christian spirituality

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a little peace of christmas

christmas treeI found myself in the Brisbane city centre this week, taking my kids to see the parade, pantomine and (honestly, amazing) city hall light spectacular.

It’s Christmas, it’s school holidays, it’s a fun outing for the kids.  Those were the kind of thoughts in mind as we headed off into town.

Unexpectedly to find myself in the middle of my own baffling analysis of what Christmas means today.

The parade was an impressive but kind of confused mix of the Nutcracker story with Christmas themes. Marching bands, ballerinas, stunt-mice, toy soldiers, choirs, dancing Christmas trees, kids dressed as gifts, Santa in his two-reindeer-drawn-sleigh (the rest presumably resting up for the big flight on 25/12) were all in the mix.

And right in the middle, somewhere after the christmas trees, gift-wrapped children and marching drummers, came Mary on a donkey (baby Jesus already born, hung in a sling from Mary’s shoulders) with Joseph alongside, and a few shepherds (real sheep!) and wise men (real camels!) following along behind.

They passed by follow by Santa, then a giant inflatable toy train and the aforementioned stunt-mice (no, I have no idea why either).

I found myself thinking “well, it’s nice that in a commercial Christmas parade there is a little room for Jesus, good on them.”  It’s almost incarnational, Jesus in the parade, passing by 10-15-20000 people, reminding them there is more to Christmas that gift-wrapped commercialism and tinsel-draped pine trees.

And then later, as I pondered some more I started to wonder if it was so good after all?

Perhaps its not so good that Jesus fits neatly into the parade between the presents, the santa, the dancing tree and the stunt-mice. Just another costumed actor in a mixed-message presentation of all that Christmas means in Australia.

For Christians of course, Jesus is the reason for the season. The main thing.  Santa, gifts, family etc, they come as secondary considerations (important, celebrated, fun, valued, but still secondary).

For our nation, as we move from being a kind-of-christian society to a mixed, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, kind-of-secular state, it seemed to me that this Christmas parade was a bit of a metaphor for what’s going on.

A bit of everything, maybe no real connected, articulated meta-story being told?

And I wonder if the presence of Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the animals, sheep and wise-men in this whole big mess raises some questions for the Christian church.

Does it (do we) just want to be one more dressed-up set of actors in the midst of a whole parade? A bit part in the whole confusing story of what it means to be Australian, human, created, community in the 21st century?  Any particular message we might have to share…does it just get lost in the mumbling?

Or is it more important in this time and place to stand out, to be distinctively different, sure and certain of what we claim to believe, who we claim to follow? Should we refuse to participate in the parade at all?

And if we do, does this sanitised, commercialised, feel-good image of the beautiful baby, silent-night, well-dressed shepherd thing kind of inoculate the world against any real power of the Jesus story?

For it is a scandal, this story. Here is the creator of the universe, this God who is all knowing, all powerful, come to life as a helpless, crying, poo-ing baby, spending his first night in an animal’s feed-trough to a teenaged mother and recently-contemplating-divorce father.

This child who would spend his life counter to every human expectation of the son of God, eschewing wealth, power, privilege, refusing to live into the expectations of those around him.

Who would claim time and again that true humanity stands with the powerless, heals the sick, hugs the unhuggable, loves the unlovable, frees the unfree-able, knows the unknowable.

This child-to-become-man whose unremarkable beginning and completely localised life, unknown more than 100 miles from his birth-place would spark generations of debate, discussion, passion, compassion, grace and controversy the world over.

Maybe after all, his place is here, easily-lost in the midst of this Christmas parade of options, one helpless baby in a sea of hundreds of singers, actors and dancers, unable to convey any message beyond love and total dependence.

Maybe it’s a reminder, that even if we forget sometimes, God is in all things, all times, all places. Sometimes easily missed, for sure, but there nonetheless.

In the midst of your Christmas, as you tip-toe between wrapping paper, torn-apart bon-bons, plates of half-eaten prawns, sleeping uncles, half-built Lego and squabbling children, may you notice the anonymous baby in the midst of the parade.

May you ponder his place in the drama of Christmas.

And his place in your life.

Merry Christmas.

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on anticipation, christmas and an unexpected jesus

On Sunday I had the opportunity to speak during the morning service at Toowong Uniting Church (our family hangs out with the TUC community regularly). It’s a rare thing for me, and aside from the anxiety it induces, it was an enjoyable experience.  The message is based on a reading from Matthew 11:1-11 – read it here. Here’s the words I used on Sunday:

Recently I had the opportunity to head over to New Zealand for a few days to help my brother celebrate what we like to call a “zero” birthday. He was turning 40.

We had been planning the trip most of the year since first deciding to go, and had a pretty fair idea of what it would involve.  5 blokes, a lake house, a big bike ride, golf, great food and drink, spectacular scenery, spur of the moment adventures. What’s not to like about that plan?

I have to tell you that for the last couple of months, thoughts of that NZ trip were never far away for me.  I was excited to go, and would spend completely inappropriate amounts of time looking forward to the trip, imagining what the experience would be like, living out the various adventures we had planned while we were there.

The anticipation was delicious. And unbearable.  I was so excited I could hardly wait. Continue reading →

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new world….new tricks

Photo 18-10-13 3 43 09 PMThere I sat in the main lounge at Canberra airport, tired after a long week and ready to head for Brisbane and home.

And in wandered four snappily dressed people, a heap of music and sound gear on their trolley, and started unloading just behind us.

“The Griffyn Ensemble – Canberra’s Best Chamber Music Foursome” read the banner as they erected it, and started setting up keyboard, microphones, speaker and music stands in what must be just about the most unlikely setting for such a group.

They slowly set themselves, tuning instruments, and completing little sounds checks as they set and reset volume and listened carefully for the acoustics in this relatively new airport lounge.

It seemed they hadn’t played there before as they experimented with different settings, looking for the perfect combination of sound in an unfamiliar, and unusual setting.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard chamber music live on a Friday afternoon in a busy airport terminal.

What I appreciated about the experience was watching this group bring their skills, gifts, instruments and equipment to a completely new setting.

It seemed experimental, unfamiliar and a challenge for the group (though it looked to be an challenge they were enjoying).

I couldn’t help thinking about other aspects of my life where those same experiences are under-way.

In the church I work with we are constantly wrestling with how to bring ancient rhythms and patterns, treasured gifts and approaches and apply them in a whole new world that is opening up around all of us.

The challenges of this new time and place are profound and unique – just as I imagine playing chamber music in an airport hall must be.

Sometimes we find it all a bit too hard, all but giving in to the temptation to pack up our instruments and head for more familiar territory.

But you know what? The gentle sounds of that soft and somewhat unusual music filled the room, and suddenly it seemed right and natural.

I don’t know whose idea it was, but I was glad for the Griffyn Ensemble that afternoon, just as I am glad every time I see someone experimenting, trying old things in new places, or even new things in old places.

My prayer for the church is the spirit of creativity, of boldness, of risk taking as it seeks to relate to a new and different world.

It might take us a while as we tune instruments, check the volume and get used to a new and unknown acoustic.

But the sweet music of grace, compassion and gospel can just as readily fill the room, wherever we find ourselves – if only we can find the courage and willingness to trust our giftedness…and try.

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leadership 7: jesus as “the ultimate leader”?

In a course on religious leadership, run in a christian theological college, it’s inevitable that we would eventually confront this question:

Is Jesus the ultimate leader? One through whose life we can discover all we need to know about leadership?

Now before I starting wondering about that question, let me say that if you’re reading this and not christian…well stick with me, I’m not going to go all theological on you (well, not much).

The story of Jesus life as recorded in the gospels, and as at least partially corroborated by external historical sources is the story of an itinerant preacher in the ancient middle east.  He gathered followers, taught his “way”, and wandered the countryside preaching, teaching, healing.

And then he was killed, leaving behind a small group who at first fled, but later continued to teach the same message, founded the christian church, and the rest is history.

But was Jesus actually a great leader? And what can we learn today about the art of leadership from this life and story?

One thing we do know is that he did not live up to expectations. There was a whole mythology and prophecy around what the Jewish ‘messiah’ would be like – including the expectation for many of a mighty leader who would overthrow the Roman empire who at that time ruled over much of the mid-east world (and to be fair, a whole chunk of the western world as well).  The messiah would be a warrior, a powerful king.

And Jesus?  None of that.

One of his finest public moments came riding a donkey. Another attacking the temple itself, the heart of Judaism. His confrontations with representatives of the Roman empire were limited, and he definitely didn’t set the Jewish people free from Roman rule. Eventually of course, the Romans had a hand in his death. If his leadership was oriented around a national uprising, it was a miserable failure.

Jesus, as much in his leadership as in many other aspects of his life, was counter-expectations, counter-cultural.  He made no effort to live up to the expectations of others – instead charting his own course, living according to his own clear sense of purpose.

That in itself is an interesting lesson for a leader to learn.  Be clear about your purpose, and live accordingly.

Secondly, I think we can look back and see some other interesting leadership qualities in Jesus.  Here’s the few that particularly appeal to me:

  • practiced an action/reflection model of learning for his followers – once famously sending a group out to teach, preach and heal with limited instructions and resources. On their return, he retired to the beach with the group to reflect on and learn from their experiences
  • re-interpreted well established world views – Jesus’ story is filled with moments where he took well known and well established religious and cultural teaching and turned them upside down, creating new possibilities
  • empowered all sorts of people – Jesus didn’t just work with those whom the society classed as best of the best, but imparted a sense of hope and possibility to all sorts of people as he met them – from social outcasts such as tax collectors and lepers through to Roman soldiers, fisherman and all sorts. Jesus also had a remarkable view of and interaction with women completely at odds with the culture of the day
  • saw to the heart of the matter – Jesus had an amazing ability to see through the surface of a situation or conversation, to what was really going on.  And a willingness to confront what really were the core issues, to name what needed to be named

Interestingly, these are leadership skills that I personally prize highly, and wish were much more developed in my own life and leadership. Jesus was the kind of leader I wish I could be.

And that reminds me of the old saying “God created us in God’s image, and we have been returning the favour ever since”.  How much of what I see in the Jesus story as leadership qualities to aspire to, are actually me reading my own situation and preferences back into this ancient story?  How much am I creating Jesus in my own image?

And thinking about that question reminds me of this piece from the movie Talladega Nights (and don’t watch if you are nervous about a little “blue” humour) that constantly reminds me of how we read our own modern situation and preferences into the life story of Jesus:

I guess the question I ponder is, does it matter?  Does it matter that in thinking about leadership in a modern context we project all sorts of situations and beliefs back into the life story of a man who would never have had to think about or confront such issues?

Or is that actually the whole point?  That in the life of Jesus we see a life fully lived, humanity represented most fully within his particular time and place?  That it’s therefore ok for me to look at what underlying principles might stand the test of time, might enable my to live out my own humanity more fully in my particular time and place?

I sure can’t look to Jesus life for a model of how to lead an organisation consisting of thousands of people with a budget in the millions.

But I can encounter the story of one who inspired countless others both in his own time and in times still unfolding; who believed in the capacity of the human spirit; who confronted injustice at personal cost; who raged when rage was needed; who wept when that was the only possible answer. I can encounter the story of one who challenged and changed the world view that shaped and sustained the culture into which he was born.

And ultimately as a “believer” I personally can enter into the strange, mystical sense in which that all continues to happen.

And so even if I find myself unconvinced that Jesus was a ‘great leader’ in modern terms, I am sure and certain that in the stories of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the ‘idea’ of Jesus I am challenged and inspired in the exercise of leadership in many different aspects of my own life.

And interestingly, there’s nothing religious about any of that.

NB: This is the seventh in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

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leadership #2: the space in-between

  • Does leadership exist, kind of like an entity or a thing in its own right?
  • Does leadership have to be embodied, in the form of a person?
  • Are leaders born or trained?
  • From where does a charismatic leader acquire their power?

So many good and interesting questions at the heart of this week’s second session exploring leadership in the church (with Trinity Theological College).  In these early weeks we’re mostly concentrating on addressing the questions “what is leadership” and “who leads” (you’ll no doubt notice the intentional use of the term ‘addressing’ there, and not ‘answering’!).

What emerged for me in yesterday’s conversations was a reminder that leadership is never independent of it’s context – and that context includes time, place, the leader/s, the followers, the situation or issues at hand.

And so in one time/place/context a particular kind of leadership might be significant, and at another time/place/context something quite different might emerge.

I was reminded of a story from my own experience.

In what sometimes seems like a past life I worked in outdoor education, helping young people discover answers to questions such as “who am I?” and learn team and life skills. Early on in this experience I was out on a program with a group of about 15 young students, as part of a larger camp with a number of other groups. We had shared a fairly good week, unpacking lots of issues and exploring the beautiful environment around Lake Moogerah, climbing, paddling, walking and playing. But I was captured by the approach of one of the other group leaders – a guy who was as intense as I am ‘gentle’, as loud as I am quiet, as crazy as I am sensible, as confident as I am anxiety-ridden.  We were polar opposites in the way we led our respective groups and his group was without question the ‘fun’ group to be in – his young people were having a wild old time. I found myself sinking into despair, feeling sorry for myself, sure and certain that I could never lead them in the way that Tim did with his group, knowing for sure that I was not cut out for leadership in outdoor education because I just don’t have those characteristics.

The poor kids in my group just totally missed out compared to those in the other group.

In the midst of my navel-gazing woe-is-me moment, and as I watched Tim yet again lead some hilarious and wildly successful interaction, the school teacher who had been co-assigned to my group wandered over sat down next to me.  His next words changed my perspective on leadership instantly, and have stayed with me ever since.  “You know Scott,” he said as we watched this inspiring leader at work, “I am so glad that our group had you and not Tim as our leader.  Don’t get me wrong, he is great, but I know the kids in our group well, and they just wouldn’t have handled his approach. Your gentleness and quiet confidence have been just what our group needed and I want to thank you for it.”

Naturally I didn’t point out that quietness wasn’t really confidence as much as it was abject terror, but his point was (and remains) well made.

Leadership looks different at different times and places. And it looks different for different people.  Leadership exists in the interaction, the interplay between leader and follower. It is inevitably shaped by the characteristics of the leader, by the nature of the follower, by the circumstance of their interaction.

Leadership happens in the space in-between.

There is a theory of leadership called “Great Man Theory” (let’s call it “Great Leader Theory”…accepting the term came from an age long ago, and we’ve learned a lot since then) that suggests leadership is confined to a few amazing people who change the world around them, who are event-makers on a grand scale. Following this line of thinking…leaders are born and not trained, it’s inherent within them. And those of us who are not Great Leaders? We’re consigned to lesser roles, to responding to the world rather than remaking it.  One does not ‘become’ a Great Leader – we either are, or are not.  At least that’s my rudimentary understanding of the theory.

Somewhere between this idea and the other extreme in which everybody is a leader (or at least everybody can be a leader), lies this notion that that there are many different types of people who offer leadership of different kinds to situations of different shape, and people of different nature.

In this picture, in this image of leadership as what happens in the space in-between, there is room even for the quiet, shy, gentle, anxious, sensible among us to offer leadership when the context suits.

Maybe there is even room for me. And for you.

NB: This is the second in a serious of posts reflecting on leadership, written during a Religious Leadership course with Trinity Theological College

NB #2: I remain genuinely impressed with Tim. He’s a phenomenal, insightful, genuine, imaginative leader. And hilarious. I’m still jealous. 😉

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confession: me and full liturgies…

I like words.

I like reading other people’s words, diving deeply into books and stories that bring a whole new world to life inside my mind.  Putting just the right combination of words together can unearth amazing insights, powerful challenges that move me to agree or disagree, or just enjoy the moment.

And so I find it surprising to have realised in recent years, that despite enjoying words, I find a great deal of disconnect when it comes to words in Christian worship.

I’ve grown up as part of the Uniting Church, and now work within it.  One of the common forms of regular worship in the Uniting Church is a full written liturgy – where the leader/minister speaks, and there’s a pre-determined response to be read by the congregation. Sometimes it is confession, sometimes praise, sometimes prayer, sometimes lament.  The whole service is printed, or projected and I simply follow along. I might be wrong, but it seems that the full written liturgy is even more common now than it was in my childhood – or maybe I was too busy not paying attention back then to notice what was going on.

Even the songs are scripted parts of the service, the words lovingly crafted, music prepared, all of us singing in unison.

So why? Why don’t I like liturgies that are rich, carefully prepared and in which there are wonderful words that paint pictures and tell stories? Why don’t I like liturgies in which I identify with the whole church in every time and place by sharing in common responses, in which I respond with my neighbour in the next pew with words of solidarity and common commitment?

As best I can tell, the answer is that in the liturgy, the words are not my words. The commitments are not my commitments. The confessions are not my confessions. The prayers are not my prayers.

They are other peoples thoughts, expressions, words and I find myself parroting them. Sometimes mindlessly, I’ll read from the service sheet, no idea what the words mean to the one who wrote them or what I’m saying aloud.

It’s far more a critique of my capacity to take the words, internalise them, agree and then participate, but it’s still there, this discomfort with other people’s words.

What’s the alternative? For me, for my capacity to encounter and respond to God in the gathered community of faith (surely the purpose of worship?) I need to be invited to bring my own words, bring my own experience, my own story. And I need to hear the story, the words, the experience of my neighbour as she encounters and responds to God….so I can agree, or disagree, support or encourage.

I need to be in a community that recognises that even though the words of the service might be shaped around thankfulness and gratitude, some of us might that day be experiencing broken-ness and pain. Or on days when we’ve predetermined to lament and cry-out, there might be some among us who are in the midst of a rich praise-worthy moment, a time of celebration that could be shared.

That sounds messy even as I write it. And it would be. it sounds like it limits the size of a gathering. And it would. It sounds like some people would be uncomfortable and laid bare. And they would.

The full written liturgy….feels like it stifles and binds my community, and me. It calls for a pre-determined response to and encounter with God. It points to Jesus…but stops me from responding to him.

Why? Maybe I’m a self-absorbed Gen X, wanting to tear down traditions and remake them in my own image. Maybe I’m not getting the point of sharing words with those sitting around me. Maybe I misunderstand worship entirely. All of these are possible, even probable.

Whatever the cause…the outcome remains. I don’t like full liturgy.

And that makes worship difficult when that’s what is on offer.

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“who wants to be awesome?”

IMAG1540 smallI was reminded recently of a great story about my son.

We had a bunch of family friends over at our house one afternoon, and the kids were all playing up a storm – inside where the toys are. Mitchell was about 4 years old at the time, and desperate to get his friends to go outside to play.

The way I remember it, he tried everything:

“Who wants to go play on the trampoline?”

“Who wants to go on the swings?”

“Who wants to play cricket?”

“Who wants to play footy?”

And nothing worked. I don’t remember what game the kids were playing, but it must have been good because they weren’t budging.

Mitch went away a little sad, but determined to figure out how to get his mates to play outside. A few minutes later he burst into the room, all excited in the way only a four year old can be and called out over the din:

“Who wants to be AWESOME?”

Naturally all the four-year old hands shot up and the kids vanished outside in the blink of an eye, following Mitch into a state of awesomeness (and thankfully leaving behind blissful silence!).

It’s a priceless family story, and one I look forward to telling at his 21st (yep, I’m that kind of dad, gathering ammunition ideas already), but what it’s got me to be thinking about this week is whether in life we ask the right questions.

Try as he might, those initial questions just didn’t have the desired effect, but as soon as he stumbled on the right question, the response was instantaneous:

“Who wants to be AWESOME?”

It’s a little like the oft-quoted phrase of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, who is said to have written:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

In so much of our world today, I think we make the mistake of organising wood gathering, ship building plans, work orders, inviting people to jump on the trampoline or play soccer.  It’s there in our political environment, our media, and even our churches when we go all missional and try to invite people to contemplate the place of God in their lives.  I think maybe we ask the wrong questions.

Leadership has to be about asking the right question, building the right yearning, the right atmosphere and vision.

It has to be about teaching people to yearn for the sea.

In the language of a four year old, it has to be about asking “who wants to be awesome?”

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growing older

IMG_0019So the evidence is mounting….I’m getting older.

Recently I was in the market for a car, and thought long and hard about what kind of car I could fit into my budget, what the family needs where, and what I “really” wanted. For a while at the top of my list was a Subaru WRX.  It’s been a car I’ve hankered after for years really, and though I couldn’t afford anything too recent, I could just about have worked my way into a ten year old model. As a firmly committed motoring enthusiast (to use a polite phrase!) the temptation was real. I could imagine myself dropping the kids to school, then heading for the mountains to unleash.  Serious fun lay ahead.

The choice in the end? A three year old Hyundai i30 hatch. Practical, nice, good condition, reliable, comfortable. Hyundai have come a long way and the i30 is a genuinely good small car……and I’m just about over the shame of driving a car I swore I’d never drive….but what happened to my WRX?

The thing is, much as I still love speed, and the idea of a truly capable car appeals, I’ve also started to figure out that just maybe there is more to life than going flat out everywhere.

Now in my early 40’s I find myself cruising in traffic, and laughing as a 19 year old races past, weaving in and out and gaining a few metres here and there. And as I laugh I think…sure, you’ll beat me to the destination by a few minutes, but does it really matter?

I’m definitely getting old……or maybe it’s five years in Tasmania that has relaxed me.

There are other signs too, reflexes that aren’t what they once were, a few wrinkles and a lot less hair (and disturbingly hair starting to grow in strange places…what’s with hairy ears?). Of course there are also some positives , I’ve started coping a little better with early morning starts after years of being sure and certain there was no such thing as 6.00 AM, and maybe (just maybe) there’s a little wisdom that comes from mounting levels of life experience – from all that has gone before, both good and bad.

Older, I tell you. Continue reading →

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the importance of noticing

https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/FpReR.jpgI had a learning moment on the weekend, right in the middle of a presentation I was making. Gotta be happy about that timing.

Over the last couple of years I’ve come to thinking of the critical questions when it comes to Christian Mission (and don’t stop reading if you’re not interested in Christianity…there’s more here than religion) are “what is God up to in our community?” and “how do we join in?”

I’ve suggested (ad nauseam it must be said) that there implication of these questions is that the first task of the Christian (or Christian community) is the task of discernment (or “figuring out”).

Last weekend I was visiting the UCA Presbytery of Central Queensland and right in the middle of telling a couple of stories from my time in Tassie that demonstrated this very point, I realised I was missing something.

Before there is opportunity to exercise discernment, to figure out what exactly is happening, what exactly are the potential responses or actions; before these things comes something more fundamental, more vital.

Noticing.

Noticing that something is happening (who knows what…that comes later…the task of discernment).

Noticing that our neighbour is in pain.

Noticing that our community is in need.

Noticing that we have some skills or resources or something to offer.

Noticing.

Maybe its obvious, but somehow it had slipped through to the keeper.  When I thought about it though, I realised that all the stories I was telling fit perfectly. And I heard another that illustrates the point:

A local UC congregation is right across the road from the school.  Someone from the church noticed that every afternoon kids were hanging out in front of the school at the bus stop waiting to be picked up – including some who had to wait quite a while before their bus arrived.  They noticed there was no shelter, and they noticed kids coming across the road to fill water bottles from a tap in the church yard when it was hot.

These things they saw and took notice of.

And then demonstrated the discernment part of the equation – the figuring out: Is there an issue here? What can we do to help? What skills/gifts/resources do we have? What is God showing us? (that question is for the Christians!)

Some might have gone the anti-community route of closing the gate and trying to keep kids from entering the church yard (you know…in case they trampled the garden). But this congregation took a different approach, and threw open the doors of the hall, inviting the waiting-for-the-bus kids to come in, find shelter and share afternoon tea.

It started with a curious few, but now there are anything up to 25 or 30 coming in for afternoon tea, building community, sharing life.

It’s a simple (but great) story.

And it started with noticing.

Now I (confession time) generally get around with the blinkers on, not noticing much that’s going on around me (ask Sheri….she’ll confirm!) but this realisation has woken me up to wonder how I can be more mindful, how I can see more clearly, how I can notice.

My first clue came in a book I’m reading called “Fierce Conversations”. I’ll talk some more about this book some other time, but the first reminder from it is to be “fully present” in every conversation. Give myself fully to the person with whom I’m talking, and not in the kind of “plan what story I’m going to share when he/she draws breathe kind of way.  Being fully present, fully engaged in what is going on around me might just help me to notice a little more.

And noticing is the first step.

I think.

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passion

passion is the first in an occasional series of wonderings about the nature of the human spirit. Just because.

https://i0.wp.com/www.pinkberry.com/images/stories/webimages/yogurt_passionfruit_second.jpgI met a bloke this week, and it took all of two minutes to detect the fire that burned within him.  Here was a man whose passion was so intense that he was almost moved to tears as he spoke of what mattered to him most, and his commitment was so inspiring that I was not far behind him.

Maybe it was because it was an unexpected conversation, maybe because it was in a context where fierce, burning passion was in short supply, but it took me by surprise

That kind of passion is inspiring, and it sure inspired me. I left the conversation determined to do better, to be better, and to find the capacity within myself for that kind of commitment, that kind of single-minded determination.

I had a taste of it somewhere else this week too. I took our 9 y/old down to what we had been told was the local junior soccer club, playing in a laid back competition. Mitch is keen, but he’s only a second year soccer player, and he’s got a lot to learn about the game. We are keen for him to play, to have fun, to learn the kind of teamwork that sports can teach us, to get out in the rough and tumble of it….for all those sorts of reasons.  We were looking for a place for him to play, learn, have fun, make new mates in what is still to our family a strange new city.

To my surprise what I found was a full-on junior soccer academy, a bunch of kids from a young age being trained to be elite soccer players.  I got my first glimpse when one of the boys – a nine year old – led the squad through an intensive and technical ten minute stretching session with the coach elsewhere setting up the afternoons drills.  And it didn’t let up, 90 minutes of full-on training, the second such session of the week for the squad of under tens.  One of the dads told me the coach expects the boys to train at home doing drills for a minimum of twenty minutes each day.

For Mitch it was all a bit too much, and we’ll look for a better fit elsewhere, but what was undeniable was the passion of the coach, and of every one of the boys.  They were into everything, playing hard, training hard, fully committed to what was going on. I got the sense that there was no pushy parent syndrome here, just a bunch of boys who absolutely love their game and want to be great at it.

Once again I walked away inspired by the passion on show, and wondering just where such commitment is to be found in my own life, my own work, my own world. Where is it in yours?

Later in the week I was reading a bed time bible story to the five year old of the house, hearing about Jesus calling the first rag-tag bunch of disciples to follow him. Fishermen and tax-collectors.  Just a few years later they would burn with such passion that in spite of (because of?) their beloved leader’s death they would go to without question change the world, the very course of human history.

That same passion is what I saw and heard in the bloke whose conversation started my week long reflection on passion. The challenge now is to find it in my own journey.

Passion changes the world. Changes everything.