Quote

Faith is unpredictable

2011-12-09T04:09:00.001-08:00

"Faith cannot be taught by any method of instruction; we can only teach religion. We can know about religion, but we can only expand in faith, act in faith , live in faith. Faith can be inspired within a community of faith, but it cannot be given to one person by another. Faith is expressed, transformed, and made meaningful by persons sharing their faith in an historical, tradition-bearing community of faith……the schooling-instruction paradigm works against our necessary primary concern for the faith of persons. It encourages us to teach about Christian religion by turning our attention to Christianity as expressed in documents, doctrines, history and moral codes"
John Westerhoff 'Will our children have faith?' (p 35)

Spiritual directors

2011-11-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

Nouwen in Reaching Out is talking about the lack of spiritual directors. I think I would want to include other consultative roles as well which enable our supervision.

“At least part of the reason for this lack .. is that we ourselves do not appeal to our fellow human beings in such a way as to invite them to become our spiritual leaders. If there were no students constantly asking for good teachers, there would be no good teachers. The same is true for spiritual guides. There are many men and women with great spiritual sensitivity whose talents remain dormant because we do not make an appeal to them. Many would, in fact, become wise and holy for our sake if we would invite them to assist us in our search for the prayer of our heart.

“A spiritual director does not need to be more intelligent or more experienced than we are. If is important that he or she accepts our invitation to lead us closer to God and enters with us into the scriptures and into the silence where God speaks to both of us. Often we will discover that those who we ask for help will indeed receive the gift to help us and grow with us toward prayer.” (98)

Cited in centers and margins, prophets and poets blogpost.

Questions of faith

2011-11-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

“God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favour.”Jean Jacques Rousseau
“If you comprehend it, it is not God.”Saint Augustine (354-430)

Lessons on leadership from nature

2011-11-07T07:45:00.000-08:00

"There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life’s deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we’re making a difference, when life feels purposeful."

"Over many years of work all over the world, I've learned that if we organize in the same way that the rest of life does, we develop the skills we need: we become resilient, adaptive, aware, and creative. We enjoy working together. And life’s processes work everywhere, no matter the culture, group, or person, because these are basic dynamics shared by all living beings."

"Western cultural views of how best to organize and lead (now the methods most used in the world) are contrary to what life teaches. Leaders use control and imposition rather than participative, self-organizing processes. They react to uncertainty and chaos by tightening already feeble controls, rather than engaging people's best capacities to learn and adapt. In doing so, they only create more chaos. Leaders incite primitive emotions of fear, scarcity, and self-interest to get people to do their work, rather than the more noble human traits of cooperation, caring, and generosity. This has led to this difficult time, when nothing seems to work as we want it to, when too many of us feel frustrated, disengaged, and anxious."

"There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about."

"To resolve most dysfunctional situations, the first thing to do is flood them with information."

from Margaret Wheatley

Prayer

2011-10-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

Photo of Japanese Contemplation Garden by Scott MacLeod-Lddle

Here are some great quotes about prayer.

2011-10-10T00:17:00.001-07:00

I wake up in the morning and don’t know whether to save the world or savor it, and this makes it hard to plan my day.
E.B. White

My shoes

2011-10-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

I leave aside my shoes - my ambitions,
undo my watch - my timetable,
take off glasses - my views,
unclip my pen - my work,
put down my keys - my security,
to be alone with you, the only true God.

After being with you,
I take up my shoes - to walk in your ways,
strap on my watch - to live in your time,
put on my glasses - to look at your world,
clip on my pen - to write up your thoughts,
pick up my keys - to open up your doors.

Anonymous

Grit and worry

2011-10-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

"Perhaps a teacher should be like the grit that gets into the shell of an oyster, How does it fell for the oyster? An irritation? A pain? Whatever effect, the result may be a pearl, beautiful or misshapen, but a precious object nevertheless.A learner has to worry at the thing. Many teachers provide the pearls ready-made. Students are asked to value them highly for what they are, to store them in their bags. But they are borrowed, put into a bank. It is the pearls the students make themselves that they really value, that matter tor them, and that will have a significant effect on their thinking, behaviour and self-esteem." David Minton in Teaching Skills in Further and Adult Education, 2005 (p 46)

Creation

2011-10-02T04:49:00.000-07:00

Our God and Father, you have revealed to us the secrets of the earth, the sea and the sky.
You have enabled us to discover the animal, vegetable and mineral resources of this planet.
Teach us now to use them wisely, effectively and to the benefit of us all, so that we may in unity enjoy the riches which you have provided, in justice, peace and prosperity; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Gordon McPhate, Dean of Chester Cathedral.

enabling organisation

2011-09-30T02:15:00.000-07:00

The core [of VISA] was an enabling organization that existed for the sole purpose of assisting owner-members to do what they wished with greater capacity, more effectively, and at less cost.

Dee Hock, 1999, Birth of the chaordic age, p.190

Time for new stories

2011-09-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

We have lost our local, communal stories and destroyed the places for their telling. Nor do we have a new compelling global story or communal places for its telling. The stories now endlessly drummed into us are not our stories. The are the stories those with escalating power and wealth tell to one another. Stories that incessantly pour into us through commercialisation of media and every other aspect of life. They are stories designed to arouse greed in the many to satisfy it in the few. They are stories that appeal to the worst, not the best in us. They are false stories. Deep inside, we no longer believe them. Neither do those who tell them, if the truth be known.

Dee Hock, 1999, Birth of the chaordic age, p.298f

Nothing but an idea

2011-09-30T02:03:00.000-07:00

Any organisation ... is nothing but an idea. All institutions are no more than a mental construct to which people are drawn in pursuit of common purpose; a conceptual embodiment of a very old, very powerful idea called community. All organisations can be no more than the moving force of the mind, heart and spirit of people, without which all assets are just so much inert mineral, chemical, or vegetable matter, by the law of entropy steadily decaying to a stable state.

Dee Hock, 1999. Birth of the chaordic age, p.119

hoist with our own petard

2011-09-30T01:57:00.000-07:00

The essential thing to remember is not that we became a world of expert managers and specialists, but that the nature of our expertise became the creation and management of constants, uniformity, and efficiency, while the need has become the understanding and coordination of variability, complexity, and effectiveness, the very process of change itself. It is not complicated. The nature of our organisation, management, and scientific expertise is not only increasingly irrelevant to presssing societal and environmental needs, it is a primary cause of them.

Dee Hock. 1999. Birth of the chaordic age, p.57

Community and proximity

2011-09-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

Community is not about profit. It is about benefit ... When we attempt to monetize all value, we methodically disconnect people and destroy community.
The nonmonetary exchange of value is the most effective, constructive system ever devised. Evolution and nature have been perfecting it for thousands of millennia. It requires no currency, contracts, government, laws, courts, police, economists, lawyers, accountants. It does not require anointed or certified experts at all. It requires only ordinary, caring people.
True community requires proximity; continual, direct contact and interaction between the people, place, and things of which it is composed.

Dee Hock, 1999, Birth of the chaordic age, p.43

institutional crisis

2011-09-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

We're in an accelerating, global epidemic of institutional failure ... [with] organizations increasingly unable to achieve the purpose for which they were created, yet continuing to expand ...
schools that can't teach
universities far from universal
corporations that can neither cooperate nor compete, only consolidate
unhealthy health-care systems
welfare systems in which noone fares well
farming systems that destroy soil and poison food
families far from familial
police that can't enforce the law
judicial systems without justice
governments that can't govern
economies that can't economize ...

Dee Hock - 1999 - Birth of the chaordic age - page 28.

Purple

2011-09-19T05:20:00.000-07:00

Posted by http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/grace/

Christ's piece is you,
Christ's piece is me,
It is those that do,
And it is those that be,
Without one another we can't cover 360 degrees,
Because we don't need 'I's to see, we need We.

As every image that we see of ourselves is reflected,
Every image that we see of the world is subjective,
We need two points of view to gain some perspective,
And the ability and humility to accept this.

Because in our vision lies division,
A polarised view of action and pacifism,
But contradiction doesn't mean fact and fiction,
more like discordant harmonies in the melody of wisdom.

I need you, like red needs blue,
You need me, like do needs be,
And life shouldn't be binary,
Our eyes shouldn't be primary,
We need to trade in reds and blues for indigos and violets see:
We need to try and be purple.

Not just protest march bruises as we go out and do,
Or blood filled cheeks as we hold our breath and be,
I mean purple.
Full circle.
The hares and the rabbits,
the tortoises and turtles,
Purple.

So let us be moved to be mauve,
Maroon and mulberry,
Lilac, plum and lavender,
May the red and blue poles of our souls and our minds combine to be magnets of magenta,
Purple.

May we take the opposites and make the composite,
As every image has its limits
And every picture could be richer,
If we have someone else to see that we are in it,
We need to be purple.

[by Harry Baker aka Dubb]

Don't hold on so tight

2011-09-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

"How do we present ourviews in the fullness of our embodied and perspectival commitment, withoutfalling back into a pre-modern universalism that has rightly been criticised asexpressing the will to power of those who have been able to express theirviews? I suggest it is not by pretending to an intellectual neutrality which inany case is only a pose, but rather by acknowledging and affirming the conditionsof time and space, which limit our perspectives as well as giving them theirdistinctive perspectival power… We should not hold our views so tightly that wecannot appreciate the perspectival truths embodied in the lives and works ofothers. We should think of our 'truth claims 'as the product of embodied thinking not as terminally boreduniversally valid thought."

Christ, C P. 1988, Embodied thinking: reflections on feminist theological method. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, 1 - page 15.

learning organisations

2011-09-01T05:12:00.000-07:00

learning organisations are "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together.” (Senge, 1990, p.3).

Senge, P.M. 1990 The Fifth Discipline London: Century Business

What I would see and praise

2011-08-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

What I would see
mid all the stress and tension of these days
what I would see beyond my pain and, seeing, praise
is how life works its way upon
our thick, opaque obduracy
presses down and pulls us out
to tissue-thin transparency:
yes, praise.
I would not choose to stretch this way.
Unwillingly I find myself drawn membrane-thin
so others can see through and in.
I would prefer to hold my dark
to guard my secrets safe behind
a studied public face -
but stretched reveal a larger life
admit a light beyond my own
and letting through these stronger, brighter rays
I praise.

Einstein

2011-07-29T23:49:00.001-07:00

"Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up."

Albert Einstein

Failures and mistakes

2011-07-27T08:16:00.000-07:00

Leadership is "going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)

Founder of Polaroid, Edwin Land, had a small plaque on his office wall which read: "A mistake is an event the full benefit of which you have not yet turned to your advantage."

Victims of violence

2011-07-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

We will listen, however painful the hearing,

For still there are women the world over

being raped

being whipped

being sold into slavery

being shamed

being silenced

being beaten

being broken

treated as worthless

treated as refuse.

Until there is not one last woman remaining

Who is a victim of violence…

Listen, then, in sorrow.

Listen in anger.

Listen to the texts of terror.

And let us commit ourselves to working for a world

in which such deeds may never happen again.

Slee, Nicola. Praying like a woman.p36-37. London, SPCK. 2004.

Mentoring

2011-07-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

The power of our mentors is not necessarily in the models of good teaching they gave us ... Their power is in their capacity to awaken a truth within us, a truth we can reclaim years later by recalling their impact on our lives.

In workshops I often ask people to introduce themselves by talking about a teacher who made a difference in their lives. ...

Then I ask the question that opens to the deeper purpose of this exercise: not “what made your mentor great?” but “What is it about you that allowed great mentoring to happen?”

Mentoring is a mutuality that requires more than meeting the right student. In this encounter, not only are the qualities of the mentor revealed, but the qualities of the student are drawn out in a way that is equally revealing.

Parker Palmer (1998) The Courage to Teach. p21.

Lines of thought

2011-07-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

"I really don’t see the point of reading in straight lines. We don’t think like that and we don’t live like that. Our mental processes are closer to a maze than a motorway, every turning yields another turning, not symmetrical, not obvious. Not chaos either."

Jeanette Winterton Oranges are not the only fruit Vintage (2001)- quote picked up from Friday Mailing

from Max Warren

2011-06-27T00:02:00.000-07:00

When we approach the man of another faith than our own it will be in a spirit of expectancy to find how God has been speaking to him and what new understandings of the grace and love of God we may ourselves discover in this encounter. Our first task in approaching another people, another culture, another religion, is to take off our shoes, for the place we are approaching is holy. Else we may find ourselves treading on men’s dreams. More serious still, we may forget that God was here before our arrival.
Picked up from Simon Marsh's blog.

2009-12-04T08:10:00.001-08:00

"Though I speak with the tongues of humans and angels, and even have interactive Applets embedded in my PowerPoints, but have not pedagogy, I am become as sounding brass and a clanging cymbal"

Steve Delamarter et al Teaching Theology and Religion, 2007, vol 10 no.2, pp. 64-79

Ethics of education

2009-11-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

"When we deal with ethics in education (and often we ignore it altogether), we approach it as a matter of helping individuals develop standards for personal behaviour. Not only do we stress personal at the expense of communal ethics: deeper still, we ignore the fact that the presence, or absence of communal imagery at every level of teaching and learning can form, or deform, students for life in the world. We underestimate the hidden curriculum of ethics that is being taught in classrooms even - and perhaps especially - when ethics is not the formal topic."

Leadership

2009-06-24T04:29:00.000-07:00

When the best leader's work is done, the people say, "We did it ourselves".
(Lao-Tzu)

Love

2009-06-17T05:08:00.000-07:00

When one who professes love is wholly in control of the object of his love, then the falsity of love is exposed. Love ins the activity for the sake of an other: and where the object of love is wholly under the control of the one who loves, that object is no longer an other. It is a part or extension of the professed lover. Where the object of love is truly an other the activity of love is always precarious ... it contains no assurance or certainty of completion: much may be expended and little achieved. the progress of love must always be by tentative and precarious steps: and each step that is taken, whether it "succeeds" or "fails", becomes the basis for the next, and equally precarious, step which must follow. Love proceeds by no assured programme.

W.H. Vanstone; Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense p46

Man of conversation

2009-03-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

Jesus always has time for conversation. He has animated conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, and the man born blind, anyone he meets. He will eat, drink and pass time with everyone: prostitutes, the hated tax collectors, religious leaders, lepers. God's word became flesh - not, initially, in sermons proclaimed from pulpits, in learned books of theology, but in human conversation.
Timothy Radcliffe: Why go to Church? (p53)

Writing

2009-02-28T00:44:00.000-08:00

At its best the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain and then - and only then - it is handed to you. From the corner of yur eye you can see motion. Something is moving the air and headed your way.

from the Writing Life by Annie Dillard (p75)

2009-02-28T00:41:00.000-08:00

The learned man said
to the almond tree:
Speak to me of God.
And the almond tree blossomed.

Anonymous poem on a poster in the Abbey of Sylvanes, translated by David McAndrew and quoted by Timothy Radcliffe in Why go the Church.

Vocation and mission

2009-01-16T06:07:00.001-08:00

All revelation is summons or sending.

Martin Buber

Aha moments

2009-01-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

From Friday Mailing:

From Ed Sanders (Richard Cooke says these are ' reflections on his practice as a university teacher. As well as being an outstanding NT scholar himself, Sanders has also produced a rich crop of graduate students - the quote below may show why!’)

"I think that the greatest moment in a teacher’s life is seeing a student have an “ah ha” moment by his or her own endeavor. The instructor’s clever or even memorable phrasing is worth much less. I began my career by overestimating students: I did not realize how much they needed repetition and the practice of describing texts and ideas in their own words. The more patient I was, and the harder I worked at getting them to see things for themselves—rather than offering my own glib solutions of difficulties—the better I was at teaching and the more rewarding I found the activity. The hardest thing to do—at which I often failed in my early years—is to find the students’ own level."

The whole thing is at http://www.duke.edu/web/gradreligion/documents/GPRnewsfall2008.pdf.

To be a pilgrim

2009-01-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

The pilgrim resolves that the one who returns will not be the same person as the one who set out.

Andrew Schelling

2008-12-18T02:43:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:58:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T07:55:00.001-08:00

"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

2008-12-12T02:28:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-09T04:54:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-03T23:55:00.000-08:00

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"

2008-12-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

Strong minds break strong chains.

Rev Jesse Jackson

Advent and the adult Christ

2008-12-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-28T03:59:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

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

Credit crunch

2008-10-25T23:48:00.001-07:00

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

Teaching and Learning

2008-10-24T03:23:00.000-07:00

" 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

2008-10-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-08T00:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-02T23:28:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

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.”

2008-08-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

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

The Empty Hands of Faith

2008-08-15T00:59:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-08-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

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

Irish Fisherman's Prayer

Feeding the Church

2008-08-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

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.)

2008-07-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T00:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-20T23:57:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T00:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-04T05:11:00.001-07:00

" 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

2008-07-02T23:51:00.001-07:00

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

Initiative

2008-07-02T23:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-27T02:18:00.001-07:00

"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

2008-06-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

2008-06-12T23:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

[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

2008-05-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-21T02:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-20T00:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

"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)

2008-04-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-04-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-04-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

"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

2008-04-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-16T23:58:00.000-07:00

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

Nature

2008-04-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-10T02:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-06T23:27:00.001-07:00

"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)

2008-04-06T23:24:00.001-07:00

“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