Finding God in garages

Apologees to this lovely lady pictured - Councillor Lisa Spall (Islington). She's not the focus here. To see those beautifully painted garages, Andover Estate, Islington, 2 of each colour alternate, with no graffitti almost 2 years after they were painted like that, was, frankly, my dream come true when this picture leapt at me from the Islington Gazette this week. As part of the 'Soul in the City' project two summers ago, I helped to dust those garages, mask the locks, prime and paint them, pray over them and their owners. We hoped that they'd stay clean, untarnished. They hadn't been painted since they were put there. And their owners (when they noticed) said it was a waste of time and thought we were insane. To be honest, we all wondered what would happen. And fair enough, we didn't turn that estate into a bunch of Christians (and we didn't intend to). But to me, those garages are like finding Jesus in the wilderness.