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from Dave Walker at www.cartoonchurch.com
Author: David Herbert
My name is David Herbert. I started growing up in Leicester. I’m currently growing up in Ellesmere Port. I am a priest in the Church of England. I was ordained in Sheffield in 1974. I have been privileged to serve in communities in Sheffield (Manor and Gleadless Valley) and communities near to Chester (Ellesmere Port and Tarvin). I am a keeper of learning spaces and support continuing ministerial/professional development in the Diocese of Chester.
>Capello’s Law of the Meal table
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The family that eats together stays together. Likewise, our new saviour and manager of the England team believes a key to success is for the England team to eat together. I hope Mr Capello has more success than we have had as a family. We managed Sundays sometimes, but at least the England team won’t be prevented from eating together by all the crayons/paints that we’ve had on our table. American research suggests that children who eat with their parents are less likely to abuse substances, have less sex, be less suicidal and have better nutrition. Sorry kids!
Leonardo da Vinci pictures the Galilee team eating together with their manager – with Judas being told he can leave the table early. Jews and Christians have always appreciated the importance of eating together – hence the table in all their gathering places.
The Persuaders
I like this blog about what advertising really can do.
>Managing anger
> Anger management is something we hear a lot about. Some of us find it difficult to control our anger and it soon spills into violence.
But we need to manage to be angry. Bede Jarrett protests; “The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.”
Anger needs to be tempered with patience because without patience it becomes short-tempered searching for short cuts to destroy its cause.
According to Augustine of Hippo, anger is one of HOPE’s beautiful daughters.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.”
Born of hope, and twinned with courage, anger is a virtue. In any other family anger is destructive – one of the seven deadly sins.
Anger as the sensitive response to injustice is a very distant relative to the anger which expresses itself irritably and hurtfully. That anger we have to manage, but the other we also ought to manage.
>Funny thing about prayer
>When I go to church to pray this is what I do:
I shift some books around, put waste paper in bin, rearrange furniture, sit down, stand up, fiddle.
Except if I am not on my own, when this is what I do:
read the psalms, read the Bible, pray for the peace of the world and those who I know who are in trouble.
When I jog, this is what I do:
entertain random thoughts which seem to rearrange my priorities and set my mind on higher things, and as if that wasn’t enough prayer, a “You lift them up, I put them down” prayer as the road rises up to beat me.
When I want to pray, what should I do?
Go for a run, I guess, or at least, when I go to church, give thanks for the others who help me to pray.
Let people be
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“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
~ Thomas Merton
The biggest temptation comes with our children. Their birth becomes even more miraculous when we realise how different they are from us. When we respond to questions about which parent they got this that or the other quality or characteristic from with “they didn’t get it from either of us” we are admitting our wonder at creation.
The myth of Narcissus illustrates the tragedy of self-love. Waterhouse’s painting (from the Walker Gallery) shows Narcissus helplessly in love with himself and totally oblivious of Echo’s desire.
>Leadership Style
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I have to talk with other clergy about collaborative ministry. It begs the question about my leadership style.
According to http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/leadership-styles.html because I am – in Myers Briggs terms – a campaigner (INFP for those who like the letters) – which means I have a strong sense of value, a passion for issues and champion the cause. According to that my leadership style ought to be very useful where a group has lost its sense of identity or is doing too many unimportant things. Apparently it’s not a good idea to ask me to lead where there is a problem “which needs to be solved with dispassionate objectivity” – but I think most people have discovered that already!
The logic of this is that different personality types have different leadership styles, and that different styles are necessary in different situations. Does that sound obvious? Doesn’t it then become obvious that leadership needs to be exercised collaboratively and that leadership team members need to complement one another, so that there is a range of styles.
>Singing Lessons
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Great experience on Saturday – a Singing Workshop!
Not something I would normally do, especially on a Saturday. we were lucky enough to have Sue Perkes with us – all the way from Tewkesbury.
Apparently singing is as good for you as a workout at the gym, and makes you feel happy because of funny things it does in your brain which are far too complicated for me to understand.
jasmine came with her clarinet. Sue had her getting it out of the box, getting it aligned and cleaning its inside as an illustration of what we need to do when we sing. we get the instrument out (our voice). The inside cleaning job is getting our hearts right, destressing etc.
Made me think of the value of a cantor in worship, particularly one who has the permission to be impromptu in leading the praise.
Another spectacular sight was our organist improvising around Sue’s improvised singing. That was WOW.
>The Lives of Others
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Peace process
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Bishop Alan draws attention to the procedures of the forthcoming Lambeth Conference.
“Indaba” is Zulu/ Xhosa thing — the IzinDuna come together to do mutual business in a way which enables each to be heard, and wisdom to emerge from the group. It’s rather like a monastic chapter. It’s radically different from either Institutionalism, where people pretend to agree to save public face, Imperialism, where Billy the Bully rules OK, or Fascism, where you leave your brain at the door and the Führer tells you what to do because he’s always right.Indaba is a noble ideal. It’s how the early Churches worked, often amidst bitter controversy, as every Patristics student is amazed to discover. Then, slowly, between the fourth and eleventh centuries, like formaldehyde, institutionalism and Roman imperialism seeped in. The reformation was a reaction to all that. Indaba is a gloriously messy concept. It annoys Anal Retentives, Bullies and Fascists, as well as lazy journos who can only understand punchups.It’s counterintuitive, but indaba, if you stick with it, raises spirits and offers hope to the world.
This reminds me of the padare tradition used during the World Council of Churches Assembly in Zimbabwe.
The Padare “is a style of dialogue and consultation which includes more rather than fewer people. It stresses the dignity and equality of all within the assembled company, and affirms unequivocally that, in the search for unity and understanding, the journey is as important as the destination, and the exploration and dialogue as vital as any decisions or conclusions.” The hallmarks of padare are equality, concensus and community.
The Dare is the place (as in Dar es Salaam?) where all participants became equals. There was never a rush to reach decisions, for that would have prevented the building of community.
Grits and Grains 
