Going To Prison

Recently I went to prison. I feel so much is wrong in British society that I felt like rioting too. But that would such a childish thing to do, a “temper tantrum”, “must have, must have”. I have recently started working for Prison Fellowship and it was high time to have a look “inside”.

Odd – there’s much that seems familiar from the documentaries on HMP Manchester and the YOI institution on the TV.  And I’ve worked in a disabilities college, which in mild ways had some echoes (individual assessments, small bedrooms, security awareness, collective living and catering). Yet there was nothing like seeing it in the flesh.

Marriage is for more than two

First Dance

In the last four weeks both our children got married. Both happy occasions. Both with lovely
spouses. But even with mother-&-father-in-law behaving properly – marriage is for more than just two.

The Modern Marriage Model is bi-lateral. A contract with just two parties. It is nuclear, narrow, and sometime neurotic. The focus can be on the ideal couple cheered on by the “smug marrieds”, with singles, the divorced, widow(er)s, and gays there to wish well on their friends, but feeling out of it.