Story Listening

I'm not the best listener in the world - I'm too easily distracted. I have to try really hard and am developing techniques to make listening easier. I block everything else out from around me. I move away from distractions. I take notes. I play the alphabet game (good game in a sermon - listen out for words beginning with all the letters of the alphabet). I arrange everything on the table at 90 degrees to the edge of the table (mindless task, distracts my hands and eyes but keeps my ears open). 


I am getting better. Loads better in the last few months as I have had the privilege of listening to so many people with so much to say. I've even managed to listen to Radio 4 and not switch off (that is like a miracle!). Listening is an art form that is so easily lost (and I am a test case!). To listen properly we need to have our full attention on the speaker. 


A couple of blog posts ago I thought about the art of story telling..... that perhaps we don't do enough. I was challenged today that perhaps we don't do enough listening to stories. We can create space to make stories happen, but if we are too absorbed in our own story we miss the stories of other people. We might subconsciously think our story is the only one that matters and then try and fit other stories into our own. 


We can't get to know people unless we make space to listen. When we begin to tell our stories we need to make sure we make space to hear others. 


If we open our ears wide, we can hear God whisper through the stories of the most unexpected people. 


Story Telling? Story listening.....

Can lateness be right?

During lent I've been following 40 acts (www.40acts.org.uk). Every day you get sent a suggestion for how you might live differently during lent.


The act today is about being on time to stuff. The writer suggests that 'Lateness, without genuine reason, says 'I am more important than you.' '


I'm not sure if I agree. Yes, I do get frustrated when people are late. I get even more frustrated with myself if I am late...... but then at times I get frustrated if I am too early.... 


I had a friend at school who was always late for everything - at least an hour. That wasn't because she thought she thought she was more important than us, but (having been there when she was getting ready) because she had her own pace and was disorganised. 


I wonder if lateness can also be about insecurity. If you arrive late you avoid the danger of standing on your own or having to talk one to one with someone for too long. If I have no responsibility I am often 2 or 3 minutes late so that I can make sure I can stand at the back and not get too involved. 


Lateness can also be a sign of busyness or the want to look busy. There are some people who are perpetually late for everything. Those people need to realise that it is OK not to look busy. This seems to be a hazard for ministers I think - I wonder if when you give the impression of being too busy you become unapproachable...... perhaps people might think they are not important enough to talk to you...... 


Nelson Mandela apparently said 'We must use time wisely and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right.'


Perhaps when we are too disorganised to be on time, feel too self important to arrive first, too busy to not overlap meetings, too insecure to be there alone it might be worth stopping and thinking and seeing if what we are doing is right.

Story Telling

I love a good story. I've finally managed to get back into reading stories again after only reading books about theology since September. When I told this to my tutor last week he asked me what I was reading. Slightly embarrassed I said to him.... 'oh, just chick lit'. 


I confess to loving chick lit. You know what you are going to get. Girl in miserable state at the beginning - normally single but sometimes in a bad relationship - she often lives with flat mates who have a better love life than her. You go with her on a journey until at the end of the story she is happy - she gets the perfect man and more often or not gets married. How nice.


I've never met anyone who doesn't like a good story......


But is story telling an art that is getting lost? I've been challenged a lot in the last few weeks about the importance of telling our own stories. We can learn a lot, we can celebrate, we can mourn, we can look back with hindsight at what has happened and see how the plan came together. When we are asked to share our story with others we'd often rather hide away and leave it to someone else. Perhaps we think our story is not good enough. 


We learn so much about Jesus through stories - the stories of his life told in the Bible and the stories of him being at work through the power of the Holy Spirit in other peoples lives..... 


There are so many things that God has done. If we wrote them all down then there probably wouldn't be enough paper.... but we can inspire one another through not being afraid to tell our own stories of encounters with God.

A little bit of biology

I have started writing in books. This scares me. It means I have become a proper student who wants to find the right quotes and fast. I even bought special pencils with rubbers on the end to make it easier. 


I am reading (well, scanning very fast to get it read quickly, underlining as I go) 'church on the other side - exploring the radical future of the local congregation' by Brian D. McClaren. I think I bought it because I read a random quote somewhere and I was led into a spontaneous purchase.... He talks about how we need to 'See the Church program in terms if interrelated systems rather than quick fixes' and asks that (almost) classic question 'If your church could be compared to a physical body, what would its essential systems be?' He doesn't stop there though and he goes on to mention all the different systems of the human body. Now if I am a scientist of any sort then I am an a Physicist as the idea of cutting up sheep's eyeballs always freaked me out (and we weren't allowed because they didn't trust us with knives at school - we just got to pull apart some sort of flower with blunt scissors as our tool). That means that I had to look up all the words.......and it made me think.....


To work properly all of the essential systems of the body need to be working....

• The muscular system - makes motion happen, makes the heart work, helps you stand up straight
• The digestive system - Creates energy from food, gets rid of rubbish
• The Skeletal system - provides support and protection, produces blood cells (the carry the stuff we need around)
• The epithelial system (I had never heard of that word before today!) - aids in sensation, absorbs stuff (selectively), carries stuff
• The lymphatic system - carries stuff, defends, produces antibodies
• The reproductive system - reproduces!
• The circulatory system - breathing, nutrition, excretion.....

All these systems are intertwined into one big system that makes up the whole body. The support, the defence, the nutrition and the parts that make waste go away are just as important as the parts that make things happen, that create energy, that reproduce and that make us stand up straight. 


When we talk about the church being a body we so often focus on hands and feet and eyes (because the Bible does - so fair enough!) but reading this has also reminded me that a body has systems that make it work. Those systems make community, build up, reach out, defend against bad stuff and make things happen (and those systems need to be monitored to make sure they are working properly).


'.... we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it'                       1 Corinthians 12:18

The disappointment of a pink haired troll

I once won a pink haired troll on those grabbing machines at the fair. Well, I didn't win it myself, I found it in the box where the prizes fall out. Those machines drive me mad. I've spent loads of 20p's on them and then come out with nothing, apart from the pink troll, which I didn't win anyway. The problem with the machines is that there are often so many cuddly toys or not so cuddly ones in there that you can't choose, and then you can't quite get the grabber in the right place, and when the grabber goes down it only makes a half hearted attempt at grabbing. You have a moment of 'I'm going to win!' only to feel the disappointment as the prize slips out of the grabbers rubbish grip.

I think that life can sometimes be like that. There are so many opportunities out there and when nothing jumps out at us we can get lost in the choice so don't make any, or make the choice half heartedly and don't actually pick it up. Our initial enthusiasm dies down and the idea slips out of our hands because our grip wasn't strong enough.

I crave concreteness. I would like the opportunity to be there, to be obvious and to make sense. I would like the opportunity to fall in my lap (like the pink haired troll).

Trouble is, when that happens, it can be a disappointment. When I haven't worked for something I feel a bit like a fraud or an imposter. I don't have ownership of what I am doing. The stress of working out which opportunity to grab hold of can be painful and difficult at the time, and sometimes doesn't make sense, but when it is worked through it is so much better than something that just happened (I have no idea what happened to the pink haired troll - I guess I didn't love it enough).

When that opportunity comes I must make sure I grab it tightly, tight enough to pick it up and hold onto it, tight enough to do something with it......


"Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track" Proverbs 3:5-6