Have just spent a few days down in the south of France at a place called Gassin which is near St Tropez and the beautiful Port Grimaud. I often get the reaction from people that France is nice but it is full of French people! Fortunately I not only love France but I love French people. I think they have a wonderful outlook on life that has, down the generations, shaped who they are as a nation. I am proud to be English but with many other patriots I lament the way England seems to be in self destruct mode at the moment. One option to make ourselves feel better is to foster a mindset that says "well at least we aren't French"! This is a sad mindset based on spectacularly flawed caricatures of the French. The worn out stereotype of the rude onion eating, garlic smelling, effeminate fop should have been consigned to the cross cultural waste bin long ago yet sadly still finds favour among those who value ignorance as a life guide.Sometimes it is, however, genuinely difficult for our Anglo Saxon spirit to understand and engage with our Gallic neighbours. There seems to be a very real disconnect somewhere. At which point it seems expedient to simply enjoy their cheese, wines, and fabulous flans (in the words of Blackadder!) and pretend that the people don't actually exist!
Happily there are always options. Unlike us the French are not Anglo Saxon. They are a romance race as are the Spanish. The fact that they look Anglo Saxon doesn't mean they are any more Anglo Saxon than an inhabitant of downtown Beijing. We don't expect a native from Beijing to be Anglo Saxon because they don't share our physical features. They look different and therefore we treat them differently. The French look like us and so we expect them to be like us. This wrong expectation permeates other areas of life and is at the root of many disagreements and communication breakdowns.
I have taken time to understand the French culture and it's people. I have learned that they look like me but that is where all similarities end. Once I engage them from this kind of platform I make good progress in relating to them because I learn about, acknowledge and celebrate their differences. Before I know it I am instinctively toasting my wonderful French hosts with a hearty vive la France!!!
Monday, 19 September 2011
Thursday, 11 August 2011
The Tyranny of Rioting vs the Rule of Dominion
Man has a built in instinct for survival and existance. That is why death is so fearful. It is the ultimate enemy of our survival instinct. But the instinct for survival is just the start. Unlike the animal kingdom man is more than a bag of instincts. Man has a desire to rule and conquer. This isn't a bad thing if we are to believe what the Psalmist says: God made man to have dominion over the works of His hands; God has put all things under mans feet (Psalm 8:6). According to the Psalmist this desire to be in charge, be in control comes directly from God! How does the Psalmist arrive at this conclusion? He reads in Genesis 1: 27-28 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.".
Man was created to rule, subdue, have dominion. But there is a context. This rule and dominion is not to be exercised as a whim of man. Such whims can be seen everywhere. For a child in the playground it takes the form of bullying. For a group of teenagers it takes the form of a gang. For a wider organised group it takes the form of mindless rioting. On a large scale it takes the form of national dictatorship and aggression such as we saw with Hitler and the Nazis. Yet all these things have one thing in common. They are a perversion of the God given mandate to rule - that perversion is called tyranny. From the school bully to Hitler this is tyranny albeit at different extremes.
There are always options. The bible says of Jesus "in Him all things hold together". The converse of that is true - outside of Jesus all things fall apart. In England at the moment there is a rash of rioting sweeping the country and people see this not as man having dominion but as the country falling apart. Such rioters need discipline and to be subdued by the force of righteous law. But they also need more than that. They need to see that their craving for dominion can only be truly fulfilling when they are in a relationship with Jesus. In Him all things hold together. In Him their lives will be transformed from the ugliness of tyranny to the liberty of godly dominion.
More on this in another post later!
Man was created to rule, subdue, have dominion. But there is a context. This rule and dominion is not to be exercised as a whim of man. Such whims can be seen everywhere. For a child in the playground it takes the form of bullying. For a group of teenagers it takes the form of a gang. For a wider organised group it takes the form of mindless rioting. On a large scale it takes the form of national dictatorship and aggression such as we saw with Hitler and the Nazis. Yet all these things have one thing in common. They are a perversion of the God given mandate to rule - that perversion is called tyranny. From the school bully to Hitler this is tyranny albeit at different extremes.
There are always options. The bible says of Jesus "in Him all things hold together". The converse of that is true - outside of Jesus all things fall apart. In England at the moment there is a rash of rioting sweeping the country and people see this not as man having dominion but as the country falling apart. Such rioters need discipline and to be subdued by the force of righteous law. But they also need more than that. They need to see that their craving for dominion can only be truly fulfilling when they are in a relationship with Jesus. In Him all things hold together. In Him their lives will be transformed from the ugliness of tyranny to the liberty of godly dominion.
More on this in another post later!
Monday, 8 August 2011
blame is a lazy man's wages
Any parent will quickly discover that one thing you will never have to teach a child is how to be naughty!! The desire to assert ones own will is hard wired even when it means we do wrong. Discipline (or discipling as some may see it) is simply the training of our loved ones to manage their free will to choose wisely in life. But what happens when choices don't seem to go our way? Or when our failure to make right choices catches us out?
Whether we believe the biblical account of Adam and Eve or not it is interesting to note that the first recorded response to wrong doing was blame. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. It was easier to blame than accept responsibility. They chose the lazy way out. It is no coincidence that irresponsibility, blame, and laziness are an unholy trinity that cannot exist without each other. When someone fails to take responsibility for their life by blaming something or someone else they give up their power to change and get stuck in a rut of laziness. The blaming game gives them a false sense of reality.
Failing marriages often fail beyond repair because one partner refuses to accept responsibility for thier shortcomings. They blame and grow lazy. This gives them a false sense of reality as to why their marriage is failing and they have then given up the power to change things for the better. When someone doesn't take responsibility to study for exams, or try and get a job, or even simple things like personal hygiene their laziness instinctively blames someone else - the government, the school, a specific person (normally someone else who they see as successful and therefore 'arrogant'), econmonic conditions etc etc.
There are always options. As stated - when I blame someone else for my shortcomings I become lazy, give up the power to change, and live with a false sense of reality. Lazy people often end up with a low self esteem as well as a false sense of reality - our problems are someone elses fault and nothing to do with our own laziness. Laziness is a cancer that eats at my ability to see the talents that I have. Talents that are exercised and used bring increase and prosperity. Talents squandered through laziness bring poverty. Blame is a lazy mans wages.
But if I choose to surround myself by people who shun laziness then I can begin to realise I don't have to feed on the junk food of laziness but can feast at the table of self worth. As I see their success my appetite to succeed awakens. As I see them take responsibility and enjoy the praise of their hard work I lose the appetite to blame others and develop a hunger to change. Suddenly the curse of laziness is broken. The curse of laziness is nicely summed up in a chinese proverb: "better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness".
The option to everyone today is to light one small candle of taking responsibility for one thing in ones own life. This one candle will bring sufficient light to enable us to see afresh our talents and abilities. The light will also expose the ugliness of blame and illuminate the satisfaction of a high self esteem.
Whether we believe the biblical account of Adam and Eve or not it is interesting to note that the first recorded response to wrong doing was blame. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. It was easier to blame than accept responsibility. They chose the lazy way out. It is no coincidence that irresponsibility, blame, and laziness are an unholy trinity that cannot exist without each other. When someone fails to take responsibility for their life by blaming something or someone else they give up their power to change and get stuck in a rut of laziness. The blaming game gives them a false sense of reality.
Failing marriages often fail beyond repair because one partner refuses to accept responsibility for thier shortcomings. They blame and grow lazy. This gives them a false sense of reality as to why their marriage is failing and they have then given up the power to change things for the better. When someone doesn't take responsibility to study for exams, or try and get a job, or even simple things like personal hygiene their laziness instinctively blames someone else - the government, the school, a specific person (normally someone else who they see as successful and therefore 'arrogant'), econmonic conditions etc etc.
There are always options. As stated - when I blame someone else for my shortcomings I become lazy, give up the power to change, and live with a false sense of reality. Lazy people often end up with a low self esteem as well as a false sense of reality - our problems are someone elses fault and nothing to do with our own laziness. Laziness is a cancer that eats at my ability to see the talents that I have. Talents that are exercised and used bring increase and prosperity. Talents squandered through laziness bring poverty. Blame is a lazy mans wages.
But if I choose to surround myself by people who shun laziness then I can begin to realise I don't have to feed on the junk food of laziness but can feast at the table of self worth. As I see their success my appetite to succeed awakens. As I see them take responsibility and enjoy the praise of their hard work I lose the appetite to blame others and develop a hunger to change. Suddenly the curse of laziness is broken. The curse of laziness is nicely summed up in a chinese proverb: "better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness".
The option to everyone today is to light one small candle of taking responsibility for one thing in ones own life. This one candle will bring sufficient light to enable us to see afresh our talents and abilities. The light will also expose the ugliness of blame and illuminate the satisfaction of a high self esteem.
Monday, 18 July 2011
fuzzy memory and fuzzy felt
Some things I always remember to do. I remember to have breakfast every morning. I remember to go to the toilet during the day. I remember to get dressed before going out in public. I don't remember to do this things so much because of habit or tried and tested practice. Rather I remember out of necessity. My body requires me to eat. My bladder tells me to pee. My sense of modesty necessitates that I cover my body in public. Were I to need additional reminders to carry out these daily tasks I would no doubt be considered a candidate for medical or psycological attention.
Other things in life that require remembering can afford to depend on less important memory triggers. Practising the piano, birthdays, booking a holiday, recording a TV programme. Forgetting such things are less consequential. As such our brains are programmed to selectively remember what is important and what is not. And that makes sense because if everything had a number 1 priority then our brains would probably just explode!
But herein lies the danger. Having accepted a tolerance level of forgetting some things we can quickly begin to assign levels of importance to things that we deem unimportant but that others consider to be of vital importance. We have been caught out - actions we took, words we uttered that seemed insignificant at the time now call us to account. At this point we can become calculated and it is here that the real peril exists. Under the guise of emotional and mental survival human nature is very adept at driving us to re-remember those actions and words in such a way that we exonerate ourselves by revising what actually happened or was said. What we deemed unnecessary at the time has now become, to us, very necessary and in an attempt to divert attention away from our previous flippant approach, we convince our memories that our actions and words were in fact different from what we actually did or said. This is how we revise history. Fuzzy memories become fuzzy felt where we create scenarios that never quite happened that way because it suits our purpose. It isn't necessarily dishonest. But in the arena of personal relationships it can be very damaging because it erodes at our ability to give trustworthy accounts of ourselves. And without trust relationships are dead in the water.
There are always options. It takes grace and humility to accept when we are wrong. But accept it we must if we are to flourish in our relationships. Relationships that are worth their weight in gold are those relationships where the other person also has grace and humility to see that the object of their affections is supremely more precious than our need to win the arguments of the fleeting past.
Other things in life that require remembering can afford to depend on less important memory triggers. Practising the piano, birthdays, booking a holiday, recording a TV programme. Forgetting such things are less consequential. As such our brains are programmed to selectively remember what is important and what is not. And that makes sense because if everything had a number 1 priority then our brains would probably just explode!
But herein lies the danger. Having accepted a tolerance level of forgetting some things we can quickly begin to assign levels of importance to things that we deem unimportant but that others consider to be of vital importance. We have been caught out - actions we took, words we uttered that seemed insignificant at the time now call us to account. At this point we can become calculated and it is here that the real peril exists. Under the guise of emotional and mental survival human nature is very adept at driving us to re-remember those actions and words in such a way that we exonerate ourselves by revising what actually happened or was said. What we deemed unnecessary at the time has now become, to us, very necessary and in an attempt to divert attention away from our previous flippant approach, we convince our memories that our actions and words were in fact different from what we actually did or said. This is how we revise history. Fuzzy memories become fuzzy felt where we create scenarios that never quite happened that way because it suits our purpose. It isn't necessarily dishonest. But in the arena of personal relationships it can be very damaging because it erodes at our ability to give trustworthy accounts of ourselves. And without trust relationships are dead in the water.
There are always options. It takes grace and humility to accept when we are wrong. But accept it we must if we are to flourish in our relationships. Relationships that are worth their weight in gold are those relationships where the other person also has grace and humility to see that the object of their affections is supremely more precious than our need to win the arguments of the fleeting past.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
There are always options
I am a born optimist. There are always options. Or so I keep telling myself. As I start my first ever foray into the murky world of blogging I shall endeavour to keep my positive mindset at the forefront of my blogs. After all anyone can point out what is wrong with life! I hope my blog will help me continue to discover and celebrate life's diversity of options within a world that laments a permanent famine of choice.
That doesn't mean I will be wearing my rosy coloured specs all the time or that I will be the happy bunny on steroids! I want to engage with the bitter bee stings of life in the hope that I can extract the sweet honeycomb of options from my musings :)
Hopefully not too much of a tall order!
That doesn't mean I will be wearing my rosy coloured specs all the time or that I will be the happy bunny on steroids! I want to engage with the bitter bee stings of life in the hope that I can extract the sweet honeycomb of options from my musings :)
Hopefully not too much of a tall order!
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