The Jog

Reflections

2012-01-12T14:11:00.001Z

Anish Kapoor Sky Light at Nottingham

Alan Smith & Peter Shaw provide some helpful advice about the importance of reflection in The Reflective Leader. They remind us that the "greatest sea changes that have come about in human history have been rooted in reflection".

They list six principles:

Record first impressions, thoughts and reflections systematically, particularly when we are new to a situation.
Reflect when things are going well. I suppose that we are not defensive at that point.
Prepare for times of reflection. We need as much data and information as possible (there's never too much information!) including comments and feedback from others.
Ask questions. Curiosity is essential for reflection.
Seek out those who are gifted at reflection, then nurture this gift in them, then tell others about them to encourage a culture of reflection.

Reflecting on the Bridgewater Canal near Warrington

Reflect regularly. It's hard work but gets easier with practice.

My response:

Go easy.
Shower longer.
Use feedback.
Use ripples.
Welcome surprise.
Be prepared to change - all the time.

And the award for the best .... is

2011-12-31T14:13:00.001Z

Now is the time of many retrospectives including Charlie Booker's Words of the Year 2011. I imagine the awards being announced. Best newcomer: "Merkozy", with the word trailing its expensive gown onto the stage to accept the award and thanking their producers, the euro crisis, and all those who have used the word. Word of the Year is, apparently, "OCCUPY". Many of us would agree with that, and with the accompanying nomination of Giles Fraser for the Twurch of England's Priest of the Year. Mercifully there is no award ceremony. Imagine trying to get Occupy off the stage.

Janine caters for all tastes at
Hollymere

We have our own Herbert Awards, which reflect a local viewpoint. Community of the Year is awarded to Hollymere for developing a community of care and promoting independent living for those who would otherwise be heavily dependant and cut off from others. Hollymere represents a new design for living for older people, with its own "high street" open to the wider community, community rooms, restaurant and gym. Designers, carers and residents should come to the stage together to receive this award.Our prize for Butcher of our world doesn't go to some toppled tyrant, but to our local butchers, Drury's, who bring life, custom, humour and service (as well as some quality fresh food) to our local parade of shops.

In the sports category, Andy Murray has provided many moments when it has been hard to tear ourselves away from the set (!). There is only one team ever up for nomination: Leicester City. This year the only prize they win is Most Disappointing.

Our Concert of the Year was Paul Simon at the Manchester Apollo, though Take That take it for Extravaganza of the Year. Earworm is a word that took my fancy this year, and although I have been introduced to some good new (to me) music, such as Noah and the Whale, John Martyn, P J Harvey, the Earworm Prize goes to Fleet Foxes' Helplessness Blues.

Nominations for Film of the Year are disappointingly few. Once again we failed to deliver on our intention to get out more, which for us means going to the cinema. Yet we have seen some outstanding films, including The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Inbetweeners, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Hugo and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. For us there wasn't anything to choose between them. We enjoyed them all, though not sure enjoyment is the word to use in relation to Kevin.

While everyone was watching Arab Springwatch, we had our own springwatch, which began with the discovery of a dunnock's nest in the back garden, and then a robin's nest in the bush at the front of the house. We kept an eye on the hatchlings and fledglings and felt personally responsible when they flew their nests (on the same day).

Theological Find of the Year is awarded to Paula Gooder for sharing her research findings that ancient Hebrew cosmology shows a longstanding theological enterprise to bring God down to earth, and to Ivan Illich and his conspiracy "theory".

Most Creative Moment was putting together a series of photos for Ginger's Day Out (in Llandudno) for children at Christ Church School, Ellesmere Port. There's a book inside everyone - or, so they say. I think I've found mine!

Blogging Moment of the Year was getting feedback from Vic Goddard, Headteacher of Passmores Academy, the school featured in Channel 4's Educating Essex for a post I wrote in response to that series.

There are joint winners of the prize for Most Helpful Intervention in my Thinking about Leadership. Heather Gold helped me to understand the importance of giving in her instructions how to be a tummler. Meg Wheatley is helping me to understand that we have to change our mind about leadership and organisation. Dee Hock led me to her, and also wrote of what he learned about organisation and leadership from the ground beneath his feet:

Billions upon billions of self-organising interactions are occurring second by second in the square yard of soil, each inter-connecing, relating, creating,and shaping self and others. Every particle is inseparable interacting and relating to others, and they still to others, unto the remote reaches of the universe and beyond - beyond knowing - but not beyond awareness, respect and love. The mystery of it all is overwhelmingly beautiful. Birth of the Chaordic Age. page 288.

Comedy of the Year goes to Rhod Gilbert for his routine about the tooth brush. There were many other contenders.

I am going to give my Mum the Lifetime Achievement Award. You have to be frail to qualify for lifetime achievement awards. She is now frail enough and now is more naturally retrospective. I have been surprised by some of the things she has got up to. For example, going into her city centre on her own at 3 in the morning to look for someone addicted to heroin on behalf of her worried parents (and finding her). She has also helped me understand that the delivery of a child isn't a once in a lifetime event, but a lifetime's work.

Gimme a man after midnight

2011-12-14T08:39:00.002Z

Gimme a man after midnight. Today we are given such a man as our liturgical calendar encourages us to celebrate and embrace the life of Saint John of the Cross. Through his writings he speaks to us of things we often deny and of which we are so frightened that we don't even go there. For Thomas Merton, St John of the Cross is the Father of all those whose prayer is an undefined isolation outside the boundary of "spirituality". His poem Dark Night of the Soul describes the purification of the senses and the spirit on the journey to union with God. The phrase dark night of the soul is used to describe the experience which many know by the name of Depression, in which all that has supported our lives loses its value and meaning, in which we aren't so much as letting go of things, as things have let go of us and we are left with barely so much as a thread to hold on to. His example is encouragement for us to not be frightened of chaos and the abyss.

Strange attractor from Michael Wassmer

Western culture has been frightened of chaos, and anything which isn't predictable and stable. We have preferred to think that people, information and change should all be managed and controlled. Even the dark night has been no dark night to us as we have controlled even that with our artificial light. I have been joining others in looking at chaos, and with them have been astounded by its order and beauty. Computers have helped us to model chaos's behaviour, which in real time is, of course, unpredictable and chaotic. But the computer models help us to see that its behaviour is orderly and within boundaries.
Gimme a man after midnight. The voice that speaks from the other side of chaos is a powerful voice. That is the voice of leadership, the future beckoning us. St John of the Cross lived through his dark night, and the voice of his experience of that night is a powerful voice. So is the voice of the likes of Nelson Mandela. So is the Word of God which only shines in darkness.
Gimme a man after midnight - one who has had the courage to embrace chaos, to hear its voices and not be afraid of its ambiguities and uncertainty, one who is able to speak from his experience of darkness. With him there is the promise of a new day with its possibilities and potential. Otherwise there is just the tiredness of the old day and our refusals to put our old certainties to bed.
Gimme a man after midnight. The voice of St John of the Cross is a companionable voice to all those who have lost themselves in that awful place of darkness which we call the Abyss or Chaos, and from which there seems no way out.

Clocking Hugo

2011-12-12T10:31:00.000Z

On the one hand there are clocks like this.

On the second hand there are clocks like this - click on it. It's worth it.

Clocks and clockmakers have featured as metaphors in theological understandings down the centuries. Hugo is a lovely film based on the book by Brian Selznick which gets the metaphor of the clock ticking again. 12 year old Hugo Cabret lives in the huge clock at the Gare du Nord in Paris. Clocks are the family business. His father was a clockmaker, his inebriated uncle is the clockkeeper at the Paris station.
Hugo is fascinated by the workings of the clock and how the parts all fit together. He knows that there are never any spare parts, so anything left over has to fit somewhere, and has a vital part to play in working the clock. (Flatpack furniture is packed along similar lines - it's a sign that the assembly has gone wrong if there is anything left over).
Not only does Hugo apply this principle to the art of clockmaking, he also applies it to people. Georges Méliès was a pioneering film maker who found his skills not wanted as technology moved on. His life disintegrated and Hugo helps put George's life together again - working like clockwork.
What if there are no spare parts? What if every part of our biodiversified universe has its part to play? What if nothing or no-one is redundant? While our human drives are shaped by the principles of the "survival of the fitting" our organisational thinking should be challenged by working out the role of the square peg, and not just the round peg for the round hole. Neither round pegs or square pegs are spare parts.There are no misfits. Even the orphan in his secret hideaway in the clock tower is no misfit, but has his vital part to play.

Landlords from hell

2011-12-07T16:07:00.001Z

The Nativity by Korean artist Woonbo Kim Ki-chang
raises question of "where was Jesus born?"

Coronation Street has a story line about the politics of casting for the local Nativity. (Hopefully Simon will get the role of the innkeeper). The innkeeper is always cast in a good light. He is the one who found room for Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem when everyone else was shouting "there isn't any room". For Mary and Joseph this innkeeper is the landlord from heaven. For us, he is one who found room for Jesus.
I suspect that many greet a roof and bed with a sigh of relief, particularly after long travels, or through being made homeless, or through economic migration. Mary and Joseph would be no exception. Often the shine soon rubs off as they realise that they are trapped by landlords from hell.
This week's Channel 4 documentary Landlords from Hell highlights the shameful conditions many people have to live with. Good housing seems essential for good mental health and physical wellbeing, and it is such a shame that those who are most vulnerable in our society, and have such little control over their living conditions, are subjected to really squalid shelter. I know how much I value my home and how important it is that it is comfortable, clean and reasonably orderly. That means that I have a place to relax and recover. That would seem to be a basic human right. The programme is part of a Channel 4 campaign to expose the Great British Property Scandal. Shelter's Chief Executive, Campbell Robb writes:

Every day at Shelter we see the devastating impact these landlords have on peoples' lives as families remain trapped in homes that cause misery, and, in some cases, put lives at risk. What's more, we believe thousands more families could suffer as changes in the Localism Act will see councils placing more vulnerable homeless households in private rented housing.

Beulah House Hotel featured in Landlords from Hell
(Beulah comes from a Hebrew verb meaning to own- ironic!)

Jon Snow was the presenter of the Channel 4 documentary. Before his career as a journalist Jon Snow worked for New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre for homeless young people in central London (with which he has remained involved since). At a time when we are so hacked off with journalists and the abuse of their power, Jon Snow's example is a refreshing reminder of what good journalism is and what good journalism can do to bring to the light of day those things hidden in darkness. He confronted some of the guilty landlords with the grim realities of his findings, and hopefully they will take steps to put things right. I hope they will do that without recriminations, though I fear for those whose landlord threatens his tenants with the baseball bat.

bedbug from hell (photo by liz.novack)

I wonder how good the landlord in Bethlehem actually was. We aren't told how much he charged for the room. We aren't told whether he moved another family in after Mary and Joseph had shown him the potential for letting the room out. And it did have a misleading Michelin star over the door. I suspect that it is more helpful to be shown the rooms in the Apollo Guest House and the Beulah House Hotel (featured in Landlords from Hell) as the place of our Saviour's birth. After all, they are the places for those for whom there is no room - bed bugs and all.

Football supporters

2011-11-30T08:18:00.001Z

The tragic death of Gary Speed, has, according to Peter Kay, Chief Executive of the Sporting Chance Clinic, prompted other footballers to become conscious of help they need to cope with the issues of footballers' lives. Kay says "Footballers suffer illness in exactly the same way as the rest of society. They can become more detached from the outside world because of the money they earn. They are as vulnerable as the next man. In the light of Gary Speed's terribly sad death I hope players who recognise they have a problem will put their hands up to ask for help".

The issues of footballers' lives was explored on White Lines with reference to an article on Nigel Reo-Coker's working week featured in Guardian Money. White Lines summarised the working week:

Monday: A “warm-down training session. You’d probably be out there on the pitch for and hour, an hour and a half.” This runs between 10.30 a.m. and 12 p.m., and is followed by lunch (“prepared by chefs”). After lunch, “the rest of the day is yours”. By 1 p.m., he’s gone.Tuesday: As for Monday.Wednesday: Day off.Thursday: As for Monday and Tuesday.Friday: A light training session, “an hour maximum”.

The drive to Castle Eden

So much time. So much money. So much possible isolation. When Roy Keane was looking for a house for his family in the north-east while he was manager of Sunderland, the Sunday Sun ran an article suggesting that Castle Eden would be worth looking at. One look at the drive shows that there's not much in the way of neighbours. The house looks the perfect fit for the Downton set, but Downton is anachronistic. The castle of former times would be home for a whole community. Now the castle has been nuked with the nuclear family being king of the castle in isolation from any supporting cast.

The idea that wealth is the cause of isolation is explored by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations and by Fitzgerald in the Great Gatsby. The gated communities of East Cheshire, home to many famous footballers, may be the envy of many, but they are gated communities (if they can be called "communities" defended against others, whether neighbour or prying reporter.

Castle Eden

We isolate our footballing celebrities on such dangerously high perches. Football supporters cheer them on for their performance. But that support is only for the team. The team members are only cheered for their part in the team's win. Then adrenalin buzz of turning it on for 40000 people must give such a high, but also be so scary with the knowledge that the winning streak has to end and the recognition of the risk of a slide down the divisions into oblivion.

What are we doing as football supporters? I would suggest that every sad footballing story (and there are so many) should encourage us to become footballer supporters recognising the complications of wealth, time and isolation. Many footballers and celebrities are able to take care of themselves, their time and their wealth. Many have set up charitable foundations, and many prepare themselves for careers beyond their playing days. But others are not so lucky.

Do you see me? Or are you just looking?

2011-11-25T07:35:00.001Z

We are drawing to the end of Prisons Week (Nov 20th-26th) - something organised to promote prayer for all those involved in the nation's prisons. The theme of the week this year is "Do you see me? Or are you just looking?". This draws attention to the fact that prisoners are constantly watched and under surveillance, they are rarely seen. It is indeed very difficult to "see" someone in prison. There is a real security rigmarole involved in visiting and visiting rights are severely limited (part of the punishment). But the most fundamental obstacle preventing the prisoner being seen is that in being locked up they are locked out of society.

Guard Tower & Walls of Robben Island

which locked Nelson Mandela out for

18 years but which didn't prevent him

from being brother through

walls of prejudice and hatred.

(photoby Joe Barbosa)

I have often invited prayer for prisoners (there are currently 87,652 men and women in UK prisons - a rise of 2424 from 12 months ago). I am usually met with the hostility of a few who insist we should be only praying for the victims of crime. They follow the sight line of the secular media: the prisoner should not be seen and his or her cry should not be echoed in our prayer.

This week, someone was telling me of her pre-ordination placement experience in a "category A" women's prison. She recalls her feelings of consternation after her first Communion in the chapel with a congregation of about eight when she was introduced to her table companions - including a much villified serial killer. This group of women have been seen by God. They have heard good news and a certain freedom even though they now they must be locked out of a society that wishes for them only to have bad news for a harsh and punishing sentence.

This is profoundly challenging because we share the same bread, and we drink from the same cup. We have been called companions (companions are friends who particularly share bread) and brothers and sisters. It is usually hard to imagine sitting at a table with people who aren't our friends but God's choice challenges these preconceptions. Instead we are challenged to see and recognise brothers, sisters and companions on the far side of dividing walls.

http://www.prisonfellowship.org.uk/prisons-week-2011.html

Jamie's Great Britain

2011-11-16T07:42:00.001Z

from Paddy's Marten Inn, Leicester

I was intrigued by ideas of hospitality and celebration whilst watching Jamie Oliver on Channel 4 last night. I was wearing my metaphorical priest's hat. Jamie gets everywhere on TV. The British public loves him for his energy and commitment. Last night's programme focused on my home city, Leicester. Jamie's comments began by highlighting the prospect of Leicester becoming the first UK city where the majority of the population is non-white. Jamie's glass is definitely half-full and last night's programme saw him at the asian veg stall on Leicester market and in the kitchen of Amita Mashru's Gujerati restaurant eager to celebrate what immigrant communities have brought to us and our cooking and to celebrate the British achievement of entertaining different food cultures, and the spices of our foods picked up from different corners of the world.

Hospitality and celebration are central functions of ministry and defines the people of God, including Jews, Muslims and Christians, and other faith communities. Trace Hathorn reminds us that hospitality defines the people of God. He writes:

Thecall to welcome the stranger is anchored in the Torah and was a part of themeasure of the Hebrew community's faithfulness to God. When a traveler came totown, they waited by the well, and it was incumbent upon the townspeople tohouse and feed the visitor for the night.Of course, these travelers were rarelyfamily. ... They were aliens, often foreigners, people who had different foods,different clothes, different languages, different gods. Opening one's home wasrisky. Today we'd describe such a thing as out and out foolish. ... Suchhospitality was central to the Hebrew identity. The risk did not define thepeople; their hospitality did, for they knew such hospitality was central tothe character of their God. The same was true in the early Christiancommunities. Paul reminded the Romans to offer hospitality to the alien, and inthe Letter to the Hebrews the people were reminded to show hospitality to allfor in so doing some entertained angels unaware. In Acts, the early deaconspracticed hospitality throughout the community, bringing welcome to those inneed. And in Matthew's community, hospitality still measured the faithfulnessof the people. Welcoming prophets, righteous ones and disciples (those whomMatthew called "little ones") was a disciplined practice of the youngchurches.

What seems to make Jamie such a good host and celebrant is his joie de vivre, the love of his subjects and his love of what people bring to the table. He seems convivial and congenial. Life tastes both bitter and sweet to Jamie's palate, but his joy in that concoction is infectious. Being entertained and fed by Jamie is intriguing and is challenging my own hospitality and how I play the role of host.

Treasure hunt

2011-11-08T20:16:00.001Z

At the table with Annie commented on the New Northerners' post Occupation of the Heart. Her word treasure glistened at me. I actually misread the word, presuming that there was more treasure there, and decided to dig for treasure in the word treasures. I am sure there are words I have missed, just as there is always more treasure to discover. I did discover that there weren't enough hissing snakes for STRESS.

Educating Essex

2011-11-04T09:29:00.000Z

Passmores School, Harlow - the scene for Educating Essex.
This photo from vincentballard

Well done Channel 4 for the Educating Essex series. (Though the Daily Wail has a rather different take on it).We have enjoyed seeing a vibrant learning community built round dedicated professional teachers: Mr Goddard as Head (he has blogged), Mr Drew as Deputy and Miss Conway as Head of Year 11 who seem dedicated to responding to the emotional needs of this group of adolescent teenagers. It was good to hear Mr Drew telling his Year 11 students "You have no idea how much I like teaching you, you have no idea." Passmores School, near Harlow, is an "outstanding school" according to Ofsted which has more than met its target of students' GCSE achievements.

Ryan, with Aspergers, is beautiful, and moved us (as well as his fellow students and headteacher) to tears with his impromptu speech on leaving day when he declared the two years spent in school as the happiest of his life, with the school becoming his family. Here the argument about whether Asperger's is "disease" or "syndrome" is settled in favour of syndrome - a difference rather than a disability to be cured.

Vinni's story is told with great senstivity. He is in care twenty miles from school, family and friends. He loses his bet that he will be at the end of year prom by failing to attend school for the last term and so forfeits his right to the prom ticket. He does turn up to see what he is missing. I guess a lot of people would have said "What are you doing here?" Not so Mr Goddard. He greets Vinni with "Great to see you. Sorry you're not here properly." Mr Goddard comments that Vinni is only a child - one let down by so many people - including himself.

On a day when the media had been discussing the depressing findings of ICM research published by Barnardo's, it was good to see youngsters managing to live and work in a community, and to see dedicated professional teachers flexible enough to work close to the emotional and educational needs of the students. That survey suggests that 44% adults agree that British children are becoming "feral", and that 47% say that the trouble with young people is that they are "angry, violent and abusive". Oh, the power of the Daily Wail/Fail as the hidden persuader of our perceptions.

I have often noticed the phrase that dates when there were better times. It is "thirty years ago", and 30 years ago has always been better than today. 30 years could be the measure of a generation, and a way of expressing our fear of the next generation and how they are going to be as members of "our" society. Steven Pinker observes that one of the effects of ageing is to be negatively judgemental about the next generation, and to be inclined to believe that the past (which is our generation) is always better than the present. In his book, The Better Angels of Nature he demonstrates that the (further) past was a far nastier place than we might have imagined and that the present is far nicer than we might have noticed.

Asperger's Syndrome Foundation

The adventure of tentin

2011-11-01T00:17:00.001Z

The occupations of Occupy London are, according to their website, "about social justice, real democracy and challenging the unsustainable financial system that punishes the many and privileges the few". But the juxtaposition of the protesters' camp and St Paul's is challenging those of us on the inside of the Church of England wearing the vest of vested interests.

The juxtaposition highlights the challenge that has faced Christians down the centuries. Juxtaposed is the soft and the hard, the fixed and the flimsy, the playfulness of the tent and the seriousness of established tradition, the movement and the institution. These contrasts are not new. Paul, to whom the Cathedral is dedicated, was, as Giles Fraser pointed out, a tent maker and missioner of no fixed abode. Tonight a friend who is beginning to explore the Christian faith emailed me her puzzlement that "God and religion don't seem to match". What has been happening in London seems to be another replay of this mismatch. (Is it either the grace of God, or prophetic imagination and energy that makes more of a match?)

Madeleine Bunting has written of the spatial aspect of the paradigm shift represented by the protest. For her, the protest is about "seeding questions in thousands of minds, shaking certainties and orthodoxies so that there is space for new alternatives." It is about "taking key symbolic public space ... to use it for conviviality, living, learning and participation." To me that sounds exciting, and something which Christians should be engaging with. In fact, it represents the very heart and aspiration of Christian practice. Conviviality, living, learning and participation are fundamental to the intention of Christian liturgy.

The British Jewish community seems to have responded to the protest positively. In the statement they have published today, they "welcome the movement’s openness, pluralism and commitment to imagining a more just world." Their statement includes a reminder that "the Jewish heritage includes a long tradition of reshaping society to help the least fortunate, from the teaching of prophets like Amos and Jeremiah, to Rabbi Hillel, to modern figures such as Abraham Joshua Heschel and Naomi Klein." The church shares the same Jewish heritage, but the juxtaposition and apparent conflict of tent and Cathedral suggests the ease with which an institution can forget its origin as a movement of liberation.

Preaching for a change

2011-10-16T08:21:00.000+01:00

Sermon for today - in which I have chosen to go with theappointed Old Testament text (Exodus 33:12-end) for preaching this morning. The OldTestament is often neglected in our thinking – but I hope you will see whytoday’s reading is important to us, and not only to us, but to all the peopleof God.

Jacob wrestling with angel by Rembandt

Can I remind you that thepeople of God were named Israel, by God after Jacob’s sleepless night of wrestling with the angel of God (or withGod)? After that match Jacob is called ISRAEL – and the name Israel means “onewho wrestles with God”, or “one who is straight, direct with God.”

Jacob wrestled with God.

The people of God wrestlewith him, struggle with him, and are straight and direct with him. This line ofthought suggests that we are not called to be mildly submissive to God, butthat God actually wants us to struggle with him, be direct with him, and begrown up with him. He wants us to get to grips with him.

This straightness anddirectness is reflected in the prayer of the People of God – which might aswell start with “I want to be straight with you God”, in a spirit of challenge. Our reading from Exodus showsMoses engaged in this sort of conversation which consists of challengingdemands.

We are told that “the Lordused to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” In our readingwe have the privilege of overhearing that conversation in which Moses isnegotiating with God.

We may take it for grantedthat God answers prayer – but in this passage we have the foundation of thatfaith which Scripture wants us to take for granted.

Black Moses

Speaking face to face, as onespeaks with a friend, God hears Moses’ prayer and answers it in the mostpositive way. He doesn’t just answer Moses’ prayer, but gives more than Mosesdares even to imagine – and it isintended that we get used to that, and take it for granted, so that we may toowith trust let God get to grips with us so that he can know our mind and whatis on our heart.

Thebackground to Moses’ demands is that God had told him that he wouldn’t go withthem to the Promised Land because he was so angry with the people for breakingthe agreement that they had.

"Go up to a land flowing with milk andhoney; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, foryou are a stiff-necked people." (Exodus 33:3).

Mosesinsists that God must accompany his people. He recognizes that the relationshipwith God is more important than the real estate of the Promised Land.

Theanswers to Moses’s prayer in these chapters of Exodus are outrageouslygenerous. He is prepared to start again and offers new tablets of commandmentsto replace the agreement and commandment that the people had broken.

Mosesand the Lord stood together on Mount Sinai – as friends so that Mosesunderstands just how God is going to fulfill his part of the bargain, hispromise to his people.

Thisis how God summarized the characteristics of his behavior with his peopleduring that conversation with Moses:

The Lord passed before him, andproclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow toanger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast lovefor the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parentsupon the children, and the children's children, to the third and fourthgeneration." (34:5-7).

Whilethere is mention of punishment the emphasis is on God’s forgiving love. Theguilty aren’t cleared, but the consequences of their guilt only reach to thethird and fourth generation, while steadfast love reaches to the thousandthgeneration – in other words – forever. This is how God is going to be forever:merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love andfaithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation.

We have to remember howdifferently God is promising to behave. He had been so angry with his people(and justly so, according to the text) – but now, in response to the demands of his people, he isgoing to be so slow to anger. In response to one of us humans, God changes hismind about his behaviour. In future his behaviour is going to be governed bysteadfast love and faithfulness.

In the section of the storywhich we read this morning we have the summary of God’s response to Moses. “Mypresence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

All of us can find rest inthe knowledge of the manner of God’s promised presence, particularly when thatpresence is governed by steadfast love and faithfulness. This is how God iswith us. We don’t need to worry that he is any different. We can trust in hisforgiving love. We don’t need to be afraid – the Lord is here, unconditionally.

Moses makes one request toGod that God does not agree to. Moseswants to see God face to face. God’s response: “You cannot see my face; for noone shall see my face and live.” (33:20)

Instead, we have a ratherpuzzling response.

“Thereis a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passesby I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my handuntil I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see myback.”

Seeing the back of God israther strange. Most people see this as “the WAKE of God” – just as we see theripples and waves in the wake of a boat, so we are given sight of the effectsof God’s love. Seeing the back of God is seeing where God is and has been.

So far, I have mentioned onlyhow God is governing his behaviour in covenant with his people. I haven’t mentionedwhat he promises to do. He said “before all your people I will perform marvels,such as not have been performed in all the earth or in any nation. (34:10).

Seeing the back of God isseeing the wake of marvels, seeing the work of God. And the work of God ismending the broken – the broken in this case, being the very heart of therelationship between God and his people.

Seeing the wake of God isseeing where God is going. Seeing the wake of God is being able to follow hiswork of mending. Seeing the wake of God is being able to follow him and joiningin his most marvellous work of remaking broken relationships, and SHALOM.

Even in this way, Godresponded to Moses request, but gave him, once again, more than he could everdream of. Which is better? To see God face to face, or to be able to followhim, in his wake, and love him for all his ways?

Replacing repairs

2011-10-14T09:41:00.000+01:00

Cobblers used to be in high demand

Oh dear. "The car's knackered, we're going to have to walk". That was the response of someone whose car had broken down near to us yesterday. He put a brave face on the diagnosis from the RAC man (diagnosis took ten seconds!). I would have at least kicked the tyres. We had our own breakdown the other week. Our two year old washing machine was going to cost £290 to repair - the exact cost of a new replacement. It seems that everything is getting very complicated, and it becomes increasingly difficult to see what's gone wrong. The problem with our washing machine was the electronic control board, as is the case with most broken equipment these days. Replacing is replacing repair. I used to be a regular visitor to the TV repair man with our Ferguson TX. Where is the TV repair man now?

One of the features of childhood evenings was watching my Mum darning holes in socks, referred to as "doing the mending". Is it a lost art? Have repairs been replaced? Repairs are easier when you can see how pipes and wires have come apart and how they can be re-paired.

This quote from Dag Hammarskjold captures the wonder of mending and repair.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.

Brokenness featured in conversation yesterday. Relationships are easily broken. Fortunately we get well used to re-pairing ourselves from our temporary separations and breaks. But occasionally, the hurt is profound and the damage irreparable, and the longer it persists the more difficult the repair becomes. It's as if the broken ligaments of the relationship wither till there is nothing to be re-paired. A stitch in time saves nine.

We may be able to forgive, but that may not be enough to re-pair. Surely a re-pair is impossible without something to throw a line to, something to hold on to - whether that be a word, a gesture, or understanding and remorse?

There's remorse, and then there's remorse!

A local headteacher was telling me about a small child in his school who had kicked one of the older children. "He showed no remorse" was the head's comment. That is a problem that child is going to have to overcome. If he doesn't become remorseful how can those he hurts ever forgive him. What a tragic life he has in front of him unless he can learn remorsefulness. Remorse is what we can get hold of when we want to forgive and be re-paired. Instead of reparation, remorselessness brings separation.

It may be that life is too complicated for us to see how it is broken. It may be that things have become a lot more reliable. It may be that in a blame culture we have to insist that we don't break, that we are reliable, and not liable. It may be that our business in a consumer culture has lost the hard work and deep satisfaction of repair. It may be that we can't see how we are broken.

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

2011-10-03T09:45:00.001+01:00

Having helped my son and his girlfriend into another new flat this weekend I have yet another new entry in my address book for him. It's nothing new - this is my third son, and each of them has managed to collect what seems to be dozens of postcodes. Back in 1971 Carole King (it's the 40th anniversary of the album "Tapestry) asked the question "doesn't anybody stay in one place any more?"- just at the point when I was beginning my own wanderings through university and my first three postcodes in Sheffield.

The expectation is that we will keep moving and that if we can't find work we will "get on our bikes" - or in the case of Ellesmere Port where I now live, "get on the canals" (there is an estate named after Wolverhampton that serves as a reminder of the migration from the West Midlands at the beginning of the 20th century). As we've gone on the pace of movement has increased - I find it strange, but laudable, to think of doctors and dentists serving the same community throughout their careers (often from the same room and chair).

Gerald Schlabach reflects on the Benedictine vow of stability - and recalls the wisdom of Scott Sanders in Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994). Sanders thinks that modern culture is wrong in implying that "the worst fate is to be trapped on a farm, in a village, in the sticks, in some dead-end job or unglamourous marriage or played-out game." "People who root themselves in places are likelier to know and care for those places than are people who root themselves in ideas."

When I visited a grieving family in a tiny farm labourer's cottage and heard that the lady who had died had never slept any where else, and that she had never travelled further than the market 20 miles away I did think that "this person has never lived". But maybe we spread ourselves too thin in a state that is not stable. She may not have gone far (how we love that phrase "you'll go far") but she may have lived deep.

Every picture tells a story

2011-09-30T23:44:00.000+01:00

D-day for dissertation - now done and dusted - and looking far better for being wordled. Are they words that ring true? Already I am wishing I told it straighter and more to the point. Or are they generative words?

Monument in honour of Paulo Freire, Esplanada dos Ministérios, Brazil

I came across this monument of Paulo Freire - with the writing on the wall. For Freire words were generative. "To speak a true word is to transform the world", whereas, if a word is deprived of its dimension of action ... the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating 'blah'". (Freire, 2000, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.87)

Surplus of meaning

2011-07-06T15:16:00.004+01:00

a work of art in the Cheshire countryside

It has been good to be involved in the development of an Arts & Faith Network (for the Diocese of Chester), and to be "breathing space" at Stephen Broadbent's studio yesterday with textile artists, stained glass artists, wordsmiths, dancers, painters, sculptors, actors, authors, poets, cooks, singers, preachers and "makers of pretty things". Until yesterday the Network hadn't been much more than an idea shared by a few people and it was difficult to put into words what it was about and what could happen. Now it has got legs, is on the road, and has its own story - "the day we met at Stephen and Lorraine's, when our exploration of the interaction of arts and faith was facilitated by Simon Marsh with background percussion of water overflowing into a pond....."

The (overflowing) River of Life
sculpture by Stephen Broadbent
at Warrington at the site of a terrorist bomb explosion
which killed two children.

There were so many good things, including a wonderful rendition of The Rose by Simon (spoken, not sung), and, we discovered a "surplus of meaning" as we joined our own creative endeavours to those of others. Surplus of meaning doesn't mean that there is too much - rather, there is so much. The meaning of our insulation block sculptures co-mingled with the meaning given to them by others, with meaning pinned to meaning. Of course, Ricoeur was right. There is a surplus meaning as one meaning gives itself to another, transforming itself in the giving. Nothing we can do, or create can provide an adequate container for our meaning. Meaning is so abundant it has to overflow. It overflows into convivial and meaningful community, good times, great company.

There are, though, those in whom there is no sense of meaning - including some in this emerging network who described the meaninglessness of past experiences. Is this where art and faith come together, making sense when we are oppressively or depressively crushed?

Simon Marsh and Sarah Anderson have both posted on the Arts and Faith launch.

Excuse the repetition

2011-06-22T07:53:00.002+01:00

SEAMS LIKE REPETITION
a photo of a baseball from thesussman

I can't remember where I saw it, but ... I can't remember where I saw it. It was a blog post reminding me that repetition is no bad thing, but, I am sorry that I can't remember where. My repeating myself may be boring.

But repetition may be of a totally different order. Repetition may be re-petition, signifying the return to a subject (any subject) petitioning them to be .... subject and agent. Repeating a subject is re-petitioning that subject for fresh meaning, or insight, or a bit more give. Young children often pester grandparents and parents to repeat the same story. They want to re-petition the story, re-questing the comfort, excitement, romance ...... Couples repeat the story of how they first met. Communities and families re-mind themselves of who they are by re-petitioning their past stories to yield something to re-store their memory and identity. I want to repeat reading some books (East of Eden, Wild), some films (Dogville), some music (always Paul Simon or Leonard Cohen) because I am confident that they will reveal new things for me.

But the repetitive strain of meaninglessness that saps our vitality I can well do without - or is there some special grace (or love) which allows people to cheerfully and tirelessly repeat the same routine and tasks time and time again?

Repetition is fundamental to prayer. Repetitive rhythms (the prayer wheel), rosaries, postures and words are all reminders of our re-petitioning. Some give themselves to re-petitioning God through one line prayers for their whole lives. The Jesus Prayer - "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" - is a one line prayer repeated over and over again. For some it is a life long re-petition. It is lifted from the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. According to the 19th century Russian spiritual writer, Theophan the Recluse, the prayer's repetition begins as something on the lips and external to us, travels inwards by focusing the mind till it becomes the heart of who we are.

I wonder. Does genuine and sincere re-petitioning result in us taking the person, the thing, the story to heart? Is that how we come to care so much that we can bear the repetition?

So beautiful .... so what

2011-06-20T21:40:00.000+01:00

Yesterday's Fathers' Day brought new sounds. Laura Marling's I speak because I can, and Paul Simon's latest album.

Paul Simon poses the interesting question about life. It can be "so beautiful", or it can be "so what". And that is the title of the album. Life is what you make it.

I'm just a rainbow in a bucket a coin dropped in a slot

I am an empty house on Weed Street

across the road from the vacant lot

You know life is what you make of it

so beautiful or so what.

Ain't it strange the way we're ignorant

how we seek out bad advice

how we jigger it and figure it

mistaking value for the price

and play a game with time and love

like a pair of rolling dice.

Elvis Costello has done a review at Huffington Post. It's all well worth a listen - with great surprises throughout, including Paul singing through excerpts from the Golden Gate Gospel Train recorded in 1938 on the beautiful Love and Blessings, and a sermon from Revd J M Gates (including call and response) from 1941 in Getting Ready for Christmas Day.

Thanks lads. Now for the concert.

Ah Bisto! Conspiracy Theories of Pentecost and Community

2011-06-10T12:44:00.002+01:00

People who breathe together, stay together. People who can smell one another create community. The person who holds his nose because he doesn't like the air that he is breathing is excluding himself from that community.

Ivan Illich reminds us of an old German saying: ich kann Dich gut reichen, "I can smell you well". It captures well an apect of openness we often miss. We have our eyes and ears open, but rarely do we talk about having our nose open. I can smell you well. For me that adds another sense to the story of the Good Samaritan. Did the victim in the ditch smell so badly that people could not tolerate his smell, and had to walk by on the other side, holding their nose against the stink. With nose open, the Good Samaritan had his arms free to manhandle the victim to safety and recovery.

There is a custom in Christian liturgy called the "kiss of peace", or osculum pacis - only recovered relatively recently in the Church of England. These days the kiss of peace isn't so much a kiss as a handshake - very British - but at least it's touching. Apparently in some places, until the 3rd century, the kiss was "mouth to mouth", and was a sharing and mingling of breath. John's story of Pentecost reminds us that Jesus breathed on his disciples, saying "receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). They smelt each other well. They shared their breath in con-spiracy. The church formed conspiratorially to be a conspiracy. Illich writes:

"Peace as the commingling of soil and water sounds cute to my ears; but peace as the result of conspiratio exacts a demanding, today almost unimaginable, intimacy."

16th century Pax Board from Budepest

The intimacy didn't last as some regarded the practise as scandalous. For example, Tertullian (in the third century) was rather worried about possible embarassment to "a decent matron". The practice got well watered down. By the 13th century, the Catholic Church had substituted a pax board which the congregation kissed instead of kissing one another!

"Don't imagine you can be friends with people you can't smell." That was the advice Illich was given. Friendships and communities develop amongst people who smell each other well, who can breathe in the air and the smell of their friends and neighbours, and who allow their own air and smell to be breathed by others. Friendships and communities are conspiracies - threatened in our de-odourised times of Lynx, Colgate and Ambi-pur where we struggle to smell anyone, or anything, well.

The playground cry "you stink, you stink" marks a cruel exclusion by those who won't smell a person well - it is often accompanied with the gesture of the nose being held or up-turned. The person excluded has to find their friends who are prepared to smell. Above every friendship, every community, every conspiracy, there is a nose.

Rhyl in Panorama

2011-06-07T07:57:00.001+01:00

photo from Postcard Farm

It was friend +Tim Ellis who made me aware that poverty has been exported from our cities to our coastlands. For Jeanette and myself, Rhyl is a "day out", refreshment and time for ourselves. We enjoy the wide spaces, and the walk from Rhyl to Prestatyn along the beach.

Jim Pickering outside
Rathbone's Rhyl Taste Academy

Panorama presented a very different picture of Rhyl. Apparently in West Rhyl nearly half of the people are unemployed and on benefits, and these are the people the Government has in its sites in its welfare to work programme. We followed Adam, Steve and a few others. Adam did work experience at Morrison's, which eventually resulted in his being all smiles over landing a job there for 18 hours a week. Steve described a hopeless situation of long term unemployment. It seems so sad that these people are "targets" and that they are seen as fraudulent malingerers. There are imaginative programmes aimed at helping some from welfare to work, including the work done by Rathbones in projects such as the Taste Academy and Rhyl Football Club "Strikers".

Rathbone is a UK-wide voluntary youth sector organisation providing opportunities for young people to transform their life-circumstances by re-engaging with learning, discovering their ability to succeed and achieving progression to further education, training and employment.

The dark underside of the Government programme though is that those who can work but who don't are going to be severely penalised (loss of benefit for three years). The little given now is going to be even less unless they accept the jobs they are offered - whether they like it or not. I don't know where the boundary between work and slavery is, but maybe we are getting pretty close. Fitness for work assessments sound fine, so long as they are fair. MIND - the mental health charity - claims there are many problems with them.

I feel like DWP want to send me back to a workplace where I don't have the skills necessary for coping. Whenever I deal with a government agency I feel pretty bad afterwards – it is like nobody takes me seriously and that because I don't have a physical disability, I am somehow a malingerer or scrounger. This is not the case. (from MIND)

Rhyl beach - on the North Wales coast

I am glad I have a job I am nearly fit for. I would not want a job that didn't fit.

For us Rhyl is a day out. We can afford to get there and we can afford to eat there (and we will be going to the Taste Academy). I'm afraid reduced incomes aren't going to buy any days out for the people of our coastlands. It is no wonder that there are drug and alcohol issues - drugs and alcohol bring opportunities of days out - (not of place, but of mind), away from the frustration, anger and hopelessness.

supervision

2011-05-25T08:46:00.001+01:00

Interesting discussion on supervision at yesterday's training session for those who are going to be "supervising ministers" for newly ordained clergy.

Peter Chantry offered insights from his experience as he looks forward to welcoming a new curate to his Nantwich parish. They safeguard space each week for a supervision session. One hour every Thursday morning. That is impressive. One of the impressive aspects of his presentation - besides his low-tech mind-map handout - was his emphasis on the quality of the relationship and the way that he is obviously facilitating a collaborative/community approach to formation. There is evidently a care-full building of trust for the relationship "centred on loyalty and commitment, characterised by gentleness and honesty, sharing humanity, respecting confidentiality, meeting & praying regularly." Good stuff.

It begged the question from friend Julian of what supervision is for. Or, what does successful supervision look like?

I wonder. We spend so much time talking about supervision, insisting that it is a good thing - but what is it for? Is it about "seeing things for ourselves", "seeing through things" (where there were blind spots), and "seeing things through" (sustainability)?

I have been reading John Hull's incredibly moving and honest account of the onset of his blindness, Touching the Rock. He refers to the "thousands of tiny accidental happenings" which led him along the path to blindness. According to Hull faith transforms such accidental happenings into the "signs of our destiny", by "retrovidence" rather than "providence".

He describes his stumbling on the altar at Iona Abbey during his stay there in 1986, through which he became a WBS a "whole-body-seer". Here he sees things for himself, sees through his blindness, and discovers how he can see things through. His seeing is full of feeling and emotion as he touches the rock.

Altar at Iona
photo by Calypso Orchid
"After several nights, I discovered the main altar. I had been told about this, and I easily recognised it from the description. It was a single block of marble. Finding one corner, I ran my fingers along the edge, only to find that I could not reach the other. I worked my way along the front and was amazed at its size. The front was carved with hard, cold letters. They stood out baldly, but I could not be bothered reading. The top was as smooth as silk, but how far back did it go? I stretched my arms out over it but could not reach the back. This was incredible. It must have a back somewhere. Pushing myself upon to it, my feet hanging out over the front, I could reach the back. I did this again and again, measuring it with my body, till at last I began to have some idea of its proportions. It was bigger than me and much older. There were several places on the polished surface which were marked with a long, rather irregular indentations, not cracks, but imperfections of some kind. Could it have been dropped? These marks felt like the result of impact. The contrast between the rough depressions and the huge polished areas was extra ordinary. Here was the work of people, grinding this thing, smoothing it to an almost greasy, slightly dusty finish which went slippery when I licked it. Here were these abrasions, something more primitive, the naked heart of the rock." (P 163).

As a post-script, he writes: "God is many and yet one, and in God there are many worlds yet one. God does not abolish darkness; God is the Lord of both light and darkness. If in God's light we see light, then in God's darkness we see darkness. If a journey into light is a journey into God, then a journey into darkness is a journey into God. That is why I go on journeying, not through, but into." (p165)

PS Simon Marsh has a different slant on this and has an interesting post on teaching the world to listen - with a video of profoundly deaf musician Dame Evelyn Glennie.

pointless disappointments

2011-05-15T12:00:00.001+01:00

historic marker for Camp Disappointment
(photo by Jimmy Emerson)

That is not the sort of review you would like to see on TripAdvisor if you were the owner of a campsite. There are many places called "Disappointment" - it must be hard for those who live in those places. "What's it like where you live?" "You mean disappointing?" "I thought so".

By a strange quirk of the Church of England, my most recent appointment meant that I was listed in the "resignations" rather than the "appointments" in our mailing. I presumed that this was therefore a "dis-appointment" rather than an appointment!

old Fresnel lens from the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse by Grace Fell

I have been struck recently by the high expectations we have of one another, and that appointments can often lead to disappointments. Once we are a disappointment to someone we are always then seen through that lens of disappointment, and our own self-perception can be coloured by that as well. When it comes to disappointment, it is often the solo leaders who are disappointed, and those they appoint who are disappointing. Belbin points this out. According to him (Team Roles at Work (2003) p98),

A solo leader "plays unlimited role" (and interferes), whereas the team leader chooses to "limit role" (and delegates).
A solo leader "strives for conformity", whereas a team leader "builds on diversity".
A solo leader "collects acolytes", whereas a team leader "seeks talent".
A solo leader "directs subordinates", whereas a team leader "develops colleagues".
A solo leader "projects objectives", whereas a team leader "creates mission".

Life is hard in the land of Disappointment. The only escape is into a a different world of team leadership.

Talking of disappointments, I just love Nilsson's "The Point" - a story about a round headed boy called Oblio, who lives in the Land of Point with his dog Arrow. Its moral - everything has a point, and nothing is pointless.

Integrity and teaching

2011-05-04T09:17:00.000+01:00

"A complex web of connections"
Organic Growth from the Internet Mapping Project
posted by jurveston

These lines from May Sarton indicate something of the integrity of the "good" minister, teacher or human being:

Now I become myself.

It's taken time, many years and places.

I have been dissolved and shaken,

worn other people's faces ... (the rest of the poem is here)

I have worn other people's faces because it's safe to be in the crowd. I have worn other people's faces but they have never fit. I have tried to be clever. I have tried to be funny. I have even tried to be effective. But these faces never fit. We live in a world where standards are imposed and where we are trained from the outside in to conform to certain standards. When Jesus breathed new life into his disciples (John 20:19-23) he seemed to be giving them a very different inside-out spiritual direction for their lives. Parker Palmer, who quotes the above lines from May Sarton, talks about the divided self and the undivided self. A self divided is a self dis-membered and lacking integrity. For Palmer "good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher." They "join self and subject and students in the fabric of life."

Palmer goes on to say that good teachers are "able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects, and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. ... The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts - meaning heart in its ancient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self."

When I reflect on the good teachers I have had I find that they are people who refused "other people's faces", who committed time to me and gave me their undivided attention. I also reflect that they have been a rather rare breed, but then I may not have been the right student to help great teaching happen with all the others I have known. The good teachers, though. have been more than enough - thank God.

never marry, but for love

2011-04-29T09:22:00.001+01:00

The Big Fat Gypsy Royal Wedding, Kate and William - weddings galore. But for me today, the privilege of being present at Dave and Shelley's wedding - a secular affair (and in the sight of a generous God) - at which I have been asked to read "Never marry but for love", by William Penn - a 17th century Quaker whose face is said to be the face of Quaker Oats. Like Kate Middleton, William Penn was from Reading (Twyford) - or as they say of Kate - "a village in Berkshire" (Bucklebury). Penn, himself, was one of the many missionaries who travelled to America - he founded Pennsylvania, and his experiment there was influential in the development of the American Constitution.

I have sat lightly to the Royal Wedding - and the media interest in it. I did catch sight of David Starkey's programme, Romance and the Royals - which did underline the importance of romance in marriage as something that has been influenced by royal marriages down the ages where feelings have been the basis of marriage (including lust) - cf various Henrys, Edwards and Georges - as opposed to royal weddings in many other countries, which have been about political alliances.

And congratulations and best wishes for all getting married today - Kate and William, Dave and Shelley - and Irish travellers, Mary and Paddy (married two weeks ago). Never marry but for love.

Never marry, but for love; but see that thou lovest what is lovely.
He that minds a body, but not a soul
has not the better part of that relationship,
and will consequently lack the noblest comfort of a married life.

Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love.
As love ought to bring them together,
so it is the best way to keep them well together.

A husband and wife that love one another
show their children that they should do so too.
Others visibly lose their authority in their families
by their contempt for one another,
and teach their children to be unnatural by their examples.

Let not joy lessen, but augment affection;
it being the basest of passions to like what we have not,
what we slight when we possess.

here it is we ought to search out our pleasure,
where the field is large and full of variety, and of an enduring nature;
sickness, poverty or disgrace being not able to shake it
because it is not under the moving influences of worldly contingencies.

Nothing can be more entire and without reserve;
nothing more zealous, affectionate and sincere;
nothing more contented than such a couple,
nor greater temporal felicity than to be one of them.

William Penn 1644-1718.

between concentration and diversity

2011-04-22T10:04:00.000+01:00

Lighting effects figure in the story of Jesus's crucifixion. The spotlight is turned on the cross - all else is darkness. Then the metaphorical curtain opens and the lights go up. It is not only the thief crucified with Jesus, or the Roman soldier who realise what a good day this Friday is. The curtain veiling God is ripped from top to bottom - a new act in history begins.

Funny how evil is an anagram of veil. Today, Good Friday, embraces the evils of what we are able to inflict on one another. Venom and spite concentrated on Jesus was returned with the full force of humanity. Blind passion gives way to a forgiving love which permits no final solution.

A very belated cut to a hedge came to a sudden stop with this discovery.

Then the following morning in this very suburban garden a resident hedgehog revealed itself. The garden is only two years old, and has developed from a wasteland of a former running track (so the builders reckon). So quickly we are teeming with wildlife in an area which was jokingly known for its radio-active streams.

In contrast, how monstrous it seems to fly in the face of such diversity. This photo shows the one-eyed stupidity of such concentrated evil who thought they could control destiny. It was in the concentration camps that Hitler was able to concentrate on absolute power, without the restraint of any other point of view. I came across this quote from Primo Levi, who wrote in If this is a man "Never has there existed a state that was really "totalitarian." ... Never has some form of reaction, a corrective of the total tyranny, been lacking, not even in the Third Reich or Stalin's Soviet Union: in both cases, public opinion, the magistrature, the foreign press, the churches, the feeling for justice and humanity that ten or twenty years of tyranny were not enough to eradicate, have to a greater or lesser extent acted as a brake. Only in the Lager [camp] was the restraint from below non-existent, and the power of these small satraps absolute."

Auschwitz II Entrance - known as Death Gate
photo by vm-ramos

Lazarus Sunday

2011-04-11T08:57:00.002+01:00

laughter of a 125 year old Israeli.
Source unknown.

Lazarus's laughter brought a challenge to yesterday's sermon. "Doesn't God only laugh at the wicked?" was my tight-lipped challenger's question.

According to the Lazarus's post-mortem report I had picked up from Eugene O'Neill's play, Lazarus LAUGHED. Lazarus had replied to his sisters' question about what life was like after death by saying that God's laughter resounded round heaven. Lazarus too in his post-mortem life could only laugh. That is how he came out of the tomb, with laughter welling up from his whole being.

I thought. Maybe God does laugh at the wicked (though I think he probably takes them more seriously than that), but I am sure he laughs along with the righteous (sorry, theological correction - those he has made righteous).

Two points intrigued me with the Lazarus's story.

Firstly - it's what's in a name. Lazarus isn't a name you hear much about - would his nickname be Laz-y (we often shorten names to the first syllable and then add a "y"). If we pronounce it Lazzy, his friends would be members of the Lazzy band. Lazarus means "God helps". He's from a village called Bethany. Bethany means "house of affliction". So the story of "Lazarus in Bethany" is the story of "God helps in the house of affliction".

Secondly, Lazarus stands for all of us. We can't establish Lazarus's cause of death for his post-mortem report from John's gospel (11:1-45). But we know what causes ours - pick any from poverty, abuse, disease, anger, anxiety. We all get bound up with these, with deadlines, with expectations of others. They all suck the life from us. When Jesus called "Lazarus, come out" he is calling us out of our bind, so that we can have post-mortem life. No longer bound by his ego, no longer with death on the horizon, Lazarus stands for all of us.

God helps Lazar/us in the house of affliction to laughter and life. When Lazarus laughs, he laughs with all who enjoy post-mortem life, whose date of death is not some time in the future, but a moment in the past.

I was struck by the beauty of this Lazarus blessing by Jan Richardson from her Painted Prayerbook.

understanding Samaritans

2011-03-27T23:17:00.001+01:00

Water of Life by Stephen Broadbent at Chester Cathedral
Photo by James Preston

Gordon McPhate, Dean of Chester Cathedral, preached this morning on the gospel for the day - the Samaritan woman - depicted in this sculpture. (The sermon is here from Curate's Corner). Gordon described how a social worker won the trust of a difficult London community in a situation where so many before him had failed. He moved into his flat on the estate, but had no tools. He went asking for help - to borrow saw, hammer, ladders, screwdriver etc, etc. And that was it. He presented himself as needing help.

Likewise Jesus presented himself to the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar - asking her for a drink. Jews and Samaritans despised each other - and men looked down on women. So this meeting of Jesus is remarkable. Jesus, a Jew, is asking a woman and Samaritan for a drink. Their relationship is captured perfectly by Stephen Broadbent. The woman is on top of Jesus. Jesus stands under the woman - and understands her to the extent that she is able to tell her friends "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did."

Our social worker friend is in similar posture - as the one asking for help - standing under his neighbours whom his predecessors had quite possibly looked down on. Was the under-standing the secret of his success - plus the fact that his neighbours felt under-stood and needed?

Elizabeth Day has written a moving article in today's Observer highlighting the predicament of those who are gay in Uganda by telling the stories of John Bosco and Florence Kizza. Their treatment has been abominable, not only in Uganda, but also by the immigration authorities in this country. They have been shown such little under-standing. The authorities have been tyrannical and overbearing - postures without understanding. We think we know so much till we stand under other life stories - and allow them to move us and shake us.

Nicodemus

2011-03-21T09:33:00.001Z

St Michael's, West Kirby by Arthur John Picton

Fun at West Kirby with Nicodemus as the focus for the gospel reading - he comes to Jesus by night (John 3:1-17). Is that to hide himself? Does it describe his "unknowing" - which Jesus exposes? Does it describe his anxiety?

Does John attach any significance to his name - which means "victory of the people" (as does "Nicholas/Nichola") with the passage ending with the words about Jesus's coming not being to condemn the world, but to save it - the victory of the people?

Nicodemus is a shadowy figure this early in John's gospel. He crops up again - John 7:45-51. Here he defends Jesus while still being very much part of the ruling council. He stands on his own when he says: "Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?" To which his fellow councillors react, replying: "Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you?"

By the time Nicodemus makes his third appearance - John 19:38-42 - he is no longer associated with the rulers, but does come with Joseph of Arimathea (who is a secret disciple because of his fear) to take Jesus's dead body to prepare it for burial.

I'd say that that was quite a journey John describes of the prestigious Nicodemus - from meeting Jesus in darkness, to being in two minds while keeping his old party membership - to his new identity of being with Jesus in his death and resurrection.

The Myrrhbearers from Fr Stephen's blog

Nicodemus is one of the myrrhbearers celebrated in the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers in the Orthodox tradition on the 3rd Sunday of Easter. He and Joseph wrapped Jesus' body with myrrh before burial. The other myrrhbearers - Mary Magdalene, Mary (wife of Cleopas), Joanna, Salome and Susanna - all brought myrrh to anoint Jesus's body after his burial.

A story that begins in night and ends with the new morning of resurrection is a telling way of explaining the possibility of being born again. It's a telling story for Lent - for Lent comes from the old English for "lengthening days". One day, "there will be no more night" (Revelation 22:5), but in the mean time we live in the restlessness, anxiety, secrecy of the night - for some a time of great fear and violence - as we see in this clip from Libya.

a thousand kisses deep

2011-03-15T10:06:00.000Z

For lovers of Leonard Cohen, a "thousand kisses deep" is an amazing poem/song (song is here) measuring the relationship between lovers. What if it was used as a different sort of measure? Our knowledge of one another is superficially assessed within twenty seconds. Apparently - and worryingly - we are only right 70% of the time. 70% may sound first class but for the 30% misjudged, denied jobs, shut out that statistic can be disastrous.

Us clergy, ministers, community developers and planners come and go. Sensibly we audit our place before forming opinions - but the data is skewed by preconceptions and historic artefacts of superficial excavation. What if we went a thousand kisses deep?

Down into the passions, convictions, emotions of successive generation and regeneration we would go. On our cheeks the hot breath of passion and the tears of betrayal. Lips caressing disconsolate children, the embrace of neighbours in the face of disaster, the kiss for a bereaved friend for whom there are no words. Seamly and unseemly: love denied and love made - our findings from a thousand kisses deep. Mining, owning, knowing.

Ricky Yates helpfully reminds us of the great store we set by outward appearance, and our use of image consultants. We remember Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet) in long-running TV comedy Keeping up Appearances. For her, attraction was but a surface veneer - with relationships barely a peck deep. But, as Ricky says, the Lord doesn't look on the outside, but on the inside (Mark 7:15) - a thousand kisses deep, at least!

lop-sided truth

2011-02-28T07:58:00.004Z

Channel 4's drama series, The Promise, proved to be a powerful expose of the human cost of the protracted conflict on Palestinian soil. I was glad of the insight into this tragic (and for me, little understood) history spanning the last hundred years. (How is it so easy to remain ignorant of such significant events?). The story is based on a diary written by Len and held by Erin, his grandaughter. Len is a former British soldier who served both at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and in Palestine, in the tense months before Israel declared itself a state in 1948 when the occupying British army was subject to a sustained and bloody terrorist campaign by Zionist groups. Besides portraying the cruel hard-heartedness of Jewish people trying to make room for themselves and the violent disruption to the loves and homes of the Palestinian people, the series brilliantly portrayed the plight of the professional soldier and his role at the complicated heart of conflict.

The size of the problem! Photo by Jim Forrest

In my enthusiasm for The Promise, I searched for reviews in the blogosphere - just to validate my enthusiasm. I found a review in the New Statesman, complete with outrageous and outraged comments. Comments include "inaccurate", "anti-semitic" and "one-sided". It made me wonder how The Promise (or any account) can be other than one-sided. Anyone who builds a bloody great wall - designed to prevent their neighbour seeing over - is destined to be victim of one-sided accounts of history. In conflict there is no middle ground. There is one side, or the other. There is no dis-passionate observer sitting on the fence with a view of both sides. There can be no balance.

There can, however, be peace process. Prophet (and Jew) Amos, centuries ago (a farmer from Tekoa - another Jewish settlement south of Bethlehem), proposed the "swords into ploughshares" policy - an early disarmament programme. "Swords" represent all the paraphernalia of war - its weaponry, its defences and its propaganda - upsetting the balance of truth and jeopardising peace for generations to come. Conflict creates its own insecurity and reverses common sense - requisitioning the economic tools for prosperity, to melt them down for the savagery of war. We can, even with our one-sided truth, work for this disarmament. Even me, writing this, has declared my one-sided hand in conflict against those who were outraged by the pro-Palestinian stance of The Promise. But I didn't see the series as an incendiary device lobbed over a great wall of conflict - but as an exercise to expose what is happening. Truth and plight can only be exposed one-sidedly. It is up to us to make it "sword" or "ploughshare".

ubuntu

2011-02-21T09:27:00.000Z

Desmond Tutu and the tradition of "ubuntu" reminds us that there is no such thing as a solitary individual. There is no translation of "ubuntu" into our own European language because "individualism" is so embedded in our culture. Bill Clinton describes "ubuntu" as "mystical", which I take to mean as "elusive". Ubuntu's principle is "I am because you are". "A person is a person through other persons. I need you to be "you" so that I can be "me". I want "you" to be all you can be because that is the only way I can be all I can be." If I dehumanise "you", I will be "myself" dehumanised. What an intriguing insight from African culture. Clinton responds to Desmond Tutu's insight by saying that "life is too short to waste time winning fleeting victories at other people's expense, and we now have to find ways to triumph together."

Yesterday I was called to help out in Christ the King, Birkenhead, and saw firsthand how a congregation is trying to be all that they can be so that the people of that inner city parish can be all that they can be. Yesterday, Shay was baptised. His life depends on those around him being all that they can be. He becomes a person through those other persons. Gornik writes that this sense of community is often forgotten: "It is this common life – how people care for one another, generate new patterns of relationship, and take seriously the call to serve their neighbours – that sets the church part, even more than its buildings, its programmes, its pastor or its preaching. The significance of the common life is often neglected in traditional and even contemporary discussions with the church – which great detriment. When people know they are deeply loved, cared for, accepted, and wanted by a community, they are transformed by the experience." (To Live in Peace. 2002. p74)

rigid rules

2011-02-14T11:25:00.004Z

It seems that for every crisis we try to create a series of rules to prevent the crisis recurring. Judges, teachers, doctors - all professionals - seem to be ruled by rules. Many are denied the satisfaction of doing the good they would do because the rule book forbids it.
The problem with rules is that we find ourselves on one side of the rule or the other. Either ruled in or ruled out. It is intensely frustrating to be unjustifiably ruled out. We need to learn a lesson from the tape measure. The tape measure is a rule that fits round things that are real.
Apparently Aristotle was impressed by the improvisation of the craftsmen that he was watching on the island of Lesbos. They were building rounded columns for which rigid rulers were useless. The craftsmen improvised with a ruler that bends – which we call a tape measure.
Aristotle talks a lot about wisdom. For him practical wisdom is the key to happiness. The wise person is like the improvising builders of Lesbos who knows that rules have to be bent and that we all need to deal with others flexibly.

And this is the nature of the equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. ... For when the thing is indefinite the rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts. [Aristotle, "Nicomachean Ethics"]

Schwartz and Sharpe have published a book on practical wisdom.They talk about the importance of character and virtue as an alternative response to the crises which we face. They recognise two great sources of hope. The first of those they refer to as "canny outlaws" who have the moral courage to find a way around the rules. The second of those they refer to as "system changers" who have the moral courage to transform the system. (You can hear Barry Schwartz's talk on this here).
John's Gospel (7:53-8:11) has the story of the woman caught in adultery. According to the rules she should have been stoned to death. The (foolish) lawyers brought the woman to Jesus for his condemnation. What does he do? He kneels down and draws a rule in the sand. The woman's accusers no longer know which side of the line they stand - wisdom had blurred their difference. Throughout the story Jesus is on the woman's side - the side of the accused. He had blown away their rules for the sake of the woman whose proposed punishment - in now way - fitted her "crime".

Mary Queen of Shops

2011-02-02T23:28:00.004Z

Mary Portas - Queen of Shops

Did anyone see this programme tonight on channel 4 - about Fonehouse? Very interesting in terms of servant leadership (I'm involved with a group of people looking at this at the moment). Mr H was typical blokey know-it-all franchisee of phone shop, who took some persuading to change his ways. His ways - was to be the expert behind the counter doing the big sell (he thought he was the "best") telling people what they wanted.  Mary Portas tries to make changes to the tecky blokey phone shops. She introduces comfort and social areas to the shops, has real phones out for people to try and talk to one another about. The salespeople were there "to be of help if there's anything ..." rather than the hard sell. The effect of the change was to empower the shopper, and to change the relationship of the sales staff, so that they were really "serving" - as servant leaders - listening instead of talking.  Did Mary Portas turn the tables?!  In the end Mr H was converted. It's going to be worth looking at whether other phone shops become person centred, rather than phone centred - and whether the staff really serve us - or themselves and their commission.  You get some idea of the changes here; with owner Clive writing about the changes to the shop at Angel.

lashings from the milk demon

2011-02-02T09:04:00.000Z

The Hideous Milk Demon

What do you do when things go wrong - when you get egg all over your face and mis-manage situations? I know what I do - I blame everyone in the search for a scapegoat - except myself. The Hideous Milk Demon (thank you Joseph O'Hughes for the picture) reminds us of the dangers of upset emotion. It is, after all, no good crying over spilt milk. And it's no good lashing out at those who left the milk out.

Upsetting emotion can spill all over others and bring unintended ruin as a consequence. It is far better to build a good and safe container that doesn't spill. That way we can look at ourselves, own up to the mistakes and, as friend Christopher counselled me, "do not be disheartened".

Friend, Simon Marsh, reminds us of the importance of positive psychology. Positive psychology underlines the importance of positive emotions to help us become more creative and flexible, as well as becoming more optimistic, resilient and "socially connected". Positive emotions loosen the hold of negative emotions, and according to research reported by Barbara Fredrickson, help us to live up to ten years longer.

Prayer helps the positive emotions. Like this prayer picked up from this morning's Daily Prayer:

Faithful God, let your word be the treasure of our hearts, that we may delight in your truth and walk in the glorious liberty of your Son Jesus Christ.

The spilt milk demon. I'll get over it.

Holocaust Memorial Day

2011-01-27T21:22:00.001Z

I have just been watching Nicholas Winton's story on Channel 5. What a remarkable man - saving 669 children from Prague and the Nazis in the months leading up the war. The link to the programme is here

I have already done a post about him. Apparently he is not much in favour of Holocaust Memorial Day, saying that we don't learn from the past - and that it is more important to develop ethics. He wants the world to be aware of other ethnic cleansings - interestingly they are included in this trailer of Untold Stories from the Holocaust Memorial Trust.

nobility and celebrity

2011-01-26T09:05:00.001Z

The Judgement of Solomon by Gaetano Gondolfi
(mid 1770's) reminds us of the wisdom by which Solomon
achieved his noble status. The story is told in I Kings. It
reads like a plotline from Eastenders!

I didn't know that "noble" literally means "known" - and so "nobility" is a community of persons who have become knowable because of the quality of their lives. Celebrity should similarly be the status of those whose lives are worth celebrating. Through the media (deserved?) we celebrate those who have achieved celebrity status through their ignobility - in spite of their lack of talent and human qualities.

Conversation with friends yesterday led us to reflect on Hitler who we saw as a good leader turned bad. A noble leader turned tyrannical monster. In that he is not alone. Michael Sadgrove, in considering the life of Solomon in Wisdom and Ministry, reflects on the processes and temptations for the noble of "grandiosity". We know that nobility and grandiosity often go together. It is wisdom that keeps them apart.

Sadgrove writes: "The temptation is to stand as tall as we can so that we fill the institution we lead. Yet Jesus says that true greatness means becoming like a little child. This suggests that true 'standing' means not filling the space ourselves but making room for others."

I shall reflect on how I have become known - how I may even be noble. I shall confess my ignoble sins of grandiosity. The ways of Hitler and Solomon lie open before us.

Dog nose

2011-01-23T09:01:00.001Z

With ears pricked and nose to the ground, dogs create a mental map which we can never know. Dee Hock asks the question: "how many ways of knowing are there which escape human perception?" His probing of organisation is spurred on by such considerations - together with the awareness that institutional failure will continue to escalate, and the prediction of social carnage and the development of even more dictatorial institutions in response to that carnage.

Organisations, organisers, institutions would benefit from following the dog's nose, in realising that there are many ways of knowing, that progress isn't along straight lines. Scratch beneath life's surface and we see a totally different reality which defies the truths of our mechanistic planning. We know in our heart of hearts that "life isn't that simple" and we become more intolerant of institutions and responses that pretend that it is. Hock writes (after he scratches the forest debris under his do's nose):

Billions upon billions of self-organising interactions are occurring second by second in the square yard of soil, each inter-connecing, relating, creating,and shaping self and others. Every particle is inseparable interacting and relating to others, and they still to others, unto the remote reaches of the universe and beyond - beyond knowing - but not beyond awareness, respect and love. The mystery of it all is overwhelmingly beautiful. Birth of the Chaordic Age. page 288.

ticklicious

2011-01-21T08:50:00.001Z

We took my disabled mother in law to see Ken Dodd at Parr Hall, Warrington a few weeks ago - thank you Warrington for the parking ticket. Ken Dodd is still wielding his tickling stick aged 83. On this occasion his concert ended at 1.00 in the morning - perhaps rather insensitive given the age and circumstances of his audience. He still has the ability to make people laugh - we should always give thanks for people who can make others laugh, even if, by now, the joke "have you ever had a tickle, missus" is wearing extremely thin.

His tickling stick reminds me of Dee Hock's maxim:

You can't tickle yourself. It's a social act.

So, who's tickling me today? I think it haas to be Hock's reflection on his efforts to develop a new sort of organisation (from the same page as his maxim - p284: Birth of the Chaordic Age):

In the darkest times, and there were many, I could never look out at so many wonderful people and engage with them in laughter and give and take without walking from the room filled with wonder at the human spirit. They could do anything! Anything! And so can everyone, everywhere, if our minds are open enough, and our spirits strong enough to conceive of institutions that enable us to do so.

I'm not giggly, but giddy with that. It's very ticklicious.

a story worth telling

2011-01-20T08:51:00.000Z

I was in tears re-reading Dee Hock's account of the efforts to create an international banking organisation now known as VISA. His own passionate commitment had helped to take the process so far, but then an impasse was reached when certain people were not felt to be operating contructively and openly. It looked like the effort was going to end in failure. At that point Hock reflected about what had helped "such a complex, diverse group over insurmountable obstacles". It was that "at critical moments, all participants had felt compelled to succeed. And at those same moments, all had been willing to compromise."

In the teeth of failure a plan was hatched. A fine jeweller was asked to create a set of cufflinks for each member of the organising committee. The cuff links were beautifully wrapped and presented to each person at a slap up meal on the final evening of the conference which had seemed to be heading for failure. Here's what Dee Hock said to them:

"We wanted to give you something that you could keep for the remainder of your life as a reminder of this day. On one half of the cuff link is half of the world surrounded with the Latin phrase 'Studium ad prosperandum' - the will to succeed. On the second cuff link is the other half of the world surrounded with 'Voluntas in conveniendum' - the grace to compromise. We meet tomorrow for the final time to disband the effort after an arduous two years. There is no possibility of agreement. As organising agent, we have one last request. Will you please wear your cufflinks to the meeting in the morning? When we part, each of us will take them with us as a reminder for the remainder of our lives that the world can never be united through us because we lack the will to succeed and the grace to compromise. But, if by some miracle, our differences dissolve before morning, this gift will remind us to the day we die that the world was united because we had the will to succeed and the grace to compromise." (page 247)

There was silence which was shattered by one member exclaiming "You miserable b.......!" at which the room dissolved in laughter. Members did arrive to the morning's meeting wearing their cufflinks. Within one hour agreement was reached on every issue - and a few months later the international organisation (which was to become VISA International) came into being.

chitter-chatter

2011-01-17T09:26:00.000Z

This diagram describes the ratio of noise to wisdom and the descending volume and value from noise to wisdom. According to Dee Hock "Noise becomes data when it transcends the purely sensual and has cognititve pattern.
Data becomes information when it can be related to other information in a way that adds meaning.
Information becomes knowledge when it is integrated with other information in a form useful for deciding, acting or composing new knowledge.
Knowledge becomes understanding when related to tother knowledge in a manner useful in conceiving, anticipating, evaluating and judging.
Understanding becomes wisdom when informed by purpose, ethics, principle, memory of the past, and projection into the future."

At one end of the spectrum, data is increasingly abundant, whereas wisdom (which is "holistic, subjective, spiritual, conceptual, creative") seems to becoming scarcer.

We watched Lark Rise to Candleford last night. Based on life in bygone Buckingham (Candleford) and Juniper Hill (Lark Rise) the series reflects a time when there seems to have been a far higher ratio of understanding and wisdom to data and information. Wise counsel seems to have been part of being in settled communities slowly facing up to change. The wisdom is captured in the winning entry to last night's poetry competition:

As I went on my way,

Gossamer threads span from bush to bush like barricades,

As I broke through one after another

I was taken by a childish fear

They are trying to bind and keep me here

But as I grew from girl to woman, I knew

The threads that bind me were more enduring than gossamer.

They were spun of kinship and love

Given so freely that it could never be taken away from me.

They were the days before the coming of the railway - a back story of Lark Rise. The coming of the railway meant increased communication, which meant more noise, which meant more data, which meant more information - and before we know it, we are too tired and overwhelmed to process it any further. Now we contemplate rail journeys of only two hours from London to Glasgow - though wisdom may have gone out the window.

I am in the process of exploring the world of Facebook and Twitter. I now have the knowhow - now I am looking for the understanding and the wisdom to discern how to use it. Though there is a lot of noise and chatter going on I think I can now see a point to Twitter - I travel slowly! So I have changed my profile to "Cascading Insight - a dealership in second hand views" - and I am thankful for the tweets of others which have pointed me in the direction of understanding and wisdom. I will not be tweeting about my moods, where I am, and what time I've gone to bed. That is definitely too much information and just adds to the volume of noise we haven't got a hope in hell of managing.

Listening and Leadership

2011-01-14T10:50:00.000Z

Spending the morning thinking what leadership is I came across some great definitions, including this from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester: leadership is "the process of influencing the behavior of other people toward group goals in a way that fully respects their freedom." I came to the conclusion that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders.
And then I listened to Tom Peters highlighting the importance of listening in leadership. He says: "The single most significant strategic strength an organisation can have is not a good strategic plan, but a commitment to strategic listening on the part of every member of the organisation." I suspect that most followers find leaders who don't listen overpowering and insensitive - and then they find someone else to follow.
To make his point he refers to the amount of data that doctors ignore because they only listen (according to his research) for 18 seconds before interrupting the patient - and suggests that that is true for 7 out of 8 "bosses".

I bean a-countin'

2011-01-12T08:35:00.001Z

I have been guilty of disparaging accountancy. (For example, see here). I know I am not alone! Ever since Monty Python we have suspected that accountants all need a humerus implant. But, not so. Leicester accountants, Mark J Rees, have their own accountantjokesite with jokes such as:

The doctor comes to see his heart transplant patient. "There is good news. It is very unusual but we have two donors to choose form for your new heart." The patient is pleased. He asks, "What were their jobs?" "One was a teacher and the other was an accountant."
"I'll take the accountant's heart," says the patient. "I want one that hasn't been used."

I've been reminded by Dee Hock this morning that accountancy is an old and honourable profession. In 'Birth of the Chaordic Age' Hock traces the phenomenon of accounting to the tribal storyteller whose role was to accurately portray "their tribe as it was, as it is, as it might become, and as it ought to be". Unfortunately, the primary language used for accounting for present day community is the language of mathematics and number. Consequently, the story is made up of measurements of what was, what is, and what might happen. The really important issues of what we ought to be is beyond the reach of accountancy speaking only the language of numbers.

Hock quotes H. Thomas Johnson, an economic historian, CPA, and former president of the Academy of Accounting Historians:

"The language of financial accounting merely asserts answers, it does not invite inquiry. In particular it leaves unchallenged the worldview that underlies the way organisations operate. Thus, management accounting has serbved as a barrier to genuine organisational learning... Never again should management accounting be seen as a tool to drive people with measures. Its purpose must be to promote inquiry into the relationships, patterns and processes that give rise to accounting measures."

Sorry accountants.

Ringing bells with our wishing wells

2011-01-07T09:44:00.002Z

World Peace Bell - Newport, Kentucky

Dan Clenendin highlights in his post, the outrage of outsiders, repeats depressing research findings from America (Kinnaman 2007) showing how 16-29 year olds regard the church. Here are the percentages of people outside the church who think that the following words describe present-day Christianity:

antihomosexual 91%, judgmental 87%, hypocritical 85%, old-fashioned 78%, too political 75%, out of touch with reality 72%, insensitive to others 70%, boring 68%.

It would be hard to overestimate, says Kinnaman, "how firmly people reject — and feel rejected by — Christians" (19). Or think about it this way, he suggests: "When you introduce yourself as a Christian to a friend, neighbor, or business associate who is an outsider, you might as well have it tattooed on your arm: antihomosexual, gay-hater, homophobic. I doubt you think of yourself in these terms, but that's what outsiders think of you" (93). This is a far cry from the reception of the first believers, who, according to Luke, "enjoyed the favour of all the people" (Luke 2:47). The church's message isn't ringing the right bells for generations of our people.

I wonder if we have forgotten to love our neighbour - that person who lives the other side of the fence with a different lifestyle and set of beliefs. In a fearful culture neighbours are suspect until they prove themselves otherwise by "coming round" to our way of thinking. The first believers lived a different culture, being sent out to neighbours with the simplest of messages "peace to this house: peace to you" and with a love that was to overcome all sorts of barriers and offences. I wonder if we could ring more bells with more resounding wishing wells to those who now see themselves the other side of the wall - and the wrong side of-fence.

Twelfth Night Tense

2011-01-05T09:04:00.000Z

Twelfth Night brings the Christmas tree, decorations and cards down, and the world seems to breathe a sigh of relief as life gets back to normal. But let's not be too hasty about dis-carding Christmas. Christmas isn't just for retailers. Christmas is a revelation of our darkness, the depth of winter and the coldness of our hearts. Christmas presents us with guiding light, the promise of peace to thaw our bitterness and hearts that jump from fear to joy.

One last look at the Christmas tree celebrates an evergreen love of the three tenses captured by Dickens in the Christmas Carol. The light of God shone in the darkness (Genesis 1:3) long before there were sun, stars and moon. The light shone and shines in the darkness as our Lord is come. And before too long - just when the time is right - there will be no more darkness or night (Rev. 22:5).

Borg & Crossan, in their book, First Christmas, project a political context for the first Christmas. The darkness was the tyranny of empire with the background being "the day the Romans came" raping and killing in the villages around Sepphoris, including Nazareth. The light has not overcome the darkness. Borg and Crossan rightly point out that empire still exercises its dark powers "to shape the world as the empire sees fit", achieving peace through war, violence, injustice and oppression. Christmas has its future in shalom - peace through justice, love - and US, because in the words of Augustine: "God without us will not; we without God cannot."

Here is what Borg and Crossan write as they imagine Mary taking Jesus to the top of the Nazareth ridge:

"We knew they were coming", Mary said, "but your father had not come home. So we waited after the others were gone. Then we heard the nose, and the earth trembled a little. We did too, but your father had still not come home. Finally we saw the dust and we had to flee, but your father never came home. I brought you up here today so you will always remember the day we lost him and what little else we had. We lived, yes, but with these questions. Why did God not defend those who defended God? Where was God that day the Romans came?" (p.78)

Blackbirds and Hock

2011-01-04T08:41:00.001Z

I am back with Dee Hock this month as I reread his book 'Birth of the Chaordic Age'. What a treat that is for me. Dee Hock has spent his life considering these important questions:

Why are organisations, everywhere, whether political, commercial, or social, increasingly unable to manage their affairs?
Why are individuals, everywhere, increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organisations of which they are part?
Why are society and the biosphere increasingly in disarray?

He contrasts the ways of nature with the ways of institutions. He describes his own childhood discovery of the lack of generosity and respect within institutions by telling the story of a disastrous event in church in which he was scapegoated for the spilling of the communion (and he was not guilty!) He writes:

What is this chasm between how institutions profess to function and how they actually do; between what they claim to do for people and what they actually do to them? What makes people behave in the name of institutions in ways they would never behave in their own name? Church, school, government, business - all the same.... Nothing in nature feels like church or school. There's no 'principal' blackbird pecking away at the rest of the flock. There's no Super frog telling the others how to croak. There's no teacher tree lining up the saplings and telling them how to grow....

Nothing in the early years prepared me for the shock of institutions. With school and church came crushing confinement and unrelenting boredom ... It was as though everyone began to shed wholeness and humanity at the door, along with coats and overshoes, and, one by one, to cut the threads of connection to the inner spirit, the world of nature and the humanity of others.

Hock's response was the creation of VISA for which he is renowned and from which he turned to work on land savaged by over-cropping from a culture of command and control. He translates his learning from nature into his thinking about organisation, and the "birth of the chaordic age".

Tyranny is tyranny no matter how petty, how well rationalised, how unconscious, or how well intended. It is that to which we have persuaded ourselves for centuries, in thousands of subtle ways, day after day, month after month, year after year. It need not be so, ever. It need not be so now. It cannot be for ever. (p24)

Tyranny's culture is reversed, nature is respected and chaordic organisation is celebrated as Hock reports that "soil is building as thousands of gophers, mice and moles work assiduously carrying grass underground and dirt to the surface. Beneath us, billions of worms, ants, beetles, and other creatures till the soil round the clock. Trillions of microscopic creatures live, eat, excrete and die beneath my feet, fulfilling their destiny and mine as well, just as surely I fulfil theirs." (p21)

Christmas Penguins

2010-12-27T10:03:00.000Z

The penguin escalator has come round again. 27 years after our oldest son was so fascinated by it that we had to dash out on Christmas Eve to buy it as a present. This year Oliver is presented one by his partner. It is such a happy toy. Is that because of our memories of family Christmases? Is it because it reminds us of our childhood dash to get back up to the top of the slide? Is it that the penguins make fun out of life's constant round? Or do we just like penguins?

Meaning what ...

2010-12-14T16:14:00.000Z

In translation (thank you Guardian 1999 - and for Michael Carroll for pointing it out)

"exceptionally well qualified" means "has made no major blunders yet.
"active socially" means "drinks a lot"
"quick thinking" means "offers plausible excuses"
"exceptionally good judgement" means "lucky"
"loyal" means "can't get a job anywhere"
"work is first priority" means "too ugly to get a date"
"has leadership qualities" means "is tall or has a loud voice"

In our diocese we have three bishops none of whom speak loudly but they do tend to look down on us - only because they are tall (he hastens to add). We look up to them.

Kum II Sung pictured here stood tall as a leader in North Korea - but not as tall as Robert Wadlow at 8 feet 11 inches!

'andicapp-ed

2010-12-10T09:07:00.007Z

I was intrigued by a throwaway line at a recent training session when Gail Robinson (our Lay Chaplain for Deaf and Disabled People) explained the origin of the word "handicap". It dates back to the time before welfare when they would have to beg cap-in-hand. The plight of the "handicapped" has been politically corrected over the years as we have responded to the demands of people with disabilities to be recognised as people with particular challenges which need not be totally disabling.

Photo of Andy by Stan Laundon

Andy Capp is a famous cartoon character whose name is a deliberate pun on the word "handicap" (please imagine a North-East Hartlepool accent). The creation of Reg Smythe, Andy Capp was always the (very politically incorrect) cartoon I turned to in the Mirror when growing up. Andy never had a job and his life seems hopeless and hapless. Rather than rejecting the caricature of people surviving on benefits and those who have to go cap in hand to anyone who might buy them a pint, the people of Hartlepool have taken Andy to heart by celebrating him as a hero for those who can't (or won't) work - or aren't and don't fit. His place in society is cemented by the statue in Hartlepool - pictured above. There's more information from Stan Laundon here.

Political correction still has a way to go. Access issues remain. But many people are becoming more aware of their own situation of having a place on the different spectra - for example, autism, asperges, obsessive compulsive disorder and dyslexia. We are now able to diagnose different learning problems (and, as often as not, their compensating abilities), appreciate different personality types and celebrate different intelligences. But in a training room focusing on diversity and disability it is still the tendency to look outside the room towards disabled people, instead of recognising the different (dis)abilities within the group as various people showed themselves differently gifted at sign language, and not so cap-able when it came to coping with IT.

It was distressing to hear the apparent exclusion of people with learning difficulties from our churches and how stones often seem to matter more than people when churches are trying to improve access. But it was good to hear about the Causeway Prospects and other initiatives to include people who find it difficult to express themselves.

Henri Nouwen reflecting on his experience of ministry (back in '89 when the word "handicapped" was still being politically corrected) within L'Arche writes in The Road to Daybreak:

‘Handicapped people are not only poor, they reveal to us our own poverty. Their primal cry is an anguished cry: ”Do you love me?” And “Why have you forsaken me?” We hear this cry everywhere in our world: Jews, blacks, Palestinians, refugees and many others all cry out, “Why is there no place for us, why are we pushed away, why are we rejected?”.

2010-12-02T09:38:00.000Z

It has taken a Volf (a Miroslav) to remind me that I am a Fox living amongst Wolves. Leicester City FC shirts are a rarity in Ellesmere Port. Not so Wolves shirts. Ellesmere Port is the place where many people travelled from Wolverhampton and the west Midlands - walking along the Shroppy Canal - to find work in Jones's Ironworks. Wolverham is an estate which marks that geographical link. Ellesmere Port the birthplace of Stan Cullis, player and manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers during their glory years. He was an England international until he refused to give the Nazi salute when England played Germany in 1938. As manager in 1949, he led the Wolves to an FA Cup win over, of all teams, the Foxes!

In Against the Tide Volf reminds his readers that "more Christians have been martyred in the 20th century than in the previous centuries combined". He refers to the unambiguity of Jesus sending out his disciples min Matthew's gospel. "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves ..." Suffering, persecution and martyrdom are to be the rule rather than the exception for the Christian following the one who gave his life for the sake of others. Suffering, according to Martin Luther, is a mark of the true church. Volf writes:

For the disciples just like for Jesus, there is no uncontested space, no exit from the struggle, and therefore no way to avoid suffering.

But life doesn't seem like that. Living is easy. It's an easy life being a fox living amongst wolves. Have I forgotten to be a sheep - following the Good Shepherd? Maybe. I'd rather be a sheep in fox's clothing than a fox in sheep's clothing. I could still be cunning as a fox - after all Jesus did say "I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent of doves." The cunning of the fox, and the wisdom of the serpent both stretch the imagination -as we try to overcome evil with good.

h.r.l. - his royal lowliness

2010-11-29T08:13:00.000Z

this stone marks the lowest point on earth

Jesus starts at the bottom - and stays there.

Ten days ago we were rounding off the church's year by celebrating Christ the King - it has to remain a private awards ceremony because so many in the world choose to disagree - and Jesus would never impose himself. He's King only to those who want him as such. Humility is his middle name.

We start the new year with clues that it is not "Highness" to describe his position, but low(li)ness. It is his royal lowliness (no capitals please) that according to the Advent hymn O come, o come Emmanuel "from depths of hell thy people save". Jesus's ministry begins at the lowest point on the surface of the earth - in the River Jordan. His life proceeds along the same low level of altitude - the wrong side of the fault line - to his death on the cross.

Jude Simpson has a wonderful Advent Reflection called Broken Open which takes us along this low line. She traces Jesus's movements through the lowest points of people's lives.

between hope and optimism

2010-11-28T12:36:00.001Z

Between optimism and hope there is a huge credibility gap. Optimism can be foolish or a realistic prediction based on evidence. Is life getting any better? There are grounds for both optimism and pessimism depending on your point of view - but a well rounded maturity would find it difficult to call one way or another because the evidence is so complex. The folly of liberal optimism shows itself in the advent of Holocaust and economic meltdown. The only ground for optimism seems to be forgetfulness - when we forget our history and our nature: or arrogance, when we think of ourselves superior to either.

Optimism trusts human progress. The opposite of optimism isn't pessimism but hope. Miroslav Volf (in Against the Tide: love in a time of petty dreams and persisting enmities) reminds his readers of Moltmann's wonderful work on helping us to think about "hope". Moltmann distinguished between two ways in which the future is related to us. There are two Latin words for "future" - futurum and adventus. "Future in the sense of futurum developes out of the past and present inasmuch as these hold within themselves the potentiality of becoming and are "pregnant with future"." But future, expressed as adventus is the future "that comes not form the realm of what is or what was, but from the realm of what is not yet, from outside, from God."

Advent is about the future that bursts in on our darkness. There is nothing in the data of our existence that gives us grounds for optimism. It is just faith. There is no optimism in W H Auden's Christmas Oratorio "For the Time Being". There is no sense of "what shall we get for Christmas?" that we have to endure in the commercialised Christmas. How could there be? Auden was writing in the 40's where the overwhelming "grinning evidence" is that the "Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss". There is only one option left for us "who must die". Auden writes:

We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
the Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die, demand a miracle.

And Volf writes:

"Every year in the Advent season we read the prophet Isaiah: "The people who wlaked in darkness haveseen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness - on them light has shined." (Isaiah 9:2) This is what Christmas is all about - something radically new that cannot be gernerated out of the conditions of this world. It does not emerge. It comes.... God promises it"

The Kingdom

2010-11-25T08:30:00.001Z

I have listened to two sermons from +Robert Atwell in two days. Today I get a day off!The first sermon was at the induction of friend Kathy Kirby as Vicar of St Paul's Macclesfield. Kathy is a special person who is immensely generous in her appreciation of others. She will offer a very special ministry of affirmation and encouragement. The second sermon was to our Committee for Ministry in which he quoted "the Kingdom" by R.S.Thomas:

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.
R.S. Thomas, Collected Poems 1945-1990

I am playing round with ideas on supervision at the moment. Where many minds are bent on specifying, my mind is bent on generalising. I am told that if supervision becomes too general it loses its meaning. I counter that if supervision is too specific it doesn't mean so much. If the kingdom is "mirrors in which the blind look at themselves and love looks at them back" I dare the word to bear such meaning and defy those who say I go too far.

Supervision and oversight

2010-11-24T19:09:00.001Z

It's hard to believe the stories of people who have been told by their supervisor that they haven't time for supervision.

Friend John Lees led a training session on supervision and collaborative ministry for clergy who will be moving on to posts of responsibility in the next few months. He invited us to think of the different supervisory roles people may ask us to take on. In our own words these roles included acting as advocate, mediator, valuer, confessor, coach etc etc. This has got me to thinking that supervision actually happens formally and informally. By formal supervision I mean the intentional setting aside of space for supervision (that's the space that often gets crowded out by business). When we ask for feedback, support, directions are we not also asking for supervision, but without requiring the creation of an intentional space? To my mind we are at that moment asking for someone to watch over us, to look after us and to help us to a superiorvision.

I worry that "supervision" has become a word made precious by those who would like to see themselves as supervisors. I wonder whether supervision thereby becomes something that is exclusive to the few - depending on scarce resources. I wonder whether supervision isn't something that all of us need - but in very different guises. Vigilance and watching out for one another alerts us to the needs of others - when they need encouragement, assurance and challenge. The requests aren't always verbalised. Jesus tells the story of the victim of violence lying at the side of the road. He remarks on the neglectful carelessness of those who passed him by. He highlights the response of the Good Samaritan who looked after the wounded victim and watched over his recovery.

Supervision belongs to the whole people of God. It is in fact a gift of God for his people which gives us confidence in prayer. The Lord who watches over us will neither slumber nor sleep (Ps 121). Therefore, we need to avoid the exclusive practice of supervision to make room for both the informal and formal requests that come our way (the way of all humans) - and we all need to have the confidence to ask for the help we need to get a better sight of our lives. We are all vulnerable. I fear that if we don't make room for both the formal and informal aspects of supervision we will continually overlook the victims of our peripheral vision. I wonder whether the priest and the levite who passed by the wounded victim of Jesus's story said - "sorry, that was an oversight". It's strange that "oversight" has two such opposite meanings.

Post-Phone (get it?)

2010-11-19T09:42:00.001Z

I rarely get letters now - apart from leaflets from the local pizzerias. There are days when the phone does not ring. Communication has changed very significantly and rapidly. We have moved from beacon to drum to messenger to post to phone to fax to email to facebook to .... We have moved from moorland track to canals to railtrack to the road to the by-pass to Runway 5. Our horizons have shifted from village to town to Spanish Costas to antipodean holidays and now interplanetary travel plans.

My own journey is from a 35 year ministry in parishes where my business was "to know and be known" to living more anonymously on a housing estate. I have been discovering what most people have long known. That is, that communication is minimal in neighbourhoods. We talk amiably as neighbours - though we don't see much of one another because working hours are very different. Others are just "passers by". When we go to the local shops (thank goodness we've got some) we pass by one another without recognising one another and realising that the common ground that we share.

Fortunately new communities are being constructed all the time. These are often communities of our own making - virtual communities which offer conviviality and new possibilities for relationship. Unfortunately we feel safer in our Facebook communities than we do in our own street (even though the stats say that crime is lower than it has been for years).

Good Samaritan window at Tarvin Church

Passers-by don't get a good press in the gospels. The Good Samaritan was the exception to the general rule of passers-by when he went out of his way to help the victim. Peter Shaw, in Conversation Matters, reports on a discussion with Veronica who told him about the short conversations she had (she is a flight attendant). She explained that they were all trained to be cheerful, and to look people in the eye and smile. She was full of stories about conversations she had with footballing stars and leading politicians making the point that what mattered was not who they were, but the way they were. What sort of tone did they adopt? Did they smile? Were they cheerful? Did they say 'thank you'?

I suppose these sort of short conversations prevent us from being just passers-by of one another. A "thank you" shows we appreciate the other person. A "good morning" shows we've noticed. A "how are you" shows we care. Words get over our boundaries. Maybe communities are only built brick by brick and word by word.

Equal in the sight of God

2010-11-15T09:35:00.001Z

I have been following Riazat Butt's pilgrimage to Mecca. It sounds a wonderful experience - millions of people moving together in worship of God. One of the principles of Haj, and one of the beauties of Islam is the practice of equality - we are all equal in the eyes of God. In prayer Muslims stand shoulder to shoulder. (No fancy hats, private pews or deferential behaviour!) However, it seems that it is hard to keep differences out of even the Haj, as this clip shows.

The Christian practice of hospitality is also inspired by the insight that the poor are and have a particular blessing. It is the rich who go empty away from God. It is the poor who are raised up. God can even swim against the tide of world power, even if we find it impossible to resist.

Chaplaincy

2010-11-11T09:45:00.001Z

Poppies painted by Pam Kelly

Today is a day to remember.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

We will remember them.

Also it is the day we celebrate St Martin of Tours - patron saint of France. Martin was a soldier who changed sides. He was a Roman soldier who became a "soldier of Christ" whereupon he declared, "I cannot fight".

Martin is famous for having halved his cloak to share it with a beggar. The cloak became an important relic which was specially cared by a priest in its reliquary. Wikipedia tells us that this priest was called "acappellanu" and "ultimately all priests who served the military were called cappellani. The French translation is chapelains, from which the English word chaplain is derived."

St Martin and the Beggar by El Greco

This gives a fascinating insight into Christian ministry with "chaplaincy" grounded in this act of love - the sharing of the cloak. There is a further twist to the story in that Martin discovered his cloak restored when he woke one morning. Love defies the accountant and moves us into a world of magic and mystery. How can one cloak become one and a half cloaks, or even two cloaks? (Because I bet it wasn't only Martin who was so blessed). Jesus defies accountancy logic when he declares that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life me will find it" (Matt 16:25). This mystery means that those who are determined to give of themselves don't need to count the cost.

Those who give their life for their friends have a love which is supreme. There is no greater love than this - and there is no waste in such love. Simon Marsh has a wonderful story on his blog about the war veteran being greeted by a grandchild from one of the villages he helped to liberate. Such stories highlight the life-giving commitment of people who share Martin's vocation as soldiers and chaplains. But Martin's declaration sounds a warning at a time when we tend to avoid the hard questions of war - when life is wasted and brutalised. "I am a soldier of Christ. I will not fight."

The joy of work

2010-11-10T10:47:00.001Z

We are living in the middle of a building site - I have been intrigued by the teamwork of the builders, their methods and their planning. Every now and then the radio gets turned up. Like this morning, when they launched into Roy Orbison's song "You got it". It must be so rewarding to be building homes for others - and to be doing that under blue skies. It looks like good project management has released energy for really productive teamwork. Result - happiness and dignity at work. I take my soft hat off to them, hoping that government realise the value and satisfaction of providing homes fit for generous living.

Image rich

2010-11-06T09:08:00.000Z

I think it takes a particular mindset to respond to opportunities of the new media. I was pleased to read that Liverpool Diocese is "working to engage with the online community" and has a twitter account to prove it. My own mindset seems to make me hang back awhile till the case is proved.

I delayed getting my first PC - I couldn't see the point until friend Richard Todd persuaded me and guided me so that ministry in Tarvin became revolutionised through the new media we could use. I too have now been dragged into Facebook and Twitter. I don't know how it's going to work, but I am getting a kick out of getting messages from John Sentamu and Ed Milliband!

I used to search for images for hours when I was a young curate in Sheffield Manor. I wanted to make things presentable to youngsters who were preparing for Confirmation. There were no images in books. Books were text-books. All that was possible was using a stylus pen to create line drawings on a stencil for the old Roneo copier. The drawings had to be so simple because otherwise you ripped the skin of the stencil and it was back to square 1. (I spent many a Saturday night with duplicator ink up to my elbows!) It was a major technological breakthrough when electric duplicators were introduced - a lot easier on the arm, though jamming became the new issue.

Now we are image rich - particularly with digital cameras. We no longer count the cost of taking photos. The challenge now is how to manage them all. One person using images to amazing effect is Dave Perry through his Visual Theology blog. He is creating some stunning images to go with the lectionary. This is a real gift for preachers - and a wonderful new way for people to "read" and "hear" the sermon.

George's difficult medicine

2010-11-02T11:38:00.000Z

Churches can be very exclusive. A mother of a young man with severe communicational difficulties has her story told by Swinton and Mowatt:

We have a lot of young people in our church ... but I never see any of the young people getting alongside George. None of theem ever sit beside him in church ... none of them have invited him roun to their homes ... and as a parent carer I find that difficult. I see them maybe going off for lunch or whatever and george is going home with his mum and dad and I just think how he has missed out on social interaction in his teenage years. In fact I could tell a little story:

A couple of years back one of the teenage girls who was having her 16th birthday and after the church service all the young people were going back to her house for a birthday dinner and afternoon. You know we had sung happy birthday to her in the church and the word had got round that you know the party was on and so forth. But of course, George wasn't invited and so as we drove off from the church we just felt saddened that it was just again another example of exclusion and just how painful that was to us. Not knowing how George felt about that. We came home. We had our usual Sunday lunch... I went through to his bedroom later on in the afternoon and he was cutting up bits of paper, and I said to him, "What's this you're doing George?" And he said "I'm making up tickets for the party".

What a story! We perhaps try to be inclusive but finish up excluding. We don't know how exclusive we are until we hear stories like this. Makes you think. Does it make you change?

Wizard Day Out

2010-10-28T23:44:00.001+01:00

I am becoming fascinated by our canals. Our local canal - the Shropshire Union - protects some of our local natural beauty and I have been enjoying running the towpath through Stoak and Croughton by Ellesmere Port.

Our half term outing was on a hired barge along the Bridgewater Canal courtesy of three volunteers who crew the Wizard for the Disability Partnership.

This is a wonderful facility which I hope escapes the cutbacks in social services.

I remember people talking to me about their families walking the Shropshire Union Canal in search of work - walking all the way from Wolverhampton till they found work in Ellesmere Port. I wonder how many times they had stopped off on the way to ask potential employers if they had any work.

9/11 #9

2010-09-11T09:56:00.001+01:00

Maggi Dawn's blog led me to Charles Strohmer's excellent piece on the contorversy surrounding this year's 9/11 anniversary. News coverage has been centred on the threatened Qur'an burnings - which has taken over from this solemn time of remembrance.

Elsewhere, Strohmer draws attention to Greek theatre and the development of theory. he writes:

"in the theatrical culture of ancient Greece, ... their words for theater and theory meant very nearly the same thing. Theatron (our theater) meant “the seeing place,” or the “place for seeing” or “viewing” the performing arts. (Similar meanings are found in the Latin and French for theater.) Theoria (our theory) meant “looking at,” “seeing,” “viewing,” which for us today has come to indicate speculation or contemplation as opposed to action."

This is a good way to look at learning. When we see "interplay" and "interaction" we draw conclusions - or formulate theories - which then inform our responses. In the UK we have a strong tradition of "Remembrance" to remember those who have lost their lives in war. There is great theatre attached to Remembrance, with veterans parading and showing their respect, the wearing of poppies, and the re-play of wartime experiences. This helps us "to see" and "find meaning" and shapes our responses.

Imam Rauf

The media have been sucked in by Rev Terry Jones's stunt for his planned Qur'an burning. The real action for spotlighting is the thing that Jones is complaining about. He has missed the plot - and the reality is summed up by Strohmer who describes the real purpose of the project Jones is re-acting against. That purpose seems to me to be a really faithful attempt to make sense of what is happening based on the theory that "a broad multifaith coalition can help to repair the damage that has been done to Muslim-American relations over the past fifty years." (from What's right with Islam by Imam Rauf)

Here's what Strohmer says:

The Park51 project is somewhat modeled after the famous multi-use 92nd Street Y. The wide-ranging programs for their proposed community center would include recreational facilities, such as a swimming pool and gym; exhibition space; conference rooms for education and forums, such as about empowering Muslim women; space for weddings and parties; day care and a senior center; areas for interfaith activity and prayer spaces for Jews, Christians, and people of other faiths; and cultural spaces, including a 500 seat theater for the performing arts. In other words, the center will be open to everyone and anyone.

Fabio Capello and leadership

2010-09-03T09:00:00.000+01:00

The latest Belbin newsletter focuses on the management of our national football team and Fabio Capello's capacity for leadership. It's a fun article and worth a read. Capello is contrasted with Maradonna and suggestions made about the leadership qualities (Belbin style) needed for the next manager - maybe needed sooner than we think if we lose tonight's game against Bulgaria.

Belbin does draw the distinction between qualifications (looking backwards - and referring to a different context) and suitability (looking forward and relating to present context). The suggestion is to recruit on the basis of suitability rather than eligibility/qualification. There's one for the FA!

St Aidan's Day

2010-08-31T09:37:00.000+01:00

Today is the feats day of St Aidan. Aidan has a special place in my heart because I have such fond memories of my time as a curate at St Aidan's Church - part of Sheffield Manor Parish. The long term memory is the last to go - and I remember my first Sunday there. It wasn't in church, but on a sponsored walk with members of the local probation hostel. I remember all the people I met on Norfolk Park, Claywood flats, Skye Edge and City Road.

Aidan was an Irish monk at a monatery in Iona. King Oswald was committed to restoring Christianity to the region. Iona first sent a bishop named Corman for this task. He failed to make any headway, saying that Northumbrians were too stubborn to be converted. Aidan was then sent. Apparently he criticised the methods used by Corman. I wonder what Corman did wrong. We get a clue from the way the Aidan is reported to have gone about his task. Aidan did it slowly. He walked. He spoke politely to the people he met. One legend reports that the king gave Aidan a horse so that he wouldn't have to walk. This undermined Aidan's methods and he gave the horse to a beggar. Without the horse, Aidan could talk to people on their own level, and walk at their own pace. So, he slowly brought Christianity to the Northumbrian communities.

Lessons for us?

Some methods of evangelism don't work - and they never have.
Level with people
Slow down - be patient - take time

The Collect for St Aidan's Day emphasises Aidan's personal qualities:

Everlasting God,
you sent the gentle bishop Aidan
to proclaim the gospel in this land:
grant us to live as he taught
in simplicity, humility and love for the poor;
through Jesus Christ.

And why do I have such fond memories of St Aidan's Sheffield? That's because of the patience, humility and love of the person - John Jacob whose responsibility it was to train me as a curate. From that moment I have realised the importance of time. Learning, training and change all take time. They have to be timed well with gentleness, simplicity, humility and love.

Visual Theology

2010-08-01T08:23:00.000+01:00

Visual theology, faithful images is Dave Perry's fascinating blog. He prefaces his blog with a quote from Marcel Proust:
He posts a weekly image, linked to the lectionary readings for the week. This one is his offering for "bespoke tailoring for an outspken life". Read more

Borderlands

2010-07-10T08:35:00.000+01:00

For the first time in a long time I have been having to stand my ground. This is because of an inter-personal, intra-departmental boundary dispute. In other words, we are not sure what we are each doing. This is not a major international incident, though there are significant tensions at the border. We don't know where the boundaries are supposed to be, and because of that we haven't worked out how we live together at the boundary.

The damage of borderlands is beautifully brought out in a poem I have just read by Gloria Anzaldua - who describes herself as a "chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer, and cultural theorist" and "as a border woman [who] grew up between two cultures, the Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a member of a colonised people in our own territory). I have been straddling that tejas-mexican border, and others, all my life It's not a comfortable place to live in, this place of contradictions. hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape". (The photo is by Brian Auer)

Here's the poem - as I read it in Edward Soja's book, Thirdspace:

I press my hand to the steel curtain -

chainlink fence crowned with rolled barbed wire -

rippling from the sea where Tijuana touches San Diego

unrolling over mountains

and plains

and deserts,

this "Tortilla Curtain" turning into el rio Grande

flowing down to the flatlands

of the Magic Valley of South Texas

its mouth emptying into the Gulf.

1,950 mile-long open wound

dividing a pueblo, a culture,

running down the length of my body,

staking fence rods in my flesh,

splits me splits me

me raja me raja

This is my home

this thin edge of

barbwire.

But the skin of the earth is seamless.

The sea cannot be fenced,

el mar does not stop at borders.

To show the white man what she thought of his

arrogance,

Yemaya blew that wire fence down.

The land was Mexican once,

was Indian always

and is.

And will be again.

Small pieces loosely joined

2010-06-16T10:14:00.000+01:00

Eavesdropping a conversation between Bishop Alan and Euan Semple I notice agreement between them about the strength of "small pieces loosely joined" (the title of a book by David Weinberger). They talked about the nature of churches and the degree of structure and institution needed to hold them together and that "dogma and rules are vehicles for power rather than entirely necessary for collective understanding".
The "dramatic" viewpoint takes the standpoint of a participant in the drama while the "epic standpoint" is that of the external spectator able to see the whole play. Western Christendom has usually taken the "epic viewpoint" which has resulted in totalising and patronising theories of what is right and what is wrong. Hans Urs von Balthasar uses the dramatic viewpoint to look at what the church is. His dramatic theory is that there is no "external spectator", and that in the "everyman" theatre even the audience is caught up in the drama as they see their own condition and dilemnas played out on the stage. They are caught up in the drama. There is only one "external spectator", who is God. His is the epic viewpoint - though there are other pretenders pretending they know what it's all about.

Balthasar's image is rather powerful when applied to what the church is. We don't know what the church is. The church is there to find - to be received and not pre-conceived. For Balthasar the stage is set in Christ. From this viewpoint we all become players - church and non-church, caught in the act of being human, in inter-play and the inter-action with all the other characters. Small pieces loosely joined sounds about right from this dramatic point of view where what is expected in terms of fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness ..... (Galatians 5:22)

The Realm of Possibility & the World of Accountancy

2010-05-31T10:10:00.000+01:00

I have just started reading a book called "The Art of Possibility" - which talks about us living in the "realms of possibility" as opposed to living at "Measurement central" governed by "survival thinking". The authors, Zander and Zander write:

"In the realm of possibility we gain our knowledge by invention. We decide that the essence of a child is joy, and joy she is. Our small company attracts the label, "The Can-Do Company" … We speak with the awareness that language creates categories of meaning that open up new worlds to explore. Life appears as variety, pattern, and shimmering movement, inviting us in every moment to engage. The pie is enormous, and if you take a slice, the pie is whole again…

The action in a universe of possibility may be characterised as generative, or giving, in all senses of that world - producing new life, creating new ideas, consciously endowing with meaning, contributing, yielding to the power of contexts. The relationship between people and environments is highlighted, not the people and things themselves. Emotions that are often relegated to the special category of spirituality are abundant here: joy, grace, awe, wholeness, passion and compassion."

People and things increasingly have price tags. They are entered on balance sheets and they are counted in and counted out. (Horrible thing the Government, when they talk about the “head count” being affected by the promised cuts (aka redundancy)). The accountants can’t get their hands on what happens between people. The generation of ideas and life defies logic. We are in the world of mystery rather than accountancy when we focus on the relationship between people and environments. It is sheer magic the way the pie becomes whole again.

Knowledge is experience

2010-04-16T15:30:00.000+01:00

Great quotes on education, teaching and learning:

An Einstein maxim is 'Knowledge is experience - everything else is just information.' We are now in an age where information is more abundant than could ever have been imagined…..students may emerge from an hour's session with several thousands of words on equivalent in handout materials, downloadable files from an intranet or web. But it is still just information until they have done things with it to turn it into the start of their own knowledge about the subject concerned, and link it up to other things they already know …….. Perhaps at one level the quest to make learning happen in post-compulsory education boils down to how best can we help our learners turn information into their own knowledge.

From Phil Race 'Making Learning Happen'

and

A teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle, and humbler as far as possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern for people, and a lover of souls.

from Amma Theodora - who was one of the early Christian monastics who went into the Egyptian desert during the third and fourth centuries, to live a life of prayer and contemplation. She had been married to a Roman tribune, and following her husband's death, she retired to the desert to pray. Her wisdom was much sought after and a number of her sayings have survived, including this one about Christian teachers.

Graphic facilitation

2010-04-12T22:46:00.000+01:00

What a gift Brandy Agerbeck has as a "graphic facilitator". I came across her website when I was preparing to lead a session on Belbin team roles. Here is the result of her listening and representing a session - which happened to be on Belbin's team roles - I wonder what clues this offers us about what her preferred team role is. Maybe a plant or a monitor-evaluator?

improvising

2010-04-11T23:14:00.000+01:00

Lynn Walsh blogs from Australia as a facilitator. She wonders how possible it is to enter conversations/meetings/training without an agenda, and she refers to a meeting that she had recently with people who were prepared to begin with no agenda. She refers to several resource books which have gone on my wish list because I am so intrigued and she quotes Robert Poynton:

“Improvisers … distinguish between action and activity. If someone is changed by what happens they call it action. If not, it is activity. … Embracing change in this way is not an attitude many people habitually adopt. Yet how can an organisation learn, or create action, if the people in it don’t.”

Wearing other people's faces

2010-03-24T08:49:00.000Z

Parker Palmer has a lot of sensible things to say about vocation in Let your life speak. The book has the strapline - "Listening for the Voice of Vocation".

Palmer refers to vocation not "as a goal to be achieved", but as a "gift to be received". It is about understanding the selfhood given to us by God at birth. Palmer refers to Rabbi Zusya, who as an old man said "In the coming world, they will not ask: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?'"

As we grow we are trained into acceptability and finish up "wearing other people's faces". The deepest vocational question becomes not "what ought I to do with my life?" but "who am I? What is my nature?" The misunderstanding of vocation arises around the confusion between doing and being. Dave Walker's cartoon on the hierarchy of vocation illustrates (and mocks) the "doing" - though unfortunately that remains the pre-occupation (a good word for this context!).

Palmer highlights the definition of vocation by Frederick Buechner. He describes vocation as "the place where your deep gladness meets with the world's deep need." When vocation is just masquerading as that great damage is caused. Another quote - this time from Rumi: "If you are here unfaithfully with us you're causing terrible damage."

Now I become myself.
It's taken time, many years and places.
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces ...

Now I become myself by May Sarton from Collected Poems

Cathedral Retreat

2010-03-22T09:26:00.000Z

Jeanette and I have just had a really refreshing "Passiontide Retreat" at Foxhill led by Christine Bull and Trevor Dennis. Both sets of input were really challenging and thought provoking - but perhaps the most profound challenge was in Christine's implied question of what happened to Judas Iscariot. She referred to stained glass windows which Whistler was asked to produce. He produced 13 pictures - one for each of the apostles and one for Jesus. Apparently the church objected to the one of Judas. They did not want him to be included. However, apparently, there is a somewhat overlooked tradition regarding Judas's redemption. One picture has Judas being dragged into heaven by the rope round his neck. One of Julian's visions took her to hell - and there was nobody there. And Catherine of Sienna inisisted that she did not want to go to heaven as long as there was even one person in hell. So, what happened to Judas?

Women in Red

2010-02-13T11:44:00.000Z

What do you call a group of women in red? Answer: A college of cardinals.

Seeing red is a turn on for male primates according to a recent survey. The survey suggests that that men are more turned on by women in red and that although men like to think that they respond to women "in a thoughtful and sophisticated manner, it appears that at least to some degree their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive". Well!

I'm reading Discipleship of Equals by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza. In it she playfully argues that if all the bishops are going to be men, all the cardinals should be women. What would happen to the bishops if they were seeing red?

Fiorenza quotes from an article by Congo, Goodwin and Smith called "We Are Catholics and We Are Feminists":
"Perhaps we should wear red. red to acknowledge courage. Red to acknowledge that we are angry. Red to acknowledge that we are passionate. Red to acknowledge that wwe are sexual and like our sisters of herstory are still officially barred from the sanctuary because we menstruate. red to acknowledge the blood that flows from us with each birth, with each abortion, with each battering and with each assault ..."

The Long Walk to Freedom - still

2010-02-12T08:52:00.000Z

20 years ago ended a remarkable stretch as political prisoner for Nelson Mandela. The next stage of the journey is remembered with awe as Nelson continued his Long Walk to Freedom with such incredible resilience, commitment and dignity. He has been world leader for a generation leading the movement of South Africa from the dark ages of apartheid to freedom.

Astell Collins posted this tribute entitled "The Age of Grace and Timeless Wisdom"

Have you ever observed a lion bound?
Or witnessed the ants freely running around
Did you ever stop to ponder your destiny?
Journeying beyond your daily responsibility
What is the purpose of tomorrow?
If there is no comfort in times of sorrow
Could you clarify the functionality of masculinity?
And explain the multiplicity of femininity
Nelson Mandela, you have given us a proud legacy
Thus to future generations you are legendary
You have thought us your people to forgive
And have shown us that only in love can we live
Your life displayed the fundamentals of greatness
And uncovered the power of selflessness

We thank you for giving us back our home
A paradise where all of mankind has made their own
You have suffered inconceivable cruelty
To ensure the preservation of our humanity
As a people, our coming together in celebration
Demonstrates to you our sincere love and appreciation
We recognize the relevance and power of spirituality
While experiencing the beauty of our freedom in unity
Your life has become the essence of the human story
One of love and resolve, equality and destiny
You are a hero internationally and not only in Africa
So the world pauses to pay its respect to you, Madiba

And today's prayer picks up the diversity theme:
Almighty God you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children ......

Diversity Training 2

2010-02-10T11:02:00.000Z

Lost in thought this morning - with many matters.
Is this what diversity training looks like? This dance group won a British TV talent competition.

Diversifying is God's business.

Through Abraham and the cross God provides us with a family tree which renders all brothers and sisters. Hear this (as Abraham and Sarah did) - from Genesis 17 - "I will make nations of you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations ..."

God's business is diversifying - as Paul recognised: "Now faith has come ... there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for you are all one ..." (Galatians 3:28)

Diversifying is the church's business. Hear Jesus: "If you greet only your brothers and sisters what more are you doing than others?" (Matthew 5:47)

Restrictions and deprivations make up our history. Analyse the media and it soon becomes apparent that only a small section of society has any say. The voices of so many are not heard. Listening therefore becomes the essential requirement of diversity training. This was the strategy the Church of England try to deploy in our debates about homosexuality in the 90's. We're not sure how much listening happened - but the intention was that the gay voice was one which the Christian Church had tried to smother. If someone isn't allowed to speak - how can they be understood? But how can you listen if you are not pre-disposed to love or care enough to listen to the muffled cries of those fighting for breathing space?

I am reading a book by Natalie Watson called "Introducing Feminist Ecclesiology". Feminist theologians highlight deprivation and challenge practices which are exclusive. Natalie (why do we use surnames when referring to authors?) quotes Nelle Morton who draws attention to the way that women have heard from one another. "New words and the new way old words came to expression" became a liberating force for the women who have heard from one another. "women came to new speech simply because they were being heard. Hearing became an act of receiving the women as well as the words."

Diversity training requires us to listen - to listen to those who feel excluded in church and from church, in society and from society. It requires us to realise that they are unable to raise their voices - and if we don't listen we won't hear them. It requires us to realise that only the rich and powerful make their voices heard when empires are being built.

Our liturgy (aka our "work) begins with the invitation "lift up your voice" - are we looking forward to a time when all people will be able to lift up their voice (with the confidence that their voice will be heard?

Thank you Tracy for the photo of the Jesus Tree.

The Flaws of Leadership (2)

2010-02-07T22:22:00.000Z

Following the example of the patriarchs (see this post) is it fair to say that leaders aren't born with wonderful personal qualities - but by guile they emerge as leaders?They are from the same cesspit as the rest of us, so we should have realistic expectations of them. I'm going to stop looking for perfection in them. Instead I expect leaders to emerge whose commitment is to turn life round in favour of justice - and whose commitment is to resist the tide of despair and bitterness. Such leaders inspire change for the good of others. I won't look for perfection (anyway, perfection isn't a verb - perfection doesn't necessarily do anything). Instead I will look for people who do more and better than they might have done - and help us to be and do better.

Here are some good clues about leadership - including this mindmap.

Our Day Out

2010-02-07T08:16:00.000Z

This was our first trip to the beach for 2010 - a beautiful clear day - apart from the freezing fog which dropped on us.

Nota Beans

2010-02-06T11:26:00.000Z

Nota bene from Rev Ruth's blog about preaching:

The Church Times is talking about preaching this week. The College of Preachers (of which I am a paid-up member, don’t you know?) commissioned a study into preaching at various denominations.

17% said that they frequently heard sermons that made them change their lifestyles. In my humble experience, whenever one is tempted to have someone in mind when writing such a sermon they invariably don’t turn up that week.

97% said that they looked forward to the sermon each week and 84% agreed that they should be closely connected with the bible. 55% said their knowledge of Jesus was frequently improved by sermons. But only 16% said that sermons helped them to understand events in the news or controversial issues.

Looks like a case of great expectations to me - in spite of what we preachers are sometimes led to believe.

Nota Bene from Bishop Alan's blog - this poem by Kaylin Haught:
God says Yes to Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

which made me think who is right and who is wrong. God says "yes" to those who see him face to face, heart to heart and eye to eye. To others he says "look at me - through Jesus". That's the verdict we have to live with.

The Flaws of Leadership

2010-02-05T16:52:00.000Z

Steve Bell draws attention to the "whited sepulchre" in his cartoon on MP's expenses.
Matthew's gospel has these words: "What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs--beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity" (23:27). John's gospel also has these words: "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" (chapter 8)

I don't know about you, but I've had enough from the lynch mob - and it is time to draw a line under the whole sorry affair. I don't know why we should be so surprised when our leaders show themselves to have feet of clay. Out of some sort of idolatory we expect our leaders to be perfect - or is it that we think ourselves as perfect?

As luck would have it the Bible reading for this morning was Genesis (27&28)- exploring the world of Esau and Jacob (twins), Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac - with Laban thrown in for luck. Together Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are known as the "patriarchs". Stories about all of them could have kept our tabloids going for years. Abraham passed his wife off as his sister (to Pharoah). Rebecca was a schemer. Jacob was a cheat. Esau was resentful. I could go on. Why did not the religious leaders hide the flaws of the patriarchs? I suggest that it was because they wanted to be realistic about human nature - saying "this is what we're like - and it's no good pretending otherwise". It was to characters such as these (and such as ourselves) that God promises the earth - in spite of the scheming, deceit and betrayal. It is significant that the founding fathers of Judaism and Christianity could do nothing of themselves. The foundation of our faith is not that we all have to be good but that we have to depend on God to turn the tide of despair and bitterness.

On the same day as we scoff and mock our political leaders history has been turning in Northern Ireland. At last a peace settlement has been achieved for which our PM(flawed like the rest of our leaders) paid tribute to all those who had made the settlement possible. It is a magnificent achievement to have sworn enemies holding the reins of power together. Gordon Brown described it as "inspirational" and a lesson for the world that conflict resolution is possible. The peace has been won by courageous leadership. The architects of peace are flawed but courageous enough to know that history is flawed by conflict and transformed by compromise/forgiveness. There can be no forgiveness without flaws!

Two wonderful people

2010-01-29T08:38:00.000Z

Easter Day at St Andrew's Tarvin was "daffodil Sunday" - presumably because of the association between spring, new life and resurrection. It didn't take us long to realise that the daffodil is the flower of the meadows of the Greek underworld. The asphodel (daffodil) meadows is the region where the dead were supposed to spend eternity. A river runs through these elysian meadows. To the far side of the river those whose lives were neither good not bad were ferried. In the crossing identity was drained away and they emerged into the meadows peopled by those who were neither one thing nor another. (A further place - Tartarus - was for the evil and treacherous.

Two wonderful people we know have died in the last week. Brenda Stride I did not know well. Jen Murray I have known for nearly 30 years. It was speaking to her family that prompted the thought on the daffodil and the elysian fields as the destination for both of them.

Both Jen and Brenda have been local heroes here in Ellesmere Port. Both have given their lives for children. Brenda has spent her life working with pre-school children: Jen's teaching career has been in three local schools - John Street, Sutton Green and Stanlaw Abbey on Stanney Grange. She was Head at Stanlaw from 1974 to 1991 (I was working the same patch - a 70's housing estate - '83-'93). What was remarkable about Jen was her passion for life and for others. She was a wonderful host which showed itself in the school she helped to create at Stanlaw. Appreciating Jen's work, her friend and advisor, Vernon Hale, commented on the beauty and optimism of the place (this was at a time of really high unemployment in the community). The school was a real oasis of calm (aka a "beacon") in which, as Vernon wrote, the children had the opportunity to "experiment", "speculate" and "create".

The commitment of both Brenda and Jen spans many decades. They have loved hundreds of local children and had a real impact on their families. I wonder at the impact that these two lives have had on Ellesmere Port and the communities that make up this town so low on self-esteem. It would be good to know whether such passion does shape lives and inspire others. I am sure it has done for many. In the end we have to leave them to stroll the elysian fields - on the side of the river where everybody is somebody. For us, consolation is the satisfaction of having been entertained by hearts and minds big enough to embrace all those in their world with love, and the knowledge that they in turn are entertained at the heart of God's glory.

We have David C Laurie to thank for the photo.

And here's Sting singing of those elysian fields of gold:

Up in the air

2010-01-23T22:45:00.000Z

We stumbled into Up in the Air at our local Vue. We had wanted to see Avatar but there were no tickets. In fact people had to be moved to make two joining seats for Up in the Air. Such is the effect of the Golden Globes this last week. In the end it was a happy outcome. We both loved the film. Rolling Stone loved it too. I suspect Jeanette loved it for George Clooney. For me it struck cords as we try to put down roots in a new community - and where I feel still pretty much "Up in the Air".

George Clooney plays a hired gun (never say "fire") when companies want to downsize. His life is in the air as he criss-crosses the States announcing redundancy. His achievement is clocking up the air miles. His home is the sky, the airports and the hotels. Eventually he recognises his own redundancy as he realises the importance of love and relationship. He is able to be redeployed - but in the end there is a sense that it is all too late for the building of a good life in which he counts. This was a film well worth seeing because of its down to earth message that community, family and relationships are built from the bottom up - from the salt of the earth. I wonder if eventually all the up in the air, pie in the sky, top-down solutions can be subverted by the solidarity of the salt of the earth. Is this the hope we have, and is this how salvation repeatedly shows itself - whether it be in Jesus, Nelson Mandela et al?