Medway Messenger column, 14th September 2001 (unpublished): Regeneration - Economic Or Spiritual?

[This was the article I originally submitted for the above date. However the date I wrote it was September 11th - sound familiar? I sent in a completely different article, based on '9/11', which was published. Click here for that article.]

So the Gills are in the top half of Division One, but Medway is at the bottom of the Kent League. The Kent League for Life Expectancy, that is. Men here live an average of 74.3 years, and women 79.1. If you have the dosh to move to Sevenoaks, then men can buy a further 3.7 years and women exactly three years more. 

In the national table, we’re just below halfway: men live 74.9 years on average, women 79.9. Thank you, Office of National Statistics; it’s always nice to be encouraged. West Kent Health Authority confirms that higher mortality rates are usually connected to poorer social conditions. 

To look around much of Medway is to witness anecdotal evidence in favour of this view. Noise, dirt, and fumes – our predecessors in the house where we live never opened windows at the front of the house, because they said their furniture became discoloured. And I expect the asthma rates are higher than average here. The amount of litter in our streets – usually a sign that people don’t feel great about themselves or their area – led to the Council campaign earlier this year. And it’s hard to walk down any busy road around here without getting a lungful or three of secondary smoking. No wonder we have higher rates of heart disease and cancer here. 

My guess is that if people have been made to feel like trash, there will be an outward manifestation of that feeling. What does it matter if the place is dirty, if we kick our way through litter, if our escape is a drug that can destroy us – i.e., nicotine? 

The more I live in Medway, the more I notice this low sense of self-esteem. The watershed event in recent history was probably the closure of the Dockyards, when we were considered surplus to the requirements of Her Majesty Queen Margaret’s Government. Our Council and other agencies are only to be applauded for their efforts at economic regeneration. 

But it will take more than that. Jobs certainly help, not only by increasing financial security, but also because people may feel more worthwhile, since they are making a contribution. (Though whether the call centre workers for the Daily Telegraph in Chatham will feel that is a moot point, I think.) 

The pop psychologists who populate our problem pages tell people to feel good about themselves, but on what basis, if all we leave behind is a pile of ashes at the crematorium in Bluebell Hill? ‘Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ 

What makes the vital difference is to know that we are loved. Not just for a few years, but ‘loved with an everlasting love’, as the Bible puts it. It says we are ‘made in the image of God’, a powerful statement of the wonderful dignity God invests in us. Though we turned away from God, he came to us in the Person of his Son, Jesus Christ. Though we choose to live without him, he wants to live within us by the Holy Spirit. 

It is this kind of regeneration we most need. Indeed the Resurrection of Jesus – for which there is strong historical evidence – opens up a quality and quantity of life beyond our 74.3 or 79.1 years. 

That is to know love. And that is to have unbeatable dignity.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.