A "difference that makes a difference"

What shall we learn? IV

I really value Richard Sudsworth's blog Imagine.  He posted recently about "Men behaving Sadly?"  As so often with Richard the post was thoughtful and with a hint of vulnerability. Worth a read.

I responded with a comment which included this verse

Dream on, dream on in hopefulness.
Dream on frail fool to try once more
Dream on of change in so small steps
of fragile hope and explored love.

(to be sung to the tune of the hymn Ride on, Ride on in Majesty/ride on in lowly pomp to die"  OK, not Coleridge but then I only manage the flawed maverick part of Maggi's discussion of Coleridge's genius :-)

But as I wrote that verse I realised that I was typing out a major part of my vision of learning.  That exploring is fearful, that trying to 'do' differently is pitted with holes to trip you up, that developing might be lonely.  And so we, if we want to help others learn must provide a space where people can feel safe to be fearful and bold, to dream, to hope, to doubt, to try again, to take one more little plod on.

Two people recently have encouraged me (one who I've never met except via email and blog, the other a friend at church) that I offer them that sort of space. And, wonder of wonders, in saying that they provided me with that space, they provided me with an encouragement to take another step.

Who was the teacher in those 'conversations'?  I don't know but I do know that there was some learning going on and I received the encouragement to 'dream on, dream on' a little more.

What shall we learn? III

..That community is not in meeting together

Oh dear, I think that this post is really going to be an act of trying to persuade myself..

I've written about this before and I guess that I'm continuing to wrestle with myself over the problem of how we can do community in a world that is moving in a way that obstructs attempts to get together. But this time, instead of being terribly trendy and alternative, I want to look at how we can learn to do the community of a church in ways other than meeting together either in a general assembly (Sunday/Saturday morning) or small group (midweek)

1. we need to learn to open up other parts of our lives to each other. For example:
   * sharing our breakfasts, so we can meet for a daily morning prayer, risking letting people into our homes before we've tidied them up, risking not being up in time and looking foolish, risking just not being at our best.
   * or sharing the shopping, dinner, child care, housework, etc. etc.
2. Do we all need to own our own homes, cars, washing machines, garden & DIY tools?
   * How could we learn to work out a shared ownership?  Now I'm sure that some people are already doing this, and nearly all of us would happily do it but the question is HOW?  How do you set it up, how do you learn to share and organise your use of tools, equipment, homes in such a way as to give space for others?  This is not about willingness, this is about working through the details, the mechanics - so any advice will be welcome, I've just decided that I'm going to set about this (of course I'll pray about it now so that I can say that it came to me in prayer - sounds much more spiritual that way)
3. How can we learn not to be so dependent upon our own provision.  Now this is serious sh*t, really scary.  I'm likely (if not certain) to have a job until I'm 65, but after that my pension is going to be small and I'm going to be flirting with poverty, unless I can sort out my pension over the next few years..  You know, sometimes it really dominates my thinking about my working life/service (I'm sure that I'm not alone in this).  But if we were "in community" with shared provision, would this be a risk?
   * but how do we do this?  How can we be wise and yet risk throwing away a reasonable (loaded word there) provision.  If I was to sell my house and share with someone else; what happens when circumstances change and a new job comes up (we aren't always in control of that) it was all very well in agrarian days when a monastic house could have it's fields around it.  Nowadays our 'working fields' might be relocated to another part of our country! No, we need to do some serious thinking about how we set about sharing community provision in a world that is transitory, constantly on the move.

Well, there are some bits of learning that we need to do if we are to become the body of Christ in some sort of lived reality.  I'm sure that you can think of some more, but these ones are pretty daunting to me, so I'll settle for them!

What shall we Learn II?

..that 'I' is spelled w...e...

err, Caroline, did I catch you right?

Yes, I think so ..

We tend in the English speaking world to have this strange idea that we are individual agents.  We say things like "I speak" or "I did .." and the English language gives us the impression that the speaking or the doing is all done by an individual 'I'.  But a moment's thought points us to the unavoidability or a social production, for everything that 'I' does needs another participant.  As a little exercise, try thinking of any, so called, personality trait that can be done completely on your own... Can you be generous on your own?  Can you be considerate without somone else to consider?  And before you all cry out you can be a loaner on your own ... just remember that you'll need other people to avoid in order to be a loaner!

Any action we take will always be equivocal (capable of being understood in different ways) until another supplements that action.  My good advice might be taken as nosey meddling by you.  My act of generosity might appear patronising to 'Bill'.  And it is not really important that there might be misunderstanding, what is significant is that the relationships will go on differently as you and Bill react to my actions.  Our relations will create new realities.  In relation with others we make the world and each other.

The Xhosa people have a word "Ubuntu" a very rough interpretation into English is "I am through you".  Wouldn't we live differently if we lived within an Ubuntu perspective?  I wonder if we would live out Philippians ch 2 if we lived Ubuntu? Or maybe being "the body of Christ" might be a more exciting way of life rather than being a tag on to the Lord's Supper (Communion or whatever)?  In a fratured, alienated world, where people are treated as commodities to be used as factors of production or as markets or as target audiences.. wouldn't an Ubuntu community be attractive?  And might it be easier to understand terms like 'in Christ' if we dropped the power and dominance of 'I'?

But I dream .. it's not possible is it?  After all we're all individuals and that's what we're like and you can't go against nature, we're all competitive we'r all....

Bollocks!

oops, sorry is a Christian allowed to use words like that?  but, you see, we're not all like that ... 'that' is just the current state of play in the multilayered, ongoing, interlinked relations that are creating and re-creating our world.  We, especially in the west and the English speaking world, have to play the individual 'I'  game, 'cos that is the only game we are offered.

There is another way!

But I don't know how to play it, the rules were lost long ago.  Although Riane Eisler has found some evidence that the game of life was played differently in the past.  But I don't know how to live this 'we' life, I guess that I ...we will have to learn.

I do think that there are some hints around, Eisler points to a couple.  So much of what we learn in school and college and life is about distinctions, differences, definitions.  We learn by distinguishing the 'figure' from the 'background', we learn by being able to categorise.  And, of course, if we can distinguish then we can also rank; we can say that 'this' is better than 'the other' or more realistic or more relevant or more suitable.  It all makes sense doesn't it? (if we stay within conversations about differences).  But we could create other conversations about linkages and relatedness.

So, for example, we can talk about gender in a way that emphasises difference and distinctiveness or we can talk about gender in a way that stresses relatedness and partnership. The one conversational trajectory will tend to lead to issues of power as we inevitably end up considering what roles these differences fit us for whilst the other conversational trajectory might offer very different relations.  And what is true about gendered conversations is also relevant to conversations involving different groupings.

But I'm very sorry, I can't help any more than just start offthe convesation. I can't tell you the end of it, I can only join the conversation with you, because the end of the conversation will be created by 'we' not 'I'.

What shall we learn?

A week or so ago Richard and I got into a conversation about discipleship. Richard made the point that, as disciples, we might be learners, but learners of what?  Not a bad question!  But one that I'm going to twist a little before answering.  I want to consider "learning to do what?"  might seem just a play on words but over the years I've become less and less interested in learning about things.  It seems to me that when we claim that something IS the case, then it seems to follow inevitably that we will set up something else as not being the case.  We therefore create the seeds of division.  We tend to make things worse by giving labels to various positions, and creating totems around which we can circle and mount valiant defences.  I think that I've got myself into such a conversation over at Maggi's place - sigh I should know better... that is I should know to behave differently, but there we are ..

So what should we learn? Well, several things, and I'll try to write a series four posts looking at things that we need to learn to do or see differently.

First, I would suggest that one thing we need to learn, as Christians, is not to see success as a measure of faithfulness in Christ-following.  Too often, especially within the evangelical wing of the Christian faith, we see a thriving church, or promotion or growth in numbers as a sign of God's blessing.  I guess that it is, but then we tend to assume that the blessing comes because of something that we did.  We prayed or we were open to God or we let the Spirit move or we really 'just worshipped' or... or... or... I'm sure that we could add to the list..

The trouble is that if things are not going well in any sphere of life then it is a good idea to check if we're doing something wrong and see if we should do things differently.  So I encourage my students to reflect on the way they do their assignments, and see if (using my help) they can improve their work.  It would seem logical, therefore to assume that if things are going well then it's likely that we are not doing things wrong and that we are doing things right!  It's only logical.

Well, it is A logic but I don't think that it's God's logic of Grace.  Too often I hear people talking as if we had a mathematical faith (e.g.) My prayer + God's power = wonderful answers to prayer!  Or My faith + God's gift of healing = a miracle! {again you will be able to add your own faith equations}.  At one level it is just logical.

But, it just doesn't seem to hold water

Why do so many of the great saints of old have stories of loss, grief, deprivation, suffering?  There is something going on here that I can not explain using the logic of this world. Why does a God of love let this happen?  Oh, I know the standard answer: so that through his loving discipline we should learn and grow.. and I'll accept that answer from Hebrews, but I don't understand it ..

if success followed faithfulness it would all be so much easier..

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
(Psalm 130)

Earlier in that Psalm we read "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  I guess that if the mathematical faith was more reliable then we wouldn't need to 'wait on God' we'd be able to anticipate the '=' sign!

I guess that's what I want us to learn, how to spot the difference in the times when we have to 'wait for the Lord' and when we need to check up on ourselves and change our actions. 

The analogy I want to use for learning in these four postings is that of sailing (my hobby).  When you sail 'close to the wind' the boat is very sensitive.  Just a little too close and the boat rocks towards you and slows down, too far away from the wind and the boat tilts away and becomes overpowered (in higher winds).  The art of sailing is to use your body position, pulling on ropes and tiller, to keep the boat going flat and close hauled.  This is not something you learn about, it's not something that can ever fully be handled in book learning.  It has to be learnt out there on the water, developing skills and sensitivity, developing intuitive movements that do not need to be thought about.

That's the learning I need to do, to develop the sensitivity and 'intuitive' feel for where I am in waiting on God; to learn how to sense that I'm just to wait or that I'm to take action, but not to base that sensitivity on what looks successful, for that seems to take my eyes off my God and stops me waiting.

See, Hear ...

I spent last weekend with my friend and academic mentor, Dian Hosking. Di is one of the most profound and scholarly thinkers I've met (if you want a seriously demanding but worthwhile reads head over to her website, here). In the last few years Di's thinking has be significantly affected by what she calls a secular Buddhism and some of this is starting to show in her work. Her latest work is to do with the senses.

Now, I haven't read the resultant paper yet but we did have a lengthy conversation about it and one point has intrigued me over the last few days.  For various reasons we have come in the west to be incredibly reliant on our sight: "Seeing is believing".  This has consequences. Amongst them, for academics, is our constant reduction of our research and scholarship into text (that we can read/see).  So, for example, Discourse Analysis or Conversation Analysis seek to take what we call "naturally occurring talk" and represent it as text on a page.  Other forms of social scholarship seek to capture actions, attitudes, behaviours in questionnaires, experiments, interviews etc.  Underling all these methods is an assumption; that there is 'something' that is lasting that affects or creates these actions etc.  I.E. there is an assumption of stability, that something I capture in a text today will continue to affect what will happen tomorrow.

But is the world, are we that stable?  is it our experience that there is coherence?  Don't you find that your actions owe much to odd things that happen in an instant?  I suspect that our answer to those questions is "yes" and "no" (not very helpful :-)

But if we follow Di's idea and start to give greater importance to senses other than our seeing, our sense of smell, hearing, touch, even intuition (?) something crucial happens.  We can not adequately record it (ok sound, but tell me that a recording ever captures the fullness of being at a concert!  Why do I find jazz so boring on CD but so exhilarating in live performance?).  We can never capture a moment, and our emphasis on what we can record for sight directs us to attend to that which is stable and lasting and blinds us to the ephemeral or transitory. 

"But does our value of the test of time
blind us to moments in life's onward rush?
the smile that lifts, or affirming touch:
the human are of living in the now.

We value what will stand the test of time:
structures, strictures, standards
and in so doing; give no worth
to the transitory art of becoming"

We tend, as a result of our emphasis on what we can see, to give less importance to that.  But what would a scholarship - so strongly based on the written word - look like if we took our other senses more seriously?  What would Christianity - a religion of the Word - look like?  And then we arrive at the exciting realisation; that Jesus was the "Living Word" .. as Christians we have this resource that can shape us, our beliefs our theology into a living .... 

But there are problems because of that transitoryness, because of that livingness. Considerable amounts of our practised, intellectual tools (for example truth, reason, evidence) will have to change.  As we move our scholarship away from the study of what is towards the moment by moment relations where touch, smell, hearing and sight combine to create and re-create people and worlds we will have to learn to rely on different ways of making sense, appreciating and justifying our actions.

And where will that leave those of us who follow and worship the living Word.

Umm, I don't know! But I suspect that it'll be exciting to find out and I'm looking forward to reading Di's paper, 'cos I think that it'll help.

Poetic Truth?

I was just reading Brian McLaren's book " A Generous Orthodoxy", an enjoyable read, pleasant affirmation of the journey that I've been taking over the last 10 years or so, but not profoundly life changing. But one thing that I read to day struck me.  McLaren was writing about the Poetic and Mystic approaches to our faith.  It made me think of a poem I wrote a while ago:

Flying in the face of fact

Is there a freedom in writing?
freedom from constraint
   of truth or fact or what must be?
(anchors to my soul).
Can words be wings to lift a maybe,
to power up for flight so free?
   for there is no knowing in the beat of wings
   and no understanding as we soar above.

There is something in your facts
that weigh me down, that
tie me to a now and then
(holding me from tomorrow).
Something in a truth that walls me in
and blocks my view of what might be.

Your facts make turgid prose
alongside a poetry in flight.
"a flight of fancy" I see you smile,
(knowing whimsy when you see it!)
Not a mean smile, perhaps even sympathetic..
"you'll realise the truth one day, you'll understand."

.."that's just the point", I make reply
I'll realise, and so make real
tomorrow as with you I fly!

The strange thing is that I hadn't written or thought about this poem in terms of my Christian faith - it was more a challenge to my realist colleagues in the Business School - but, now I see that it might be really generative to my faith and I can see how, in other ways, I've been moving to a more poetic appreciation of my faith.

A day later ..

Kathryn posted this today, which captured something of what I was trying to think.  It also reminded me of a song I wrote at the time of the Tsunami:

I see the children with stone in their eyes
I see the parents too stunned to cry
but, oh my Lord where are you now

I see the rich man stand still by the poor
alike in suffering and loss they've endured
but, oh my Lord where are you now

I see the cross on the hill
I see the man hanging there
I see the anguish and the pain
Oh my Lord, there you are

I see the crowd standing in the square
a moments silence - they try to share
but, oh my Lord where are you now

I see the questions, I feel the doubt
I hear heart cry "what's this all about"
but, oh my Lord where are you now

I see the cross on the hill
I see the man hanging there
I see the anguish and the pain
Oh my Lord, there you are
Oh my Lord, there you are
Oh my Lord, here you are

Of course, there is a difference between the two incidents - not just in the number of people involved - but, significantly, in the evil actions born out of ignorance, hatred and rage.  Still Jesus' answer is the same .. He's there in the midst, on His cross, with His arms open wide in love ..

It doesn't stop the grief and it's probably easier to write from outside London, with my family members all accounted for, than from in amidst the carnage.  I remember a few years ago when my son nearly died with Meningitis, being able to look back an notice that Jesus was involved the whole way through.  It doesn't make it easier, but it does enable us to get through.

Leaders and followers

A while ago I was at a small conference.  We went round the circle to introduce ourselves, half and half academics and consultants.  One after another my colleagues talked about the interesting work they were doing with leaders.  Each one out did the previous speaker in terms of the inventiveness of their work, the prestigiousness of their clients and how 'right on' they were.

I came round to my turn... and I said that I worked with followers and I wondered if this was why nobody hired me?

Now a moment's thought should cause us to consider.  There are far more followers in this world than leaders, so really there should be much more work for working with followers!  Well after the conference I went home and started thinking about it.  Could I design a short course on Creative Followership? My selling point would be that a 10% improvement in leaders would be great but a 10% improvement in followers would affect more people and so have a greater impact on organisational effectiveness!

I came up with a programme and showed it to various training and development managers I knew.  They were all fascinated with the idea, all thought that it was a unique product, all thought that it would make a big difference to their companies and not one of them bought the course!

Why not? What is this fascination with people called leaders?

Let me look at leaders in a slightly jaundiced way.  As far as I can see just about every theory about what makes a leader good at being a leader has one unavoidable consequence: ordinary people are expected to listen and take on board what the leader says because they are a leader!  There is an unavoidable power issue here.  Very nearly all the theories of leadership that are peddled in management books (Heathrow Business School, I've heard it called) celebrate, validate and empower people who are leaders.  These theories maintain the status quo, they suggest that leaders are leaders because they are special, either because they were born great or because (and we academics prefer this) because they studied our wise words and gained skills of leadership.  Either way ordinary people (followers) should give special credence to what these leaders say and only very rarely (well never, but we don't like to say that in public) disagree with leaders.

Isn't leadership theory helpful to those who are in power?  Isn't it helpful to the men in grey suits who strut about our world?  If only I could find a theory that said that everyone should listen to overweight, middle aged, female academics - I'd be well away!

Life is lived in the moments we pass through, in any given moment someone might say something that influences my actions.  In that moment they are leading me.  It matters not what their status is.  Leadership is a relationship not a talent, status or activity.  Leadership is performed in relations, a leader without followers is an eccentric!

Leaders need followers, and we play both roles in moment by moment improvisational performances of our lives.  The art is in creating conversations that give space for as wide array of people as possible to speak into (that is lead) our actions.  A key life skill is developing 'ears' that can hear possibilities in everyday talk and allow those possibilities to become maybes.  Leading, in a sense of being the first into a 'place' will inevitably involve hearing, encouraging and building upon the ideas that others don't listen to.

So leadership is actually a following!

Does it take so little?

Well I'm back from a conference in Munich.  Not great, but some interesting contacts and the possibility of an invite to run a seminar in Scandinavia (won't hold my breath, but it was a positive response to my presentation)

But today I'm feeling gloomy.  A whole muddle of things; I'm pretty certain that I've put on yet more weight - so I feel angry and disparaging about myself. I am concerned that I have some tricky waters ahead to navigate in personal relationships,

but most of all I'm horrified at how little time

• focusing on my job and networking with academics with whom I might want to work,
• how little time focusing on my career,
• how little time focusing on how people respond to my ideas and presentation,
• how little time focusing on people's gratitude for my adivice ..

just how little time it took for me to get wrapped up in myself, me, me, me ...

and of course when that happens I remember that I'm a huge disappointment (Putting on weight etc. etc.) ...

Celtic Morning Prayer starts

One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to seek Him in His temple.

Pondering that today it seems such plain, good advice, but did it really take so little to shift my focus?

Oh No!! Not more provocative authority?

Sorry about this, I will blog about something else soon! 

Can using the bible 'provocatively' reduce conflict? Seems a bit of a contradiction when put like that! :-)   Well to try and answer that I'l tell you a story.  Are you all sitting comfortably? No, well spend a few pounds extra and get a good desk chair - you need if for your back anyway!

Ooh she can be so bossy sometimes, typical teacher (she'll be telling us to sit up straight next!)

Well, come to mention it... No, that story:

Shortly after my marriage failed (well actually we both failed our marriage) I read Isaiah 54:7-8.  Now, as I looked back at a marriage that included much loneliness and a personal struggle that at times had overwhelmed me; this passage seemed to resonate with my feeling that God just hadn't been there with me (hold on, read the rest of the blog before questioning my reading of those verses!).  So I read a bit further.  Now I read that not only was I loved but that I was to be rebuilt, and the rebuilding would be wonderful! (though short of sapphires so far!).

I shared my reading with a pastor who was trying to help me through this difficult time.  He wrote back to tell me that I had read the passage wrong.  God had never deserted me; I had deserted Him! (great pastoring NOT!)

Now, at one level the pastor guy (who unsurprisingly I haven't seen since then) was correct.  I'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that Isaiah had written those verses about me, and yes I also agree that taking the bible as a whole, God would never have deserted me.  But I stand by my reading of this passage from Isaiah; more than any other moment it helped me start again, it helped my turn again with tears to my Lord.  It provoked me to hope. 

And I would suggest that my pastor friend's comments involved dispute about a 'true' meaning of the passage.

Far be it for me to attempt to offer a systematic way of reading the bible.  I still tend to use the old Scripture Union set of questions myself.  But just because I'm on a roll, I'll offer this extract of a poem (some from Organic Church will have read it before).  I wrote it after visiting a modern art exhibition for the first time.  I had been blown away by the art, I hadn't understood it (echoes of Graham's Opera analogy of scripture?) but I had been enthralled by it, and I sat down to write a poem for the first time in several years, it ended thus:

There's a hello in the moment,
an invitation glimpse,
a maybe looking forward
and a wond'ring going on.

If we read a 'hello' in our bible reading as God relates with us?  If we read an 'invitation' to walk on with Him?  If we read a 'maybe' of hope?  (oh I long for that to be so! I love that word 'maybe'; my prayer for my work as a teacher is that I'd offer my students loads of maybes). If we read with submissive wonder (rather than authoritative understanding)?  Do you think that we'd have enough time to tell others off for their errors?  Do you think that we'd be bothered about details, or might we be "lost in wonder, love and praise"?