If we are to defeat the mosquitoes of terrorism we must drain the swamps of poverty and despair, which result in the stones of anger, hatred and violence.

Rt Rev Peter Price in his maiden speech to the House of Lords in which he expressed fear that the church is obsessed with its own internal agenda

Mothers of God

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.

Meister Eckhart (14th century)

Mary's YES

"According to ancient Christian writers, God waits for Mary's yes; creation waits; Adam and Eve wait, the dead in the underworld wait; the angels wait; and so do we. With Mary's yes, hope is enlivened and history is changed. There is an unimaginable future for all people, a future that comes from God. All nations assemble in justice, compassion and gratitude. Salvation is created among us, and the fate of history is altered by a godly presence. This salvation resides in the hearts of those who believe in the gift and who stay awake eagerly to know it is coming. With David we await it, with the nations we long for it, and with Mary we behold it."

Dianne Bergant

Christmas Blues

Homecomings [for the Christmas holidays], whether they are to church or family households, can be filled with expectation and met with disappointment. Cynthia Jarvis touches on these painful places in the human heart, "conditions ... made acute by the culture's merriment: the relationships severed, the addictions hidden, the violence barely domesticated, the depression denied, the affair raging, the self-loathing cut deep into the flesh, the greed, the hatred, the fear."
from Kate Huey in Weekly Seeds

Vocation

In the teleology of vocation,
each moment has a vocation;
each day, many callings;
and each lifetime, many pathways,
in the context of God’s Holy Adventure.

Bruce Epperly: Process and Faith
He also refers to the words of singer/song writer Carrie Newcomer:

The empty page
The open book
Redemption everywhere I look.

Paco forgiven

Madrid is full of boys named Paco, which is diminutive for the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT THE HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answerd the advertisement.

So begins Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Capital of the World"

Strong minds break strong chains.

Rev Jesse Jackson

Advent and the adult Christ

It is an adult Christ that the community encounters during the Advent and Christmas cycles of Sunday and feasts: a Risen Lord who invites sinful people to become the church. Christmas does not ask us to pretend we were back in Bethlehem, kneeling before a crib; it asks us to recognize that the wood of the crib became the wood of the cross.

—Nathan Mitchel, quoted in, LITURGY WITH STYLE AND GRACE by Gabe Huck and Gerald T. Chinchar. (Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1998, page 97. Paper, ISBN 1-56854-186-4 in Preachers' Exchange

Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with DISCOMFORT ...
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with ANGER ...
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with TEARS ...To shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation and war.
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And to turn their pain into JOY.
And may God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS...
To believe that you can make a difference in this world,
So that you can DO what others claim cannot be done. Amen
A Franciscan Benediction

Leadership qualities

A leader is a person with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head.
Vance Hainer

Credit crunch

Friend Jim forwarded this article to me about how Japan fares post-bubble.

Teaching and Learning

" A man began to give large doses of cod-liver oil to his Doberman because he had been told that the stuff was good for dogs. Each day he would hold the head of the protesting dog between his knees, force its jaws open, and pour the liquid down its throat.

One day the dog broke loose and spilled the oil on the floor. Then, to the man's great surprise, it returned to lick the spoon. That is when he discovered that what the dog had been fighting was not the oil but his method of administration."

From the 'Education' section of Anthony de Mello's "The Heart of the Enlightened"

Politics

Politics is not just a tiresome consequence of human shortcomings, it is an ongoing conversation about how to bring out and empower the ocean of different gifts and talents in a community. It is not about the limited money in people's pockets, it is about the limitless potential in their hearts and minds and souls and bodies. It is about how to engage all the energy that is about, and how to discern and embody that which constitutes the goodl life. It may not always be happy, beautiful, or rich, but if a community can express such a notion of politics, it can experience a goodness that other communities, with their impoverished politics, can only envy.
Sam Wells: God's Companions (2006) p169

To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

Thanks to Bishop Alan's blog for reminding me of this quote fro Cardinal Newman

Bonnie Combe is a woman who lost her husband in a plane crash in Alaska. During her journey through grief, a friend asked her, "Did your husband enrich your life?" "Why, of course," she answered. The friend came back to her with something that changed her life, "Well then -- what are you going to do with those riches?" That statement became the ground of her recovery. [Told on ABC Nightline, 7/21/99 during a discussion of the John F. Kennedy Jr. plane crash]

Savings

Leo Tolstoy tells the story of a rich man who was never satisfied. Tolstoy tells wonderful stories. He told a story of a man who always wanted more and he heard of a wonderful chance to get more land. For 1,000 rubles he could have all that he could walk around in a day, but he had to make it back to the starting point by the end of the day or he would lose everything that he invested. He arose early and set out. He walked on and on thinking that he could get just a little more land if he kept going on, but he went so far that he realized that he must walk very fast if he was going to get back to the starting point and claim the land. As the sun went lower in the sky, he quickened his pace. He began to run. He came within sight of the starting place and so he exerted his last energies plunging over the finish line, falling to the ground, dead. His servant took a spade and dug a grave. He made is just long enough and just wide enough and buried him. Do you know the title of Leo Tolstoy's story? "How much land does a man need?" And he ends the story with this line: "six feet from his head to his heels was all that man needed"
a Lindy Black Sermon Nugget

Spirituality

Spirituality “must now touch every area of human experience, the public and the social, the painful, negative, even pathological byways of the mind, the moral and relational world.”
Rowan Williams

“Spiritualities that are disengaged from the world, rather than committed to it and to its transformation, fail to reflect the irrevocable commitment of God to the world in Jesus Christ.”

Love much, think deeply, speak gently, laugh often, work hard, give freely, pay promptly, pray earnestly and be kind.

The Empty Hands of Faith

"And so we put out empty hands and bread and wine are put into them which we eat and drink in communion with his body and blood, for we have no other offering with which to draw near to God but that one offering which is identical with Jesus Christ himself, through whom, with whom, and in whom we glorify the Father" (T.F. Torrance)
Thanks to Two Empty Hands for this quote.javascript:void(0)

Irish Fisherman's Prayer

"Dear Lord, be good to me
the sea is so wide
and my boat is so small."

Irish Fisherman's Prayer

Feeding the Church

As Christians we gather at the table and remember what Jesus did with bread on that hillside. The words used by Matthew here are familiar from the Last Supper account and from our own celebration of the Eucharist as well: the verbs--take, bless, break and give--are simple but powerful, and apply to our lives just as they apply to the bread we share with one another and with the world. In fact, this work of the church goes on in every age and every wilderness. Thomas Long writes: "the church is always in the desert, the place where it cannot rely upon its own resources, which are few. The church is hungry itself and is surrounded by a world of deep cravings...." 

from Kate Huey with reference to the Feeding of the 5000
Picture is by Eularia Clarke

Resurrection

Resurrection: Borgo San Sepolcro

Today it is time. Warm enough, finally,
to ease the lids apart, the wax lips of a breaking bud
defeated by their steady push, hour after hour,
opening to show wet and dark, a tongue exploring,
an eye shrinking against the dawn. Light
like a fishing line draws its catch straight up,
then slackens for a second. The flat foot drops,
the shoulders sag. Here is the world again, well-known,
the dawn greeted in snoring dreams of a familiar
winter everyone prefers. So the black eyes
fixed half-open, start to search, ravenous,
imperative, they look for pits, for hollow where
their flood can be decanted, look
for rooms ready for commandeering, ready
to be defeated by the push, the green implacable
rising. So he pauses, gathering the strength
in his flat foot, as the perspective buckles under him,
and the dreamers lean dangerously inwards. Contained,
exhausted, hungry, death running off his limbs like drops
from a shower, gathering himself. We wait,
paralysed as if in dreams, for his spring.

(Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection hangs in the
civic hall of Borgo San Sepolcro, Tuscany.)

Love is a temporary madness. It eruupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being 'in love' which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it; we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

Louis de Bernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin

On death and mission

All that our society has to say suggests that death is the great enemy who will finally get the better of us against our will and desire. But thus perceived, life is little more than a losing battle, a hopeless struggle, a journey of despair. ....... Even though I often give in to the many fears and warnings of my world, I still believe deeply that our few years on this earth are part of a much larger event that stretches out far beyond the boundaries of our birth and death. I think of it as a mission into time, a mission that is very exhilirating and even exciting, mostly because the One who sent me on the mission is waiting for me to come home and tell the story of what I have learned.

Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself ber seduced by the noisy voices of my world telling me that 'my little life'is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to that still small voice calling me the beloved, I know that there is nothing to fear and that dying is the greatest act of love, the act that leads me into the eternal embrace of my God whose love is everlasting.

Henri Nouwen - Life of the Beloved

The world is evil only when you become its slave.

Think of yourself as having been sent into the world.

As long as you live in the world, yielding to its enormous pressures to prove to yourslelf and to others that you are somebody and knowing from the beginning that you will lose in the end, your life can be scarecely more than along struggle for survival.

Henri Nouwen - Life of the Beloved

Imagine

One of the greatest acts of faith is to believe that the few years we live on this earth are like a seed planted in a very rich soil. For this seed to bear fruit, it must die..

How different would our life be were we truly able to trust that it multiplied in being given away! How different would our life be if we could but believe that every little act of faithfulness, every gesture of love, every word of forgiveness, every little bit of joy and peace will multiply and multiply as long as there are people to receive it ... and then - even then - there will be leftovers!

Imagine yourself convinced ... that your kindness to your friends, and your generosity to the poor are little mustard seeds that will become strong trees in which many birds can build their nests! Imagine that, in the centre of your heart, you trust that your smiles and handshakes, your embraces and your kisses are only the signs of a worldwide community of love and peace!...Could you ever be depressed, angry resentful or vengeful? Could you ever hate, destroy or kill? Could you ever despair of the meaning of your short earthly existence?

Henri Nouwen - Life of the Beloved

Brokenness

Our brokenness is often so frightening to face because we live it under the curse.............
The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing.......
When we keep listening attentively to the voice calling us the Beloved, it becomes possible to live our brokenness, not as a confirmation of our fear that we are worthless, but as an opportunity to purify and deepen the blessing that rests upon us. Physical, mental or emotional pain lived under the blessing is experienced in ways radically different from physical, mental or emotional pain lived under the curse. Even a small burden, perceived as a sign of our worthlessness, can lead us to deep depression - even suicide. However, great and heavy burdens become light and easy when they are lived in the light of the blessing. What seemed intolerable becomes a challenge. What seemed a reason for depression becomes a a source of purification. What seemed punishment becomes a gentle pruning. What seemd rejection becomes a way to deeper communion.
Henri Nouwen - Life of the Beloved p 97f

There is a kind of love

This poem was quoyed by Chris Hewitson - Chester Cathedral 2008

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.
U.A. Fanthorpe

Bottom up leadership

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

If those over whom we have authority properly manage themselves, manage us, manage their peers, and replicate the porcess with those they employ, what is there to do but see they are properly recognised, rewarded and stay out of their way? It is not making better people of others that management is about. It's about making a better person of self. Income, power, and titles have nothing to do with that.

Dee Hock p 70

In my view, we are at that precise point in time when a four-hundred-year-old age is rattling in its deathbed and another struggling to be born. A shifting of consciousness, culture, society and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of liberty, community and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another and with the divine intelligence such as the world has ever dreamed.

Unfortunately, ahead lies equal possibility of increasing institutional failure, enormous human and ecological carnage, and regression to even more mechanistic, tyrannical concepts of control, which, in turn, would have to collapse with even more carnage before chaordic institutions could emerge. It matters not a whit whether such regression and tyranny is in the hands of political, commercial or social institutions, or by what ideology we label them. In the end, it will come to the same.

We do not have an environmental problem. We do not have an education problem. We do not have a health care problem, a welfare problem, a political problem, an economic problem, a peace problem or a population problem. At bottom, we have an institutional problem, and until we deal with it we will struggle in vain with the all the symptoms.

Dee Hock

Birds without Wings

You and I used to fancy ourselves as birds, and we were very happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings. You were a robin and I was a blackbird, and there were some who were eagles, or vultures, or pretty goldfinches, but none of us had wings.
For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.
But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek.
conclusion of Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

" A man began to give large doses of cod-liver oil to his Doberman because he had been told that the stuff was good for dogs. Each day he would hold the head of the protesting dog between his knees, force its jaws open, and pour the liquid down its throat.

One day the dog broke loose and spilled the oil of the floor. Then, to the man's great surprise, it returned to lick the spoon. That is when he discovered that what the dog had been fighting was not the oil but his method of administration."

A "story meditation" from the 'Education' section of Anthony de Mello's The Heart of the Enlightened

Chaordic we are, chaordic we will remain, chaordic the world is, and chaordic our institutions must become.
Dee Hock

Initiative

Until one is committed there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. COncerning all acts of inititative and creation there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. The moment one moves, then providence moves too. Multitudes of things occur to help that which otherwise could never occur. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising to one's favour all manner of unforeseen acccidents, meetings, and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come their way: "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
W N Murray; The Scottish Himalayan Expedition - last two lines commonly attributed to Goethe

Great ideas come into the world as quietly as doves. Perhaps then, if we listen attentively we shall hear, among the uproar of empires and nations, the saint fluttering of wings, the gentle stirrings of life and hope. Some will say this hope lies in a nation; others in a man. I believe rather that it is awakened, revived, nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history. Each and every one, on the foundations of their own suffering and joy, builds for all.
Albert Camus - quoted by Dee Hock p310

IF

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Alcoholics Anonymous

AA twelve steps

1.) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.) Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3.) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4.) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.) Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6.) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7.) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8.) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10.) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11.) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12.) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

"There is no neutrality in a situation of injustice and oppression. If you say you are neutral, you are a liar, for you have already taken sides with the powerful. Our God is not a neutral God. We have a God who does take sides. . . who will not let us forget the widow and the orphan."
Desmond Tutu


Photo by gitgat.

VISA

Today, before any audience in the world, I can hold a VISA card overhead and ask, "How many of you recognise this?" Every hand in the room will go up. When I ask, "How many of you can tell me who owns it, where it's headquartered, how it operates, or where to buy shares?" a dead silence comes over the room. The audience realses something extraordinary has occurred and they haven't a clue how it happened. Nor, in my opinion should they. The results of the best organisations are apparent, but the structure, leadership, and process are transparent.
Dee Hock - Birth of the Chaordic Age p189

Hallelujah

Nothing is possible without individuals; nothing is lasting without institutions.
Jean Monnet

Man is not born evil. Why then are some of them infected with this plague of malevolence? It's because those who are at their head have the malady and communicate it to the rest of mankind.

Voltaire

Theology of chaordic organisation

Heaven is purpose, principle and people.
Purgatory is paper and procedure.
Hell is rules and regulations.

Dee Hock describing his theology of chaordic organisation in Birth of the Chaordic Age (p146)

Faith

[Faith] is not a well-fluffed nest, or a well-defended castle high on a hill. It is more like a rope bridge over a scenic gorge, sturdy but swinging back and forth, with plenty of light and plenty of air but precious little to hang on to except the stories you have heard…All you have to do is believe in the bridge more than you believe in the gorge.

Barbara Taylor Bradford

Dependance

Lord, the fullness that our lives long for
depends on us being as open and vulnerable to you
as you were to us,
when you came,
wearing no more than nappies ,
and trusting human hands
to hold their maker

- John Bell

Life is difficult

Smooth roads never make good drivers
Smooth sea never makes good sailors
Clear Skies never makes good Pilots .
Problem and hassle free life never makes a strong person.

Hope

When an organisation loses its shared vision and principles, its sense of community, its meaning and values, it is already in the process of decay and dissolution ..... Without a deeply held, commonly shared purpose that gives meaning to their lvies; without deeply held, commonly shared, ethical values and beliefs about conduct in purtsuit of purpose that all may trust and rely upon, communities steadily disintegrate, and organisations progressively become instruments of tyranny.
Dee Hock

Christian Aid

Lord Jesus, you were anointed to bring good news to those who felt no good news, to proclaim freedom to those imprisoned by injustice, and recover health and wholeness to all the world.You took up the cause of the oppressed.You proclaimed the year of the Lord’s favour.At the heart of your ministry was action.Remind us of the unlikely group of people you gathered around you to perform your work of love, and empower us to bring your good news so your kingdom will come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
From Walthamstow Parish Magazine

Pentecost

"O Holy Spirit, giver of light and life, free us from all that is
matter-of-fact, stale, bored, tired; all that takes things for granted.
Open our eyes to see, and excite our minds to marvel."

For Pentecost - from 'A Procession of Prayers' (ed John Carden - Meditations and Prayers from Around the World)

"I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize, but which we now seek to counter through the actual radiance of colour vibrations." Vincent Van Gogh

"How are we going to cope with this?" or "What on earth can we do about that?" is so often the starting point for a relevant and exciting piece of theological work, even though it begins on a negative and worrying note..... It is a fact that good theology is more likely to derive from a problem rather than a statement, more likely to arise in a prison than a palace.
Laurie Green

"Home is the place, where when you have to go there, they have to take you in."
Robert Frost

Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."
St Augustine

The whole team are leaders

Leadership is not the personal responsibility of the team leader. It is to be exercised by all both collectively and individually. So the role of the team leader is to encourage growth in leadership in your colleagues. Just as a cricket captain seeks to bring out the best in bowler or batsman, so the team leader encourages, motivates.
Geoffrey Cornell - How to become a Creative Church Leader

People deprived of self-organisation and self-governance are inherently ungovernable.
Dee Hock - Birth of the Chaordic Age

Nature

The striking of a match is every bit as wonderful as the working of a brain; the union of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen in a molecule of water isevery bit as wonderful as the growth of a child. nature does not class her works in order of merit; everything is just as easy to her as everything else: she puts her wholemind into all that she does ... she lives through all life, extends throaugh all extent, spreads undivided, operates unspent.
Stephen Paget

from Dee Hock

Without an abundance of nonmaterial values and an equal abundance of nonmonetary exchange of material value, no true community ever existed or ever will. ... When we attempt to monetise all value, we methodically disconnect people and destroy community.

True community requires proximity; continual, direct contact and interaction between the people, place, and things of which it is composed. Throughout history, the fundamental building block, the quintessential community, has always been the family. It is there that the greatest nonmonetary exchange of value takes place. It is there that the most powerful nonmaterial values are created and exchanged. It is from that community, for better or worse, that all others are formed. The nonmonetary exchange of value is the vary heart and soul of community, and community is the inescapable, essential element of civil society.

Birth of the Chaordic Order - page 43

from 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; mirrrors 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 will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf."(Later Poems: 1983. p35)

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul.” --Johann Wolfgang Goethe