Google searches for the word ‘safe’ have tripled. Why?

I don’t know what it reveals about the state of the world, or the state of my soul, that I consider not looking at my phone on the tube to somehow be virtuous, but I do. It is, at the very least, good for my neck. And my eyes – and those need all the help they can get. So instead, I examine the posters.

A new series of ads issued by Transport For London have particularly caught my ailing eyes. They aim to address the very serious issue of sexual harassment on public transport, with suggestions for how members of the public can help. Here’s one:

‘Distract with a question. “What’s the next stop?” “What’s the time?” “What zone are we in?” You can help defuse an incident of sexual harassment by asking the person being targeted a small question. Only interrupt if you feel safe.’

Another one says: ‘Following an incident of sexual harassment, your support can help the person targeted feel less isolated and more confident in reporting it. Only do so if you feel safe.’

In one sense it’s a campaign that appeals to the British public’s noblest instincts. We don’t want to live in a world where people are harassed on the tube, and we want to be able to do something to stop it. The ads provide small but achievable ways to intervene.

But it’s the repeated line ‘Only do so if you feel safe’ that I find myself particularly intrigued by. I understand why this line was included: you don’t know who’s reading the poster, how vulnerable they are, and what their own history might be. Nobody wants anyone to feel under pressure to intervene when they’re not safe to do so.

At the same time, this preoccupation with personal safety does feel very… well, 2023. Compared to the grand sweep of human history, we live in a time and place that is extraordinarily safe; and yet we’ve never been more concerned about it. Data from Google Trends reveals that interest in the search term ‘safe’ has almost tripled since 2004. Not just safety but the feeling of safety trumps everything – which is why there’s an implicit hesitation in the ads about expecting one person to risk themselves for another. Yet all this somehow sits alongside an awareness that sometimes one person’s safety can only be secured at the risk of another’s. Maybe this is why we feel so strongly about firefighters and soldiers and police officers who make the ultimate sacrifice. Their willingness to lay aside their own safety seems more remarkable than it ever did before.

I wonder whether our 21st-century notions around safety are one of the cultural blindspots we bring to our reading of the Bible. I’ve been studying Ruth recently, and was struck by the vulnerability and risk implied in chapter two. We all know the story: Ruth seeks to scratch out a living in Bethlehem’s fields. But thinking about the theme of safety has made me look more closely. Ruth is a foreign, Moabite woman, with no male family member available to demand justice or make retribution should the worst happen. The narrative makes it clear that it could all go very wrong. And yet in God’s kindness, it doesn’t. She meets a man who sees her vulnerability and intervenes. Boaz uses his power to protect Ruth from harassment or embarrassment at the hands of the harvesters, and to provide for her needs.

Boaz, of course, is safe to intervene. He’s the man with the money and power. So while he’s something of a hero in the story, it’s Ruth’s courage that really comes into focus when you think about it. In going to the fields, she is risking her personal safety for her mother-in-law’s wellbeing. Ruth isn’t safe and she probably doesn’t feel safe, but that doesn’t stop her.

I’m left reflecting that both Ruth and Boaz point us to the God-man who didn’t only use His power to serve but actually laid it aside. Who saw us – who saw you – in our vulnerability and intervened when it certainly wasn’t safe to do so. The only one who can truly and eternally make us feel safe.