a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

God at work

Starting to read...

"God at Work: Living Every Day with Purpose" (Ken Costa)

...in the space my brain has been allowed.

I am struggling a little with the first chapter. Costa's definition of work is all well and good; part of God's pattern in creation - something which therefore pre-dates the Fall and presumably awaits us in the New Heaven on the New Earth. More than happy with that (as long as I get a holiday in first), but there is a significant stream within what I would think of as the majority experience of work that is closer to the Curse of Adam style of working - the laborious tilling of the land and clearing it of the brambles. I don't think very many of us get the highly rewarded and deeply meaningful work experience that Costa might have done in his banking career. I'm sure he had tough days, but don't we all.

Work, in my experience pre-ordination, was a place where morality was tested and priorities were demanded, and every company I have ever worked for has expected the annual growth that we see strangling the resources of the planet and, if that didn't happen, then the ruthless cutting of costs (i.e. people).

I want to find something good in this book as a stimulus to material that might be relevant to those in our congregations in work, so I'll keep going...

What I talk about when I talk about running...

Enjoyed this on holiday...

"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" (Haruki Murakami)

...as a description of running as something you need to do. I am not at all like Murakami with a wiry build and the ability to do the occasional ultramarathon or triathlon, but a lot of his ideas made sense.

I was particularly struck by his idea that, as a novelist, running was a way of sucking the poison out. I presume he means in terms of the emotional entanglement I imagine an author feels with his or her characters and their situations - and in this for a runner to find an outlet and the space to work these things out. As a Priest I wouldn't draw quite the same parallel, although I am aware that in running I often find a physical expression of a coming to terms with a situation or person where my initial response has not been Kingdom shaped. For me, therefore, running provides a way of sucking the poison out of myself.

I also read...

"The Damned Utd" (David Peace)

...with its story of Brian Clough. It says it is a novel, so I can understand Clough's family feeling unhappy with some of the portrayal, but it is a fascinating insight into person leading whilst under pressure from within and without. We are all, to some degree, driven by our own (aware this is not quite the right word, but its the one in public usage) demons, and also in situations outside our immediate control.

I found myself drawn to thinking about what my own fear of failure entailed. What is failure for a Priest? Well certainly there would be a critical collapse of some sort, health or otherwise, but in many ways our human valuations on success or failure are contrary to the Kingdom's. Do I fail by not getting my own way, for example? Certainly not! Indeed I could fail precisely by getting my own way - if I do it wrongly.

The pursuit of happiness

Fascinating chapter in the book...

"The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia" (Orlando Figes)

...concerning the mood in Russia in the 1930s as the awareness began to grow of something awful happening "now", and yet being masked in peoples' consciences by the prospect of the future, the "yet to come". The promise of future glory would appear to be used by those who encourage suicide bombers or exclusive sects - more or less anything can be justified in terms of the future benefit for the many. The Soviet regime under Stalin was undertaking change on an unprecedented scale - communal living to remove bourgeois family protectionism for example, and the promise of the golden future just around the corner satisfies, for a time at least, the cravings of the poor for change. The capacity for living with terrible conditions for delayed gratification is amazing.

I was going to try to make some comment drawing a parallel with our own struggles; living in the "now" and yet trying to be part of the "not yet", and the need to be sure that we are doing this in the right way and for the right reasons, but just at the moment I feel that anything I could add would feel inappropriate when based on the real sufferings and stories of people. I therefore leave this post simply in tribute to the human spirit and capacity for living through and coping with terrible conditions.

Creativity, contemplation and contentment

I have found a considerable degree of satisfaction from the discipline of writing one blog post per day for Lent. This being Sunday I haven't done a post and, as I haven't preached today, I have not added a Podcast. Most of my prattling is taking place on the narrower bandwidth facebook or twitter.

We've had an interesting day. This morning's Communion was led primarily by our teenagers and they were knock out. I'm not a big fan of "liturgical dance" but there's something about our teenage girls dancing to a song that gets a lump in most people's throats. I also got a run in on our first "it nearly feels like Spring" day, and at one point I just had to stop to feel the warmth in the sun and enjoy the near stillness. There were bees and a micro-light in the distance, and birds calling and for a few minutes time stopped and I just breathed and watched...I could make out the top of our Church tower amongst the trees, and following the various roof lines and other local landmarks tried to spot the houses of some of the good people I rely on around here. Words were not necessary to pray for them or to thank God for them, but the contentment said all that needed to be said.

I am thinking about creativity...

"The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life" (Twyla Tharp)

and still thinking about growing...

"Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning" (James W. Fowler)

and am reading...

"Why Go to Church? 2009: The Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book" (Timothy Radcliffe)

and listening to him as well at the Fully Alive site.

Managing performance

I picked a book up some time back...

"Managing Performance to Maximize Results (Results-Driven Manager)" (Harvard Business School Press)

...I think this was the only accessible book in Waterstones on vaguely this topic at the time, and when I got home I thought the title was actually really rather unhelpful for my needs, so left it on the "to be read" pile until quite recently.

I've said several times I'm sure about a dislike of many "business" phrases. Somebody invited me to ring somebody else up just to "touch base". I knew what they meant, and of course they had masked their giving a task to me to do in very simple terms (what could be simpler than "touching base") even though the call was hugely more complex than that and required dialogue and discernment. Therefore I baulked at the idea of being "results driven". That smacks of "blue sky thinking" or something equally hideous, but I digress.

I think I was presuming that the book was going to be too gung-ho management ninja style to be of any transferable use, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The book could have made more of the sense of the voluntary in even that way that an employee operates. I think in any organisation I have been in we have all been contracted to fulfil certain criteria; where we sit, hours of work and so forth, but even so there has been a marked difference between those who have been employees (working to the letter of the contract) and those who have been employees plus volunteers (working to the spirit of the contract). Jesus would say these are the people who go the extra mile.

But working in an almost purely voluntary arrangement, and one in which "results" are a little nebulous can be more complex. I recall the horror of the annual appraisal system in work, a rather meaningless poly to get the employees to feel valued, despite it being made quite clear that there was to be no link between appraisal and salary increases. It didn't work. But there is quite a large area of cross-over, after all. Even in a voluntary organisation it is important that people are aware of the expectations of their role and have both positive and, if needs be, less positive feedback - even if a formal appraisal feels too heavy handed. The complexity in voluntary organisations is brought on by the free will aspect of a person's involvement which can lead to teddies being thrown from prams.

Building bridges

My old friend Lee asked me about what books I was reading at the moment. The main book I am on is...

"Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guide for Leading Change" (Robert E. Quinn)

...which F picked up for me at New Wine on a recommendation by Bishop Mike Hill.

Because holiday was, er, holiday I didn't read a huge amount, but in the first few pages I found something which struck a chord. Sometimes leadership is not about knowing the destination and knowing the route, sometimes its very different - sensing perhaps 50% of the destination and only glimpsing 25% of the route or, as Quinn describes it, like building the bridge as you walk on it.

Its not written, as far as I can tell, from a specifically Christian perspective, but at the moment at least that doesn't seem to diminish its encouragement.

I love reading

(Please note that is a small 'r' - I do not love Reading).

I got the chance to read and think quite a bit over the summer. Mostly interesting and stimulating books, but my prize for the sentence I found the most bizarre goes to (drum roll) Robin Greenwood for this classic in the otherwise excellent

"Transforming Priesthood: A New Theology of Mission and Ministry" (Robin Greenwood)

where, on page 44...

In the Church of England nationally, publications such as Promise of His Glory and Lent, Holy Week and Easter have fostered a greater balance between formality and spontaneity.

Come on! I mean the books are useful additional collections of material for specific seasons, but there's very little spontaneous about their use. To place this immediately after a quote by Michael Ramsay concerning some positive values we can learn from charismatic renewal is plain daft.

Enjoying the book other than that one sentence on page 44.

My five books

I am still thinking about my five books. So far I am going to go with...

"Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith" (Rob Bell)

because, even though I read it fairly recently (and its quite American in its style) I found encouragement from somebody else who found a U2 gig more spiritual than a good deal of what Church offers week in, week out.

"Celebrating Common Prayer" (David Stancliffe)

(although mine is the maroon pocket version) because it travelled with me for quite a way when my live fell apart as I came to terms with the ridiculous idea of vocation. I recall sitting in a hotel in Mulhouse waiting for the taxi to the airport one morning joining in with the prayers of millions.

"What's So Amazing About Grace?" (Philip Yancey)

just because Yancey was a revelation to me having grown up with being Evangelical but without having the tools to question and challenge some of the stuff I'd always assumed.

How's that so for?

I think the idea is that these books are recommendations for those that I am talking to for them to read for themselves, so a lot of other bits and pieces I enjoy are, I think, vetoed on that basis.

Perhaps I might add in something like...

"Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" (Douglas Coupland)

...not because it is the best book I've ever read, but again that idea of helping me make sense of the environment in which I had grown up.

I might be able to bend the rules a bit and slip in...

"U2 - 2005 Vertigo - Live From Chicago" (Universal Island)

Not sure though.

Saddened, but after the event

I am still reading around the interface between Christianity and Islam, so it was with interest that I tackled the book

"Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453" (Roger Crowley)

It took me several days to summon up the emotional wherewithal to read the chapter on the final assault and slaughter, but this is not to say that the Ottomans didn't get as good as they gave. What I found most upsetting was the power struggle behind the scenes in the Christian West. Certainly by the time of the siege Constantinople was isolated and its glory days had passed. Quite probably there wasn't the stomach in Rome and the Balkans to take the Ottomans on again. The value for the West in Constantinople seems to have been its ability to act as a staging post for Genoese and Venetian traders on their way too and from the Black Sea.

But the West let Constantinople go primarily because of a theological disagreement dating back centuries, the (in)famous filioque clause. In the Catholic West it was believed that the Holy Spirit proceeded forth from the Father and the Son, whereas the Orthodox East had not accepted this. The Holy Spirit does not seem to have been consulted on the matter.

The Vatican used the prospect of relieving the imminent siege to force the residents of Constantinople to sign over to Rome, but when push came to shove no real help came. St Sophia was ransacked, but was already only a shadow of its former glory; the locals worshipping elsewhere when it became "tainted" by its acquiescence to Rome.

I am still in two minds about the use of apocalyptic imagery in the Christians' understanding of the rise of the Ottoman leader Mehmet. It is too easy for people to label somebody else as the Beast etc so as to literally demonise them. But we also need to encourage people to absorb the Scriptural story; not as soundbites but as a flowing narrative. There is merit in locating oneself within the Book of Revelation and using the images set out there to describe one's own situation. The problem for me was that the locals mixed this up with a huge complex of superstitious use of relics and the addition of "prophesies" relating to the city and its past.

The mistake they made, and I am sure we are making too as I type, is the simple and easy equating of the Kingdom of God with one place, especially their home state. A longing for the Kingdom can soon become as desire to protect the status quo - my patch. Perhaps the comfortable view of seeing where we live as somehow being God-endowed or blessed in the past makes it hard for us to correctly reclaim it for the Kingdom today and again tomorrow.

The values of faith and society: The God Delusion and other writings

I have been having a look around the net to see what is available by Richard Dawkins. Quite a lot by the look of it.

We had an interesting session here last week by a Professor of Entomology from the University. He is a Christian and, no surprise here, disagrees with Dawkins about matters of 'faith' even though he agrees with him totally about evolution.

What is interesting to me, as somebody who enjoys observing the interface between faith and the world, is to see the state of the debate between the atheism of Dawkins and the beliefs of those within the Christian faith. This latter category is a broad one, and so when Dawkins has a go at Creationism I don't disagree with him even though I might not like the sneer I detect in his tone. I was interested to read comments made on his site concerning an article by Alister McGrath. The criticisms of McGrath in the comment at the bottom of the article mirror almost exactly those I hear said about Dawkins; simplistic ideas are set up as the thrust of the argument, which can then be demolished easily. Certainly I have not yet read anything by Dawkins in which I recognise an accurate description of the Christian faith with which I identify, but its always easier to pick on the extremist oddballs.

Certainly Dawkins claims the moral and intellectual high ground. He states that he refuses to debate with Creationists because it provides them with the oxygen of publicity, which may or may not be the case. When he does get involved with those who disagree loudly with him, such as the Quicktime video on his site, he writes up a good account of his roundly seeing them off.

But the problem with the debate goes much deeper. When both sides rubbish the other for the simplistic caricature they sketch of their opponent then it is difficult to see how any meaningful progression can be made. This is sad.

I was challenged by another Dawkins article, though. In his short essay entitled The Emptiness of Theology he ridicules the idea of theology being of any practical use at all. Get rid of all theologians, he argues, and it makes no difference to the world at all; but rid the world of scientists and their work would still remain. He does acknowledge that some scientific advances are bad, 'at least they work'.

But of course the scientist in her white coat in a laboratory developing a vaccine or producing some new material is in splendid isolation. The value of her work is when somebody takes the vaccine and administers it correctly, or when I cook my sausages and they don't stick to the pan. The lasting value is provided by the development and distribution. Dawkins may not like to know, but for most people the correctness of Darwin's theories have made no measurable difference to my day today. The theoretical science of Einstein may be brilliant and true, but I can't recall that cropping up either.

Dawkins is disingenuous here. A theologian is probably also a developer of abstract ideas, the value comes when truth and practice come together, when the paper changes opinions and behaviours. Dawkins cannot, surely, dispute that many of faith have made sacrifices in order bring benefit to others (I'm not talking about proselytizing) and that religious thought has on occasions made a moral change in the view of the majority, such as Wilberforce's stand against slavery. Compared to this the amoral semi-justification of any science just because it works, feels decidedly cold and inhuman.

Of course there are many who commit horrors in the name of religion, but they often use science to achieve their ghastly aims, and the last century saw those who did sickening acts against fellow humans using cutting edge technology but without recourse to religion, certainly the scientific precision of the Nazis and the brutal atheistic materialism of Stalin cannot be ignored in this debate.

Perhaps the truth is a lot deeper and more complicated than Dawkins has yet acknowledged. The evidence would certainly seem to point towards humanity as a species capable of incredible acts of heroism and achievement, sometimes at immense cost to self, and yet also able to commit horror and sickening violence in order to advance selfish aims, and that is a truth which I find described and wrestled with in Christian theology and not in the realms of science.