Shoes

If you want a starting point for a story - shoes.

This week at the place where I worship, we have had a sort of art installation, but really it's a home grown thing. Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day. After the bombings and shootings in Paris last year, people expressed their sympathy and solidarity by leaving pairs of shoes in a public square. It was about standing together. The idea for Holocaust Memorial Day was 'Don't Stand By', so we asked people to bring in wearable shoes that they no longer wanted, to be sold in aid of refugees. At first the shoes were here and there in the sanctuary. Then there were more of them, and more. They filled the sanctuary. There were shoes on the steps and in the aisles. All day, people brought more shoes. Over and over, to one group of children after another, we talked about The Good Samaritan. Be the one who stops, helps, makes a difference.

I said quietly to one of the team that I found all those shoes hard to cope with, in the right sort of way. He, being Jewish, understood what I meant. We were both thinking of those piles of shoes at the concentration camps. It tugged at the heart.

And going round the shoes with the children, we'd ask them - which do you think have walked the furthest? Which are the smallest? Which are for dancing in? Our shoes are almost a part of us, adapting to our long walks in the country or trudges round the town, our summer sandals and winter boots, hardly worn or down at heel. Shoes have stories. That is fascinating. It can inspire the imagination. It can also be heartbreaking.