…you attend the first Christmas concert.
When you wince and smile and weep all at the same time from the squeeky naive solemnity of it all- that somehow oils the soul.
Hallelujah.
You know its nearly Christmas when…
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The (dis)functionality of teams…
I have been spending some longer periods of time with one of the teams I manage- within a larger Community Mental Health Team that I used to work within.
In many ways it is a step back into familiar chaos which is strangely comforting.
Today for instance, we had staff shortages, no receptionist, a person in the building who was extremely (and noisily) unwell and had to be detained under the Mental Health Act. Also we had the usual variety of tensions and frictions between individual team members.
And it is the later that was most noticeable to me in my return. People in mundane group situations are always at their most ‘person-like’. Working closely with others in situations of stress will always make it impossible to hide who you are, at your best and worst.
All the usual characters were there today- the detached, the enthusiast, the out of control control freak, the idiosyncrat, the confidenceless, the overconfident, the people pleaser and the back stabber.
And the mess of me.
Some team situations distil from all this some fine spirit. They are generative and energising- for most if not all. To be part of teams like this is a lifetime high, even if only in retrospect. We are more as a result of being part of them.
Other teams are toxic by their nature. Whole books are written about how this comes about- leadership, followership, vision, poor skill/personality fit. Teams like this need to be taken outside and shot.
The surprise however is that both of these kinds of teams are rare. What is more common are teams like the one I spent time with today- teams full of faults and fracture lines- with some people working full on, others hardly working at all. With all sorts of disatisfactions, hurts and greivances just below the surface.
But still, these teams are productive.
In this case, the product is not easy to define- as it concerns the support of other people in distress, and despite our (dis)functionality, people are received, held, and then sent on their way on the way to some kind of healing for the most part.
Today I feel both hopeful and defeated by this. Hopeful because the humanity in the middle of us has this huge beating heart.
Defeated because the best of us is still beyond.
I think it comes down still to the difference between the efficient performance of a task and- love.
The difference between animal and divine.
The difference between a corporate mission statement, and the Beatitudes…
Pregnant…
A lovely word.
A female word that sometimes excludes men, but more often contains and holds us all.
A word containing the unknown, the still-to-be, the potential to succeed…
And the potential to utterly fail.
It is a word that is synonymous with Advent. Waiting in hope, uncertainty, and perhaps even fear.
Waiting for something to change, for something to be born into the mess of us all.
I read this today– another one of Cheryl Lawrie’s lovely poems.
Perhaps our mistake is thinking
that love will always come
in the shape we have known it:a happy ending
a new beginning
a christ-child.In this pregnant pause
while the earth holds its breath
waiting for what
it does not know,
let us have the faith
that even we,
with all our wise
and cynical
knowing,
would not imagine
the shape that love
will takeand instead just
have the faith
that it will come.
Throw me a rope…
Christmas cheeeeeeeese…
Like many of us, I have been rather hammering the ‘reclaim Christmas from the capitalists’ theme of late. But you really can go too far.
Brace yourselves…
Bless.
The thing is, she seems a really nice person- someone who always looks after everyone all around her. Salt of the earth. Would you tell her? Go on- be honest. You too would tell her how lovely the song is wouldn’t you?
There is a serious edge to these things though. Church and culture. Culture and church. I have heard sentiments like this (even expressed like this!) for years in and around churches.
But it has usually been all talk and no trousers. All tinsel and no gristle.
The edge…
This is a poem about death, written in around a simple story I heard recently. I am also reminded of this.
“The ocean goes on for ever”
Said the ripple
Just learning how to be a wave
Learning how to catch the reach of the wind
How to rise like an athlete at the drop of a flag
And to skim over the skin of the sea
Fringed by the speed of movement
~
But the ringing horizon was a
Crystalled panning lens
That one day found the edge
Of a jagged shadow
Against which wave after wave
After wave after wave
Was broken
~
“What is this terrible thing” cried the ripple
“That would turn us white then end us?”
~
So an older wave shouldered close
And offered some compassion;
“Have no fear now little one
Let’s roar and make commotion
For what you are is more than wave
You are made from mighty ocean.”
After the wind, snow…
The weather is playing with us.
This morning heavy snow flurries cancelled my trip to Bute.
But by this afternoon, everywhere was calm and still.
I took this from our bedroom window earlier-
Despite the poor light I was too lazy to set up a tripod. Here is another one, taken from William’s bedroom…
Sheltering from the storm…
The power is back on!
I remember as a child in the 1970’s we had a series of power cuts during times of industrial action. Those hours spent by candlelight, eating sausages and beans cooked on a camping stove are lovely memories- and I still remember the disappointment I felt when the lights came back on. The time of dancing shadows was over, and the florescent uniformity was back again.
I felt a little flicker of this disappointment today. But these days, the lack of power is no benign thing- particularly in Argyll.
The storms today cut off Cowal entirely- the Rest and Be Thankful pass was blocked, and the ferries all stopped running. Trees are down everywhere and caravans and high sided vehicles tipped over.
In fact, I called in to the Police Station earlier and was told that an articulated lorry had been blown on its side, only later to be blown back onto it’s wheels! I confess to feeling skeptical, but the story was told to me in all seriousness.
More seriously there have been a spate of accidents- a policeman is said to be amongst those injured.
And when the power is out, the frailer members of our society are very vulnerable.
We have not escaped damage to property either- William’s shed took a battering, a fence is wobbling and water is coming in to our house through the skylight.
But for a while, we sat in the lounge before a raging fire and played games by the light of candles. Everyone was happy, somehow buoyed by the drama and comraderie of it all.
And then the lights came on again.
And we went our separate ways- to our individual screens and electronic cocoons.
A small band of survivors no longer.
Another storm…
Storming
Ripping and rending
Bending then breaking
Scuttling and guttering
Litterbugs whirling
Hold fast to the railing-
Here comes the storm
Slates start their scissoring
Lifting and sliding
Chimney pots clinging
Open mouth howling
Insurance claims pending-
Here comes the storm
Foaming and crashing
Spray plume tongue lashing
White horses raging
Anchors are scraping
The shore all white teething-
Here comes the storm
Sirens nee-nawing
Some cars aquaplaning
Power lines sparking
Snaking and falling
Gadgets are dying-
Here comes the storm
Repent, Christmas is nigh…
REPENT POSTER- Buy nothing Christmas
I am a sinner.
I try hard to rid myself of my sinful ways. I get up in the morning with every intention of living the day like it was my last stop before the pearly gates- but then find that sometime before breakfast I have squeezed in one more visit to the fleshpots.
So it is, my friends, with consumerism.
I try to resist, but the flesh is weak, the stuff so seductive- I am captivated as if by some golden snake in a gadet filled garden.
We live to our means- and then a little beyond them in our western culture. To NOT do this is strange. The challenge to all of us, for the sake of the planet, is to find ways to break the bonds of addiction, and to move towards simpler lifestyles.
Perhaps you are not ready to do this- but if you are not, then it is likely that neither will your neighbours, and more worryingly, neither will your children.
Which brings us back to Christmas- the jewel in the consumer crown. The cash cow. The season when the ship comes in (from China of course.)
We repentants need to pawn the crown and find something more meaningful to do with the money.
We need to kill the cash cow and feed it to the hungry.
We need pirates to plunder the ships on the high seas, and empty out the sweat shops of the global south.
OK, I am getting a bit carried away by all this imagery. But how do you change? Can anything we do really make a difference?
I have tried the left wing middle class option for years- doing much the same as everyone else, with a little guilt and ‘fair trade’ product placement. Always being unsatisfied in theory, whilst greedy for more in practice. I want so much better for my kids, as I fear that it may already be too late- that the addiction has taken hold with them.
And more and more it seems that Christmas is the key. If we can not resist consumerism over the season named after Jesus Christ- then perhaps we never will.
What I have discovered however is that only one thing really will make a difference- and it is a rather counter intuitive one-
STOP buying presents!
What? Is this not the meaning of Christmas I hear you cry? The joy of giving and the sparkle in the eye of Tiny Tim? How mean spirited and gloomy that is!
Do you really believe this though? Is it really not possible to be full of joy and love and laughter unless you have spent hundreds (and thousands) on stuff that for the most part will be in a landfil site within the year?
You see- we have tried asking people not to give us gifts- that is the easy bit. People gave anyway, as the powers of obligation are strong- and also, we are so conditioned to beleive that there is simply no alternative.
And the whole system is perpetuated.
The difficult thing is to contact people who you love, and discuss the fact that you will not be giving them shiny stuff this year.
This is not the same thing as giving nothing of course- but there are so many cash free alternatives.
Flee from the sin, and you will be on the road to freedom.
But… there is that golden snake again.
this fragile tent 