A few years ago I wrote a piece about the weirdness of clergy work. Find it here. It is based on a number of conversations with my friend and previous training colleague, Bob Clucas. The early Apple spell-checker suggested he was Reboot Clichés - I wish that had stuck. As with many of these ideas, which I usually wrote down but he also initiated, neither of us remembers, or cares, who deserves the most credit. So we tend to share it.
I have read a few posts on social media recently from new clergy trying to make sense of activities such as doing the laundry or cleaning on a day off and what to do when the mind wanders, during such activities, to work-related matters.
Firstly, well done for spotting it. And now to the idea. It is the difference between real and apparent work. And this, if my previous experience is anything to go by, will transform the lives of about 20% of the people who read it, whilst the rest will say 'That's crazy.' To the 80% I say, please allow the 20% to be crazy but happy. What follows ain't illegal. Here we go:
There will be things you do that come under the heading 'duties of office' (clergy are office-holders, not employees) which you enjoy and would do anyway, paid or not. For some this will be hanging around in coffee shops or going to parties; for others writing improving articles in the church press and for still others fixing guttering. These are work, apparently, but don't feel like it to you.
Then there will be things you do in your down-time or on your rest-day that you would rather pay someone else to do. For some this will be gardening; for others ironing, washing or shopping. These are leisure, apparently, but don't feel like it to you.
The trick, if trick it can be called, is to recall that clergy do not have to avoid domestic chores every day they are on duty. If ironing is work for you and it has to be done, do it on any day except your rest day. Glebe management is part of your responsibility so it is OK to do gardening whilst on duty. In fact it is required as part of your duties.
If you cram all the leisure activities that feel like work into your day off you won't feel like you've had one. If you trade them for one or two bits of your duties that don't feel like work you will.
To summarise, try and make sure your duty days are a mix of real work and real leisure, or apparent work and apparent leisure. And fill your days off with real leisure and, if necessary, apparent work.
I once shared this with a group of clergy who were what is known as 'training incumbents' (TIs). One guy, who I know for a fact had ruined the lives of several curates, responded, as if it were the last word on the matter. 'Well that wouldn't work for me.' He seemed quite shocked when I suggested that I was not asking it to work for him but that it might be an option he shared with his curate in case it was helpful for them. At this very idea, sharing something he didn't personally find helpful, he gave the room a look which encompassed all the ranges of amazement in the known universe. Teaching the doing of things exactly the way he had done them for thirty years wasn't the only thing that worked? Really?
If you were his curate I doubt he told you this. Sorry if it's late.
Same time next week?
Showing posts sorted by date for query real and apparent work. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query real and apparent work. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2018
Saturday, July 02, 2016
On Being a Curate
I wheel this out every couple of years for those about to be ordained. First written fifteen years ago at least:
The day after I was ordained I went into my study and wondered what a curate did all day. If this happens to you, enjoy it. Things come along to fill your time. But if nobody has sat you down and offered you any tips and hints for making the most of your title parish then how about these? Most of them were learned through failure and inadequacy rather than taught by a wise mentor. Perhaps they might make your life a little easier for the next three years. At minimum you might have as much hair at the end as you have now. And it will be the same colour. Grey hair may be a crown of splendour and a sign of a righteous life but it’s not the only crown or the solitary sign. So try these:
1. Meet people. Don’t have a newspaper delivered. Go and pick it up from the same shop every day. The newsagent knows what’s going on so is worth getting to know. Every three or four months buy one of every paper and compare them. It’ll help you to know how everyone in the parish is thinking. Go to the same pub at the same time every week. Then you’ll become a regular. Take your glasses back and you’ll become a popular regular.
2. However broke you are, never compromise on the quality of your food.
3. Remember that your vicar/rector is not always right, but apart from matters of grave heresy you’ll find your curacy a more pleasurable experience if you treat her/him as if (s)he is.
4. Have a talk up your sleeve for the unexpected occasions when you’re asked to say a few words. Change it every few weeks. Learn a couple of unusual prayers and graces.
5. Wear your clerical collar everywhere for the first six months. It will help you to get used to it and stop feeling self-conscious. Once people know you, wear anything else; otherwise people end up talking to it, not you. You will be breaking canon law but it won’t be the only way so don’t worry unduly. Most changes to laws happen because people start breaking them.
6. Have a whole day off and another night off as well. Don’t go looking for extra work on Saturdays and Sundays. It’ll find you if it needs to.
7. Activate voicemail. Ignore phones during meals. Don’t leave it on when you’re on holiday or you’ll give the impression that you’ll be phoning back in a few minutes and have twenty or thirty annoyed people to call. Don’t leave a message about being on holiday (I know it’s obvious but I did meet someone who did) or all your favourite things will mysteriously vanish by the time you return and the back window will need repairing.
8. Pray and read your Bible a lot. It is work. What a privilege. Always offer to pray with people when you visit, but don’t do it without asking.
9. Walk to as many places as you can. Stop and chat on the way. Ask for 10% of the saving on your expenses claim towards a good new pair of shoes every year. You won’t get it but it makes the point. Always claim your expenses in full, monthly. If not paid you can get tax-relief on them. If you don’t need the money, gift-aid it back.
10. If you’ve got school-age kids then take and fetch them as often as you can. Talk to the other parents waiting outside.
11. Never say, ‘As I’ve said before’ during your curacy. You’ll have plenty of time for repeating yourself in later years.
12. Have a few pieces of music that absolutely guarantee to calm you down (or big you up). Mine, currently, are by a Norwegian band called Undergrunnen
13. Give people your full attention. Even after church services. The worst thing in the world for someone talking to you is to see you looking over their shoulder for the next person you want to ‘just catch’.
14. Remember that there is no difference between real and apparent care. The parishioners need to know that you care. The best way to do this is to really care but cultivate the skill of apparently caring for those days when you don’t.
14b) Infinitives may be split when necessary.
15. Collect postcards and send them to everyone at every possible moment to say thanks, how are you, I thought of you…
16. Never suggest ten steps until you’re sure you can’t think of eighteen. If you think you might have three things to say announce you have four and then stop early if you run out. It'll get a laugh and give you an undeserved reputation for brevity.
17. Become an expert in some small thing. Cemetery wildlife. John chapter 4. Clerical wear 1880-1900. That sort of thing.
18. There are another 200 or so of these on Twitter at #ministrytip
I’ve managed to spend thirty-one ordained years not being the incumbent of anywhere so remember you are ordained for ministry not the vicarage.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
A Chat with Myself
Interesting Clergy chapter session yesterday on burnout. How do you keep yourself sharp, enthusiastic, on top of your game and in it for the long haul as a minister?
Stuart Taylor was our guide for an hour or so and one of the first things he asked, which I had to stop myself carrying on doing in the meeting in order to engage with the rest of the material, was this; what would your current self want to say if you could go back and talk to your self on your ordination day? For me this goes back twenty seven and a half years and I realised I had quite a lot to say. I thought a blog post might be useful, especially for those preparing for ordination (thanks Adam for the encouragement).
The sub-title of Stuart's presentation was 'Working pastorally with highly dependent people.' I think 'highly dependent' is another way of saying 'awkward'.
The first two things I would say to myself are these:
1. Don't make any highly dependent people highly dependent on you. There is a limit to how many you can cope with and all will distract from church growth. The people highly dependent on you have a special name - family.
2. Approach all people with a sense of curiosity. What makes this person tick? Why are they angry all the time? What is the best way to say things to them so they will hear? How have they been fearfully and wonderfully made? Then they become your learning project. They will teach you to be a better communicator. The fact that they are a pain may be mildly irritating sometimes but it is not within their gift to make you angry. Your own anger is your responsibility. Do not allow others to control it.
But now to some bigger things. Steve (St was not born until 1998ish) in 1984 was a bit impatient. He had more time than he thought to change the world. Even if he couldn't finish the project in his own lifetime he could still infect a few others with his opinions (a Clucasism) and hope they caught the vision. I'd tell him:
Don't brush your teeth using the bathroom water. It's from a stagnant tank in the loft.
Start your writing career now. Don't wait.
One day you will do funerals well without stress, excessive preparation or nerves. That day will come much sooner than you expect.
Despite the apparent kudos resist the alluring job at CPAS. It will break you. But that will mean a sacrifice for your family so consult them carefully on your third job.
Ignore the doctor's advice about your bad back. Don't rest if it hurts. It is hurting but there is nothing wrong with it and it will stop hurting if you exercise through the pain barrier. You'll get four years of your life back.
Money will be alright in the end.
Never touch the flowers in church. Never exhibit any skill at practical tasks.
If you have nothing to do, do nothing.
It is not a sin to go to the cinema when it is not your day off.
Only do what's urgent and important. Sometimes sitting down and planning a five year strategy is urgent and important.
Throughout your ministry people are going to think it's great that someone like you is a clergyman. Sometimes that will be because you're normal; sometimes because you're not. Live with it.
Learn to spell edgy before you start using it.
The best gift you can give your children is to love their mother.
Over the years you will feel that somehow you have been black-balled for preferment, speaking opportunities and selling books. You may have been but you'll never know. This despite everyone, most of the time telling you you are a good speaker, writer and leader. It's not important. You will find that it is because God called you to the grass roots and wants you there come what may. Promotion is a blind alley. Who cares what's down a cul-de-sac?
After about ten to fifteen years you will be able to do all occasional office preaching without notes.
When you have an average day you are still good. Try not to have bad days though.
Never come back to work on a Sunday after a break.
The best manager to managed question is, 'How can I help you do your job better?' (Richard Owen)
Put time in your diary to write notes or minutes after the meeting.
Leave a space in your diary after appointments if you anticipate they will leave you thinking.
Pick your battles. Choose ones you can win. You will lose some. Choose ones you are prepared to lose.
Reconciliation is way better than compromise.
Know the difference between real and apparent work (Clucas again). Some of your job you will enjoy so much it doesn't feel like work. Some of your private life responsibilities you will not enjoy so will feel like work. Don't do all the things that feel like work on the same day.
Index your quote book. The job will get worse and worse and in twenty seven years time you won't be able to find anything or imagine ever having the time to do it before you retire.
You will write the only Christmas newsletter your friends look forward to reading. This is a good use of your time.
Use aardvarks wisely. An aardvark on a list will help you to remember the thing you didn't put on the list. An aardvark is the mistake you want everyone to spot so that they don't see the mistake you don't know you've made. Never reveal this thought to a soul.
Also, put aardvark in your mobile contacts list (you won't know what a mobile is but it will be important) and give it your own mobile number. Then you will never be in trouble when you accidentally sit on your phone in a meeting.
Know that one day you will be able to write your thoughts on twenty seven years of ministry and put them in a place where anyone in the world can read them without leaving their desk or paying. Stop laughing.
Thanks Stuart.
 |
| Priesting 1985 |
The sub-title of Stuart's presentation was 'Working pastorally with highly dependent people.' I think 'highly dependent' is another way of saying 'awkward'.
 |
| Late 1980s. Oh dear, oh dear |
1. Don't make any highly dependent people highly dependent on you. There is a limit to how many you can cope with and all will distract from church growth. The people highly dependent on you have a special name - family.
2. Approach all people with a sense of curiosity. What makes this person tick? Why are they angry all the time? What is the best way to say things to them so they will hear? How have they been fearfully and wonderfully made? Then they become your learning project. They will teach you to be a better communicator. The fact that they are a pain may be mildly irritating sometimes but it is not within their gift to make you angry. Your own anger is your responsibility. Do not allow others to control it.
But now to some bigger things. Steve (St was not born until 1998ish) in 1984 was a bit impatient. He had more time than he thought to change the world. Even if he couldn't finish the project in his own lifetime he could still infect a few others with his opinions (a Clucasism) and hope they caught the vision. I'd tell him:
Don't brush your teeth using the bathroom water. It's from a stagnant tank in the loft.
 |
| Late 1990s - facial hair gone |
One day you will do funerals well without stress, excessive preparation or nerves. That day will come much sooner than you expect.
Despite the apparent kudos resist the alluring job at CPAS. It will break you. But that will mean a sacrifice for your family so consult them carefully on your third job.
Ignore the doctor's advice about your bad back. Don't rest if it hurts. It is hurting but there is nothing wrong with it and it will stop hurting if you exercise through the pain barrier. You'll get four years of your life back.
Money will be alright in the end.
Never touch the flowers in church. Never exhibit any skill at practical tasks.
If you have nothing to do, do nothing.
It is not a sin to go to the cinema when it is not your day off.
Only do what's urgent and important. Sometimes sitting down and planning a five year strategy is urgent and important.
Throughout your ministry people are going to think it's great that someone like you is a clergyman. Sometimes that will be because you're normal; sometimes because you're not. Live with it.
Learn to spell edgy before you start using it.
The best gift you can give your children is to love their mother.
.jpg) |
| Nailsea Licensing 2006 |
Over the years you will feel that somehow you have been black-balled for preferment, speaking opportunities and selling books. You may have been but you'll never know. This despite everyone, most of the time telling you you are a good speaker, writer and leader. It's not important. You will find that it is because God called you to the grass roots and wants you there come what may. Promotion is a blind alley. Who cares what's down a cul-de-sac?
After about ten to fifteen years you will be able to do all occasional office preaching without notes.
When you have an average day you are still good. Try not to have bad days though.
Never come back to work on a Sunday after a break.
The best manager to managed question is, 'How can I help you do your job better?' (Richard Owen)
Put time in your diary to write notes or minutes after the meeting.
Leave a space in your diary after appointments if you anticipate they will leave you thinking.
Pick your battles. Choose ones you can win. You will lose some. Choose ones you are prepared to lose.
Reconciliation is way better than compromise.
Know the difference between real and apparent work (Clucas again). Some of your job you will enjoy so much it doesn't feel like work. Some of your private life responsibilities you will not enjoy so will feel like work. Don't do all the things that feel like work on the same day.
Index your quote book. The job will get worse and worse and in twenty seven years time you won't be able to find anything or imagine ever having the time to do it before you retire.
You will write the only Christmas newsletter your friends look forward to reading. This is a good use of your time.
Use aardvarks wisely. An aardvark on a list will help you to remember the thing you didn't put on the list. An aardvark is the mistake you want everyone to spot so that they don't see the mistake you don't know you've made. Never reveal this thought to a soul.
Also, put aardvark in your mobile contacts list (you won't know what a mobile is but it will be important) and give it your own mobile number. Then you will never be in trouble when you accidentally sit on your phone in a meeting.
Know that one day you will be able to write your thoughts on twenty seven years of ministry and put them in a place where anyone in the world can read them without leaving their desk or paying. Stop laughing.
Thanks Stuart.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
How To Manage a Mid-life Crisis
Another piece written for a magazine that never stumped up. I wrote in 2003 and was talking about a time some five years earlier. How things have changed.
Saturday morning. Content in my work, settled in my family life and fulfilled in my spare-time activity. I was drinking a coffee and listening to a new CD (Gomez, I recall). I was reading the paper. I had adopted my, ‘I’m comfortable with the world’ position, a rather curious combination of bum on chair and legs dangling over arm; the arm of the chair right, where did you get that imagination? It’s going to get you into trouble?
Strangely somehow, the thought wormed it’s way into my head, that I wasn’t happy. Next second it all went non-specific, autumn fruit-shaped.
Happened to you? ‘Not me,’ you strut. Can you strut verbally? No matter. You did. Some people stay content and focused all the way through to old-age without ever having personal doubts. Others die before they get to mid-life. Although if you are dead it’s scaring me to think of you reading this.
Where to think? Up a mountain? I was scared of heights. In the company of men down the gym? I didn’t belong to a gym. Formal arrangements? Join a supportive group? Sounded a bit AA. Long car journey? An undisturbed retreat house? These last two were nearer the mark for me.
But eventually I chose my own house, during a day off work, when everyone else was out. Not that you care but there are two teenagers who share our place too. Used to be cuddly; now they’re blokes. I chose to think about the problem in the same place as I had been when I came across it. I re-draped my legs across the arm of the chair and put the Gomez CD back on.
I got those feelings bagged though. Pulled the critters out into the open and let them see daylight. I realised that despite family and home happiness I was fundamentally down. Unmotivated. Wandering lonely in a crowd.
To get deeper into the subject, I listed things that were my hopes, goals and ambitions twenty years ago. They were almost all material – house, car, holiday sort of things. I owned lots of stuff now. Not wealthy, but I didn’t have dysentery and I wasn’t covered in flies. Shouldn’t I have been more grateful?
And successes? There was that solitary football trophy. I had one other medal, for being a runner-up in the 1979 Birmingham Insurance Institute Quiz Final. Sad or what? I reckoned I was an OK father and a decent husband. I had a few bits of published writing, one of which won a competition.
I also wanted to think through the things that were really important to me, avoiding the material world. My car might have been essential but its importance would fade and eventually my only thoughts about it would be to do with replacement. I listed important relationships, places of worth or belonging, situations in which I was valued for myself (some) rather than my appearance (hardly any) or possessions (that drumstick from the 1974 Uriah Heap tour was still precious though).
I had a list of old ambitions. Some achieved, some now impossible. What remained? Mainly things I no longer wanted to do. So I had moved on.
I looked at my list of values. I also tried to add some strengths. I make a nice cup of tea but since I had no desire to work in a café this was without merit. But I could write. I was reasonably articulate. I could organise a project. I could get the best out of creative people. Those things would come in handy.
In their book Play To Your Strengths (Piatkus 1992) Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson define a strength as, ‘...an inner ability, something that can be displayed in a performance, versus a material possession or a title.’ The thesis of their book is that if you focus on what you do best success will follow. It can read as a weensy bit patronising but the exercises are helpful. I guess some people are rubbish at everything but I’ve met very few of them.
I now had an idea of how I was feeling and thinking, a diary of achievements er, achieved and a very small list of what I stood for and was good at. I dreamt on. Remember, ‘To daydream properly takes immeasurable amounts of imaginary time’ (It’s on a Dan Reed album although he might have been quoting someone else and I don’t do research).
I looked at the list. I marked each idea for achievability, time required, financial commitment and realism.
Edwin Bliss wrote a couple of natty little paperbacks called Doing It Now and Getting Things Done. They’re time management books. In the latter (Warner books 1991) he talked about velleity. This means, ‘...wanting something but not wanting it badly enough to pay the price for it.’ Everything I listed as a new ambition needed to be something I both wanted and could see myself making the effort to get/do.
I could see myself training others because I like helping people do things better. I liked it more than I liked doing things myself. I had an internal value that made achieving the goal possible. I did not have the will to become a gardener. I like finished gardens but couldn’t ever see myself investing the necessary time. It was a wild-life park behind my house and I wouldn’t change it.
What was my new ambition? Several categories:
To go self-employed as a writer and trainer. The Bank Manager might want a say. (My bank manager was called Tracy; does anyone else find that threatening?)
To make the most of time with my partner. We needed to work out how to use our diminishing time. Talk about how to make each other happier.
The West Bromwich Albion defence were beyond the scope of mortals and, recalling one of my previous occupations, I prayed. Sadly, by the time you read this, the answer to the prayer will be all too apparent.
If you do a similar exercise, be realistic. If you really would like to climb mountains put, ‘Join climbing class’ on your list and work it from there. No-one should take up climbing on the Matterhorn. I went to some evening classes on writing skills.
Failure has been described as the back door to success. Someone else said there are no problems in this life, only opportunities. If a mid-life crisis is keeping you company right now please welcome it as an opportunity to do something new and successful. Take time to think it through. Get in touch with your feelings. Make a list of your old and new ambitions. Add a touch of your own strengths and values and shake the whole thing down until you really know who you are and what you want. And then do it. Oh yes, that’s the hard part, but it is fun.
Steve Tilley is a former insurance clerk who became a clergyman who turned into a trainer and a manager, back into a minister and now spends at least part of his week writing for a living.
Saturday morning. Content in my work, settled in my family life and fulfilled in my spare-time activity. I was drinking a coffee and listening to a new CD (Gomez, I recall). I was reading the paper. I had adopted my, ‘I’m comfortable with the world’ position, a rather curious combination of bum on chair and legs dangling over arm; the arm of the chair right, where did you get that imagination? It’s going to get you into trouble?
Strangely somehow, the thought wormed it’s way into my head, that I wasn’t happy. Next second it all went non-specific, autumn fruit-shaped.
Happened to you? ‘Not me,’ you strut. Can you strut verbally? No matter. You did. Some people stay content and focused all the way through to old-age without ever having personal doubts. Others die before they get to mid-life. Although if you are dead it’s scaring me to think of you reading this.
Average mid-life is thirty-nine, according to actuarial tables. I’ve heard of actuarial tables. A worrying sign of maturity don’t you think? It is, of course, ‘average’, in the same way as someone with their feet in the fridge and their head in the cooker on gas mark six is comfortable on average. Death can happen anytime.
I was drifting complacently through my forties when my self-worth went walkabout. What was going on? I grasped for ‘Sometimes I feel So Uninspired’ off the Traffic live album. That never usually failed. But no joy. It was all going so well. These things happen to other people. Why me? Why now?
The cause? Well I’d done the same job for sixteen years and wanted a change. The woman I fell in love with had her own full-time job and we saw each other less. I’d mismanaged money all my life but now it bugged me. My piano needed tuning. I was out of touch with young people although I’d been a youth worker once. I was unfit. I felt mortal; I never used to. I still wanted to achieve something. I’d supported West Bromwich Albion for thirty one years. My Dad had died. You get the message. My life wasn’t in a dreadful mess but somehow one of those things tipped it.
Some insignificant detail to the outside observer loitered on the street corner waiting for a life to mug. One straw; one snapped camel. All the values, hopes and aspirations that sustained me through my early life seemed irrelevant. One day I knew who I was, the next I didn’t. I used to have goals but they had either been achieved (hooray, well done) or begun to seem out of reach. Who wanted to score a winner at Wembley or play keyboards for Sting anyway?
What did I do about it? Well panic, frankly. I do a lovely line in panic. My God it’s all gone wrong, I’ve wasted my life, I’m a loser, pass the scotch. Well a small one wasn’t a bad idea but as rational thought was the best bet I didn’t choose to base any major life changes on the solutions arrived at whilst in its company.
Then I did some thinking. I’m good at ideas and details but rubbish at strategy and long-term goal-setting. Shopping for supper is about as long-term as I get.
Where to think? Up a mountain? I was scared of heights. In the company of men down the gym? I didn’t belong to a gym. Formal arrangements? Join a supportive group? Sounded a bit AA. Long car journey? An undisturbed retreat house? These last two were nearer the mark for me.
But eventually I chose my own house, during a day off work, when everyone else was out. Not that you care but there are two teenagers who share our place too. Used to be cuddly; now they’re blokes. I chose to think about the problem in the same place as I had been when I came across it. I re-draped my legs across the arm of the chair and put the Gomez CD back on.
I tried to write down, how I was really feeling. Yuk. Feelings. Horrid things. What were my emotions? What were the issues, problems, circumstances that prompted the crisis? Hey, crisis. Perhaps this is one of those mid-life crises everyone talks about. That realisation helped, in a perverse sort of way, like the chronically sick being told the name of their inoperable cancer. Bad image. Sorry.
I got those feelings bagged though. Pulled the critters out into the open and let them see daylight. I realised that despite family and home happiness I was fundamentally down. Unmotivated. Wandering lonely in a crowd.
To get deeper into the subject, I listed things that were my hopes, goals and ambitions twenty years ago. They were almost all material – house, car, holiday sort of things. I owned lots of stuff now. Not wealthy, but I didn’t have dysentery and I wasn’t covered in flies. Shouldn’t I have been more grateful?
And successes? There was that solitary football trophy. I had one other medal, for being a runner-up in the 1979 Birmingham Insurance Institute Quiz Final. Sad or what? I reckoned I was an OK father and a decent husband. I had a few bits of published writing, one of which won a competition.
I also wanted to think through the things that were really important to me, avoiding the material world. My car might have been essential but its importance would fade and eventually my only thoughts about it would be to do with replacement. I listed important relationships, places of worth or belonging, situations in which I was valued for myself (some) rather than my appearance (hardly any) or possessions (that drumstick from the 1974 Uriah Heap tour was still precious though).
Finally, I listed things I still wanted to achieve. Not just work-related matters. In fact for me it was fast becoming apparent that work was the problem and that a complete change of direction, nagging away in the back of my mind for some time, had now taken over and would be the only way to recapture motivation.
At an early stage I told someone about it. I chose someone who normally encouraged me. Some of my friends are draining and would have responded to my depression with several reasons they had to be more depressed. That wouldn’t have helped.
At an early stage I told someone about it. I chose someone who normally encouraged me. Some of my friends are draining and would have responded to my depression with several reasons they had to be more depressed. That wouldn’t have helped.
I also avoided talking to a particular mate who had already had a major change of career and coped admirably. I guessed he would make matters seem more straightforward than they were. This was my problem and to deal with it I needed empathy, not inferiority. With some friends, a problem shared is a problem doubled.
I told my partner. I didn’t think she was the right person to talk things through with but I didn’t keep her in the dark. Avoiding the truth with a partner provides soap operas with many a storyline but totally stuffs up real life. Why wasn’t she the right person? Simply because she knew me so well she would have been too involved in the consequences. I needed to establish my desired outcomes before seeing how they worked in with hers.
It was time to deal with my list. This sounds like I was systematic. No way. Many of these things happened at the same time, on top of each other, sometimes all fighting for attention, on other occasions leaving my mind with its usual ‘vacant’ sign up.
What about those feelings? In isolation they were poor indicators of what to do. Taken together with a sober assessment of the facts they were helpful. I am the sort of person who begins sentences with ‘I think’ rather than ‘I feel’. I made a few statements using my less preferred way of beginning. I also tried to imagine how my friends and family would feel about this. It’s a bit management-speak, but they were all stakeholders in my process of change.
I had a list of old ambitions. Some achieved, some now impossible. What remained? Mainly things I no longer wanted to do. So I had moved on.
I looked at my list of values. I also tried to add some strengths. I make a nice cup of tea but since I had no desire to work in a café this was without merit. But I could write. I was reasonably articulate. I could organise a project. I could get the best out of creative people. Those things would come in handy.
In their book Play To Your Strengths (Piatkus 1992) Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson define a strength as, ‘...an inner ability, something that can be displayed in a performance, versus a material possession or a title.’ The thesis of their book is that if you focus on what you do best success will follow. It can read as a weensy bit patronising but the exercises are helpful. I guess some people are rubbish at everything but I’ve met very few of them.
I now had an idea of how I was feeling and thinking, a diary of achievements er, achieved and a very small list of what I stood for and was good at. I dreamt on. Remember, ‘To daydream properly takes immeasurable amounts of imaginary time’ (It’s on a Dan Reed album although he might have been quoting someone else and I don’t do research).
I looked at the list. I marked each idea for achievability, time required, financial commitment and realism.
Edwin Bliss wrote a couple of natty little paperbacks called Doing It Now and Getting Things Done. They’re time management books. In the latter (Warner books 1991) he talked about velleity. This means, ‘...wanting something but not wanting it badly enough to pay the price for it.’ Everything I listed as a new ambition needed to be something I both wanted and could see myself making the effort to get/do.
I could see myself training others because I like helping people do things better. I liked it more than I liked doing things myself. I had an internal value that made achieving the goal possible. I did not have the will to become a gardener. I like finished gardens but couldn’t ever see myself investing the necessary time. It was a wild-life park behind my house and I wouldn’t change it.
What was my new ambition? Several categories:
To have a career change. I needed to go talk to a specialist (that would be a careers advisor then).
To go self-employed as a writer and trainer. The Bank Manager might want a say. (My bank manager was called Tracy; does anyone else find that threatening?)
To make the most of time with my partner. We needed to work out how to use our diminishing time. Talk about how to make each other happier.
The West Bromwich Albion defence were beyond the scope of mortals and, recalling one of my previous occupations, I prayed. Sadly, by the time you read this, the answer to the prayer will be all too apparent.
If you do a similar exercise, be realistic. If you really would like to climb mountains put, ‘Join climbing class’ on your list and work it from there. No-one should take up climbing on the Matterhorn. I went to some evening classes on writing skills.
Failure has been described as the back door to success. Someone else said there are no problems in this life, only opportunities. If a mid-life crisis is keeping you company right now please welcome it as an opportunity to do something new and successful. Take time to think it through. Get in touch with your feelings. Make a list of your old and new ambitions. Add a touch of your own strengths and values and shake the whole thing down until you really know who you are and what you want. And then do it. Oh yes, that’s the hard part, but it is fun.
Steve Tilley is a former insurance clerk who became a clergyman who turned into a trainer and a manager, back into a minister and now spends at least part of his week writing for a living.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Parable of the Sower - Luke 8
I noticed for the first time today that Luke's account of the sower is placed after a short introduction to some women who looked after Jesus, out of their own means, on his journey. One was probably an ex prostitute, one from Herod's household and one formerly possessed by a demon.
Mark launches into the parable at the beginning of a chapter, with Jesus teaching it from a boat as the context.
Why does Luke do this differently? How about this? Some seed falls on the path, the rocks and amongst weeds. This farmer is rubbish. Can't he aim his seed straight?
Well no. Because this farmer is not a real farmer at all but someone doing a work with the word of God. Scattering it randomly and not worrying over much about the results. The sower is sowing the possibility that God will speak and reveal himself to those amongst whom he sows. And he is generous. The word of God is always good and will bear much fruit in the right place. But dens of iniquity, evil leaders' households and demoniac gatherings were probably not the places you would describe as 'good soil.' Yet it sprouted there.
That's the grace of God for you. It is not for the preacher to worry about the seed. It is always good. It will feel pretty depressing, by and large, as again and again your best work bears no apparent fruit. But God is up to stuff. And things take a while to germinate.
It may feel as if people are ever hearing but not perceiving. It may feel as if you have, as Isaiah did, to proclaim a message that will be ignored until all the people have been carried away into exile. But the parable is simply, as Bob Clucas puts it, 'Gearing people up for disappointment.'
Go again.
Mark launches into the parable at the beginning of a chapter, with Jesus teaching it from a boat as the context.
Why does Luke do this differently? How about this? Some seed falls on the path, the rocks and amongst weeds. This farmer is rubbish. Can't he aim his seed straight?
Well no. Because this farmer is not a real farmer at all but someone doing a work with the word of God. Scattering it randomly and not worrying over much about the results. The sower is sowing the possibility that God will speak and reveal himself to those amongst whom he sows. And he is generous. The word of God is always good and will bear much fruit in the right place. But dens of iniquity, evil leaders' households and demoniac gatherings were probably not the places you would describe as 'good soil.' Yet it sprouted there.
That's the grace of God for you. It is not for the preacher to worry about the seed. It is always good. It will feel pretty depressing, by and large, as again and again your best work bears no apparent fruit. But God is up to stuff. And things take a while to germinate.
It may feel as if people are ever hearing but not perceiving. It may feel as if you have, as Isaiah did, to proclaim a message that will be ignored until all the people have been carried away into exile. But the parable is simply, as Bob Clucas puts it, 'Gearing people up for disappointment.'
Go again.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Balancing Act
Thanks for all of you who supported me and prayed for me as I tackled a New Wine seminar for the first time. I had about 250 people present in a large blacked-out marquee called Seminar City. All of them were there because they felt they wanted to get some sort of balance back into their lives.
I was surprised at the numbers because the 4.00 p.m seminar slot is the third of the day and dedicated attendees can also do morning and early morning Bible studies. I guess it just goes to show how out of balance we can all get.
I was determined to do a seminar, a word which has been hi-jacked at New Wine by the idea of lecture.
Anyway for those who weren't there, here's the gist.
Do you feel balanced? 100% of the people attending put their hand up to say they felt that somehow their life was out of kilter, out of hand, out of balance and were seeking equilibrium (a word that simply means equally balanced).
The Bible doesn't suggest walking down the centre of the road and being moderate on every issue or practice. It suggests that there will be extremes and stresses and the balancing act (the title of the seminar) is to take the pressure and make space for release.
A biblical view of balance is weird and uncomfortable. From the weighing in the balance of the mysterious tekel in Daniel 5:27, the bashing of Babylonian babies' heads against rocks at the end of Psalm 137, the 'It is too small a thing for my servant to be light only to Israel' in Isaiah 49:6 and Jesus' back-turning on the sick to go somewhere else in Mark 1:38 we see that sometimes extreme views and actions are mouthed and even enacted. This biblical God is a God who weighs people in the balance (judges), allows them to give voice to their anger and revenge, gives more work and responsibility to the already-busy and prioritises preaching over healing, sometimes. Job's life was balanced in that his lost family and fortune was restored, but who would forget the loss of those children? Write a pen-picture of a holy person from the Bible and you might find a prostitute-marrying, murdering, adulterous, zealot who cooks on dung. God doesn't do good taste.
But who wants to live a statistically balanced life? I have a son in Japan, a son in Birmingham and a wife in Nailsea. The mean position of my family is Finland, a place I have never visited. The statistician looks at the man with his head in the freezer and his feet in the oven and pronounces him, on average, comfortable.
And who wants to live, apart from through monastic intent, a balanced life through withdrawal? All we can be certain of is that those who keep themselves to themselves, often lauded as a British character trait par excellence, will have few attending their funerals.
Those who seek balance by taking all opinions equally seriously will find they always bear the mark of the last person they were speaking to. Easily swayed.
No, the Bible's balance is different. David Ruis, 'If you try and live a balanced Christian life I can promise you a Valium prescription.' The balance comes from tension but you are not meant to feel tense or unbalanced. Embrace the tension.
When a younger christian I was taught that a priority list in my life might well say:
God
Family
Work
and that this would be a road to a balanced life. I now see it as a category error, like going to the shops with a list saying:
Eggs
Butter
Apples
Bread
New car
A God on a things-to-do list, even as number one, is too small. God is. We serve. We will find this demanding. We should expect to be out of balance. So how can the cross-carrying department feel more in balance?
Exercise: go through your week, session by session and score ranging from -10 to +10 based on how in or out of balance you feel at the end of it, assuming a Monday morning start with a score of nil. Does work drain you or energize you? Is the first hour of the week filling you up and preparing you for work or starting you off on a downer?
(In the live seminar 50% of the people present had positive scores).
Look at your score? What were the things that drained? What rebuilt? Talk it through with someone if you can. What caused the emotional mismatch between feeling out of balance and a positive score? What were the points that took your score down? Were they the same sort of things each time? How could they be balanced or compensated for?
If a phone call with one person is draining, phone another person at once who is more uplifting. If a meeting is full of dull people use your interventions to ask the more interesting people what they think.
Know the difference between real and apparent work. Some of the things in your job descriptions might be such fun you would do them even if you weren't paid. Some things are so hard in your home life (cleaning/washing/ironing/DIY) that we would rather we got paid to do them. Get a real/apparent work and a real/apparent leisure balance in each day if you can.
Don't be hijacked by the idea that you would be better if you prayed if you find prayer one of the things that attracts a minus score. Still do it. But be prepared to balance it. God may change how you feel about it.
Remember that biblical balance comes in the fullness of time, not hour by hour, or week by week. Whilst we wait for that ultimate balancing moment of our deaths and hopefully resurrections we need to find the tricks that help us live the John 10:10 Jesus way - life in all its fullness.
A bereavement may cause a score of minus 200 but you can observe it creeping back up.
Meantime we will, with Moses, have questions to ask of God from time to time. Moses great (Exodus 3:1-4:17) questions are:
Who am I?
Who are you?
How can I make people listen?
What if they don't?
Why not send someone else?
This is a very brief summary. It is meant to be a Eureka training session. At some point I hope you got it without having to run around the site naked Archimedes-like. It may change your life. If you don't see it or get it or it doesn't work for you, you only lost the time it took to read this. Hang your t-shirts on the line under slight tension in future and they won't need ironing. Time saved in return.
I was surprised at the numbers because the 4.00 p.m seminar slot is the third of the day and dedicated attendees can also do morning and early morning Bible studies. I guess it just goes to show how out of balance we can all get.
I was determined to do a seminar, a word which has been hi-jacked at New Wine by the idea of lecture.
Anyway for those who weren't there, here's the gist.
Do you feel balanced? 100% of the people attending put their hand up to say they felt that somehow their life was out of kilter, out of hand, out of balance and were seeking equilibrium (a word that simply means equally balanced).
The Bible doesn't suggest walking down the centre of the road and being moderate on every issue or practice. It suggests that there will be extremes and stresses and the balancing act (the title of the seminar) is to take the pressure and make space for release.
A biblical view of balance is weird and uncomfortable. From the weighing in the balance of the mysterious tekel in Daniel 5:27, the bashing of Babylonian babies' heads against rocks at the end of Psalm 137, the 'It is too small a thing for my servant to be light only to Israel' in Isaiah 49:6 and Jesus' back-turning on the sick to go somewhere else in Mark 1:38 we see that sometimes extreme views and actions are mouthed and even enacted. This biblical God is a God who weighs people in the balance (judges), allows them to give voice to their anger and revenge, gives more work and responsibility to the already-busy and prioritises preaching over healing, sometimes. Job's life was balanced in that his lost family and fortune was restored, but who would forget the loss of those children? Write a pen-picture of a holy person from the Bible and you might find a prostitute-marrying, murdering, adulterous, zealot who cooks on dung. God doesn't do good taste.
But who wants to live a statistically balanced life? I have a son in Japan, a son in Birmingham and a wife in Nailsea. The mean position of my family is Finland, a place I have never visited. The statistician looks at the man with his head in the freezer and his feet in the oven and pronounces him, on average, comfortable.
And who wants to live, apart from through monastic intent, a balanced life through withdrawal? All we can be certain of is that those who keep themselves to themselves, often lauded as a British character trait par excellence, will have few attending their funerals.
Those who seek balance by taking all opinions equally seriously will find they always bear the mark of the last person they were speaking to. Easily swayed.
No, the Bible's balance is different. David Ruis, 'If you try and live a balanced Christian life I can promise you a Valium prescription.' The balance comes from tension but you are not meant to feel tense or unbalanced. Embrace the tension.
When a younger christian I was taught that a priority list in my life might well say:
God
Family
Work
and that this would be a road to a balanced life. I now see it as a category error, like going to the shops with a list saying:
Eggs
Butter
Apples
Bread
New car
A God on a things-to-do list, even as number one, is too small. God is. We serve. We will find this demanding. We should expect to be out of balance. So how can the cross-carrying department feel more in balance?
Exercise: go through your week, session by session and score ranging from -10 to +10 based on how in or out of balance you feel at the end of it, assuming a Monday morning start with a score of nil. Does work drain you or energize you? Is the first hour of the week filling you up and preparing you for work or starting you off on a downer?
(In the live seminar 50% of the people present had positive scores).
Look at your score? What were the things that drained? What rebuilt? Talk it through with someone if you can. What caused the emotional mismatch between feeling out of balance and a positive score? What were the points that took your score down? Were they the same sort of things each time? How could they be balanced or compensated for?
If a phone call with one person is draining, phone another person at once who is more uplifting. If a meeting is full of dull people use your interventions to ask the more interesting people what they think.
Know the difference between real and apparent work. Some of the things in your job descriptions might be such fun you would do them even if you weren't paid. Some things are so hard in your home life (cleaning/washing/ironing/DIY) that we would rather we got paid to do them. Get a real/apparent work and a real/apparent leisure balance in each day if you can.
Don't be hijacked by the idea that you would be better if you prayed if you find prayer one of the things that attracts a minus score. Still do it. But be prepared to balance it. God may change how you feel about it.
Remember that biblical balance comes in the fullness of time, not hour by hour, or week by week. Whilst we wait for that ultimate balancing moment of our deaths and hopefully resurrections we need to find the tricks that help us live the John 10:10 Jesus way - life in all its fullness.
A bereavement may cause a score of minus 200 but you can observe it creeping back up.
Meantime we will, with Moses, have questions to ask of God from time to time. Moses great (Exodus 3:1-4:17) questions are:
Who am I?
Who are you?
How can I make people listen?
What if they don't?
Why not send someone else?
This is a very brief summary. It is meant to be a Eureka training session. At some point I hope you got it without having to run around the site naked Archimedes-like. It may change your life. If you don't see it or get it or it doesn't work for you, you only lost the time it took to read this. Hang your t-shirts on the line under slight tension in future and they won't need ironing. Time saved in return.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Archive 2: The Matrix 3
Not trying to get out of proper posting by posting unpublished archive material but I never managed to get this piece published, a review of the Matrix trilogy having just seen the third film.
The Matrix Revolutions
They said it was a trilogy. It was. If you hadn’t seen any of the movies and watched all three back-to-back it would be a fine experience (recommend a break for lunch though). And I enjoyed Revolutions. Let’s make that clear at the start. It was a fun couple of hours and it made me think, a bit. But somehow we had it figured as being answers not issues and there weren’t any. Is it another example of our propensity to set things up so we can knock them down? After all, some people were making outrageous claims for this film three years ago. Of course it wasn’t the Directors. Their silence over the whole project, and especially in the short gap between Reloaded and Revolutions has been outstandingly maintained, perhaps growing the sense of significance. Sometimes it does you good to remain quiet.
But Revolutions is loud - not only the third part of a trilogy, but also a stand-alone good versus evil movie and a brilliant piece of science fiction. Without the viewer having to understand all the where-exactly-are-we-in-reality stuff it’s a shoot ‘em up with a romantic sub-plot. The good guys win, well sort of, and enough holes are left for at least the possibility of a Part 4. We were never promised Resolutions. That could be a Douglas Adamsesque increasingly improbable Part 5 after Revelations. No. Getting silly.
Look, the fifteen year old who wants to see lots of action will be pleased; those who want to wrestle with deep questions of life will come away with a few more for the after movie pint.
And there is some pressure to talk matrix. One Sunday columnist said, ‘So here I am, busy learning The Matrix as a foreign language in case I am called upon to speak it, or at lest nod knowledgably while someone else (at the so-called ‘water cooler’) throws some of its irregular verbs into the conversation. …My secret fear is that … I will be hopelessly undone at some nightmare social occasion.’[1] Movies increasingly set the agenda for conversation in a way which song lyrics might have done thirty years back. Today everyone likes different tunes but by and large we all watch the same films together.
In Revolutions Neo wakes up in an in between world – a halfway house between the matrix and the human world of Zion. He is lying on a pristine underground station platform (so it can’t be the real world) called Mobil Ave. Significant that it’s an anagram of ‘limbo’ anybody? Thought not. I’ll try to get out more.
Neo chats to a couple, of Indian appearance, who are trying to get their daughter out of the matrix. The underground train is the only way out and they are waiting for the Trainman. Neo is surprised that programmes (for that is what they are) can love their daughter. The reply he hears is, ‘Love is a word. What matters are the connections the word implies.’ Hard to fathom why they are sending their daughter away on the basis of a few connections. Why should two programmes have a daughter they care for? What does that mean?
Neo isn’t allowed on the train. The train man sees to that, ruining the clean walls in the process. When Neo runs down the track to follow the train he finds himself back where he started. Expletive. Rescue needed.
Back on one of Zion’s hovercrafts the real Neo is comatose. He lies next to another casualty, Bane, who has been taken over by Agent Smith. But Neo’s neural patterns exhibit signs of still being in the matrix, even though he is no longer plugged in. He appears to have gained the power to connect with the machine world without having his head wired up. Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph prepare to get him out.
The Oracle (herself revealed as a programme) has changed appearance since Reloaded. Probably not so much part of the plot as a way of coping with the death of a cast member? Consulted by Morpheus we learn from her that there is no easy way to get Neo out. Really? So they’ll have to fight? Guns and shades ready folks.
The Merovingian (French restaurant owner from Reloaded) controls the route. The only way to rescue Neo is to enter his den. He has vacated his classy restaurant from Reloaded and now runs an S. and M. club. It, ‘…could only inspire more laughter if it included Leslie Nielsen in nipple clamps.’[2] Needless to say some serious trash-the-place action (underground car-park, lift, lobby, club) needs to happen and many wall-walking bouncers are wasted in doing a deal – you give us Neo and we won’t kill everyone. OK? There is the best we-all-point-our-guns-at–each-other moment since Reservoir Dogs. In fact at one stage so many guns are pointing at so many people it must have been a genre joke.
Merovingian: ‘Where some see coincidence, I see consequence. Where some seechance, I see cause.’
Trinity: ‘I don't have time for this shit.’
Do we have time? Does the philosophy get in the way of the action? Newspaper journalists tend to review movies against some very complex and masochistic movie-world standard. If it don’t disturb it don’t work. Only the most gruelling get five stars. The movie buffs magazine Empire at least tries to see a film from the point of view of those of us who get to a couple of films a month. They say:
‘Some viewers will indeed be completely satisfied, their questions answered, as the final credits roll, but they're the ones who have done their homework. Without filling in plot gaps by watching The Animatrix or playing derided computer game Enter The Matrix, a sense of confusion reigns. And those who are confused can't emotionally engage with the characters, thus rendering any amount of sacrifices and love themes null and void. In the original film, the casual viewer could relate to a slave race of pod people and their need to be freed, but the Wachowskis seem to have moved the goalposts as the story has progressed, sidelining what began as a focal point of the plot.’ [3]
Dare we suggest that if you were spending lots of time playing Enter the Matrix you probably weren’t looking for answers to life’s deep questions on the side. If you have the time there are some issues worth pursuing. They’ve been around since Part 1 but they are raised once more. What is real? Are machines becoming too powerful? Is love useful or a distraction from purpose? How important is faith and belief? Do we just exist to make choices?
On the way through the Merovingian’s club he comments further on love, ‘It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.’ Some of the clubbers are insanely lovely. Or is that lustly?
Later Agent Smith, revealed to be a programme so rogue it is an enemy of the matrix and the human world, says, ‘Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.’ But a human mind invented the machines therefore invented him. Confusing isn’t it? And what did love do to get such a bad press? Maybe the film is telling us that love is the difference between humanity and the machine world. We might love our laptop but it doesn’t love us back. But then those Indians did love their daughter. Can some of the machines do love? Is it programmable? Can you wire up a series of connections so that the result is indistinguishable from love? Anyone who has watched an apparently happy couple announce their divorce will know how hard it is to tell the difference between real and apparent love.
Other conversations about love take place between Neo and Trinity. Trinity says, ‘I wished I had the chance to say what really mattered. To say I loved you.’ Revolutions can’t tell its eros from its agapé. Many of us still haven’t forgiven the mosh and sex scene from Reloaded.
So what happens next? The underground city of Zion is under attack and needs to defend itself. Cue shell-making, sixteen year olds fibbing about their age to volunteer for fighting, a rescue only achievable by Niobe steering her craft down an impossible-to-navigate tunnel, a kick-ass loading machine versus sentinel battle that goes on for ever and much self-sacrifice. Cliché ridden but it rocks.
There is a certain sort of movie character known as ‘bear-food’. You know they aren’t going to make it. They will either give their lives sacrificially or die stupidly. Revolutions is good at unpredictability on this score. It’s hard to spot the bear food. I had the kid down as a goner from the word go. Cue a sixteen year old who saves the day.
Zion is an interesting place. Governed by a Star Wars style Council it boasts high tech weapons for which the gunpowder has to be ground by hand. A huge gated entrance can only be opened by blasting a retaining chain in two; this to admit a hovercraft so advanced nothing breaks off when it bounces on the ground. A barrage of bullets, scary as hell when saving Ryan’s privates, becomes meaningless when the opponents are machines. Only a couple of times do we see the damage a sentinel does to human flesh. It’s the nastiest thing since Starship Troopers paraded its amputees.
We might pause for a moment to ask ourselves about the relationship between humankind and the machine world. On Zion the fighting machines in the loading bay are a mechanical extension to the human body. They can shoot almost endlessly but then need manual reloading. Are we taking on new technology at a controllable rate or is there any possibility that at some point the machines will take over? This has been the premise of many movies. It is probably the matrix trilogy’s biggest question.[4] We tend not to notice that we love our mobile phone so much that we use them to take our friends with us everywhere and don’t develop any new relationships. Do slippery slopes and thicker ends of wedges beckon? Worth talking through.
Revolutions reminds us that it is easier to believe in, or at least trust, the people close to us. We have a natural distrust of politicians, authorities and powers yet gladly put our confidence in people we can get to know, often despite their credentials.
Morpheus: ‘You've never believed in the One?’
Niobe: ‘I still don't.’
Morpheus: ‘So why are you doing this?’
Niobe: ‘I believe in him’ (gestures to Neo).
A local messiah you can see and touch is far more believable than a distant one. John had to reassure the readers of his Gospel that those who had actually seen the Messiah were a privileged few. ‘… do you have faith because you have seen me?’ says Jesus, ‘The people who have faith in me without seeing me are the ones who are really blessed.’[5] Just a thought. In our real world gullibility is the flip-side of trust; ‘grief is the price we pay for love.’[6]
Neo and Trinity head off to visit the Matrix hardware (the size of a city and equally impressive) rather than plugging it to the software, coping with a stowed-away Bane (the bane of their lives?) on the journey. Bane comments on the human body, ‘… it is difficult to even think encased in this rotting meat ... nothing this weak is meant to survive.’ So that’s what it’s like to humble yourself and take on flesh. Bane loses the battle on board ship but robs Neo of his sight in the process. He goes on to say, ‘The blind Messiah. You are a symbol for all of your kind, Mr. Anderson.’
Crashing the computer city costs Trinity her life too but, once inside, the machines realise that Neo (who can see in a different way now) can help them eliminate Smith. Co-operation beckons.
Smith meanwhile temporarily assimilates the Oracle and sees with her eyes. He thinks he can see ultimate victory but the Oracle has never revealed the truth, only the next thing people who consulted her needed to know. She offers hope not certainty. The Gospel parallels are coming thick and fast now.
The oracle has an obsession with cookies. Challenged she says, ‘Cookies need love like everything does.’ ‘Cookies’ is of course also the name given to those little internet calling cards that your browser leaves to remind itself where it has been before. They tell everyone where you have been with your computer. Those with guilty secrets delete them regularly. Someone could be very nearly all-seeing if they had access to the world’s cookies. How much do those nice people at Microsoft know about you and me? We keep leaving them cookies so perhaps we’re getting to know each other rather well. Then again, just because you know where I’ve been all day it doesn’t mean you love me. It makes you a stalker not a friend. Revolutions confuses love with infatuation.
Neo, in machine world, is plugged fully in to the Matrix and deals with Smith, who still has the knack of duplicating himself. But the final showdown is a one-to-one. In Reloaded all the Smiths piled in. This time it’s, ‘You and me - outside’ because Smith, seeing with the Oracle’s foresight, knows, or thinks he knows, that he will win. So the other Smiths only need to stand and watch. A new bit of technology adds a slo-mo punch to the effects armoury. Watch that face crease. Some of the glory of this moment had already been stolen by a pre-movie seat-belt advert which showed a face uncrumpling. Is nothing sacred?
Smith: ‘You can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting. Why Mr. Anderson? Why keep fighting? Why do you persist?’
Neo: ‘Because I choose to.’
In this and other snippets of dialogue we are left with the impression that belief and choice is everything for the Wachowskis. Make the right choices and believe in what you believe in and you will be OK. It’s all existentialistic at heart.
Neo wins by accepting defeat. He is apparently assimilated. He’s inside Smith, or part of him, or joined to him or something. Unlike the Oracle’s assimilation Neo disappears. Because he’s human? He destroys Smith from within. We don’t know if Neo dies in the process but his Messianic end-pose makes anything Michael Jackson ever did look bland.
Some have mused that Smith somehow represents death. ‘Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming,’ the Oracle said. Smith tells Neo, ‘It was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end.’ The Oracle refers to death as a he. Neo responds ‘Smith’. Is Smith the grim reaper? Is it significant that he’s clad in black? If that is the point then death appears to be conquered but you probably have to believe that rather than being certain of it.
Perhaps Agent Smith is not unlike the snake in Genesis 3. He represents the possibility of evil built into creation. The Oracle described Smith thus: ‘He is you, your opposite, your negative. The result of the equation trying to balance out.’ Smith claims, ‘This is my world! My world!’
‘It is finished.’ That’s what messiahs are supposed to say when they head back to ‘Dunredempting.’ At the end of the crisis we hear the words, ‘It is done’ from the machine world.
As a coda the Architect chats to the Oracle:
‘Did you always know?’ (Neo would save the day, leading to peace.)
‘No. But I believed.’
‘Just how long do you think this peace will last?’
Probably until someone decides to continue the franchise.
I don’t think these movies have any idea what you should believe but clearly see it as better to believe in something than nothing at all. It is pick ‘n’ mix philosophy for a post-modern audience. You can bounce off this film, as you can the previous two in the trilogy, to discuss issues of faith – possibly more than any other series of films ever. It’s big. It’s brash. It’s a bit pretentious. It has lots of things to talk about and absolutely nothing to say for itself. Which isn’t a problem. Raising issues has always been an interesting use of the medium. Searching for deep answers to life’s intricacies in a multiplex is a poor use of time. They sell popcorn not bread.
From the matrix, everyone who wants to be freed will be freed:
Oracle: What about the others?
Architect: What others?
Oracle: The ones that want out.
Architect: Obviously they will be freed.
Oracle: I have your word?
Architect: What do you think I am, human?
Remember - that was the point. All the people happy in their false-reality pod-world were really prisoners. If they want out (how would they know – Anderson was deemed pretty unusual to know he might want out) they can be released. Will anyone tell them first that pod-life might be better than rebuilding Zion. The blue pill. Take the blue pill.
While the little Indian girl programme makes glorious sunsets a black cat walks by. To philosophy and religion we can add art and superstition. They are all part of life’s glorious palate. Believe what you want and hope you made a lucky choice. Then all your sunsets will be beautiful. There’s not been much levity amid the sacrifice and the ending doesn’t feel happy. I almost longed for Eric Idle to walk past singing ‘Always look on the bright side of life.’ In fact the credits roll over a Hindu chant. It’s a cinematically satisfying conclusion but not much more. It’s a great film if you’re 12 so the 15 certificate is a shame; it’s an interesting film if you’re inclined to think about the deeper things in life and want your thoughts kick-started.
The teenagers behind me (bless ‘em) laughed at all the philosophical musings. I was irritated but with hindsight think they may have been right. ‘As a monument of design the films are top of the heap, and will be for some time to come … as an intellectual enquiry into faith and responsibility, they are a non-starter.’[7] Not quite so. They are a starter but that is about it. They didn’t start these particular young people though.
Most of the interesting things to talk about were probably in part one. Did the Wachowski brothers know they were going to do this with their loose ends? The movie-chattering classes will probably be divided between whether the religious/philosophical clues lying around (yin and yan earrings, Latin wall posters, symbolic names, anagrams, messianic postures and so on) are just left splattered over the screen like bits of broken sentinel or whether three further viewings are necessary to unravel the mystery.
‘The singular vision that propelled The Matrix is gone, replaced by the same post-apocalyptic fury found in any number of sci-fi films. It's a dispiriting end to a series that once promised more.’[8]
You can choose to like or dislike this movie. Of course you can. As long as you can see past the choices you don’t understand. Lots to chatter on about, but I wish Revolutions hadn’t left me this way. I feel Chinese-mealed. It was great to eat but two hours later I wanted another one.
Any first reaction to a film runs the risk of being terribly wrong after repeat viewings. I’ve tried to make these words tasty enough for the day I have to eat them.
Steve Tilley
Leamington Spa
14/11/03
[1] Phil Hogan The Observer 9/11/03)
[2] Gregory Weinkauf. The Dallas Observer 6/11/2003
[3] Empire online (www.empireonline.co.uk/reviews)
[4] Discussed by Peter Williams in ‘Philosophy from the Matrix Part 2 – Splitting Up Is hard To Do’ on www.damaris.org
[5] John 20:29 (Contemporary English Version)
[6] A line used by HM the Queen of England when offering comfort to the American people post 11th September 2001.
[7] Anthony Quinn, ‘Guns and Poses’ review in The Independent 7/11/03
[8] Daniel Eagan film Journal Internatonal 13/11/03 www.filmjournal.com
The Matrix Revolutions
They said it was a trilogy. It was. If you hadn’t seen any of the movies and watched all three back-to-back it would be a fine experience (recommend a break for lunch though). And I enjoyed Revolutions. Let’s make that clear at the start. It was a fun couple of hours and it made me think, a bit. But somehow we had it figured as being answers not issues and there weren’t any. Is it another example of our propensity to set things up so we can knock them down? After all, some people were making outrageous claims for this film three years ago. Of course it wasn’t the Directors. Their silence over the whole project, and especially in the short gap between Reloaded and Revolutions has been outstandingly maintained, perhaps growing the sense of significance. Sometimes it does you good to remain quiet.
But Revolutions is loud - not only the third part of a trilogy, but also a stand-alone good versus evil movie and a brilliant piece of science fiction. Without the viewer having to understand all the where-exactly-are-we-in-reality stuff it’s a shoot ‘em up with a romantic sub-plot. The good guys win, well sort of, and enough holes are left for at least the possibility of a Part 4. We were never promised Resolutions. That could be a Douglas Adamsesque increasingly improbable Part 5 after Revelations. No. Getting silly.
Look, the fifteen year old who wants to see lots of action will be pleased; those who want to wrestle with deep questions of life will come away with a few more for the after movie pint.
And there is some pressure to talk matrix. One Sunday columnist said, ‘So here I am, busy learning The Matrix as a foreign language in case I am called upon to speak it, or at lest nod knowledgably while someone else (at the so-called ‘water cooler’) throws some of its irregular verbs into the conversation. …My secret fear is that … I will be hopelessly undone at some nightmare social occasion.’[1] Movies increasingly set the agenda for conversation in a way which song lyrics might have done thirty years back. Today everyone likes different tunes but by and large we all watch the same films together.
In Revolutions Neo wakes up in an in between world – a halfway house between the matrix and the human world of Zion. He is lying on a pristine underground station platform (so it can’t be the real world) called Mobil Ave. Significant that it’s an anagram of ‘limbo’ anybody? Thought not. I’ll try to get out more.
Neo chats to a couple, of Indian appearance, who are trying to get their daughter out of the matrix. The underground train is the only way out and they are waiting for the Trainman. Neo is surprised that programmes (for that is what they are) can love their daughter. The reply he hears is, ‘Love is a word. What matters are the connections the word implies.’ Hard to fathom why they are sending their daughter away on the basis of a few connections. Why should two programmes have a daughter they care for? What does that mean?
Neo isn’t allowed on the train. The train man sees to that, ruining the clean walls in the process. When Neo runs down the track to follow the train he finds himself back where he started. Expletive. Rescue needed.
Back on one of Zion’s hovercrafts the real Neo is comatose. He lies next to another casualty, Bane, who has been taken over by Agent Smith. But Neo’s neural patterns exhibit signs of still being in the matrix, even though he is no longer plugged in. He appears to have gained the power to connect with the machine world without having his head wired up. Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph prepare to get him out.
The Oracle (herself revealed as a programme) has changed appearance since Reloaded. Probably not so much part of the plot as a way of coping with the death of a cast member? Consulted by Morpheus we learn from her that there is no easy way to get Neo out. Really? So they’ll have to fight? Guns and shades ready folks.
The Merovingian (French restaurant owner from Reloaded) controls the route. The only way to rescue Neo is to enter his den. He has vacated his classy restaurant from Reloaded and now runs an S. and M. club. It, ‘…could only inspire more laughter if it included Leslie Nielsen in nipple clamps.’[2] Needless to say some serious trash-the-place action (underground car-park, lift, lobby, club) needs to happen and many wall-walking bouncers are wasted in doing a deal – you give us Neo and we won’t kill everyone. OK? There is the best we-all-point-our-guns-at–each-other moment since Reservoir Dogs. In fact at one stage so many guns are pointing at so many people it must have been a genre joke.
Merovingian: ‘Where some see coincidence, I see consequence. Where some seechance, I see cause.’
Trinity: ‘I don't have time for this shit.’
Do we have time? Does the philosophy get in the way of the action? Newspaper journalists tend to review movies against some very complex and masochistic movie-world standard. If it don’t disturb it don’t work. Only the most gruelling get five stars. The movie buffs magazine Empire at least tries to see a film from the point of view of those of us who get to a couple of films a month. They say:
‘Some viewers will indeed be completely satisfied, their questions answered, as the final credits roll, but they're the ones who have done their homework. Without filling in plot gaps by watching The Animatrix or playing derided computer game Enter The Matrix, a sense of confusion reigns. And those who are confused can't emotionally engage with the characters, thus rendering any amount of sacrifices and love themes null and void. In the original film, the casual viewer could relate to a slave race of pod people and their need to be freed, but the Wachowskis seem to have moved the goalposts as the story has progressed, sidelining what began as a focal point of the plot.’ [3]
Dare we suggest that if you were spending lots of time playing Enter the Matrix you probably weren’t looking for answers to life’s deep questions on the side. If you have the time there are some issues worth pursuing. They’ve been around since Part 1 but they are raised once more. What is real? Are machines becoming too powerful? Is love useful or a distraction from purpose? How important is faith and belief? Do we just exist to make choices?
On the way through the Merovingian’s club he comments further on love, ‘It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity.’ Some of the clubbers are insanely lovely. Or is that lustly?
Later Agent Smith, revealed to be a programme so rogue it is an enemy of the matrix and the human world, says, ‘Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love.’ But a human mind invented the machines therefore invented him. Confusing isn’t it? And what did love do to get such a bad press? Maybe the film is telling us that love is the difference between humanity and the machine world. We might love our laptop but it doesn’t love us back. But then those Indians did love their daughter. Can some of the machines do love? Is it programmable? Can you wire up a series of connections so that the result is indistinguishable from love? Anyone who has watched an apparently happy couple announce their divorce will know how hard it is to tell the difference between real and apparent love.
Other conversations about love take place between Neo and Trinity. Trinity says, ‘I wished I had the chance to say what really mattered. To say I loved you.’ Revolutions can’t tell its eros from its agapé. Many of us still haven’t forgiven the mosh and sex scene from Reloaded.
So what happens next? The underground city of Zion is under attack and needs to defend itself. Cue shell-making, sixteen year olds fibbing about their age to volunteer for fighting, a rescue only achievable by Niobe steering her craft down an impossible-to-navigate tunnel, a kick-ass loading machine versus sentinel battle that goes on for ever and much self-sacrifice. Cliché ridden but it rocks.
There is a certain sort of movie character known as ‘bear-food’. You know they aren’t going to make it. They will either give their lives sacrificially or die stupidly. Revolutions is good at unpredictability on this score. It’s hard to spot the bear food. I had the kid down as a goner from the word go. Cue a sixteen year old who saves the day.
Zion is an interesting place. Governed by a Star Wars style Council it boasts high tech weapons for which the gunpowder has to be ground by hand. A huge gated entrance can only be opened by blasting a retaining chain in two; this to admit a hovercraft so advanced nothing breaks off when it bounces on the ground. A barrage of bullets, scary as hell when saving Ryan’s privates, becomes meaningless when the opponents are machines. Only a couple of times do we see the damage a sentinel does to human flesh. It’s the nastiest thing since Starship Troopers paraded its amputees.
We might pause for a moment to ask ourselves about the relationship between humankind and the machine world. On Zion the fighting machines in the loading bay are a mechanical extension to the human body. They can shoot almost endlessly but then need manual reloading. Are we taking on new technology at a controllable rate or is there any possibility that at some point the machines will take over? This has been the premise of many movies. It is probably the matrix trilogy’s biggest question.[4] We tend not to notice that we love our mobile phone so much that we use them to take our friends with us everywhere and don’t develop any new relationships. Do slippery slopes and thicker ends of wedges beckon? Worth talking through.
Revolutions reminds us that it is easier to believe in, or at least trust, the people close to us. We have a natural distrust of politicians, authorities and powers yet gladly put our confidence in people we can get to know, often despite their credentials.
Morpheus: ‘You've never believed in the One?’
Niobe: ‘I still don't.’
Morpheus: ‘So why are you doing this?’
Niobe: ‘I believe in him’ (gestures to Neo).
A local messiah you can see and touch is far more believable than a distant one. John had to reassure the readers of his Gospel that those who had actually seen the Messiah were a privileged few. ‘… do you have faith because you have seen me?’ says Jesus, ‘The people who have faith in me without seeing me are the ones who are really blessed.’[5] Just a thought. In our real world gullibility is the flip-side of trust; ‘grief is the price we pay for love.’[6]
Neo and Trinity head off to visit the Matrix hardware (the size of a city and equally impressive) rather than plugging it to the software, coping with a stowed-away Bane (the bane of their lives?) on the journey. Bane comments on the human body, ‘… it is difficult to even think encased in this rotting meat ... nothing this weak is meant to survive.’ So that’s what it’s like to humble yourself and take on flesh. Bane loses the battle on board ship but robs Neo of his sight in the process. He goes on to say, ‘The blind Messiah. You are a symbol for all of your kind, Mr. Anderson.’
Crashing the computer city costs Trinity her life too but, once inside, the machines realise that Neo (who can see in a different way now) can help them eliminate Smith. Co-operation beckons.
Smith meanwhile temporarily assimilates the Oracle and sees with her eyes. He thinks he can see ultimate victory but the Oracle has never revealed the truth, only the next thing people who consulted her needed to know. She offers hope not certainty. The Gospel parallels are coming thick and fast now.
The oracle has an obsession with cookies. Challenged she says, ‘Cookies need love like everything does.’ ‘Cookies’ is of course also the name given to those little internet calling cards that your browser leaves to remind itself where it has been before. They tell everyone where you have been with your computer. Those with guilty secrets delete them regularly. Someone could be very nearly all-seeing if they had access to the world’s cookies. How much do those nice people at Microsoft know about you and me? We keep leaving them cookies so perhaps we’re getting to know each other rather well. Then again, just because you know where I’ve been all day it doesn’t mean you love me. It makes you a stalker not a friend. Revolutions confuses love with infatuation.
Neo, in machine world, is plugged fully in to the Matrix and deals with Smith, who still has the knack of duplicating himself. But the final showdown is a one-to-one. In Reloaded all the Smiths piled in. This time it’s, ‘You and me - outside’ because Smith, seeing with the Oracle’s foresight, knows, or thinks he knows, that he will win. So the other Smiths only need to stand and watch. A new bit of technology adds a slo-mo punch to the effects armoury. Watch that face crease. Some of the glory of this moment had already been stolen by a pre-movie seat-belt advert which showed a face uncrumpling. Is nothing sacred?
Smith: ‘You can't win, it's pointless to keep fighting. Why Mr. Anderson? Why keep fighting? Why do you persist?’
Neo: ‘Because I choose to.’
In this and other snippets of dialogue we are left with the impression that belief and choice is everything for the Wachowskis. Make the right choices and believe in what you believe in and you will be OK. It’s all existentialistic at heart.
Neo wins by accepting defeat. He is apparently assimilated. He’s inside Smith, or part of him, or joined to him or something. Unlike the Oracle’s assimilation Neo disappears. Because he’s human? He destroys Smith from within. We don’t know if Neo dies in the process but his Messianic end-pose makes anything Michael Jackson ever did look bland.
Some have mused that Smith somehow represents death. ‘Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming,’ the Oracle said. Smith tells Neo, ‘It was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end.’ The Oracle refers to death as a he. Neo responds ‘Smith’. Is Smith the grim reaper? Is it significant that he’s clad in black? If that is the point then death appears to be conquered but you probably have to believe that rather than being certain of it.
Perhaps Agent Smith is not unlike the snake in Genesis 3. He represents the possibility of evil built into creation. The Oracle described Smith thus: ‘He is you, your opposite, your negative. The result of the equation trying to balance out.’ Smith claims, ‘This is my world! My world!’
‘It is finished.’ That’s what messiahs are supposed to say when they head back to ‘Dunredempting.’ At the end of the crisis we hear the words, ‘It is done’ from the machine world.
As a coda the Architect chats to the Oracle:
‘Did you always know?’ (Neo would save the day, leading to peace.)
‘No. But I believed.’
‘Just how long do you think this peace will last?’
Probably until someone decides to continue the franchise.
I don’t think these movies have any idea what you should believe but clearly see it as better to believe in something than nothing at all. It is pick ‘n’ mix philosophy for a post-modern audience. You can bounce off this film, as you can the previous two in the trilogy, to discuss issues of faith – possibly more than any other series of films ever. It’s big. It’s brash. It’s a bit pretentious. It has lots of things to talk about and absolutely nothing to say for itself. Which isn’t a problem. Raising issues has always been an interesting use of the medium. Searching for deep answers to life’s intricacies in a multiplex is a poor use of time. They sell popcorn not bread.
From the matrix, everyone who wants to be freed will be freed:
Oracle: What about the others?
Architect: What others?
Oracle: The ones that want out.
Architect: Obviously they will be freed.
Oracle: I have your word?
Architect: What do you think I am, human?
Remember - that was the point. All the people happy in their false-reality pod-world were really prisoners. If they want out (how would they know – Anderson was deemed pretty unusual to know he might want out) they can be released. Will anyone tell them first that pod-life might be better than rebuilding Zion. The blue pill. Take the blue pill.
While the little Indian girl programme makes glorious sunsets a black cat walks by. To philosophy and religion we can add art and superstition. They are all part of life’s glorious palate. Believe what you want and hope you made a lucky choice. Then all your sunsets will be beautiful. There’s not been much levity amid the sacrifice and the ending doesn’t feel happy. I almost longed for Eric Idle to walk past singing ‘Always look on the bright side of life.’ In fact the credits roll over a Hindu chant. It’s a cinematically satisfying conclusion but not much more. It’s a great film if you’re 12 so the 15 certificate is a shame; it’s an interesting film if you’re inclined to think about the deeper things in life and want your thoughts kick-started.
The teenagers behind me (bless ‘em) laughed at all the philosophical musings. I was irritated but with hindsight think they may have been right. ‘As a monument of design the films are top of the heap, and will be for some time to come … as an intellectual enquiry into faith and responsibility, they are a non-starter.’[7] Not quite so. They are a starter but that is about it. They didn’t start these particular young people though.
Most of the interesting things to talk about were probably in part one. Did the Wachowski brothers know they were going to do this with their loose ends? The movie-chattering classes will probably be divided between whether the religious/philosophical clues lying around (yin and yan earrings, Latin wall posters, symbolic names, anagrams, messianic postures and so on) are just left splattered over the screen like bits of broken sentinel or whether three further viewings are necessary to unravel the mystery.
‘The singular vision that propelled The Matrix is gone, replaced by the same post-apocalyptic fury found in any number of sci-fi films. It's a dispiriting end to a series that once promised more.’[8]
You can choose to like or dislike this movie. Of course you can. As long as you can see past the choices you don’t understand. Lots to chatter on about, but I wish Revolutions hadn’t left me this way. I feel Chinese-mealed. It was great to eat but two hours later I wanted another one.
Any first reaction to a film runs the risk of being terribly wrong after repeat viewings. I’ve tried to make these words tasty enough for the day I have to eat them.
Steve Tilley
Leamington Spa
14/11/03
[1] Phil Hogan The Observer 9/11/03)
[2] Gregory Weinkauf. The Dallas Observer 6/11/2003
[3] Empire online (www.empireonline.co.uk/reviews)
[4] Discussed by Peter Williams in ‘Philosophy from the Matrix Part 2 – Splitting Up Is hard To Do’ on www.damaris.org
[5] John 20:29 (Contemporary English Version)
[6] A line used by HM the Queen of England when offering comfort to the American people post 11th September 2001.
[7] Anthony Quinn, ‘Guns and Poses’ review in The Independent 7/11/03
[8] Daniel Eagan film Journal Internatonal 13/11/03 www.filmjournal.com
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Words and Funerals
I've never really paid any great attention to the acknowledgments in newspapers of the minister's contribution after a funeral. Don't get me wrong, it's not that they aren't heartfelt or kind, it's simply that, following a pattern of words used many times - thanks to the Rev'd x for a comforting service - robs them of some of their value. You don't know if someone asked for it or the undertakers suggested it as good practice.
What is of value is the occasional glimpse you get that something you have done has helped. Being with people at moments of deepest loss is always a privilege and it is good to know you are being useful rather than an intrusion which has to be managed.
Recently I spent a bit of time with a lovely family and in the funeral service itself I was thanked, by one of the tribute-givers, for helping the family put into words they way they felt and to find the words to come to terms with what was happening to them. Tell you the truth I didn't realise I had done so particularly but looking back the expression 'an emotional mugging' which I may have invented and may have come across, was how I felt when my Dad died and still do from time to time. Just when you least expect it you find yourself moved to tears by something. They found this thought helpful.
A few months back I was reading something and had an overwhelming urge to ring my gran. I did this when I was 8 or 9 if something exciting happened and I wanted to tell her but she died in 1991 so probably no longer has a phone.
What happens is that you steel yourself to cope and then, when you relax and drop your guard, you become vulnerable to being beaten to a pulp by your feelings. This is not, by the way, a bad thing. Not as bad as a real mugging for sure which has few hidden blessings.
Words are good and those of us who work with them a lot may underplay our ability to help others by describing what they are feeling. Once Adam has named the animal, he has power over it. I'm going to work really hard at helping people find the words to describe the indescribable. The feedback is that it may just help a bit.
When I posted about the Archbishop looking for a form of words 'nuanced enough to enclose apparent contradictions' a few weeks ago I may have been harder than I should. Solving disputes (even disputes between us and our emotional life) is a matter of doing that. We just need to do it with the sort of people, who don't daily use the word nuanced. Which is almost everyone.
What is of value is the occasional glimpse you get that something you have done has helped. Being with people at moments of deepest loss is always a privilege and it is good to know you are being useful rather than an intrusion which has to be managed.
Recently I spent a bit of time with a lovely family and in the funeral service itself I was thanked, by one of the tribute-givers, for helping the family put into words they way they felt and to find the words to come to terms with what was happening to them. Tell you the truth I didn't realise I had done so particularly but looking back the expression 'an emotional mugging' which I may have invented and may have come across, was how I felt when my Dad died and still do from time to time. Just when you least expect it you find yourself moved to tears by something. They found this thought helpful.
A few months back I was reading something and had an overwhelming urge to ring my gran. I did this when I was 8 or 9 if something exciting happened and I wanted to tell her but she died in 1991 so probably no longer has a phone.
What happens is that you steel yourself to cope and then, when you relax and drop your guard, you become vulnerable to being beaten to a pulp by your feelings. This is not, by the way, a bad thing. Not as bad as a real mugging for sure which has few hidden blessings.
Words are good and those of us who work with them a lot may underplay our ability to help others by describing what they are feeling. Once Adam has named the animal, he has power over it. I'm going to work really hard at helping people find the words to describe the indescribable. The feedback is that it may just help a bit.
When I posted about the Archbishop looking for a form of words 'nuanced enough to enclose apparent contradictions' a few weeks ago I may have been harder than I should. Solving disputes (even disputes between us and our emotional life) is a matter of doing that. We just need to do it with the sort of people, who don't daily use the word nuanced. Which is almost everyone.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Real Work
Writing about unemployment, John Stott said, '...although all employment is work (we are not paid for doing nothing), not all work is employment (we can work without being paid for it). What demoralizes people is not so much lack of employment (not being in a paid job) as lack of work (not using their energies in creative service). Conversely what gives people a sense of self-respect is significant work.' (Issues Facing Christians Today, Marshalls 1984 page 169)
I have been thinking about that quote, which I rediscovered whilst researching an article about depression in young people for Crusaders Energize resources this week.
Some of the work I am paid for I enjoy and look forward to so much that, as long as I could earn my living, I would probably do anyway. On the other hand some of the things I have to do for which I am not paid I find draining and wish there was a fee. A friend of mine calls this the difference between real and apparent work. Sorting out the garden, or household DIY maintenance tasks, or phoning the bank call centre is real work. I have to do it. I hate it. It's drudgery and unrewarding (to me).
Sitting down and writing an article on something that interests me, for which I get paid is apparently work (because I get a cheque) but it doesn't feel like work. The same goes for running a Cafe Create evening which goes on my time sheet as 12 hours paid work.
Now the quandary. Today I am a guest at a wedding. It is my day off. I am playing the keyboards in the service which means I have the capacity to ruin someone's big day. So although being church keyboard player is not my job I woke up on my day off feeling I had to work. During the day I will spend a lot of time with people from the church and so will, almost inevitably, have some work-related conversations. Whether or not they are real work will depend very much on who they are with. As I am going to the church building I will drop off some mail and check my pigeon hole. If something is untidy I will tidy it. I will do anything necessary to help because I am there and I know what to do and I am the nearest; not because I am the Associate Minister. But it will feel like work.
Funnily enough I have spent some of this week being paid to chat to, and supervise, an unemployed man painting scenery for our Holiday Club. It seems to give him more of a sense of respect than it gives me. Very perceptive Mr Stott - as ever.
Hands up all those who fill out their time sheets at the end of each day deciding, with hindsight, which of the bits of their day were work and which weren't. Welcome to the twilight world of a part-time Associate Minister. There is no other job like it in the world.
I am taking Tuesday off.
I have been thinking about that quote, which I rediscovered whilst researching an article about depression in young people for Crusaders Energize resources this week.
Some of the work I am paid for I enjoy and look forward to so much that, as long as I could earn my living, I would probably do anyway. On the other hand some of the things I have to do for which I am not paid I find draining and wish there was a fee. A friend of mine calls this the difference between real and apparent work. Sorting out the garden, or household DIY maintenance tasks, or phoning the bank call centre is real work. I have to do it. I hate it. It's drudgery and unrewarding (to me).
Sitting down and writing an article on something that interests me, for which I get paid is apparently work (because I get a cheque) but it doesn't feel like work. The same goes for running a Cafe Create evening which goes on my time sheet as 12 hours paid work.
Now the quandary. Today I am a guest at a wedding. It is my day off. I am playing the keyboards in the service which means I have the capacity to ruin someone's big day. So although being church keyboard player is not my job I woke up on my day off feeling I had to work. During the day I will spend a lot of time with people from the church and so will, almost inevitably, have some work-related conversations. Whether or not they are real work will depend very much on who they are with. As I am going to the church building I will drop off some mail and check my pigeon hole. If something is untidy I will tidy it. I will do anything necessary to help because I am there and I know what to do and I am the nearest; not because I am the Associate Minister. But it will feel like work.
Funnily enough I have spent some of this week being paid to chat to, and supervise, an unemployed man painting scenery for our Holiday Club. It seems to give him more of a sense of respect than it gives me. Very perceptive Mr Stott - as ever.
Hands up all those who fill out their time sheets at the end of each day deciding, with hindsight, which of the bits of their day were work and which weren't. Welcome to the twilight world of a part-time Associate Minister. There is no other job like it in the world.
I am taking Tuesday off.
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