May God bless you with DISCOMFORT …
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with ANGER …
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with TEARS …
To shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation and war.
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them
And to turn their pain into JOY.
And may God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS…
To believe that you can make a difference in this world,
So that you can DO what others claim cannot be done. Amen
A Franciscan Benediction
Leadership qualities
A leader is a person with a magnet in his heart and a compass in his head.
Vance Hainer
Leonard Cohen and his band of angels
At last we see Leonard Cohen – a brilliant concert at the NEC in Birmingham. Jeanette and I both commented on his music being a strong thread through our lives.
Fantastic band of musicians, The audience was spell bound at the end by the singing of the “sublime” Webb Sisters (pictured above) singing “If it be your will”. Here it is – beautiful.
The concert led me to think of this all as a sign of heaven – I mean the band playing together, round one another, giving way to one another, respecting one another – producing harmony in spite of the underlying knowledge shared by LC that there is no such thing as “our perfect offering“.
And on the other hand, I am preparing for our “patronal festival” – church dedicated to St Andrew – and wonder why we use individuals so much as our “icons” of God, instead of community, band, group, family and Trinity. In that case, I wonder what communities (or what sort of communities)become the windows for seeing God’s love. Is it the local church, the communities of reconciliation? Is it the bands of artists who play together, the teams of scientists who work together and the local Christians who pray together?
How about this:
I am so often accused of gloominess and melancholy. And I think I’m probably the most cheerful man around. I don’t consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin. … I think those descriptions of me are quite inappropriate to the gravity of the predicament that faces us all. I’ve always been free from hope. It’s never been one of my great solaces. I feel that more and more we’re invited to make ourselves strong and cheerful. …. I think that it was Ben Johnson, I have studied all the theologies and all the philosophies, but cheerfulness keeps breaking through.
Leonard Cohen quoted in “The Joking Troubadour of Gloom” – Telegraph 26th April 1993
>Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride;
Though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same,
That power belongs to God.
Psalm 62:10f
So, don’t even try to be powerful – just be yourself.
That is power enough – for each day to turn on the light.
The prayer that concludes today’s psalm (according to the Daily Office):
O God, teach us to seek security,
not in money or theft,
not in human ambition or malice,
not in our own ability or power,
but in you, the only God,
our rock and our salvation.
>Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride;
Though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same,
That power belongs to God.
Psalm 62:10f
So, don’t even try to be powerful – just be yourself.
That is power enough – for each day to turn on the light.
The prayer that concludes today’s psalm (according to the Daily Office):
O God, teach us to seek security,
not in money or theft,
not in human ambition or malice,
not in our own ability or power,
but in you, the only God,
our rock and our salvation.
>Taking learning to task
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Jane Vella very helpfully takes “Learning to Task” distiinguishing between “teaching tasks” and “learning tasks”. She points out what most of us already know. That is, active learning is the most effective and active learning is done through “tasks”. Confession time now. I confess all the hours I have put in to the teaching task and how little I have put into developing learning tasks. I have worried about what I have to present – is it clever enough, is it full enough, is it understandable? What I should have been worrying about is developing the opportunities for active learning.
She writes:
Socrates knew it. Jesus knew it. The Buddha knew it. Every open question asked as the peripatetic crowd in white togas strolled around Athens, every parable put to the crowds at the lakeside, every subtle image set for unravelling in the heat of India was a learning task….
African youth in their cohort, facing a challenging route to manhood, are given a set of learning tasks. Astronauts who are facing an inviting universe move through a gruelling set of learning tasks. A new mother, apprehensive and humble with her infant in her arms, faces a daunting daily set of learning tasks.
Jane Vella suggests four types of learning task.
Induction tasks – they are tasks to connect us with what we already know and with our unique context.
Input tasks – they are tasks inviting us to examine new input – concepts, skills and attitudes.
Implementation tasks – they are tasks that get us to do something directly with that new context – implementing it.
Integration tasks – these tasks integrate this new learning into our lives, applying what we have learned to our life and work.
In the back of my mind I have a model framework for our liturgy – it’s sadly a bit like a song I can’t get out of my mind. The overall framework is “hospitable” – with four sections. First, there is what is called “the gathering”, then there is the “Liturgy of the Word” (here’s the teaching), then there is the “Liturgy of the Sacrament” and finally that little bit at the end called “Dismissal”. Without too much force I find this mirrors thr four types of task.
Induction tasks – “Gathering”
Input tasks – “Liturgy of the Word”
Implementation tasks – sharing the Peace, gathering round the table, sharing the one cup
Integration tasks – going in peace to love and serve the Lord and live the Gospel.
There’s a challenge here. And the challenge is how to switch from “teaching tasks” to ” learning tasks”. If Jane Vella (with Knowles, Freire et al) is right, effective discipling depends on that switch.
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What is Remembrance Sunday about? How has it changed over the 90 years since Armistice Day?
These were some of the questions we looked at yesterday.
Remembrance Sunday remains a day of mourning. One day that we have set aside in our year to remember the victims of war, human nature and its consequences. But our thoughts will not be the same as those celebrating the hard fought peace of 1918.
Significant changes include
• The development of international institutions like the United Nations and the EU – great political achievements representing a cooperative relationships instead of the colonialism of the past.
• War has changed and its weapons have changed. Now civilian casualties are far higher. In WW1 civilian casualties were 5% of total casualties. Now that figure is 75%.
• Communications have changed. We now live in the “global village” where “everyone is networked and nobody is in control” – which makes wars far less winnable. As a child of the 50’s I was told how lucky I was that the wolrd was at peace. Now, because of news media and globalisation, we know that there isn’t likely to have been a moment of our human history when we haven’t been fighting one another.
• We know – especially as awareness of post traumatic stress disorder has increased – that, in the words of Jose Narosky “in war there are no unwounded soldiers”.
• We know more about “child soldiers”. Children as young as 8 are involved in conflicts in at least 17 countries – acting as spies, messengers and brandishing rifles.
• We know that there are over 34 million people displaced by war.
These are some of the things that come to mind as “I remember” – the thoughts for my two minute silence. I carry on remembering the “fallen”, those killed, their loved ones, parents and communities. I remember all those who have been on the front line. I remember the civilian casualties, the child soldiers and the refugees. I remember the violence that is part of being human and I remember that we are made in God’s image – and called to pray:
God our refuge and strength,
bring near the day when wars shall cease
and poverty and pain shall end,
that earth may know the peace of heaven
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(the poppy picture was pianted by friend Pam Kelly – member of St Andrew’s Painters’ Group)
>Yippeeeeee
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Today’s election victory by Barak Obama has something biblical about it. It feels like an exodus. The 44th president elected 40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, who in the midst of tremendous racial hatred and bigotry had a dream. The alection of an a black president must feel wonderful for black Americans. Already the excitement is capturing the imagination of people around the world with the hope that he may provide a visionary and mature leadership.
I am reminded of Moses who led his people from oppression in Egypt and who also had 40 years to wait between dream and reality, and I am reminded of Joseph the dreamer of Egypt – and his coat of many colours.
I hope we remember how the Afro-Americans have been oppressed. I hope the great indignities of their not so distant history are not brushed out of human consciousness and that hoods of the KKK, the burning necklaces and the chains of slavery may continue to testify to the shallowness and shortsightedness of those who cannot see beneath the colour of a person’s skin.
Yes. This seems like an exodus story. The end of an oppressive age governed by puerile thinking. Until the next time ……..
Credit crunch
Friend Jim forwarded this article to me about how Japan fares post-bubble.
Teaching and Learning
” A man began to give large doses of cod-liver oil to his Doberman because he had been told that the stuff was good for dogs. Each day he would hold the head of the protesting dog between his knees, force its jaws open, and pour the liquid down its throat.
One day the dog broke loose and spilled the oil on the floor. Then, to the man’s great surprise, it returned to lick the spoon. That is when he discovered that what the dog had been fighting was not the oil but his method of administration.”
From the ‘Education’ section of Anthony de Mello’s “The Heart of the Enlightened”
Grits and Grains 