Thought for the Day

As delivered, pre-recorded at the moment not live, at BBC Radio Bristol this morning on James Hanson's Breakfast Show:

My Christian master is a teacher, happy in crowds. Yet, I've worked from home most of my life. From, not at.

But a decree went out that we must all work from home if possible. For a while it pleased some people greatly. Although others, who built stuff, cared for the sick or processed food to name but three, had to go to work.

'Honey, I'm back.'

'What's that cow doing here?'

'Well I'm working from home tomorrow. Those pies don't make themselves. I'll leave it on the dining room table for now.'

No. That conversation never happened.

Those who could stay (probably undistracted by others working in the same house or kiddies needing education) enjoyed the absence of commute and the dress-down. For a bit.

Then the realisation. Friendships are formed in a thousand photocopier or water-cooler moments. Chat over a sandwich. Drink after work. Working at home perhaps something was lost as well.

Yes, many of us would prefer to go to fewer meetings, but a real flesh and blood boss with vision is motivating.

Most faith communities value precisely that - community. Helping and teaching people. Hermits need nothing. Community needs shepherding.

What are Museums for?

A few years ago I heard the story of a west coast US firm who did driveways. Interviewed, the Company Director was asked what he would do when every driveway in California had been done, 'Well I guess we'll do garages. Or windows' he said '...doesn't really matter'.

It didn't really matter because the firm did not exist to do driveways, garages or windows. The firm existed to provide employment for ordinary Californian guys. I loved that. We exist to give jobs out. Nothing else.

Despite a bit of pressure to sell just one Michelangelo statue the Royal Academy say they have absolutely no intention of selling any works in their collection to save jobs. 'You heartless bastards' shout some. I guess once upon a time I might have agreed with them. I don't any more. Museums are collectors. Hoarders if you like. They exist to collect. They have thousands of things collected but not on view to anyone.

Malcolm Gladwell dealt with this question, although it concerned the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in his Revisionist History Podcast Season 5. Museums exist to hoard. They employ people to aid this aim. People are expendable; the collection is not. Harsh, but consistent.

Thought for the Day

As delivered just now at BBC Radio Bristol on the day of GCSE results.

GCSE day has arrived. Many young people around our region are waiting in some trepidation for their results.

I remember the day I got mine, although they were called O Levels in those days. I got some good results and some disappointing ones. Quickly I had to renegotiate my A level courses and, to the relief of the scientific community everywhere, became a historian and geographer for the next couple of years.

Eventually, after a short career in insurance, I went to university slightly later than most, studied theology and became a vicar - a job I have loved for the last thirty years. But not what I expected at sixteen.

If you find yourself comforting someone who is disappointed today it may help them to know that there are many back doors to success and happiness.

Who can add a moment to their life by worrying about it? Who can predict the turn their career will take? How hard it is to find someone with absolute clarity about the future at sixteen.

'Listen,' says James in the Bible, 'You do not even know what will happen tomorrow ... you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.' Realists, these Bible folk.

Disappointing results may simply be God's way of eliminating physics and chemistry from your enquiries.

As my final tip to those who are happy today - if you want to be in the papers tomorrow try and be female, standing near a water feature and leaping in the air clutching a piece of paper.

Me. I have more time for the ones hiding behind the fountain in tears. It's not the end of the world and you need to know that.

Quote Book Index 501-510

507. If your work was informed by other people's opinions it would look like everything else around you.
(Amanda Lever, architect of 'Future Systems' on Channel 4's 'Without Walls')

Quote Book Index 390-400

A group of people resting after only one day's work, quoted by Gordon MacDonald in 'Restoring Your Spiritual Passion':

398. We went too fast on the first day and we're now waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.

Pressure, Stress and That

Last Thursday I risked saying to a bunch of clergy colleagues that I didn't feel particularly stressed or pressured. I asked if they felt it was a compulsory part of the job. Cue the suggestions which varied:

1. You do but you simply are not admitting it.
2. You've told me about occasions in your life when things were particularly difficult.
3. I can remember some times when we worked together when you were working outside your comfort zone.
4. Christians are called to carry crosses. It's discipleship.

The last three are true but I guess when things are hard I simply see them as a problem to be solved and not a reason to get stressed. I have, in the past, had a panic attack (more like an adrenaline rush) and a doctor told me to sort my life out so I did. It was good advice. So, I am not stressed now does not mean I have never been. Also, being stressed ought to make you less likely to be so in the future unless you never learn from mistakes.

For four years, 2002-2006, post-panic attacks and with a long-term back problem to deal with, I dropped out of the system, was employed privately by one church to do some specific jobs, and made up my salary by writing freelance two days a week. I had no car and walked everywhere. I got better.

But is the first response correct? To some extent it is and it isn't. It might be semantics. I could change my language tomorrow to that of stress, pressure and over-work. Nothing about the actuality on the ground would alter but I would appear more normal to my colleagues. Appearing normal to my colleagues has never been a thought I entertained for longer than a micro... no it's gone.

I think last Thursday I was trying to do two things. Firstly I was trying to help a colleague who had introduced a discussion and then got faced with a time of quiet where nobody spoke. And I imagined that someone would then say something very bland to get the conversation going so I decided that had to be me but didn't say something bland. Secondly, in admitting that I wasn't that stressed or pressured and didn't wake up every day hating my duties, I was being vulnerable. This is an odd thing to say in the 'caring' professions and nobody else wanted to agree. I don't know if that was because they wouldn't or couldn't.

I sometimes despair. It is not that people are unloving or uncaring. It is just that I, who in effect have devised an emulator to do caring because I don't really care and can't make myself, have built a better machine than the real lives used by the ones who claim they do. Caring as a problem to be solved. I wonder if people think I am a good pastor? I don't really care of course and have, after several attempts at the other way, now set up a church so that the people who do care get to do most of the caring. Brilliant, no?

So this week I had problems but not insurmountable ones. I took a bit of time off to recover from dentistry. I had no day off due to circumstances but that is OK and I will catch it up this week. I managed an evening in with nothing to do and a lunch out with Mrs T. I made some progress on things to do but didn't do everything.

The Bishop of Taunton, speaking to a bunch of clergy a couple of years ago suggested a standard of 'Do a modest day's work and then relax.' It is terribly good advice. A good solid run of not sick, not stressed, generally happy days will achieve far more than those who spend their lives sprinting into brick walls and then needing stitching up.

I am convinced by my own spin. If my clergy colleagues aren't then I wish they would either say so more vociferously or no I won't finish that sentence.

Hard Work?

Hard working families. Our governmental spokespeople constantly refer to hard-working families. It has ground me down a bit. My instinctive reaction to the privileged minority who run our country is that they are condescending. I have therefore waited until some organised thoughts take over from my guts. Having done that I am now certain they are condescending.

Firstly, I have spent all my life trying to avoid putting the word 'hard' in front of work. I have been fortunate enough to do jobs I enjoy most of that period and a lot of the time it has felt like I was paid to do my hobby, not drudgery.

Secondly, all the management training I ever received encouraged me (and I hate the expression so swallow hard and take it) to work not hard but smart. Time spent musing, pondering, thinking and planning saves having to graft, or panic at the last minute and run around giving headless chickens a bad reputation. But pondering time is fun not hard. For me anyway.

But thirdly, and bigly, what about those who would love to have something to do that was hard work but are physically unable, or unqualified, or out of practice? How does it feel to have someone constantly praise that which you would love to be but cannot become in your own strength?

Don't get me wrong. I hate scroungers and tax dodgers as much as the next person. But I feel for the people who find themselves at the bottom of life's ladder. Whether they have come to their senses and repented or have always found themselves there through circumstances I care not. I want my government, in their language at least, to include them in those they want to help.

If you want to better yourself, no matter what has put you in the place where only 'better' will do, I believe the state should be with you. And if that means benefits for the moment, or housing help, or medical care, or free school meals so be it.

If we are a big society we are in this together. Those as fortunate as me need to help those who are struggling, granted. But those who are most fortunate, those with the power to change things right now, need to use inclusive language. The poor. Count them in.

Best/Worst

My best/worst book

In times when I need cheering up, or to take a few moments to enjoy a clever sentence or two I reach for some Douglas Adams. As a Christian Minister there is never a Bible far away and I’ll probably get in trouble with the Hezbollah wing of the Church of England for not mentioning this first. Illywhacker by Peter Carey was enjoyable and still entertains me nearly twenty years after I first read it. It is a narrative told by a 139 year old liar called Herbert who uses a giant pet-shop as a metaphor for the growth of Australia.

I have read so many bad books. I try not to finish them but usually plough on. Dan Brown’s, Angels and Demons was particularly awful. There is no reason to read more than one Dan Brown book. I have read two.

My best/worst evening out

West Bromwich Albion have given me some particularly horrific evenings out over the years so I now confine my live football watching to lower league. I normally find something good in any evening out. In May 1972 I saw The Faces, at the height of their powers, in a field in Lincolnshire, top of a remarkable festival bill. It was my 17^th birthday. That was good. Mrs WWA may now sue.

My best/worst CD/record

Whilst all this depends on mood I come back again and again to the eponymous debut album of a band called Sunshine. Nobody else I have ever met has heard of them. Currently I play Radiohead a lot. Drummer Man by Tonight is my favourite single of all time. My family gave me a Des O’Connor album as a joke once. I didn’t listen to it so can’t tell you if it was as bad as Limp Bizkit’s, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot-dog Flavoured Water. It would have to go some.

My best/worst holiday

Two weeks in Canterbury and Hastings in about 1990 with 10 and 8 year old sons when it rained every day. Every day. Any holiday now is my best one, most recently 14 days in Gozo last June. Don’t discover Gozo. Leave it unspoiled for me and Mrs WWA.

My best/worst job

I’ve never had a job I hated apart from going to school, which I loathed. Tasks yes. Jobs no. I hate DIY and will pay ridiculous sums of money to avoid it. I love so much which I can gratefully call work – listening to people, entertaining, writing, making music, preaching. What you got?

Anyone else want to join in this exercise?

Steve and Dave

Having failed to sell it, and not wanting to tip it, I freecycled my piano and it's going to a new home in Stratford. A quick check this morning revealed 8p and the National Insurance card of a previous lodger. The new owners, delightful people, arranged for a removal firm to come and fetch it and they turned up punctually, which I hope is an omen.

Al Murray, in his Pub Landlord act, asks people's names and whenever someone says 'Dave' he says it's a great British name. 'All the real work in the world,' he continues 'is done by people called Dave, unless they need help or can't make it in which case they have a mate called Steve.'

So the removal guy turns up, says his name is Steve and I say so is mine and he says in that case we'll have no problems and eyes the piano and after a few moments I suspect it might just be him and me so I ask and it turns out he has a mate called Dave in the van.

Piano moving is not that straighforward but after ten seconds head scratching they work out that my advice about how to move it is rubbish and tip the piano, slide it, tip it and then with me and Dave on one end and Steve on the other have it down the hall, down the steps, onto a piano trolley and off into the van. Total length of job - 10 minutes.

At which point the new owner turns up with chocolate and wine (so how sussed has she got me - thanks Julie) and another beautiful deal is done.