We had a short workshop over the weekend looking at publicity and the like. There were six of us - several people had had problems getting there. We all knew each other and as far as I know liked each other and yet ... At times it seemed like we were meeting for the first time - storming away - trying to establish ourselves in the group, sometimes not listening and at times seeming to fall out over minor details. Thankfully we ended with agreement and with some actions.
I could have been frustrated by process. Perhaps I should have structured it. But my experience at previous workshops is that people like an input into the agenda. Perhaps I had not been calm enough at the beginning - it was my birthday and I had had several emails, Facebook messages, texts and phone calls before I left home and then two en route about the workshop. One was when I was trying to buy a paper and one was as I was parking the car. Of the six people, four thought it started at 9.30 a.m., one at 9.00 a.m. and one at 10.00 a.m. And at least two of the people were in the midst of some work-based and/or home-based stress. So perhaps ever-wonder that we were all a bit jumpy and not quite meshing together.
We can always look to the negatives and ask what went wrong? Or we can look to the positives and think, with all the confusion and the tired individuals, we actually ended as friends and we ended with achievements - which was an achievement in itself. Things aren't always going to run smoothly and there are times when we begin to doubt ourselves and our communities, but this is how life is. If we are to be authentic then sometimes that's not pretty!
But what it certainly does remind me is that I will take nothing for granted. Every day (or at least a few times a week) I have to consciously work on myself and on my relationships. Whilst there is a time for negativity and despair, that time must not be the end but the beginning of doing things just a little bit better.
Monday, 27 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Talking of the individual and healing
People can get lost in communities - they can be quite happy being unnoticed but not always so. And anyway what is community for but to recognise the other - in a safe and loving environment?
On Monday night I attended a very inspirational midsummer's eve gathering at the Meeting House. This was not a special do but one of our monthly meditational gatherings where we take a less structured approach, more music, fewer words and, by and large, no hymn singing. The woman leading it has been with us a couple of years and has led services before. Yesterday evening's was a good one - wonderful words and a great sense of spiritual connectedness in these and the music. On walking out into the rain she said something along the lines of, 'I think that I am getting used to speaking publicly."
For those of us who will speak to anyone, at any time, about practically anything, it is hard to imagine how some people fear public speaking. I remember winning a vote to attend a union conference (I was in my late twenties) when the local shop steward had failed to get enough votes. He asked if I would give my place to him because he was proposing a motion and I would have to do this if he wasn't there. Talking to 3,000 - bring it on! He would have been more successful if he'd said that I wouldn't be allowed to speak. But for some the idea of speaking to others, as when leading a service, can be unthinkable. Just as some people won't wash up - but perhaps that's not about fear :)
We can offer support and hand-holding and then be amazed and delighted at the result. The ancient link between 'church' and 'psychology' had been lost by the twentieth century but in the latter part of the century with ideas like holism it has crept back in. We recognise the difficulties that separating out parts of ourselves can lead to. We are not offering psychotherapy but a place to address our own demons - sharing them with others and working towards either overcoming them or accommodating them more comfortably.
For many our communities are not just spiritual homes but places where we can bring ourselves for 'healing'. The healing comes about through our relationships and how we support each other in moving towards being that person that we were born to be. It seems to me that this is one of the prime responsibilities for us as spiritual community members - both in supporting others and also in being brave in looking as honestly as we can at ourselves and being bold in committing to personal change.
On Monday night I attended a very inspirational midsummer's eve gathering at the Meeting House. This was not a special do but one of our monthly meditational gatherings where we take a less structured approach, more music, fewer words and, by and large, no hymn singing. The woman leading it has been with us a couple of years and has led services before. Yesterday evening's was a good one - wonderful words and a great sense of spiritual connectedness in these and the music. On walking out into the rain she said something along the lines of, 'I think that I am getting used to speaking publicly."
For those of us who will speak to anyone, at any time, about practically anything, it is hard to imagine how some people fear public speaking. I remember winning a vote to attend a union conference (I was in my late twenties) when the local shop steward had failed to get enough votes. He asked if I would give my place to him because he was proposing a motion and I would have to do this if he wasn't there. Talking to 3,000 - bring it on! He would have been more successful if he'd said that I wouldn't be allowed to speak. But for some the idea of speaking to others, as when leading a service, can be unthinkable. Just as some people won't wash up - but perhaps that's not about fear :)
We can offer support and hand-holding and then be amazed and delighted at the result. The ancient link between 'church' and 'psychology' had been lost by the twentieth century but in the latter part of the century with ideas like holism it has crept back in. We recognise the difficulties that separating out parts of ourselves can lead to. We are not offering psychotherapy but a place to address our own demons - sharing them with others and working towards either overcoming them or accommodating them more comfortably.
For many our communities are not just spiritual homes but places where we can bring ourselves for 'healing'. The healing comes about through our relationships and how we support each other in moving towards being that person that we were born to be. It seems to me that this is one of the prime responsibilities for us as spiritual community members - both in supporting others and also in being brave in looking as honestly as we can at ourselves and being bold in committing to personal change.
Friday, 17 June 2011
Parenting our communities
Gosh I've been busy! And I love it - I love having things to do, places to go to and people to see. I love to meet new people and perhaps above all I like to be useful. I am not alone in needing to be useful. As our lives shift and re-shape we need to find new ways to be useful. As a parent we need to be mindful of our children's changing needs if we are to maintain our usefulness.
My daughter is now 18 and driving. She can cook her own meals if need be and doesn't need much apart from money and a place to sleep - well that's in the physical sense. What she does really need is a mum who will listen, talk, give advice, provide support, calm things down, crank things up and generally love her well as she prepares to move onto the next phase of her life. Change brings with it excitement and anxiety and usually a sense of leaving something behind as well as moving towards something new. I find myself listening to my daughter both about the excitement of moving on but also about the sadness of leaving her childhood and her existing life behind - it will never be the same again.
This is very much like communities. We can sense that we are moving onto the next stage of our development - so who is there for us who will listen, talk, give advice ...? Who will be a parent to our community? Who will listen to our fears of change, be with us to experience the thrill of the new and the sadness at leaving some things behind?
To some extent we do this ourselves and if we have a minister who can take a more objective view then that can be very helpful. Perhaps there is someone in the District or nationally who can be there. If we are to feel confident in our development I suspect that many of us would like some wise counsel and a steady hand to help us on our way. How can we make this happen for each other?
My daughter is now 18 and driving. She can cook her own meals if need be and doesn't need much apart from money and a place to sleep - well that's in the physical sense. What she does really need is a mum who will listen, talk, give advice, provide support, calm things down, crank things up and generally love her well as she prepares to move onto the next phase of her life. Change brings with it excitement and anxiety and usually a sense of leaving something behind as well as moving towards something new. I find myself listening to my daughter both about the excitement of moving on but also about the sadness of leaving her childhood and her existing life behind - it will never be the same again.
This is very much like communities. We can sense that we are moving onto the next stage of our development - so who is there for us who will listen, talk, give advice ...? Who will be a parent to our community? Who will listen to our fears of change, be with us to experience the thrill of the new and the sadness at leaving some things behind?
To some extent we do this ourselves and if we have a minister who can take a more objective view then that can be very helpful. Perhaps there is someone in the District or nationally who can be there. If we are to feel confident in our development I suspect that many of us would like some wise counsel and a steady hand to help us on our way. How can we make this happen for each other?
Monday, 30 May 2011
What do we expect from life?
I was visiting another chapel yesterday - the service was on the theme of joy. Towards the end the service leader said something along the lines of what a dreadful six months the world had had with earthquakes and tsunamis; the threat of nuclear contamination; and the Arab uprisings bringing death and destruction. There may have been more - my memory tends to be a bit hazy these days.
I was struck by this reflection on the last six months - there had been many days when there were no earthquakes and no tsunamis. There were countries where there was no political unrest and no civil war. There would probably be many people who would say that they had had a good six months. And anyway, 'What do we expect of life?'
Whether we believe the gods or God has a hand in it, what is our expectation? That life will always be trouble free, that the sun will shine during the day and it will rain only at night? That all people will live together in harmony? That the natural world will always be at peace?
We only have to look at Wikipedia on the page on natural disasters to see that they happen on a fairly frequent basis - for example did you know that 56,000 people died in Russia last year due to a heat-wave? On the page on ongoing conflicts over 15,000 died last year in Mexico's war on drugs. So part of this is about what gets reported -perhaps a heat-wave is not as spectacular as an earthquake plus a tsunami, despite it killing many more people. Perhaps the war on drugs only kills people who are seen to be guilty.
I think that we need to accustom ourselves to the facts: our world can be a dangerous place. We, here in the UK, in 2011 are fortunate to live at a time and a place when we are safer than the vast majority of humanity. So it is not just when the news tells us that there are dreadful events happening but all the time that we need to be mindful of our own privilege and not squander it.
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Models for moving forward
I thought that when I started writing this blog that it would be easy to identify theories of community development and mould them for our purposes. I should have known better having worked around community development for many years and being confounded by the lack of theory - I thought that it was just us.
Anyway there are certainly organisational theories and some interesting insights into how to develop. One of these is Appreciative Inquiry which has been used in the US with the Unitarian Universalist Association and some of their churches. In some ways Appreciative Inquiry is similar to Solutions Focused approaches which I have mentioned in July last year.
Here are the Assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry from a presentation at the Florida UUA District:
I will leave you with these thoughts as I spend some time thinking about how these approaches could be used by our communities.
Anyway there are certainly organisational theories and some interesting insights into how to develop. One of these is Appreciative Inquiry which has been used in the US with the Unitarian Universalist Association and some of their churches. In some ways Appreciative Inquiry is similar to Solutions Focused approaches which I have mentioned in July last year.
Here are the Assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry from a presentation at the Florida UUA District:
- In every congregation, some things work well.
- What we focus on becomes our reality.
- Asking positive questions influences the group for the better.
- People are more willing to journey toward the future when they know they can keep the best of what is past.
- There is no need for detailed analysis of problems.
I will leave you with these thoughts as I spend some time thinking about how these approaches could be used by our communities.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Acting as a community
If we want to be seen as a community we have to act as one. But what does this mean? A community is defined as a group of people who share something - with geographical communities what is shared is physical space. There are some communities defined as communities of shared experience such as groups for people with certain disabilities e.g. the Deaf community. For our faith community it is about shared interests. But what is the interest that we share?
We return again and again to the same place - which for me is about shared values and principles. We act as a community when together we make those values and principles real. I think that it is often the small things that reinforce our feelings of being together and acting well. For example, when one person has a good or bad experience we recognise that by connecting and marking the event e.g. by sending a card or a message.
Of course it is also about the big things - the way that we make decisions and the way that we handle potential conflict. For example if we know that someone is unhappy with a certain aspect of what we do, how do we handle this? Do we ignore it? Do we act defensively? Or do we engage in meaningful dialogue? Do we consider the finding of resolution a spiritual imperative or a do we think it stands in the way of our spiritual imperatives? How we deal with difficult situations holds up a mirror to our actions and lets us know if we are living our values.
Whilst our communities may have agreed values and principles it can be enlightening to understand what our own values and principles are. For me there are some clear drivers to how I behave. This is off the top of my head and so a little random and unformed.
(1) I commit to being present - perhaps when I am not feeling 'in' the mood' I make the effort to go and be there. Being present is not just physical presence but about emotional presence (hearing the feelings behind people's words and actions) and intellectual presence (engaging with our communities' thinking). And of course spiritual presence (holding onto faith)
(2) I bring my whole self - not just the good or even just the needy parts - but all of myself as a sign of commitment and faith.
(3) I commit myself to action - responding to information and sometimes taking the initiative to stimulate action.
(4) I am committed to learning from others.
(5) I commit to developing wisdom.
For not only are we working with our communities to act well, we are at the same time working with ourselves so that we may act well. In the Tao there is a lovely phrase, right action. In acting right as a community we have to act right as individuals - we aspire to be more than we are now.
We return again and again to the same place - which for me is about shared values and principles. We act as a community when together we make those values and principles real. I think that it is often the small things that reinforce our feelings of being together and acting well. For example, when one person has a good or bad experience we recognise that by connecting and marking the event e.g. by sending a card or a message.
Of course it is also about the big things - the way that we make decisions and the way that we handle potential conflict. For example if we know that someone is unhappy with a certain aspect of what we do, how do we handle this? Do we ignore it? Do we act defensively? Or do we engage in meaningful dialogue? Do we consider the finding of resolution a spiritual imperative or a do we think it stands in the way of our spiritual imperatives? How we deal with difficult situations holds up a mirror to our actions and lets us know if we are living our values.
Whilst our communities may have agreed values and principles it can be enlightening to understand what our own values and principles are. For me there are some clear drivers to how I behave. This is off the top of my head and so a little random and unformed.
(1) I commit to being present - perhaps when I am not feeling 'in' the mood' I make the effort to go and be there. Being present is not just physical presence but about emotional presence (hearing the feelings behind people's words and actions) and intellectual presence (engaging with our communities' thinking). And of course spiritual presence (holding onto faith)
(2) I bring my whole self - not just the good or even just the needy parts - but all of myself as a sign of commitment and faith.
(3) I commit myself to action - responding to information and sometimes taking the initiative to stimulate action.
(4) I am committed to learning from others.
(5) I commit to developing wisdom.
For not only are we working with our communities to act well, we are at the same time working with ourselves so that we may act well. In the Tao there is a lovely phrase, right action. In acting right as a community we have to act right as individuals - we aspire to be more than we are now.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Overwhelmed
This weekend I have been immersed in our Unitarian community. On Saturday I had a Communication Commission's meeting in Manchester followed by the East Cheshire Union's AGM at Dukinfield in the afternoon followed by tea and buffet - delicious! I covered over 100 miles by car and also had a train journey from Ashton to Manchester. Getting home to an empty house, my 18-year old daughter was out celebrating a friend's 18th, and my mind was buzzing.
I watched some TV hoping to empty my mind so that I might sleep well. But as soon as my head hit the pillow my mind started racing again. So many ideas and issues - so many important things - what to do, what to say - so many happy exchanges with like-minded people. On waking very early I got up and turned on my computer. I had to get at least a few of my thoughts written down. I then wrote on my other blog and prepared the announcements for the morning's service. I was feeling jaded by then - not enough sleep and too much mental activity - and although I like services I could happily have stayed at home and snoozed.
As I drove there with the radio on, listening to messages of love passed from one person to another via the DJ I began to reconnect with the world outside and was happy that there was such love around. I parked my car and spied two of my friends and we juggled my bags and their garden produce so that we could help each other to the Meeting House. A lady who had just got out of a car called out, 'Are you going to the Unitarian church?' 'Yes,' we replied, 'are you?' Turns out that Cathy and Jack from Washington State were staying with Helga and Mark from Crewe and always tried to visit a Unitarian chapel whenever they visited somewhere new. We chatted with our visitors as we walked towards our Meeting House.
When we arrived others came forward to welcome our visitors and I had some time to put packages down and get sheets of paper out of my bag. The mother of one of our member's had just died - he was not there but we like to be with people in spirit at difficult times. We were unsure about whether one of our members was on his way - if he is coming then we start the service a little later to allow for his bus journey. So it was a bit delayed and a bit raggy at the start. Our bus-rider arrived and we felt able to then hold our bereaved member in our thoughts and send love and comfort.
One of our members led the service on awe and wonder. It was a stirring service with mainly unfamiliar hymns which we did our best with. We finished with Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. What would our visitors think? They loved it. And they loved the welcome. And they loved, as we did, that sense of connection. Now they will be included on our list to receive our newsletter.
We were asked in the service to think about those things that made us feel 'wow!' Whilst I like a good view, it is also human connections that make me feel 'wow!' The simple pleasures of feeling connected to so many people over a 36-hour period. The joy of listening to the radio and feeling warmth as messages of love are sent by and to people that I don't know and probably will never. Thinking about all the opportunities to connect - I asked Helga about her name, her father was German and had been a prisoner of war. 'Locally?' I enquired.' 'No, near to Leicester, ' she responded. It just so happened that I was going to Leicester that afternoon to my sister-in-law's 60th birthday celebrations. I also have a family connection on my paternal grandmother's side.
As I left to drive home I felt so proud of our community for all that we do together - at how we work so hard to translate our values into real attitudes and actions. I reflected on the rest of the weekend and the broader network that we belong to and the feelings of sincere love that underpin my experience of our Unitarian community. It is not just a feeling of 'wow' but a more sustained feeling of awe and wonder at the dynamic of this, our religious community.
I watched some TV hoping to empty my mind so that I might sleep well. But as soon as my head hit the pillow my mind started racing again. So many ideas and issues - so many important things - what to do, what to say - so many happy exchanges with like-minded people. On waking very early I got up and turned on my computer. I had to get at least a few of my thoughts written down. I then wrote on my other blog and prepared the announcements for the morning's service. I was feeling jaded by then - not enough sleep and too much mental activity - and although I like services I could happily have stayed at home and snoozed.
As I drove there with the radio on, listening to messages of love passed from one person to another via the DJ I began to reconnect with the world outside and was happy that there was such love around. I parked my car and spied two of my friends and we juggled my bags and their garden produce so that we could help each other to the Meeting House. A lady who had just got out of a car called out, 'Are you going to the Unitarian church?' 'Yes,' we replied, 'are you?' Turns out that Cathy and Jack from Washington State were staying with Helga and Mark from Crewe and always tried to visit a Unitarian chapel whenever they visited somewhere new. We chatted with our visitors as we walked towards our Meeting House.
When we arrived others came forward to welcome our visitors and I had some time to put packages down and get sheets of paper out of my bag. The mother of one of our member's had just died - he was not there but we like to be with people in spirit at difficult times. We were unsure about whether one of our members was on his way - if he is coming then we start the service a little later to allow for his bus journey. So it was a bit delayed and a bit raggy at the start. Our bus-rider arrived and we felt able to then hold our bereaved member in our thoughts and send love and comfort.
One of our members led the service on awe and wonder. It was a stirring service with mainly unfamiliar hymns which we did our best with. We finished with Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. What would our visitors think? They loved it. And they loved the welcome. And they loved, as we did, that sense of connection. Now they will be included on our list to receive our newsletter.
We were asked in the service to think about those things that made us feel 'wow!' Whilst I like a good view, it is also human connections that make me feel 'wow!' The simple pleasures of feeling connected to so many people over a 36-hour period. The joy of listening to the radio and feeling warmth as messages of love are sent by and to people that I don't know and probably will never. Thinking about all the opportunities to connect - I asked Helga about her name, her father was German and had been a prisoner of war. 'Locally?' I enquired.' 'No, near to Leicester, ' she responded. It just so happened that I was going to Leicester that afternoon to my sister-in-law's 60th birthday celebrations. I also have a family connection on my paternal grandmother's side.
As I left to drive home I felt so proud of our community for all that we do together - at how we work so hard to translate our values into real attitudes and actions. I reflected on the rest of the weekend and the broader network that we belong to and the feelings of sincere love that underpin my experience of our Unitarian community. It is not just a feeling of 'wow' but a more sustained feeling of awe and wonder at the dynamic of this, our religious community.
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