Thought for the Day

As delivered on BBC Radio Bristol's Breakfast Show just now:

The God I worship and follow is of infinite variety and the creation I am part of reflects that.

How does a Thought for the Day script come to pass? You may have wondered.

Weeks in advance those of us who contribute to this slot get to agree a few dates.

Then, the day before we are to speak, the producer contacts us with a list of stories that will be covered on the show. We are invited to either link our thought to one of the stories, or to talk about something, from the perspective of our faith, that connects the stories.

Over the last five years I have spoken about the economy, education and Englishness; tower cranes and whale vomit.

So I submit a script, the producer checks that what I say won't get myself or the BBC into trouble, and away we go.

Why tell you this dear listener? Because the random selection of stories I received yesterday was the most varied I have come across:

Meals on wheels problems, a new school, a faithful lifeboat volunteer, stolen paving slabs, prosthetic limbs and all this on International Women's Day.

The capacity to use our individuality for good or evil is represented in the stories.

Psalm 104 tells of the many works of God and concludes that us mere mortals can mimic that creativity in worship and praise, with deed as well as word, or can destroy the very world with bad deeds and harmful words.

I don't know if you have spent your days nicking paving slabs or making the world a better place. All I know is that the God I worship and follow is of infinite variety and the creation I am part of reflects that.

Bleak

I spent a lot of time between the ages of 11 and 16 just staring out of the window. I don't know if my Dad's words 'If you're bored you must be a cabbage' were influencing me (they do now) but I know I had the feeling that something would come along to ease the dullness of teenage life and I simply had to wait. I did. It did.

These days my life is never dull. Moments of reprise from busyness can be rare.

One thing I do know. That slight tendency to inward-lookingness. The very edge of depression without ever crossing over into it, where I can see down but have no inclination to jump. That is the place of creativity.

Today, a day off, I had to be up early to take my car for a service. The garage is on one of those anonymous out of town malls where there is a cinema. Not open for three more hours. There are also the usual fast-food chains and loads of lifestyle destinations, oops I mean shops.

Looking out over a rainswept dual-carriageway from the most pedestrian unfriendly McDonalds in the west, I have never felt more alive. It is as if the words from the past kick in and this is my cue to do something useful; to make a difference myself without help. To get the lyrics of the song the wrong way round, I have to get down in order to get up.

I don't know if this is a key to managing depression. I would never describe myself as having been depressed. But so many of my more creative friends, especially the musicians, seem to have to embrace the downness in order to write.

I wrote this haiku over breakfast. It is Valentine's Day:

These roses are red,
Enhanced by the glow of the
Petrol station lights.

Let us not go into its quality as poetry. The haiku is a one-liner by any other name. Chuckle if you want. Let us notice that it is quite bleak. Cynical about love and cheap expressions thereof. It uses the greyness of the weather to comment on the greyness of relationships. Petrol station flowers say 'I nearly forgot' louder than 'I remembered'.

Sorry to be writing a critique of my own work but it is to help us understand how I got there not to draw attention to the verse. It would not have happened if I had been enjoying the start to the day.

It is also 14/02/2014 which excites me more than most as I like being alive on interesting numbers days. The love of my life tells me that is both very sad and also why she loves me. So at least one person understands.

I need to move to another coffee bar. This one has exhausted its possibilities.

Creativity

At yesterday's Trendlewood all-age service we did the first of two weeks looking at church. First Beginning then Belonging.

As part of our activities we meet round tables with various possibilities for craft. As the church is about people I asked members to make models or draw pictures of people.

This though is the finest clay model I have ever come across in such circumstances. And, poignantly, it says more about people than if it were a whole being. Thanks Hannah Smith.

Weather

Why do you talk about the weather so much in England? I've been asked this a few times, mainly by continental friends or west-coast Yanks.

If it was 20c every day with rain falling in April only we'd probably not discuss it. But this morning we had overnight heavy wind followed by torrential rain, hail, lightning and thunder. Now it is looking slightly sunny.

We are blessed with not living in a part of the world where the weather makes a serious annual attempt to take your life, but also where it is not so predictable as to be dull.

I think it is part of what makes us adaptable and creative as a people. And on that note I'm going to get some writing and cooking done.

Spring in the Air Vicar

I have never really been S.A.D although there are times over the last few weeks when I have felt, unusually for me, that I wasn't completely happy. Not being given to extremes of emotions means I am rarely particularly up or down; just chugging along. It is why I don't look pleased to see you. I'm not, especially. That and the facial injury I got aged fourteen which caused the visual interface to malfunction, as a friend kindly puts it.

Anyway I got a bit more cheerful in the last few days and as the sun has been out a bit I wonder if it's that. You have to be very wary of arguments from coincidence. It can't be that West Brom beating Birmingham, England beating South Africa and pancakes being great could have that much significance.

On Tuesday I sat in a different seat to normal at our monthly wider leadership team meeting. I usually let guests have the comfy seats but on Tuesday one was left vacant. It then happened that the agenda for our meeting was more than usually relevant and engaging for me. When I get wrapped up in a discussion a switch goes off and I become louder, creative, ruder and generally the meeting gets a bit of craic. Some then complain afterwards that I was obnoxious. Not unreasonably since most creatives have this evil intern living within.

Thing is, some were saying it was the seat. Whilst getting a different perspective on a group of people by not always sitting in the same chair is good, saying that it caused all the change is not much different to lucky pants syndrome.

At one point I was accused of mellow subversion. I loved that, although I'm pretty sure she was a backing singer in a jazz combo I used to know.

I told a mate. Great he said. I'll do recumbent anarchy and we'll make a great team.

Introducing mellow subversion and recumbent anarchy. If you want to join us you must have a great name. Good morning.

Great Questions 4

How would you explain this problem to a six year old?
(101 Ways to Generate Great Ideas - Timothy Foster)

Innovation

One of the things I find about being someone who is, from time to time, responsible for innovation, is how hard it is to define the moment when an idea becomes reality. At one level an idea only becomes reality when the event, or whatever was presaged, happens. The greatest test of a prophecy is whether or not it comes true. Perhaps it's the only test. But for me, when setting up something new, there will come a point in the preparation when I will know that it will come to pass. Maybe it's the energy level the project develops that prompts it? Possibly it's being surrounded by a group of other people who have caught the vision? Or even it's that you notice you have tipped from if to when?

I was reflecting on a recent experience of setting up a course that was cancelled - I guess the overriding reason being lack of interest. This may have been due to my failure to enthuse. I normally blame myself first. But I now realise I never had that moment when I knew it would happen. I didn't notice at the time that I hadn't, but I hadn't. So the nearer the event came (without having had my 'moment') the more energy I put into cancelling it.

In spiritual terms it is possible to see this as a matter of guidance. I believe there is a God who frustrates those things that are ungodly and prospers the opposite. Indeed I pray that this would happen. In more modern (oops, do I really think spiritual isn't modern?) terms this is about Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. There comes a time when things can't help but happen. A good aim in life, for an innovator, is to get things to the point not where they happen, but where you can't stop them happening. The innovation job is then done and it is time to hand on to the managers.

Always remembering, of course, to take the innovators to the review and learn session afterwards so they can compare what actually happened with their vision. Do allow them to leave the meeting before all the monitor evaluators get going on dissecting the detail. Innovators will surely go bonkers at this point. Unless they're scribbling on a piece of paper in the corner of the room. For that will be the next big idea.

Post-its

The guy who invented post-its, so the story goes, used a batch of defective glue to stick bits of paper to his wall and take them down again. The batch lasted for years until someone realised the application of this brilliant invention.

At this point I imagine he kicked himself, then, having slowly peeled his own sticky foot off his backside, accepted that invention is useless without application.

This is a shout out to all the geniuses who have invented new ways of doing things but have no idea that their methodology is of wider use. Tell others. If you have found something that is good, that works and that makes a difference, dare to allow a further supply of humanity to have the opportunity to see if it works for them.

And if you can't see the application of that metaphor to a church's evangelism you'd better go kick yourself. Your foot will not need peeling off.