Turning up

Sometimes in life, turning up is all that is required of you.

Ever hosted a high stakes event? All you can think about in the days, weeks and months leading up to it is “please, please, please, people, for the love of dignity - please turn up!” You anxiously imagine the empty venue with that one awkward guy from your work twitching in his chair. In the five minutes before it starts you are trying not to hyperventilate as you plan your escape from the venue, heck maybe the country, as you visualise your imminent humiliation.

And then...they come.

And you are so grateful you could kiss each person individually as they dawdle through the door.

Well perhaps you aren’t quite as hysterical as Jo from the marketing department (for example), but hey you get the drift — sometimes you just need people to turn up.

We have a catchphrase at Pathway, “we create possibilities not promises, and sometimes this leads to miracles.”

At the heart of this is turning up for the people who are standing alone, sometimes outside of the prison gates, wondering what to do next.

For these people Pathway and its supporters make it their mission to show up and offer new possibilities. We say “can we offer you someone to help you navigate moving back into community life?”, “would you like to live here?”, or, “would you like us to get you into work?”.

Basically, we turn up with options - but not guarantees of success.

This can be hard. When people give us money or volunteer their time, they want to hear about success. And sometimes they do — but not always.

People are messy, they make bad choices, they are affected by their environment and random adverse events happen to them. We (Pathway) can’t control that.

What we can control are our actions. We could choose to never turn up again, to never again offer that person a social worker, a flat or a job.

Or, we could turn up again and again, offering people new possibilities and new hope.

So we choose to show up. To come alongside people standing alone and set some new options before them.

We do it because it’s right and because sometimes miracles happen. People are able change their course and become actors for positive change in our world.

This is our reason for being.

Where are you being asked to show up?