To Blog or not to Blog

While I was away last week I didn't blog - and it was good!  Then I get back and find this from Clayboy.

I wrote quite a long time ago about blogging and many of the themes remain.  I still think that blogging is for me, and I still think that there is a stress to me in blogging.  The most obvious solution would be to blog less often.  However last week I was talking to a counsellor and they talked about the weekly relationship - and how if the time between meetings stretches out things get saved up to say, and are more thought through, whereas turning up weekly the unconscious has more opportunity to get out.  I think the same is true of blogging.  Posting daily means that some days there is nothing to say - and yet they are sometimes the days when I learn most as I write something down that I didn't know.

The thing that I didn't write about in the earlier post was the community of bloggers.  It feels antisocial to blog but not to read others blogs, to blog but not read and sometimes respond to comments - but both of these activities can be very time consuming.

What am I going to do?  Not sure!  Watch this space.

Twitter

I have been holding out for a while now, but yesterday finally signed up for Twitter.  revdalan is me if there are others of you out there who want to follow my jottings.

Already I have added Tweetdeck for my laptop and TinyTwitter for my phone - though without an unlimited data option I have left it on manual updating!

The question that I have is how will I manage the additional stream of information coming my way?  And I don't know the answer to that!   Yet.

The other question is how I will handle the visibility.  I try to control too much (even though I know I can't!) and I think Twitter will help me learn to deal with that.  After all, if I am broadcasting my thoughts to the world (as I suppose I do on this blog) I am letting go of control, and somehow with Twitter it seems more so than blogging - not sure why.

What experiences do others have in this space?

Do we all have a special gift?

A couple of days ago I met up with some old colleagues.  One of them mentioned that he had heard Clive Woodward saying that early in life you should find what you can excel at and nurture it.  None of us knew what our gift in this area was (and we are all of an age when too much time is spent talking about pensions J) and it set me wondering whether that something exists - and if it does what it might be.

This also takes us into the nature v nurture debate and that is also informed by Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers". In it he talks about how the vast majority of Ice Hockey players have birthdays in January, February and March - the reason for this being that if they start playing at a young age their greater development gives them and advantage which is magnified by the further opportunities that they get.  OK, so perhaps if your birthday is later in the year then Ice Hockey should not be your sport - but that to me questions whether you have a specific gift, or whether you have a number of aptitudes which can be developed in a number of different ways.

Perhaps I have misinterpreted Clive Woodward and what he was doing was to encourage everyone to find something which they enjoy and then to do it to the very best of their ability for its own sake - but sadly I doubt it.

Faith in God encourages us to see everyone (including ourselves) as loved by God for who we are and not what we do.  Our current society seems to be trying very hard to persuade us that this isn't true.

We are not called to co-dependence

Why are people who sacrifice everything thought to be following Jesus?  Do they really have no desires of their own?  Or am I missing the point?  What is the difference between co-dependence and service?  We are asked to love our neighbour as ourself - not better than.  Is working all hours (even in the service of God) loving ourselves?

Jesus went away to pray - time to himself - albeit with God.  He did not always do what everyone asked him to!  He had a sense of his own needs as well as those of others.  However, he was not selfish, and he worked for the good of others.

How do we learn to walk the tightrope between bending over backwards to help others and concentrating so much on our own needs that others get lost from view?

Trust

Yesterday's reading included Doubting Thomas.  So what are you like on trust?  Simon P Walker has been publishing his new book online and in Chapter 4 writes about trust and how we learn to trust (or not) others and ourselves in our early life, and how this affects us as we get older.  It also reminded me of this post I read a little while ago on how different attitudes to trust can affect us.

I know that I find it easier to trust myself than I do others.  And that is now I am so much better at trusting others!  In my previous job it took me a long time before I could escape from the trap of thinking that no one else could do it as well as I could (well, they couldn't could they ;)) so I had to do it myself.  It took a long time to learn that lesson, and it was one that I thought that I had learnt.  However, when push comes to shove I find that I do not trust others L  What I had learnt to do was to let them do things that didn't matter.  Building a trust in others that is not there is hard work, and the only way I know of doing it is by continuing to do a little more of it all the time.  The problem is that I know I am going to get let down at some point.  It isn't trusting because it always works, it is trusting knowing that sometimes it doesn't, but doing it anyway.

Am I adequate?

One of the problems with being a priest is that I (and I suspect many others) keep thinking that others are being a priest so much better than I am.  There are said to be many workaholic priests (why can I never find the references when I want them?) - and in any gathering the chances are that they are there - after all, if they weren't workaholic they would be taking time off wouldn't they?

The Vernacular Curate wrote about this in another way and soon after I read his blog the following quote appeared in my in box:

We tend to manage life more than just live it. We are all over-stimulated and drowning in options. We are trained to be managers, to organize life, to make things happen. This is what is built into our culture, and probably into human nature. It is not all bad, but if you transfer that to the spiritual life, it is always heresy. It doesn’t work. It is not gospel. We might be productive and popular, but we will not be spiritually fertile or free.  Richard Rohr

My spiritual director quoted Monica Furlong to me:

I am clear about what I want from the clergy. I want them to be people who dare because they are secure enough in the value of what they are doing, to have time to read, to sit and think, and who face the emptiness and possible depression which often attack people when they do not keep the surface of their mind occupied ... I want them to be people who can sit still without feeling guilty, and from whom I can learn some kind of tranquility in a society which has almost lost the art.  Quoted by Gloucester Diocese

 This resonates with me - but it is so hard to achieve - even more so when colleagues are rushing around "achieving" so much.

And yet one of the things that I have valued about my curacy has been precisely the time to read and to sit and think and to face up to who and what I really am.

Doubt

25 years ago I was told that the church would be better off without people like me.  I had just shared some of my doubts and was expecting support.  Then for the next 20 years I kept my thoughts to myself, only to find that I had a calling to the priesthood.

I have blogged indirectly before about faith development, but thought it worth looking at again.  Both Fowler and Hagberg and Guelich have 6 stages and the suggestion is that people can be at any stage, and can stay there, although often they will move to stage 3 because

Stage 4 is "the journey inward" - "a deep and very personal inward journey" that "almost always comes as an unsettling experience yet results in healing for those who continue through it". In this stage, our former views of God are radically challenged. The disruption can be so great that we feel like we are losing our faith or betraying loyalties. Hagberg/Guelich

Signs of this disruption can be seem by the creation of Spirited Exchanges

Spirited Exchanges is a network offering support, encouragement and resources for people who are experiencing challenges to and/or the unravelling of their faith paradigms with all its associated issues. Many have already left the Church. Some have felt marginalised and misunderstood, others have felt controlled and disrespected. For most it has led to considerable upheaval in their Christian understanding and practice and has often meant the loss of previously valued community. Much of what is happening for people could be described as faith transition.

 There is of course the old saying (at least I assumed it was but Google seems to attribute it to Ann Lamott)

the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty

and this for me fits with the staged model - in the earlier stages certainty is present - but to move to other stages one has to let go of that certainty.

While I was training David Winter lecturing us said something like: as I get older I am more and more certain about less and less.

Risk v Reward & Sin

One of the perils of having a strong Belbin Monitor Evaluator is that I can see all the pitfalls of an action - including the most obscure and threatening ones.  As a result of this I have tended to be risk averse and have blogged a little on this in the past (here and here).

When I was challenged by a friend on what rules I had broken I was struggling to come up with much.  I have the points to prove that I have sped in the past J; I left uni for a weekend without having permission; I occasionally left my classroom through the window; I might not have had all the mandatory elements in some of my services (though that was more likely to have been oversight L); I once went down the pub for lunch having told the kitchen I was staying in, and as a kid I nicked the odd bar of chocolate.  Not really much to talk about over 50 odd years.  Perhaps others will remind me of other things but I doubt there is much more.

So what you may say?  Well, it left me with a view of sin as keeping the rules, and as I was good at keeping the rules I was left with an odd view of sin.  As I have changed through my priestly formation I have come to understand sin much more as those things which damage me or others: the times that I have not done things for fear of what others think, when I have built masks to hide the real me.  None of these things are against the "rules" and yet I think that they are more damaging in my attempt to live "life in all its fullness" (John 10:10 - Good News Bible) and they help me understand Jesus attack on the Pharisees.  Joan Chittister writes:

It is so easy to make up rules and keep them so that we can feel good about doing something measurable in the spiritual life.http://www.eriebenedictines.org/benedict (changes daily - quote not there now).

Now however I am struggling because sometimes my new understanding of sin means that I "have" to break the rules.  But for someone who has no real experience of breaking rules this is a scary place to be, and my ME side tells me that it is dangerous as I haven't developed many skills in this space.

And if my Bishop is reading this, in the immortal words of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy:

I've got my towel with me!

Models of Church - which one for me?

What size of church do I want to work in?  Or more particularly, what model of church?  I am reaching the point in my ministry when it is time to move on, and at present I have been thinking about what I am called to.

A couple of weeks ago the Diocese sent all the 3rd year curates on a course from 3D Coaching teaching us how to fill in CVs and be interviewed, but also helping us figure out what it was that we felt called to (keep nearly writing "what we want to do next" J).


When I got back I remembered "Ministry in 3 Dimensions" and the different models of church in the appendix, and on Googling found this which goes into the ideas in a little more detail. An article in the Guardian saying that you cannot have more than150 friends also caught my attention as it dovetails nicely with the first article.

I first read this book several years ago, but on rereading it realised that I was drawn to the Pastoral Church.  I wondered whether I might be being called to a Program Church (though leaping straight to such a large church is probably a tad ambitious) as I believe that I have the skills that are required, but I know that I would also want to know the people - and the article warns against trying to do both.  In my previous job I knew everyone in our Head Office (about 100) and one of my concerns in my previous curacy was how difficult it was to get to know the congregations.

On the course we were told the story of someone who was in a Program Church but who realised that they wanted to be in a Pastoral one and surprised people by moving to a smaller church.  We were shown a model in the form of a Venn Diagram (fun examples can be found here) which looked at our capabilities, the needs of the job and our passion and I realised the importance of having some passion in the job rather than just doing something which was needed and which I could do.  So now I have a better idea of what I am looking for Church Times here I come!

Blogging and Personality

I have analysed my blog using Typealyser (h/t SueM) and it says that it is ISTP - the mechanic:

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment and are highly skilled at seeing and fixing what needs to be fixed. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Now that is all  very well, but in real life I am ENFJ and I hate risk (thoughts for a later blog come to mind!)  I have already written about how blogging perhaps brings out a different side and this provides further evidence.

When I first saw my result I was surprised at it and looked into the analysis and discovered that a good part of the text analysed came from my blogroll - so immediately thought that it was those "others" who were giving the rogue result - but I changed the source to exclude those and it still gave the same answer L

Work - Again!

From http://www.wolfescape.com/Humour/WorkStress.htm, with some other workplace jokes.  It was a real trip down memory lane!

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.  James M. Barrie

It is a while since I blogged on this here, in fact much longer than I thought!  And then the above quote came into my inbox on the day that I saw my spiritual director and he challenged my definition - where is time for me - what hobbies do I have?

Life used to be busy.  I had a full time job and was studying part time and doing things in the local church.  Work was the job and study and ministry was my "hobby".  Then I was made redundant and was able to become full time in the church.  Suddenly my "hobby" had become my job.  That was 2 years ago, and I haven't found a hobby yet.  Perhaps blogging counts, although it falls into the same category of a lot of other things that I do - it could be considered part of the job.  Similarly with reading - I enjoy reading without a purpose!  We were told that when we started studying that it would ruin reading for us and for a while it did, but I seem to have made it back again.  Perhaps because I struggled to study.  We were told that study was answering a question and to use the index - I prefer to read and be surprised by what I find and by the connections that appear between the strangest things.  But most of my reading is theology of some kind.  I also like chatting with friends - but most of the chat could in some way or other could be called work.  Hence the reason that I came up with the definition that I did.

The best that I could come up with was that I am hoping to play some cricket this summer - if selected.  Except that it is for a team of vicars!

Fear and protection

All of us have developed a front stage- a version of ourselves that we present to the world. ... Now, of course, in order to do this, we have to hide lots of things about ourselves away. ... All these things that I cannot risk bringing out onto my front stage I have to put somewhere- so I put them in my back stage. My back stage is the place I learn to put things that I do not want people to see. http://simonpwalker.blogspot.com/2010/03/let-us-go-back-to-old-story-one-of.html

I may be preempting what Simon Walker is going to say, but I think the problem comes when we put things back stage (which he writes more about in the Undefended Leader) because of irrational fear.  And of course if we never bring them out then the fear of bringing them out grows and we are even less inclined to do so.  How do we crack this problem?  Of course one option is to "Feel the fear and do it anyway" (I haven't got round to reading the book, but it is a great title!), but what if we do that and it goes wrong?  Is there a gentle toe in the water approach to this or do we have to dive in, because there has to be a certain degree of fear to overcome to be of value?

I was talking with a friend who said that whenever they saw a rule they broke it to see what happened, whereas my approach is to keep it unless I have a reason not to.  Acclimatisation to dealing with things like this mean that we have different attitudes towards fear - I do not know what it is to break the small rules - so the big ones carry greater fear.  Perhaps I need to dip my toe in the water more and walk on the not to be walked upon grass!

Trust=possibility of being hurt

I was discussing trust with someone the other day and it suddenly came to me that if you can't face the possibility of being hurt then you can't trust.  Reflecting on my time my previous career I now recognise that although I thought that I trusted the people I worked with (although it took me years to reach that point - ever heard "I can do it better myself"?) I only trusted them with things which wouldn't hurt me if they went wrong, and I suspect that some would argue that I didn't trust them anyway.

Even as I write this I am not sure that it is true, after all if the network went down badly then that could have hurt me professionally - even though I still know nothing about networks.  However, perhaps the key is in that little word "professionally".  If the network went down would it change my opinion of myself?  I don't think so.

And how does this fit in with trusting God?  If we trust in God will we not get hurt?  Afraid not - as last Sundays reading told us our faith makes no difference to the suffering we undergo - or as it was put by the Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley (thanks Archdruid - had to preach an emergency sermon and this post came in handy):

Bad stuff happens to good people. 

Good things happen to good people. 

Bad stuff happens to bad people. 

Good things happen to bad people.

And Richard Rohr, in his daily meditation, adds:

If there is nothing in your life to cry about, if there is nothing in your life to yell about, you must be out of touch.

I have spent many years avoiding pain, and the echo of that is still within me to the extent that occasionally I need to be reminded.  With thanks to my mates who do remind me!

Less is More

Recently I read an article quoting a priest saying that the less he did the better things were (of course I paraphrase) and frustratingly I can't find it to pass on.  I remembered it when I was talking about how if we take on something new we have to drop something to make space for it and was then reminded of my experience at work.

Obviously if your job is to make things or physically do something then less is not more!  Although perhaps the better athletes can achieve more with less - they always said that Teddy Sheringham beat people in his head.  However, I was latterly a manager and my job was to achieve things through other people.  When I discovered my vocation and starting training for the priesthood (whilst working full time) I found that I cut back the hours that I did (still exceeding my contracted hours), and yet I also felt that I was more effective than when I had been busier myself.  Similarly whilst I was working my notice, having been made redundant, I found that by doing less myself, as I handed over my responsibilities to others, and empowering those who worked for me, I got complimented for the work that I was doing.

As a priest it can be tempting to do too much - after all I am the one who doesn't have another job to do.  But, as at work, where I realised that doing the right thing was so much easier than forcing through the wrong thing, so in the church - if it is worth doing then others will chip in, and if they don't then perhaps it is the wrong thing to be doing!

Men in Church

Last Sunday the priest told us to drop the handshaking element to show our solidarity with Wayne Bridge.

 Great article in the Times by Frank Skinner arguing (tongue firmly in cheek) Christians should be doormats.  Just don't read it if you have had an irony by pass :).

Arguing the other side of the coin is Mark Driscoll

(h/t http://jesusneedsnewpr.blogspot.com/)

I started off intending this to be a fun piece for the weekend, but as I wrote it the two pieces seemed to me to be arguing about whether Christianity should embrace culture or stand against it (which of course reminded me of Niebuhr http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissar26.htm).  I am concerned about Mark Driscoll's approach as I believe that we are called to be more ourselves, and the business culture that he describes is not (at least from my experience) a place where you can be yourself.  How many people have to put on masks to allow themselves to inhabit this space?  

At work I did a personality profile from Insights - one of the good things about this profile is that it acknowledges that we are different at work and at home and it has a way of recording both styles and comparing them.  What was obvious was that many people were very different at work than they were at home - is this really what we want to encourage?

Masks and Love

Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace -- not in the infantile ... sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
- James Baldwin, from his book The Fire Next Time

This wonderful quote came from Sojourners, and although I have blogged on this before (and here) I couldn't resist having another go!

For much of my life I have been codependent, so perhaps the church was an obvious turn to take (see blogs here and here).  However, the formation (much discussed, but when I Googled little CofE description appears to be out there) element of my training seems to have been gradually knocking it out of me, although I recognise that that is not the case for everyone.  It has required some tough choices and has been hard, but having been through it I am grateful for the changes that it wrought in me.

It can perhaps best be described as going over an abyss - there is no certainty of what lies beyond, but there is some inner compulsion to go over it anyway.  Almost an abandonment.  And you do not go over it once - there is a continual going over it - issue after issue after issue.  It did get easier - even if some of the later abysses appeared deeper than the earlier ones - easier because I learnt to trust that God knew what he was doing, even if I didn't.

I remember at one point wondering with a friend what I would do now that I had been down all the abysses - only to discover that the ones that were to come were even nastier.  It was almost as though I could not even recognise the really bad ones until I had developed sufficient trust in the process that they would not terrify me.  Perhaps an example of God will not test you more than you can bear (though I generally don't like that argument as I believe I see people who have more than they can bear, and I don't like the idea of God testing us - see the book of Job).

If you find yourself on the edge of such an abyss, all I can do is to say that I have found it life giving to go down, and back up again - but to come back out I have had to give up all pretence at being in control and needing to know what the outcome will be.

All this reminds me of the politician, and I can't remember who, and I doubt it was original, who said "the last government have brought us to the edge of an abyss.  Under our government we will take a giant step forwards".  I tried Googling and found modern references, but I heard it before the 1979 change of government.

Who are we?

"Am I my brain tumour" - or words to that effect struck me as I finally got around to watching Mo recently.  Her consultant had told Mo that the side effects of her brain tumour might be an uninhibitedness (and when he first told her I though crikey!) and later in the program she asked how long she might have had the tumour, and on being told that it could have been there a long time wondered what was her and what was the brain tumour.

This set me reflecting on what makes us us - or perhaps what makes me me!  As I have gone through my training I have changed - or have I?  I certainly do not behave now in the same ways that I used to, but after much thought I believe that most of the change has been a stripping away of masks - of behaviours which I adopted as some form of protection against the actions of those around me.  I have written before about how during my training my MBTI has changed and when I did an Enneagram course I found it very difficult to determine my type - at present I think that I am a 3 but recognise many of the unhealthy traits of a 9 - to the extent that that initially I thought that was what I was.  It was only after wrestling with the descriptions in Personality Types that I finally realised what had been happening.

But if you have had a brain tumour for a long time - what is you and what is the tumour?

Christian Aid Update:

The International Labour Organisation estimates that 200 million more workers will fall into extreme poverty as a result of the global recession.  Almost half live in south Asia.  Give 10p for every £1,000 you earned last year.

Mmm - complicated to work out because of a house let and tax/calendar year effects.  And I'm shy!  Although as a curate my stipend is common knowledge (Not as common as I thought - couldn't readily find it on the web - my search skills must be getting worse).

MBA Oath - Faith for the 21st Century?

Have you heard about the MBA Oath?  Among other things it includes:

I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term

There has been some debate about this in BusinessWeek with an INSEAD Professor arguing that it would violate directors fiduciary duties in some situations.

The question is what is for the good of a business?  Is profit today always better than profit tomorrow?  Increasingly business is being driven by quarterly results, but I know of a business where, not that long ago, the MD and FD didn't let the other directors know what the financial results were.

Is the drive for measurability for good or bad?

Certainly directors can argue that the government sets the context within which they work, and if the government wants businesses to have a social conscience then they will have to legislate for it.  And yet some businesses are working in this way.  I heard of a large solicitors where the staff do voluntary work, reading with children in school and offering free legal advice in legal centres, and where promotion depends upon having spent some time doing this!  Why?  Call me cynical, but I believe that they must see some benefit to themselves from this activity, there is no compulsion to do it, and it may cost them money.

Is it perhaps about what these activities do for the person doing them?  Does it make them a different kind of person - and does it make them the kind of person that businesses would rather employ?

Compare this to faith.  As well as having the doctrines to be believed, faith has encouraged people to care for the weaker in society, and I think that it is that caring which transforms people more than any belief that they have.

So, have we discovered faith for the 21st Century?  And what have those of us who hang onto an older one done wrong?  Is it perhaps the clinging so tightly to doctrine that has stopped people discovering the change of life that comes from loving others?

Benedictine Humility

The third step of humility is that we submit to the prioress or abbot in all obedience for the love of God, imitating Jesus Christ of whom the apostle says: "Christ became obedient even to death (Phil 2:8)."
Benedict argues that the third rung on the ladder of humility is the ability to submit ourselves to the wisdom of another.
Rung three brings us face to face with our struggle for power. It makes us face an authority outside of ourselves. But once I am able to do that, then there is no end to how high I might rise, how deep I might grow.   Insights for the Ages - Joan Chittister (Changes daily).

How true - it is the people who will not let me get away with the simple explanation, who challenge me to go behind my mask and rip it off (and the next, and the next...), who love me enough to not mind the real me that emerges (which of course isn't as bad as I fear - though one day...).

I have been lucky enough to find a number of such people who have done this for me in my life, and all of them have been priests - though I am not saying that all priests would be one of them!  I do not think that that is an accident (good you might say - that is what I want from my priest), I think that the training I received encouraged me to go down that route, but I recognise that not everyone took it.  It wasn't easy, and it meant facing up to lots of "stuff" that had been buried for more years than I care to remember - but it was worth it!

So often the reason for the masks is a wish to control what is going on around us (which I blogged recently) - when in fact we can't anyway - letting go means becoming vulnerable - we need a safe place to learn this.

Don't we like certainty!

A long time ago a friend slid off the road into a ditch in the snow.  Afterwards he said

"I was in perfect control of the car as it went into the ditch"

He was prepared to wreck his car, but not his self image of being in control.

We do like our certainty don't we!  A number of different things have all reminded me of this recently, there was the article about Charlotte Raven diagnosed with Huntingdon's Chorea, who considered suicide because of the loss of control implied; there was the "barmy vicar" story about advising the hard up to shop lift, which for me became a story because people wanted a rule, not to look at a situation; and a friend blogged on the desire for certainty and control being behind the concerns about the Haiti earthquake.

In the west we have reached a situation when the illusion of being in control is sustainable.  We are no more in control than we ever were, but we think that we are.  And yet faith tells us that we are not - there is nothing that I can do to earn God's love, but it is there waiting to be enjoyed.  We are not very good at enjoying either, being too busy "controlling" things to have time to enjoy them.

And yet I know that when I can let go (interesting choice of phrase) I am freer.

(I don't claim to be any better than anyone else, as readers of other posts in this blog will know!).