Sandcastles of Welcome

In the summer, I took my young grandchild for a day at the beach in Scarborough. He
was so excited! It was a glorious hot day, and the sand was scattered with
castles, each topped with bright, colourful little flags bought from the shops
along the seafront. These flags fluttered in the sea breeze, not planted to
claim territory or prove a point, but to celebrate happiness, imagination, and
play. The beach is one of those rare places where anyone and everyone can
gather; children and grandparents, friends and strangers, free to share joy,
laughter, and the simple gift of being together.

It also took me back to my own childhood on the North East coast, with visits to the
Headland’s maritime museum in Hartlepool. I can still picture the strings of
bright signal flags decorating the walls. Each one carried its own meaning, but
together they formed a colourful language of connection, guidance, and welcome.
Flags that spoke not of fear, but of safe passage, shared endeavour, and
hospitality.

A few days after Scarborough, as we walked to the shop, we passed houses draped with
St George’s flags, hanging from windows and nailed to garden fences. My
grandchild, with the innocence of a child’s eyes, pointed to them and asked: “Are
those off their sandcastles?”

What could I say? How to explain that these flags were not like the colourful
markers of joy on a summer’s day, nor like the maritime signals of safe harbour
from my childhood, but were being used by some to divide, to exclude, to stoke
fear of the stranger and mistrust of the neighbour!

Flags are powerful things. They can be raised to celebrate, to invite, to say, ‘you are welcome here’. Conversely, they can
be used to draw lines, to say, ‘you don’t belong’!

As Christians, we are called to raise the kind of flags that invite and embrace,
not those that divide. The gospel reminds us that God’s love is wider than our
boundaries and deeper than our fears. As Paul writes to the Romans: “Welcome
one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”

So let us be people who fly flags of joy, justice, and love, until all know that they are
truly welcome.

A blog by District Chair Vicky Atkins