The problem of difference

Are you the odd one out?

Difference can be a thorny subject can't it? Often differences of opinion can lead to disagreement and conflict, from a personal level to an international level.

We are often completely "right" in our own mind, and can be surprised when not everyone sees the situation or issue in the same way as us!

Difference doesn't necessarily mean wrong. Life is generally more grey than black and white, which means that while we're in this world we need to learn to live in the tension of difference with those around us (and in ourselves).

How we handle difference is really important, and we can either handle it in a negative or a positive way.

"Difference doesn't necessarily mean wrong..."

On the negative side, difference can become a reason to exclude, to isolate, to ridicule. I'm sure many of us growing up experienced this either directly or indirectly - maybe we knew (or we were) the different kid, the black sheep, the one who saw the world differently to their peers.

Comparison can be really tough to deal with, whether it's put on us by others, or whether internally we (negatively) compare ourselves to others. The thing is, we're all unique people with unique combinations of skills. As the saying goes: "Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live it's whole life believing that it's stupid."

It can be hard to handle difference. A friend of mine has dyslexia, but when he was growing up in the late 70s and early 80s it wasn't something that was well understood in mainstream education. When sitting an exam, he'd been given instructions to write at the top of his exam paper that he was dyslexic (at least a hint that this would be taken sympathetically into account by the examiners). The problem is that the word dyslexia is hard to spell even if you don't suffer from it. He ended up writing 'I am bloody stupid' at the top of his paper. An example of a school not handling difference well - this was probably what he felt he'd been told he was (when in fact he is very bright and entrepreneurial).

"...our society seems to value conformity over diversity."

So how do we nurture difference? How do we handle it in a positive way? I heard an unverified story in the news recently that in North Korea a diktat went out that all men needed to copy their leader's haircut. We don't have this requirement here in the UK, but as the educationalist Ken Robinson says, our society seems to value conformity over diversity.

Are we afraid of difference?

There's a theory that the phobia of spiders and snakes is something inherent from back in the depths of history - fear of difference being a prehistoric defence mechanism.

The idea goes that we are naturally predicated to be wary of creatures that are so different to us - giant hairy spiders and poisonous snakes being very different in form to four limbed mammals like ourselves (the theory also suggests this is why we bond so well with cats and dogs, as they're more similar to us).

I don't know how well accepted this theory is in scientific circles, but it does illustrate the point that we can find it hard to relate to those different to us, and even to fear difference.

It's so easy to surround ourselves with people who are like us. At university I remember that folk tended to naturally gravitate towards their own "tribe", but there's a richness in diversity that we can miss out on if we only spend time with those who think and behave like us. As a start, recognising that we all think and learn in different ways can begin to help us relate to individuals who are very different to us.

"Instead of being afraid of difference, or of being different, perhaps we should embrace it."

Instead of being afraid of difference, or of being different, perhaps we should embrace it. I was in a meeting recently discussing how to capture good ideas in our company. Many of these are 'slow hunches', incremental improvements to processes or approaches to the everyday things.

The interesting question was raised: How do we capture the radical ideas, the crazy plans which don't fit the company strategy or business plan but are still worth exploring? I'm not sure there's an easy answer to this, but I have learnt in my line of work that there is rarely one right answer, and there many different ways of approaching a problem.

Two heads are definitely better than one, and I actively seek out the ideas of my team and my peers around the company to the problems we are tasked with solving. It's really helpful to compare notes with other people who might "see" the issue in a completely different way.

Don't conform...

'They laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at them because they're all the same'. 

The other side of the difference coin is about "saminess", bland conformity. It can be easy to tone down our uniqueness in an attempt to fit in, but on the basis that we've each been given a unique remit by a loving God, our mission in life is to make the most of our specific gifts and celebrate these instead of downplaying them.

It's not just businesses who need to have a "Unique Selling Point" - every one of us has a specific role to play.

I've been inspired recently by John Henry Newman's writings on this subject.

 'I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name. God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.'

So this week, let's not worry about our differences, let's stop comparing ourselves to others, start embracing our uniqueness and enjoy living in the rich 'greyness' of the world around us. 

Stay different folks!

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Thanks for taking the time to read The Problem of Difference. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). Please nominate my podcast for an award during July 2015 - press the big red button here.

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Desert island dreaming

Dreaming of a desert island?

Every now and then I find myself wondering how I'd deal with hypothetical situations. For instance, after watching a gritty war film, I sometimes wonder if I'd be full of bravery or full of fear if I'd been on the front line. Probably the answer is a some mixture of the two. Fortunately I've not had to find out how I'd cope with that particular horror. In darker moments, I sometimes wonder if I'd ever cope with torture (not a cheery thought and another thing I'm grateful not to have experienced!).

Like my daydreams, there are times when we dream of ditching the drudgery of ordinary life and escaping to a remote desert island! Beautiful sandy beaches; palm trees; wall to wall sunshine; coconuts; no deadlines, managers or to-do lists - it can certainly feel like an attractive proposition, but maybe only if we have some degree of comfort as well - wifi for instance! 

Is what's behind this occasional (or regular?) dream the feeling that we need to escape from whatever we find ourselves facing in the day to day?

"There are times when we dream of ditching the drudgery of ordinary life and escaping to a remote desert island"

Last year I read Daniel Defoe's classic book Robinson Crusoe. I thought I was re-reading it, having read it as a child, but I quickly realised how unfamiliar I was with everything apart from the bare bones of the story. I won't regurgitate the whole plot here, suffice to say that life for Robinson Crusoe on his desert island was quite hard. He had to take real care not to get ill or break any bones (potentially fatal with no treatment), and that both loneliness and fear lived with him in generous doses. 

In the story he is on the island for many many years, having been marooned in his early 30s (my age), which has led me to question whether I'd have been as resourceful and hardy as he had if I found myself marooned on a desert island like him!

On this theme, I've just been reading an excellent book by Lewis Dartnell called The Knowledge, which is both an exploration and explanation of the likely skills and knowledge we'd need to recover civilisation following some kind of worldwide catastrophe. In the book, as well as reconnecting ourselves with agriculture and livestock (something Robinson Crusoe did well), there's chapters about the chemistry we'd need to create the materials we'd need to serve various useful purposes. 

Would you know how to make fire if you needed to?

There's information on the recovery of metallurgy, the principles of electricity and important theories to be aware of to shortcut our society back to somewhere approaching our level of scientific knowledge and technology. 

As someone who's both futuristic and strategic in outlook and temperament, as well as someone who loves information and learning this is the kind of book that ticks many boxes for me! 

Heaven forbid a cataclysm of that magnitude ever does occur, however the moral of 'The Knowledge', and perhaps even Robinson Crusoe is that it's important to remember where you've come from, and to keep connected to the bare basics of how to exist and survive - to understand the natural systems, processes and laws which underpin our planet.

The topic of what skills we'd need to survive on a desert island, or post-apocalyptic Hunger Games style future are a surprisingly regular topic of conversation in my family - so much so that my sister spotted a review of The Knowledge and immediately nominated me as the designated person for reading it and disseminating the relevant information amongst the family! 

"If we find ourselves thinking all the time about escaping, then perhaps this is a warning that our life has become too congested"

Across the world many people take this kind of thing very seriously, being collectively known as 'preppers'. These are probably good people to befriend, as they've already accumulated reserves of various essentials, and have probably fortified their house ready for martial law in the event of a breakdown of civilisation! 

As for me, my response is slightly less extreme. I content myself with growing food on our allotment, brewing various things, rudimentary woodwork and DIY around the place. Hopefully these skills would stand me in good stead if I ever did find myself on a desert island - along with my scavenging skills finding flotsam washed up on the beach and appropriating it into some useful function (taking inspiration from Kevin McCloud's excellent series Man Made Home).

If you're familiar with the TV series Lost then there's a good example of this (spoiler alert) as we discover that the survivors from the front of the plane have had the benefits of all the recovered luggage and wreckage of the plane, and manage to function reasonably well as a community, whilst those from the rear of the plane have no such resources and regress to a wilder and more aggressive existence.

Are you stocked up in case of global meltdown?

None of this can take away from us the desire at times to escape from our ordinary lives to the romance of a desert island. I'm sure that in many ways it's healthy to have the occasional pipe dream of escape to the Caribbean (sun lounger, cocktail and wifi included of course). 

However, if we find ourselves thinking all the time about escaping, then perhaps this is a warning that our life has become too congested, out of balance in some way. Maybe we need to take stock of our priorities, time and direction, and create more room for rest in our increasingly fast paced lives.

One thing that being marooned on a desert island would force you to do is to adjust your pace of living. No more convenience food, no shops - decisions about what you really need and the time required to achieve that take on a different meaning. Living on a desert island would also give you plenty of time to think - something that feels harder to do these days in our 24-7 sensory overload culture.

No matter how good our life is, our relationships, our work, our play, we will all experience dissatisfaction at times, and the call of the desert island will ebb and flow. As someone who believes that we're uniquely created by a loving God, the place to truly escape isn't a desert island but actually to escape from our own flawed and incomplete plans for our lives and into the fulfilling and life-giving plans that God has for us. This can feel easier said than done! 

Some years ago I listened to an interesting seminar on this topic by one of the Brothers from the Taize community in France. It was along the lines of 'how do I know what God's plans are for me?', and the pragmatic starting point was to at least start with what you think you'd like to really do, and let God take it from there.

"We will all experience dissatisfaction at times, and the call of the desert island will ebb and flow"

The trouble is that we often aren't sure even what we want, or what we're good at! Perhaps we need to spend a little less time dreaming about desert islands, and instead start to dream about where we'd really like our lives to end up, then cede that to God whilst making appropriate, meaningful and measurable steps towards it. Perhaps a helpful tool to frame this is from the technique of appreciative enquiry: Discover, Dream, Design, Destiny.. Essentially starting with a frank look at where you are, good and bad, then dreaming where you'd like to be, then designing a plan or imagining some steps to take you from where you are now in the direction you'd like to go, then keeping going!

If you're stuck with career choices, a classic book to read that might help is What Colour Is Your Parachute, which has loads of helpful questions and tools to help you consider or reconsider your career choice. Why not give over an afternoon or an evening to take a step back and touch base with your priorities again? Maybe you could plan a day's retreat somewhere - it's healthy to give ourselves thinking space from time to time, especially in an age when it can be hard to switch off.

"Perhaps we need to spend a little less time dreaming about desert islands, and instead start to dream about where we'd really like our lives to end up"

Whenever I think of escaping to a desert island, I usually end up thinking of the people and things I'd miss - my wife and kids for instance, which makes me grateful again for the good things and relationships around me. So this week, as and when you start plotting your escape to the Bahamas, smile and be grateful for the people and relationships you really value, and if you're really feeling the need to escape, then maybe take your dreaming one step further and start to plot your route into the fulfilling and life-giving plans God has for you.

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Thanks for taking the time to read Desert Island Dreaming. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

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If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Steeping or stewing?

Elderflower champagne...

Summer is gradually upon us, and this last couple of weeks we've been attending to our various home brewing projects. The other day we bottled some sloe gin that had been steeping over the winter (sadly not all of it fitted in the bottle so we had to drink some there and then), and it should improve even further the longer we leave it. 

Not wanting to put the sloes to waste, we found a recipe for sloe port which basically involved putting the sloes and sugar into some red wine and leaving it to steep, shaking regularly, so that's now underway and should be ready to decant in a couple of months.

Just in the last few days we've started off a batch of rhubarb wine which is now happily fermenting in our kitchen, and yesterday lunchtime I started off a batch of elderflower champagne which is keeping the rhubarb wine company in a bucket. On our to-do list over the next couple of weeks is to get some more beer going, then maybe some nettle wine as a friend sent me a recipe for this today and it sounds fun.

All of these activities have got me thinking about what we let ferment in our own lives, and whether we're actively and positively 'steeping', or whether we're negatively or apathetically 'stewing' instead.

"these activities have got me thinking about what we let ferment in our own lives"

What do I mean by this? Drawing comparisons with our home brewing efforts, we take some natural ingredients, add some select catalysts, then create the right environment for the desired transformation to take place. 

Our giant pumpkins!

One of the things I like about our various concoctions are the stories behind the ingredients. The pumpkin beer I brewed last autumn used some of the giant pumpkins we'd grown on our allotment from seeds my sister sent me. 

The sloes for the sloe gin I collected on a two hour foraging trip around the adjacent fields with my daughter one September afternoon. 

The rhubarb wine uses rhubarb grown from our garden (roots provided by a colleague), and allotment (roots provided by a fellow plot holder). 

The elderflower champagne (and elderberry cordial I made last winter) used flowers (and berries) picked from elder trees near our house (fact of the day, if you pick elderflowers in the morning they smell like bananas, if in the afternoon or evening they smell of cat wee.. A fact we can attest to as I picked some yesterday afternoon!).

In the same way, we have natural talents and strengths we have been given to develop. If you don't think you have any, then I'd recommend the book 'Now Discover Your Strengths' to help you, you may be surprised! For me, I found the book so helpful - some of my identified strengths were obvious, but others were less so, or were things that I'd never found a way to articulate. Sometimes what we think of as weaknesses can actually be a talent when framed in a different way. 

"we have natural talents and strengths we have been given to develop"

However, it's all very well having a natural talent or aptitude for something, but if we truly want to make the most of what we've got, to be the best expression of who we've been made to be then we need to fortify these natural 'ingredients' with some select catalysts and place ourselves or our gifts in appropriate environments to create the required result. If you want some tips of how best to develop your talents, then check out 'The Talent Code', another excellent and encouraging book.

If you're like me, however, you may have picked up some bad habits or negative associations over the course of your life, which are in danger of spoiling things in some way. We're fostering a Guide Dog puppy for the next year or so, and we currently have an energetic ten week old puppy. One really interesting aspect of this initial training process is the need to create numerous positive associations and behaviours in the puppy that he'll need to be an effective Guide Dog in future. This includes a clear set of commands for certain behaviours, consistent across all Guide Dogs, and among others, associations to do with toilet training and food. In the same way, whether intended or not, we often pick up positive or negative associations, mindsets and behaviours over the course of our lives which if we're not careful can leave an unwanted sour taste.

"...usually it's better to do something about it sooner rather than later"

What can we do about this? Well usually it's better to do something about it sooner rather than later. Last year I attempted to make potato wine, which is supposed to be like a nice dry white wine, even a sherry. I used homegrown potatoes and all was going well (I thought) until it was time to switch containers after some months.. To say the mixture smelt disgusting is an understatement! In hindsight, I should have peeled the potatoes, as the washing clearly was not effective enough to get rid of all the soil, leading to contamination early on.. Which just got worse. Really I should have thrown the lot out much earlier and started again.

Sloe gin... worth the wait!

Continuing with the wine making analogy (and yes, I know I'm in danger of stretching the metahpor), sometimes all that needs doing is to switch the mixture into a new container, leaving the sediment behind. Maybe some of our 'stuff' is just sediment that has accumulated, and we just need to change our thinking, our habits into something fresher. Perhaps a new routine, or expressing things in a different way.

"Am I adding the right ingredients for the desired result?"

A question I'm asking myself at the moment is: what am I letting stew in my life? Am I adding the right ingredients for the desired result? For those of us who are Christ-followers, are we absorbing enough of God's word and presence? For those of us seeking to develop our natural talents, are we creating the right environments to do this, and giving ourselves enough time to mature?

Sometimes I think we can get all 'stewed up' over things we've done in the past, or things that have happened, or with worry about things that might happen. I don't want to downplay this issue, as I recognise that many people have experienced traumatic and tragic situations which require time to grieve, or professional assistance. 

However, without meaning to trivialise this in any way, I do think there are times when we actively need to stop things stewing any further and take out the 'teabag' in some way shape or form. This could be in the area of forgiveness - sometimes we need to start saying 'I forgive you' or 'I forgive myself', even if we don't feel it... Sometimes our feelings take time to catch up with our actions.

So as you head into this week, are you steeping or stewing? Either way, perhaps you need to take action, maybe add or remove some 'ingredients'! Have a great week, and as always I look forward to your comments, thoughts and observations.

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Thanks for taking the time to read Steeping or Stewing. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

Raise your voice and move your feet

It's 1297 and a ragtag Scottish army led by William Wallace is lined up against a superior English army led by King John in what will become the battle of Stirling Bridge. With a face painted blue, Wallace has delivered a rousing speech encouraging the Scots to fight for their freedom. Now the armoured English cavalry are beginning to charge and the Scots are quietly holding their ground until, just as the lances are upon them they lift up a series of pikes, raise their voices and move their feet as they engage their enemy and overcome the cavalry charge.

A different situation. You're walking in thick forest when you turn a corner and not far from you is a large, dark shape. Sensing your presence it turns towards you and you see that it's a large black bear. You slowly raise your hands above your head to make yourself seem larger, and you calmly start talking to the animal as you gradually move your feet and back away to safety. By all accounts, bears don't like to be surprised!

Between you and me, I've never encountered a bear in the woods. I wasn't present at the battle of Stirling Bridge (but I have seen Braveheart a few times, which is almost the same). But both of these are examples of times when, perhaps counterintuitively, it's appropriate to raise your voice and move your feet. In less extreme ways, I'm sure that most of us have had times when we've needed to take action, speak up and do something - rather than keeping quiet and staying still. I wonder what moves you to action?

Last summer, for my niece's birthday party, my brothers, dad, and various nephews and nieces descended on some woodland in the Midlands (no bears present) for an afternoon of outdoor laser tag. After instructions on the laser guns, and having been split into two teams we then had a number of 10-15minute games, each team trying to have the most collective hits on the other team's weapons. Now you may not know that I'm quite a competitive person, in fact my whole family are extremely competitive, and although none of us would readily admit it, we were all taking this quite seriously. So seriously in fact that almost every game was conducted in near silence as we all crept, hid and sniped each other.. The facilitator even said we were the quietest and most competitive group he'd known! (I'm guessing many groups run around in a frenzy.. Not our style). 

My hunch is that in modern warfare (and I'm no expert, as Ghost Recon on the Xbox as a student probably doesn't qualify me), if you scream and run at the enemy you'll probably end up dead. Clearly there are times for staying quiet, perhaps biding your time, but recently I've been wondering if I remain unmoved by situations in life when it would be better to take action. On the whole subject of poverty, even here in the UK, it can be easy to bury our head in the sand, pretend it's not around and remain unmoved. 

Sometimes we're rooted to the spot by our fears, but there's times, individually or as a community when we need to take action - to raise our voice and move our feet.

Many of us are familiar with the story of David and Goliath, an underdog shepherd boy who is the only one to volunteer to face the Philistine giant Goliath in single combat. After raising his voice to the King, he moves his feet towards his opponent and using his sling, topples the mighty warrior. It's a story we may think we know well, but I'd recommend you all seek out Malcolm Gladwell's insightful TED talk on the subject. He admits that perhaps he didn't know the story as well as he thought, and concludes (I'm not spoiling it I promise) with the thought that our giants aren't always what they seem.

Out giants, our opponents, our problems aren't always what they appear to be.. So pick your moment, maybe stand your ground until the right time, then raise your voice and move your feet.. You may be surprised at what happens!

Now as much as I want to encourage us to take action when we need to, I'm enough of a realist to recognise that things don't always magically work out every time we do. We can get knocked back, hurt, disappointed - situations can even get worse not better. Positive thinking by itself can't solve all our problems, and I don't want to paint the picture that life is just a series of instantaneous magical moments - it's important that we play the long game as well as the short game, although I would say that in general it's usually better to do *something* than do nothing. As my Granny Mary used to say 'the sooner you face up to your problems dear, the sooner they go away'!

For me, this is where a different angle on 'raising our voice' comes in. I don't know about you, but I'm a praying person, and I think it's really important to get the balance between action and prayer in our lives. Prayer may not immediately change your circumstances (although it can and does), but through the act of prayer, in articulating our needs to loving God, we can be changed in the midst of our circumstances.

On my train journeys home this week I've started to watch the excellent videos on different aspects to prayer recently produced by the Prayer Course. It's a free course, aimed at individuals and groups who want to learn how to pray better - and each 15minute video that I've watched so far has been really good quality and insightful - I can't recommend it highly enough, so go watch one now! Over the last month, having read Mark Batterson's 'The Circle Maker', I've been keeping a prayer journal. It's been great to craft some prayers for my own life and family, and also to keep track of people and situations I am praying for. I have to say that I have genuinely been seeing more answers to prayer, and whether this is just because I'm more aware of what I've been praying I don't know, but it's encouraging nonetheless. It's good to be specific in our prayers, and I'd recommend starting a prayer journal as a great discipline in this area.

As I finish, I'm reminded of the story of Joshua and the Isrealites taking the city of Jericho. A bit like William Wallace's Scots, they were up against superior opposition - in this case not the English armoured cavalry but Jericho's solid walls. At God's command they took an unorthodox approach and circled the city in silence for six days. On the seventh day they circled it seven times and then together raised their voices.. And sure enought the walls collapsed and the city was won. I like this story as it's a good mixture of feet moving and voice raising, and a reminder that some things in life we need to circle a few times before things change. This week, what are you circling? And how are you moving your feet and raising your voice? Let me know.

Happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be?

It seems like everyone these days just wants to be happy. Pharrell's singing about it, there's endless self help books about it, all the lifestyle magazines are selling it. But what is happiness anyway? And is it all it's cracked up to be? Read on for ten magic steps to find happiness!! (Actually I don't have ten steps, sorry to disappoint some of you so early, but please bear with me and read on anyway).

In my somewhat faded Concise Oxford dictionary, after 'happi' (a loose informal Japanese coat if you didn't know), and before 'haptic' (relating to the sense of touch - obviously), there are various definitions for 'happy'. These include 'feeling or showing pleasure or contentment'; 'pleasing' and 'slightly drunk'. 

I have to say that I was slightly surprised by these definitions, as they don't seem to match the 'happiness' sold throughout our media and culture.  I don't know about you, but I think we've hyped happiness up into some kind of heavenly and perfect state of affairs that we should all individually aim for. These dictionary definitions of happiness are all pretty superficial and slightly selfish, focused on our own pleasure, maybe even to the extent that we become 'slightly drunk' on satisfying our own wants and desires. Perhaps the problem with the search for happiness is that we end up wanting "everything, all the time", to quote the Eagles.

If I'm painting an unnecessarily negative view of happiness then I apologise. Of course we can be pleased with things working our well for others etc, but I do think we have a tendency to seek our own personal happiness over and above everything else, and perhaps at the expense of others (knowingly or unknowingly).

A problem with the search for happiness is that it can lead us to an unhealthy focus on ourselves, perhaps a degree of isolationism, and also to a short-termism in our thinking and actions. In the short term, I'd happily binge on Jaffa cakes, Pringles and burgers at mealtimes rather than take the time to prepare some decent food. This bingeing may make me feel temporarily happy but pretty quickly my feelings would degenerate into guilt and (moderate) self loathing at my bad food choices and short-term perspective. Left to my own devices I know it's much more tempting to take the short-term view and make bad food choices! Food does seem to be one thing we can turn to when we're feeling unhappy! 

Reflecting on happiness, it does seem to be a shallow thing in many ways. If (as the dictionary states) it's so linked to our feelings then this makes a lot of sense, as my feelings fluctuate and don't always reflect reality! Perhaps happiness really isn't all it's cracked up to be, and if we've been sucked into the worldview that our ultimate aim is the search for happiness then maybe we've been duped!

So what should we be searching for instead? 

I think there's something deeper than superficial happiness that we can find, and it's around the idea of peace, completeness, prosperity and welfare. There's a Hebrew word which sums this up - Shalom. The idea of Shalom is more than "just" peace, but a broader sense of becoming whole - more than just the absence of conflict but instead the active presence of peacefulness. What I like about this idea is that it's less individualistic, since we generally need others to complete us, for us to prosper, and for our mutual welfare.

The word Shalom is often used as a greeting, in the style of "peace be with you", and I like the richness of meaning it conveys. I like that it's a phase used for blessing others, compared to the notion of seeking our own individual happiness. As an aside, I remember from growing up going to Mass that there's a particular moment in the liturgy where you are encouraged to offer each other the sign of peace - usually a handshake and a muttered "peace be with you" (in my experience often a slightly awkward moment). I distinctly remember an occasion as a stroppy teenager when I was clearly in a mood about something or other, and after telling me that I was "going around like a bear with a sore head" (a family saying), my Dad said to me (out of context, since we were probably in the kitchen at the time) "Peace be with you". I remember thinking this was a bit strange, since we weren't at Mass, but as I reflect on it, isn't it usually the case that we need to be reminded of this in the everyday-ness of life.. and especially when we're going around like a bear with a sore head!

So is happiness all it's cracked up to be? Probably not, and maybe this week we should stop (just) seeking our own individual and short term happiness and start seeking out a broader, deeper Shalom instead. You never know, we might just find this makes us more happy in the long run after all..

Footprints or Tyre tracks?

Are you travelling slowly enough to leave footprints?

Earlier this week my wife Kate and I went for a fantastic walk together. About 50 yards from our front door, next to our allotment site, there's a path which leads to a large area of fields and woodland. 

Over the seasons we watch from our kitchen window and see the crops being planted, growing and then harvested. 

We love running various routes through and around these fields, and as a family we've hunted and found hidden geocaches. 

Last summer my daughter and I spent two hours one sunny Saturday afternoon foraging for elderberries and sloes.. we love this area of countryside on our doorstep, and on our walk around there this week Kate and I noticed the heavy hum of many bees noisily buzzing away at their daily business, magpies and other birds calling and flying. We also noticed and explored new paths, fresh growth on the trees and bushes, as well as enjoying some quality time together. All in all it was a great walk, and something we should do more often. 

"I've been wondering what trail I'm leaving in different parts of my life"

As it happened, the paths were hard after a dryish spell, so I didn't notice us leaving any footprints (although I did see some hoof marks from horses). Sometimes there are tyre tracks on these paths, and some evenings we can hear younger members of our community tearing around the fields on motorbikes. I doubt that these young chaps notice the bees humming, the birds calling or particularly enjoy quality time together - for them it's mainly about speed!

Reflecting on this difference, I've been wondering what trail I'm leaving in different parts of my life. Am I leaving footprints, travelling at an appropriate pace, or am I impatiently leaving tyre marks as I scramble my way to the next goal, the next rung on the ladder, the next achievement?

I should point out that there's nothing wrong per se with travelling quickly, but for this post at least I want to use the comparison between footprints and tyre tracks as a metaphor for whether we're living life with a deep sense of awareness and "noticing", or whether we're just desperate to get where we're going without enjoying the journey to get there. This is another angle on whether we're destination-focused or journey-focused, which I've touched on in a previous post.

Are you leaving tracks in your haste?

Over the years I've spent a fair bit of time in the mountains of North Wales, not least because until recently my brother lived there with his family. I've climbed Snowden (the highest mountain in Wales) numerous times, and by various different routes.

"Am I impatiently leaving tyre marks?"

Once I climbed it with a group of friends as part of a 3-peaks challenge. Another time two friends and I "accidentally" climbed up via the precarious Crib Goch route (not ideal for someone like me who's not a fan of big drops, and we were wearing cowboy hats as well).

In each case the climb itself has been an essential part of the whole experience, sharing companionship, encouragement and enjoyment with those others I'm climbing with - leaving footprints along the way, and having a shared satisfaction at reaching the trig station at the summit.

If you know Snowden, you'll know that there's also a steep rack and pinion train track which winds up the mountain from Llanberis, enabling you to enjoy the view in comfort as you ascend, and scale the summit with minimal footprints. For the record, I really have no problem with people who choose this as their means to ascend the mountain, and I know that for some people this is their only way up, through disability or illness. For me though, while I am able, it's a richer experience to leave footprints on the side of the mountain, especially when sharing it with others.

Perhaps what I'm getting at here is the difference between getting somewhere quickly all by yourself compared to getting somewhere together. Anyone who's ever looked after small children (even older children) will know that getting somewhere quickly together can be a hard task! Putting coats and shoes on reluctant toddlers can be like trying to fit an octopus in a string bag, let alone the subsequent pace of the journey with little and/or reluctant legs! But it's more important to be going somewhere together at a shared pace - much as we'd like, it wouldn't be right just to stride off to our destination and leave the kids miles behind to catch up!

"...it's a richer experience to leave footprints on the side of the mountain, especially when sharing it with others"

As an aside, as we look back over our lives it can be easy to be hung up with the footprints we've left, perhaps our trail hasn't been entirely where we intended or wanted - through our own decisions or by life's circumstances. Wherever our trail has led us, it's our footsteps going forward that can begin to lead us in a new direction. We often underestimate how far we can go. As I plod to and from the station during the week, I often take encouragement from Rosie Swale-Pope (not literally I should add!). Rosie ran around the world, exhibiting amazing determination, guts and strength, and is a fantastic example of what you can achieve simply by placing one foot in front of another - I'd recommend her book "Just a little run around the world".

Are you allowing your steps to be guidied?

In terms of our footsteps going forward, I love the description of God in the book of Genesis as
someone who walks with us in the garden. We are not alone on our walk and have a God who can guide our next step.

As a family we are very excited at the moment because in a few days we are due to get a Guide Dog puppy to foster for a year or so. Guide Dogs are amazing companions for blind and partially sighted people, and often mean the difference between someone being afraid to step outside their own front door, and someone being able to confidently step across the threshold and walk to wherever they need to go.

How much more confidence and direction can we have when we allow God to guide our steps, to guide our path? Our vision for our lives is small in comparison with God's great design for us.

"It's more important to be going somewhere together at a shared pace"

Thanks as always for reading this post, and I've love to hear your thoughts. How grounded are the different areas of your life? Are you leaving casual and hasty tyre tracks, or connected and relational footprints? Perhaps there's areas of your life where you need to slow down to shared walking pace?

Here's to taking that next step!

*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Footprints or Tyre Tracks. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

The only thing to fear is fear itself?

'The only thing to fear is fear itself', as President Roosevelt famously announced. But is it? I think there are plenty of healthy fears we can have - for me, I have a healthy fear of big hairy tarantulas (not quite a phobia I'd say), and a healthy fear of big drops (again, not heights per se, it's the drops that worry me more!). 

Recently I've been enjoying watching extreme sports on Red Bull TV (currently my favourite channel by a long long way) - people with seemingly no fear climbing up and jumping off buildings, extreme snow sports, insane mountain biking.. All things that are well beyond my comfort zone. I definitely don't have the killer instinct to do that kind of stuff! 

I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to play it safe - possibly even a natural bias. I'm not the natural risk taker, adrenaline seeker that you see on Red Bull TV. That's not to say that I don't like pushing myself and I've completed my fair share of triathlons and less extreme sports events in my time. A few months ago I finally dusted off my road bike and went cycling with a friend for the first time in about three years. I've had no problem keeping fit in the meantime (I've been doing a solid amount of running while my bike was hibernating), and all was going ok on the ride to begin with. The flat sections were fine, we even climbed up Clent, a very steep and long local hill, which went really well. 

Unfortunately I discovered that I had a problem when we got to the top. The problem was this - I'd completely lost my guts for going downhill at anything more than walking speed (hard to do on a roadbike built for speed). It was embarrassing, and it was a shamefully slow ride down. I've been wondering quite how to regain my cycling mojo ever since. I need to build my confidence up again, and regain a healthy relationship and trust in my bike and bike handling skills.

Notwithstanding my current lack of mojo for cycling down hills, in general as I've grown more and more into my skin in the last decade or so, I've felt more able and empowered to take positive risks. As I reflect on it, I think that often the fear of what other people may think of me has held me back, along with the fear of the unknown. Perhaps being more secure in myself helps me to make decisions more consistent with who I believe I'm made to be, rather than who other people think I should be.

None of us are exempt from fears, and whilst I'm not necessarily seeking a cure for my fear of giant tarantulas (I see Dudley zoo offer 'hands on' sessions to overcome this.. No thanks!!), it's often the everyday fears that delay us making a decision or doing something we should.

Something I've found helpful on a day to day basis is asking myself (often but not always at work) the question: what would I do if I wasn't afraid? I find this helps me get a sense of perspective, to step to one side of what I may or may not be feeling, and take positive action. Sometimes the answer is to make a phone call, speak to someone, put something 'out there' - I find the question a helpful way of overcoming roadblocks in my thinking or doing. My gran used to say 'the sooner you face up to your problems, the sooner they go away', which is a good point! 

While I don't think that the *only* thing to fear is fear itself (big hairy spiders and big drops being valid in my opinion), I do agree that fear for its own sake can be debilitating. For me, knowing the love of my God, my wife, kids and family has made me happier in how I'm made, and more able to face those fears and take those positive risks to be the best expression of 'me' that I can be. 

Maybe, like me, you need to rebuild your confidence with something. I literally need to get back on my bike and face some (smaller) hills. What could you do today, this week, this year if you weren't afraid? Maybe asking yourself that question will help you to take a sidestep around roadblocks in your mind and heart to find a positive way forward.

Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your comments, or any stories you may have of overcoming your fears. 

I ask not for a lighter load..

..but broader shoulders (Jewish proverb)

To be honest, broad shoulders aren't something that really runs in our family, something I found particularly disappointing as a tall and skinny teenager. Back in the 1990s I used to love watching Gladiators on Saturday evenings, and even now I could probably name most of the competitors and individual events in 1990s era Worlds Strongest Man competitions (possibly a specialist subject to keep in reserve for that Mastermind appearance). Sadly, no matter how hard I tried, I could never bench press as much as my schoolfriends, and whilst some of them bulked out to resemble Atlas, I didn't! My dad and I even spent a day casting my own set of lead weights, which were suitably heavy but so much denser than the shop bought weights my friends had they looked pathetically small by comparison - but none of them had the satisfaction of melting lead with a propane torch until molten and then pouring it into their own sand-filled moulds! (In hindsight, I've realised that many of the ways my dad expressed his love for me and my brothers and sister were unorthodox, often involving making things together in the workshop using dangerous and not so dangerous tools and techniques - as a dad myself now, I love him all the more for doing this with us).

These days I've made my peace with not being broad shouldered, but as a culture we do seem to value individual strength - only the strongest survive, survival of the fittest etc. Now I'm all for meritocracy to a degree, but I think we fool ourselves if we think that we entirely rise and fall on our own actions - life is too random for that, events happen, and a nasty flip side of the coin can creep into our thinking in which we see the poorest in our society as "losers", deserving of all that's happened to them. Unfortunately we can see this all too often in the media, and I'd recommend watching Alain De Botton's TED talk on a kinder philosophy of success, which explores this idea in more detail.

I've noticed this strength-cult in the workplace, where we're expected to be strong men and women, but in reality we can't do everything in our own strength all of the time. As I've said before, we all have different and varied strengths as individuals anyway! So often we can feel (or be made to feel) like we need to face problems alone, to prove ourself in some way. It's funny how we can perceive asking for help as a sign of weakness - especially in the workplace!

Much as I want to be able to do everything in my life in my own strength, there are times when I do feel weighed down with life, circumstances, situations and tasks. Today is a good case in point when I would gladly have wished away a situation in my workplace! Sadly, there's rarely a magic button that makes our troubles vanish and we have to learn to deal with them as best we can, as well as deal with our relationship with our troubles too.

I've never been a huge fan of assault courses. Inevitably there are sections which require good upper body strength - broad shoulders actually - where I fear I would get stuck (pull ups are another area I'm not naturally gifted in). And at times, life can feel like an assault course can't it? Army assault courses have a reputation for being fearsome, involving submerged pipes to crawl through, barbed wire to crawl under, and other tough challenges. The thing is, I'm led to believe that the toughest army assault courses require you to work as part of a unit.

I believe that it's right that our expectation of ourselves and our capacity to do things increases over time. With experience and practice our skills and knowledge increase. In that sense our shoulders do broaden over time. But in a world where it's increasingly 'every man for himself' who have you got around you? Who's sharing your load? Conversely, who's load are you helping with?

Today I was glad to have supportive colleagues to share the load - the cliché is true that a problem shared is a problem halved. Also clichéd but true is that by working together you are able to shoulder more than the amount you can each shoulder on your own. Two people working collaboratively can do more than two people's worth of work!

For those of us with faith, we believe in a God who invites us to cast our burdens on him, who isn't distant and remote but who is actively offering to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in the midst of what we're facing. We may be praying for a lighter load, but instead our shoulders can be broadened when we share our loads with God. Too often I think that I try to be Atlas, attempting to carry the world all by myself, and buckling under the weight. Increasingly I want to turn to the one who instead set the stars in their place (see Psalm 8). God isn't at our beck and call, he doesn't sprinkle fairy dust to make our lives magically easy, but he invites us to "yoke up" with him, to share our troubles and receive his peace and love. Our circumstances may not change in ways we expect (although they can and sometimes do in response to prayer), but we have a God willing to sustain us in the midst of whatever it is we're going through.

This week I've finished reading Mark Batterson's excellent book "The Circle Maker", which I've found an inspiring and encouraging read on how to share our biggest fears and dreams with God - how to place them on his shoulders. I've found it so helpful I'm planning to read it again, and I'd heartily recommend it to any of you reading this post.

Perhaps today it's time to stop asking for lighter loads, but to ask instead for extra shoulders..

Thanks for reading, and as always I welcome your comments and contributions. Please feel free to share this post with anyone who may be interested.

Thriving weeds or flourishing seeds?

Our allotment was very weedy when we first got it...

Or "Everything I needed to know about life I learned on the allotment" (in homage to Robert Fulghum's kindergarten passage).

This week I'm thinking about "thriving", a word we maybe apply more to gardening or horticultural situations, as it implies flourishing growth. 

To me this immediately makes me think about the thriving weeds that we wage incessant war against on our allotment.

If you're not from the UK you may not be familiar with the peculiar things we have called allotments. Napoleon may have called us Brits a nation of shopkeepers, but in many ways we're a nation of gardeners, and allotments are really just community gardens where you can rent a plot of land to cultivate your own crops.

They're a national institution, enshrined in various arcane laws and bylaws and have been around for hundreds of years. Our allotment site is at the end of our road, about 50m from our front door, and our plot (number 39) is about 15m long and 9m wide (or about 50ft by 30ft). It's a big plot (one of the biggest on the site) and as much as growing anything, the main challenge is keeping the weeds down - they thrive with much less care and attention than anything we intentionally plant!

"It feels like we only have to turn our backs on our plot for a week in the spring and the weeds are waist high"

It feels like we only have to turn our backs on our plot for a week in the spring and the weeds are waist high.. especially as so many fellow plot holders are retired and therefore keep immaculate "show" plots. However, something I have learned is that it generally looks a lot worse than it really is. Weeds have a habit of spreading themselves out, taking up as much room as possible, but often they're only anchored to the ground in one place.

This is an allotment lesson we can apply to our daily life, as our situations often feel worse than they really are, crowding our thoughts, when actually decisive action to the root can easily rid us of the stress they bring. We need to be good mind-gardeners, as I talked about in this post not so long ago.

It takes potatoes time to grow...

One thing that having an allotment has taught me over the years is about the time it actually takes things to grow - it's a long lesson in patience, and in gentle consolidation. However impatient I have been about various crops growing, you just can't rush them!

They grow in their own time. It's the same with us - we can get so impatient (well, I can anyway) when things don't happen in the way we want them to and with the speed we want them to.

But I'm sure that so many of us can look back on situations that seemed endless at the time, but in hindsight timing was perfect and things actually worked out better as a result.

Many things in life are better for maturing longer - wine, cheese, even brewing a pot of coffee! Patience is an undervalued commodity in our "instant"culture.

Consolidation is also important. When we got our allotment it had been fallow for some time, the entire plot was waist high, and to even think about planting anything, let alone reaping anything was some way off. It's easy to be daunted by our circumstances, but as Saint Francis of Assisi said: "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

"Many things in life are better for maturing longer - wine, cheese, even brewing a pot of coffee!"

When I read the story of God's people in the Bible, after numerous trials and tribulations they enter "the promised land" (incidentally divided into allotments for each tribe). However, before they go in, Moses emphasises the need for them to take it slowly, not to over reach themselves:

"The Lord your God will clear away these nations for you little by little. You may not make an end of them all at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you." (Deut 7:22, ESV)

It felt the same on our allotment, the need to clear it and conquer it slowly, and it can be the same with our dreams and the promises we feel God has given us in our lives.

I'm not saying that we can't accomplish big dramatic things - I do think there are times for big decisions and big action - but I firmly believe that many things are accomplished little by little. Steadily sowing, feeding, weeding and cultivating. For me this is not just physical weeds on our allotment (and I do take great pleasure in digging and hoeing the soil), but also our ideas and dreams.

Much of the stuff that starts to grow on our allotment is unintentional - whether perennial weeds or dandelion seeds blown in by the wind. I once watched a documentary about weeds (yes, I know how to party), which simply defined them as a plant in the wrong place.

Maybe we've got a lot of unintentional things in our lives, good or bad, weeds or not. What are we allowing to thrive in us? The trick is to spot the weeds early and pull them out before they root too deeply. Maybe we need to consolidate some of the things we have intentionally planted and weed out the things that are crowding out the space our seeds and saplings need.

"I firmly believe that many things are accomplished little by little"

Change in our lives doesn't necessarily happen overnight (although it can), much the same way that I can't magically get rid of all the weeds on our allotment (napalm isn't really an option). We need to give ourselves time to grow, to mature, even to grieve. 

As well as cultivating our ideas, dreams and God-promises, there's also a time and a place for cultivating our circumstances to enable us to thrive where we are.. and more than that, to move in the direction we need to go in (like the heliotropic movement of plants following the sun).

A book I'd recommend to help you with this is "Now discover your strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. Like many others, I have found this really helpful in discovering the things that I naturally flourish in, things I can cultivate to make me thrive. It's helped me articulate the things I love doing, and helped me make decisions at both work and home to cultivate my strengths. For instance as well as writing this blog, I'm also finding more opportunities to write for my employer. 

The more we play to our strengths, the more I believe we'll thrive - but we still need to keep those weeds down!

*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Thriving Weeds or Flourishing Seeds. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media. Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here).

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

"You can't make an omelette..

..without breaking a few eggs."

This phrase has been in my head this week as I have mused on the topic of eggs. I've been wondering about it's deeper meaning, and since I couldn't find it in my dusty copy of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (an essential tome for any reference shelf in my humble opinion), I had to resort instead to Wiktionary for a good definition: "in order to achieve something, it's inevitable and necessary that something should be destroyed". An unverified internet source also suggested that the phrase emerged out of the tumult of the French revolution, giving it a somewhat darker slant - guillotine humour.

I take great satisfaction in the very act of cracking of an egg into a frying pan, let alone the resulting enjoyment of egg on toast (if I'm honest I don't actually make many omelettes). I suppose you could also interpret the phrase along the lines that you can't enjoy your eggs without breaking their shells, since not many of us eat our eggs with the shells on (I say not many, because I am sure that there are people in this world who do actually eat eggs with the shells on).

Regular readers will know that I've been thinking a lot around creativity and innovation these past few months, and among the many interesting books I've been reading, Steven Johnson's "Where Good Ideas Come From" has some really interesting thoughts on creative environments and (as the title suggests), where good ideas come from.

Increasingly, it seems that the best ideas come from collaboration and openness rather than (just) the solo effort of an individual. In fact, Johnson suggests that many of us need aspects of other people's ideas to complete our own, as they also need ours.

For creative people, our ideas, dreams and visions can often feel like precious eggs which we sit on for months and years waiting for them to hatch. Maybe some of these do hatch, but I bet that the vast majority remain incomplete and unhatched in some way. We can feel very protective of our idea-eggs, but perhaps this protective attitude isn't actually serving us in the way we think it is. Perhaps it's actually slowing us down - reducing us to waddling speed, earthbound like Emperor penguins desperately protecting their eggs between their legs.

If what Johnson suggests is true, and it has a strong sense of "truthiness" to me, then if we really want our ideas, dreams and visions to fly then we need to crack open our eggs and set them free to connect with other people's ideas and dreams, to become something bigger than our own imaginings. Perhaps we need to crack our dream-eggs into the collective pan to make an omelette! By keeping our talents in their safe eggshells we run the risk of them never reaching their potential.. or to extend the egg metaphor further, to go off. If we think our ideas stink, maybe it's because we haven't given them enough air.

I believe that we're given our talents, passions and dreams for a reason, by a loving creator God. Without stepping into these, setting them free, letting them hatch, the danger is that we miss out on the adventure planned for us and settle for something less than we're able. Like the servant in the parable who buries his talent rather than putting it to work. Instead I want to be the one who makes the most of what he's given. This doesn't necessarily mean being the very best in our field, but it does mean becoming the best expression of who God has made me.. perhaps it's less about the magnitude of our talent and more about what we do with it.

I'm an adopted Midlander, and I love the industrial history of the Midlands - it really was the birthplace and heart of the industrial revolution, which changed the face of the planet. The BBC have recently been publishing a series of essays on the Midlands, and this week's (here) is about the so called "Midlands Enlightenment". Suffice to say it's a great historical example of people like Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, James Watt and other members of the Birmingham Lunar Society who cracked open their eggs, shared their ideas and came up with a metaphorical omelette of world-changing technology, thinking and action. We can learn much from these polymaths, not least the power of collaboration and connection with those both similar and different to ourselves.

In my day job, the company I work for has a phrase "Stronger Together", echoing the well known words of the Bible that "a cord of three strands is not easily broken". If you're anything like me, then it can be a vulnerable thing to share your precious dreams and visions with others - but if we want them to grow wings, if we want them to grow and develop in ways that are bigger than we can think, then we must embrace openness and set them free. In my experience, God has a great way of helping us step into our passions and use our talents in unexpected and adventurous ways, especially when we bravely put our ideas "out there" rather than keep them in their protective shells.

So this week, why not ask yourself whether you've been sitting on any eggs too long, and whether there's an omelette of some kind you need to contribute to.

One final thought, from my friend Dan (a keeper of quails). To make good eggs you need plenty of grit in your diet (his quails certainly do) - so whatever your area of talent, whatever shape your dreams take, whatever field your ideas reside, are you feeding yourself enough grit to make good eggs? In other words, where are you taking inspiration from? Are you getting enough diversity in your reading/watching/listening/praying to stretch, challenge and feed your dreams? Perhaps you need some extra grit, something to chew over, something to get you thinking again..?

Thanks again for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts, and happy cooking this week!