the Marsh has no time for the abstract or the pompous; we sang about the reality of lived experience on the ground.
So many of our carols are hymns of peace and goodwill. Lovely as they are, it is hard to sing of peace while the horror of genocide in Palestine continues. We cannot look away from genocide and violence and honestly call this a holy season. The Nativity, the story of a refugee child in a dangerous land should move us to raise our hearts and voices to say NO to war and misery. This isn’t just a Christmas sentiment; it is a human necessity if we want to truly live in the peace that we sing of with such vigour at our Christmas services.
Entering the Radical Rest
I am tired. Our team is tired. More than that, I would say we are all depleted. We have given everything we have to give this year. Now, it is time for Radical Rest. We must now give ourselves permission to enter the Deep Midwinter. To sit in the quiet with our beloveds and allow ourselves to rest, recover and reflect on the great achievements of the year.
“The way to the future is the future you get.” If we want a future of kindness, we must start by being kind to ourselves. We must lay down our tools and trust that the light we have built together will stay lit while we sleep.
I leave you with the final lines of Requiem, the jazz and poetry suite I co-wrote and performed with The Alan Barnes Octet in 2019.
Let there be rest.
Let there be peace.
Let all bloodshed, war and violence cease.
Let us seek with all courage that which is right,
And when darkness falls, let us search for light.
Josie Moon 