Yesterday I sent out an email to a few friends, sharing my frustration at the countless delays there have been as we have waited for our pens to arrive. Months of jumping through hoop after hoop seemed to be going nowhere as we sought to navigate a pathway into the most locked up nation in the world.
Looking to write a new story into this Arabian peninsula it is like these pens are a continuation of all that we have carried on our journey east. Step after step we have called for a new story to rise free from the imperialism of religion and state. Now it is the multinationals and hidden powers that control the corridors of trade that we are demanding an audience with.
Held up at every point it feels as if we have touched, in a tiny way, some of the indignity experienced by those that labour in sweatshops the world over. Occasional moments have even given us understanding of those whose freedom has been lost to bonded labour as they work their lives away, without hope of ever paying off the debts that keep them trapped and completely and utterly lost. If in doubt of this reality then take a look at this short article, advertising a programme soon to be shown on Al Jazeera.
And so these final weeks of our journey we have waited so patiently for the nod and the whim of the Saudi customs officials as they pick over what is, in reality, the substance of our lives. Often sent to the back of the queue we have discovered, the hard way, the pecking order that dominates the world of migrant labour.
It was with a smile therefore that I read this short reply to my email, from my friend and fellow journeyman Paul. “They’ll be dangerous things for the Saudi’s to mess around with those pens, stuck in the gates of Jeddah as they are, with all that faith invested in them and the eyes of the Lord watching over them. Especially if thy’re at the bottom of the pile with everything else sitting on top of them. There will be no regrets.”
Today, as protests ripple round the world demonstrating against corporate greed, so a little subversive act finds a foothold in Arabia as our pens passed through customs into the hands of friends in Jeddah. A tiny hidden act calling for a better story on these global trade routes that network the world.
Tonight therefore we rest, wondering quite what stories will unfold from these weapons of warfare-the mighty pen.
Go go go pens!
Awesome, go go go pens all the way to every heart that is desperate to hear about a story written long ago on the hearts of men and now in book form, go again and write on the hearts the story of a man who came to set you free and despite all that binds you, his ink will mark you and make you forever His, forever free no matter what.