One (Traditionalist) Road to Recovery

Tim Chesterton bears moving testimony to the ministry of Bishop Ron Ferris, formerly of the North Canadian Yukon diocese, then Algoma. In retirement he has left the Anglican Church of Canada for one of the Canadian Traditionalist networks. I can’t / won’t comment about his choice, not knowing its immediate context; This post is not about his retirement ministry, but what preceded it. Bishop Ron was an early adopter of the internet to stay in touch and guide clergy, and used to post brief weekly notes and ideas, which I came across a few years ago, and thought were solid gold.
I hope they stay somewhere on the web, even though the author has retired...

One of these concerns conflicted Christian communities. Like an immune system attacking its healthy body, Church groups can become oppressed by a soul-sickness that reveals itself in paranoia, bullying, silly (usually ad hominem) touchiness and sick bunny sarcasm. Here is Bishop Ron’s list of characteristic symptoms and treatments...

1. High and habitual anxiety and reactivity which overshadows perspective, opportunity, and differentiated thought.

Remedy: Meet enough security needs to allow calm dialogue and thought. Stabilize the patient.

2. Carefully tended list of grievances is held and recited to negotiate future concessions.

Remedy: Acknowledge and air wounds. Apply reality therapy to exaggerations.

3. Enduring personal animosities override all decisions, all deliberations, all impartiality.

Remedy: Slowly renew, dilute, and broaden the leadership base.

4. Blaming and cyclical, unhealthy relationship patterns will be present and gain strength from anger, revenge, stigmatization, "them and us" thinking, and distancing "ain't it awful".

Remedy: Re-state the problems without personal blame. Envision a new future. Don't be vague.

5. Conflict is magnified through indirect communications such as one person speaking for anonymous others.

Remedy: Create a fair forum for direct communication where people speak for themselves, directly to the whole group, and where the open decisions matter.

6. Hostage taking occurs "unless . . . l'm leaving".

Remedy: "We love you, appreciate what you've done, and don't want you to leave, however . . . "

7. Relationship obsessions abound with unhealthy clinging or distancing. This may lead to endless analysis, therapy, inward scrutiny, and desperate solutions.

Remedy: Focus on the great outward common tasks and purposes.

8. An exhausted few tenuously cling to the wheel as the ship tosses and lunges largely out of control.

Remedy: Leaders must priorize, set boundaries, differentiate tasks, and proceed with faith in God and their own integrity. Reduce the tasks to match the resources and create the space for some enjoyment.

9. Insecurity reactions around books, buildings, the old days, and the past hero will be sentimentalized. People will cling to each other in unhealthy ways: gossip circles, power groups, guard-dog teams, and "ain't it awful" observation teams.

Remedy: Help the community find its security in their primary convictions; God, Christ, the word, the mission, and the love.

10. Often there is a sense of morass and abyss. Poverty thinking will overcome abundance thinking. "We're hurting. We're stuck. We're getting to like our insecurities. We're poor and that insures nothing good can happen. Even if we could change the cost might be too high."

Remedy: A new climate, new patterns of relating, abundance thinking, hope kindled

Twitter: How to be a Twit

What is Twitter, what isn’t it? People wonder how so much small talk can have any value. If you don’t read it all, what’s the point of having any of it? In fact, very few people religiously read every word of a newspaper, and most of the stuff in there is trivial or made up. Fact is, Human beings, social animals, have an immense appetite for low-grade information from and about people they barely know. Only Twitter’s cultured despisers, Hampstead journos, people like that, stuff all their social encounters with serious social analysis & breaking news:

Ah, the eighteenth Century! London grew wealthy on the back of its coffee houses, the birthplaces of significant institutions like the Stock Exchange and the Bank of England. Why were they born in Coffeehouses?

Well, BBC R4 women’s hour has been dramatizing Joseph Addison’s pieces for thee Spectator. This is how Addison described his work in 1711:

I have passed my latter Years in this City, where I am frequently seen in most publick Places, tho’ there are not above half a dozen of my select Friends that know me; of whom my next Paper shall give a more particular Account. There is no place of Resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my Head into a Round of Politicians at Will’s and listning with great Attention to the Narratives that are made in those little Circular Audiences. Sometimes I smoak a Pipe at Child’s; and, while I seem attentive to nothing but the Post-Man, over-hear the Conversation of every Table in the Room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James’s Coffee House, and sometimes join the little Committee of Politicks in the Inner-Room, as one who comes there to Hear and Improve. My Face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-Tree, and in the Theaters both of Drury Lane and the Hay-Market. I have been taken for a Merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten Years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the Assembly of Stock-jobbers at Jonathan’s. In short, where-ever I see a Cluster of People, I always mix with them, tho' I never open my Lips but in my own Club. Thus I live in the World, rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant, and Artizan, without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy, Business, and Diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as Standers-by discover Blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the Game. I never espoused any Party with Violence, and am resolved to observe an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forc'd to declare myself by the Hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my Life as a Looker-on, which is the Character I intend to preserve in this Paper...

There you go. Twitter, in 1711. Addison wasn’t a printing press enthusiast, but a people enthusiast. I realised years ago that our kids go MSN’ing not to explore hi-tec, but to chat with their mates. It’s a social process, stoopid. The sign of a technological dimwit is to think it’s all about the technology.

So, to recap, this is how to use Twitter. You have a stream of short snatches of conversation fed to your desktop. Imagine a drinks party at which several hundred people stand in small self-selected circles talking. Like Addison, you circulate and engage, knowing fullwell you don’t have to respond to all of every conversation, or even hear it, to give and take social value. Unlike Addison, you can:

• select as many or as few as you want to be of your party;
  
• engage people simultaneously all over the world;
• read and recall every conversation going on in the room if you really want;
• paticipate or not, if, for example, you have a condition like Aspergers affecting enjoyment of social interaction, on terms of engagement with which you can be comfortable
  
• search every conversation almost instantly to find people talking about whatever you want. For example if you really must go on about Treaty of Westphalia, you Twittersearch it and if anyone else has been talking about it, off you go. If they’re not you can start a conversation;
  
• turn it off and do something else at any time;
• Spend your cash on other things as the whole party costs almost nothing in either time or money terms.
  

These are useful things to be able to do with and at a party, but that’s all there is to it. You need to bring and mix your own cocktails, or not. Some people hate social gatherings, and that’s OK. Others think they’re going to hate them, but enjoy them when they push themselves. Other people were made for them.

Small talk is both entirely trivial and the essential stuff of life. In that spirit, why not let’s all just relax and enjoy Twitter for what it is? or not?

For my basic first thoughts about Twitter, click here.
There’s a brilliant post by Matt Kelland on the Haiku aspect of Twitter here. Thanks, Matt.

Excellent Introduction and tips for Twitter by David Pogue in the New York Times, here.

Become an Instant Myers-Briggs Bore

Back in my adult education days, the most annoying person I met was, let’s call her, Rita Queen of Speed, an instant Myers-Briggs (MBTI) expert. She had spent a couple of days analysing herself and, it seemed all the world, on some ruddy workshop. Her every sentence was peppered with phrases like “Well, as an ISFJ I believe...” or “Of course St Paul was an INTJ...” Grrr...! Aaaargh!! Mummy! Show me the way to the nearest gas oven!!

Well, now we can all do an instant RQOS with a wondrous gadget called Typealyzer (h/t Steve Hayes). Feed in any blog address and it tells you its Myers-Briggs type. Instantly. Save Money on Workshops! Annoy your friends by analyzing their blogs! Nothing personally intrusive, you understand, but this tool comes complete with a pictographic analysis of your Brain at the time of writing...

So, here is this blog is this morning, according to Typealyzer:

ISTP — the Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Ach Zu! So we mechanics often like to seek fun and action in our personal lives? Really? I thought we just wasted time on our laptops.

And, just to indulge my inner RQOS Myers-Briggs Bore, here are one or two of my favourites and heroes this morning:
Steve Hayes:
Also, like this, ISTP (Mechanics)
Simon Sarmiento’s Thinking Angicans:
Also, Like this, ISTP (Mechanics)
Is a common theme emerging here?
Now for the Clincher, mon Pièce de Résistance:
Dave Walker’s Dullest Blog in the World:
Also, Like this, ISTP (Mechanics)!

Yesss!

USA Today: Left or right?

Although accompanied by an American friend, I can pretty much guarantee to be spending US election night tucked up in bed with the Rule of Benedict in French and Latin, anticipating a 5:25 morning start tomorrow at Saint Wandrille. I wonder when the result will permeate rural Normandy? Could this be the US equivalent of the UK 1997 election?

It may aid contemplation to ponder a classic test of left/right brain function. Some people claim that if you stare long enough at the dancer she can rotate either way. Others say that if you look at a picture or read, when you look back at her she can reverse direction. Yet others say some people simply see her going one way and others the other. Whatever, she is living proof that what you think you see as obvious, left or right, depends at least partly on you. How true is this of theological positons and assumptions?
...
somebody said she is also a reminder of the power of spin, but that’s not funny.

I am banged up having my annual reality check at Saint Wandrille, Normandy, until Saturday. This entry has been preposted. The internet is switched firmly off for the week, and I will be delighted to respond to comments, but only at the weekend.

Baby’s connected to the Microphone...

...now hear the word of the Lord! All behaviour is learnt behaviour. Many thanks to the wonderful Raspberry Rabbit for drawing my attention to the Revd Kanon Tipton, aged 18 months, for it is he:

Talk about Fresh Expressions. It all ends with a lovely hug, and the reverend obviously loves his Church, who love him lots.

RR wonders what Anglican babies would do — he suggests invite unconfirmed babies up for a rusk. It’s not quite the same thing, but it picks up a recent theme here: One of my predecessor’s children in Reading used to come out to the altar at the Agnus Dei, stare in to the Chalice and say “Eurggh! Blood!” He was then dragged away tastefully by old ladies in white coats, protesting “It is blood! Daddy says it is!” and similar Anglican devotional comments.

What do the mouths of babes and sucklings say to those of us who lead worship?

• Some people worry obsessionally about what is preached. Its effectiveness is largely, perhaps, about how it is preached. Psychologists tell us that (rough figures) 7% of communication is “the script,” 38% “the Music” and “52% “the Dance.” Forty years long were we grieved as a Church over prayer book revision, paying close attention to the script. I wonder what would happen if we paid closer attention to the other 93% of what is communicated in Church.
  
• I am also reminded of a comment I heard from a wonderfully experienced and effective housemistress at what is in fact often the highest performing school in the country, who told me what she always remembers about teenagers is

  “I remember almost nothing you say,
  I forget much of what you do;
  but I will remember for the rest of my life
  how you made me feel.”

The Morning After: Indaba or Prozac?

Yesterday was officially the most depressing day of the year. Dr Cliff Arnalls of Cardiff University has worked out exactly how depressing yesterday was and why:

The formula for the day of misery reads 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.

Where W is weather, D is debt - minus the money (d) due on January's pay day - and T is the time since Christmas. Q is the period since the failure to quit a bad habit, M stands for general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action and do something about it.

Help! I need somebody. Help! Not just anybody... The Royal College of GP’s suggests

Exercise and bibliotherapy - reading a number of books to allow people to understand their own symptoms and how to control them.

Hot Dog! Another thing you can do to try and cheer yourself up is study the programme for the Lambeth Conference, launched yesterday, the most Depressing Day of the Year (so far?).

The Conference this year has two key points of focus: strengthening the sense of a shared Anglican identity among the bishops from around the world, and helping to equip bishops for the role they increasingly have as leaders in mission, involved in a whole variety of ways in helping the Church grow. Because none of this would happen without a deeper commitment to prayer and studying the Bible, this year’s Conference will begin with a couple of days’ retreat, in which we can spend time together in quiet and begin to direct our minds towards the central issues of faith. And as in previous Conferences, every day will begin with worship and Bible study in small groups.

We’ve been exceptionally lucky in the gifts and the vision of the Design Group for this year’s Conference. Drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, they have come together in a remarkable way to create not only a programme of events – about which we can speak in more detail later – but a whole way of doing business. In contrast to previous Conferences, we have planned a larger number of medium-sized groups instead of larger issue-focused groups, so that more people can have a say in the discussion. We’ve called these ‘indaba’ groups, picking up an African word for meetings where significant questions are worked through in a community.

“Indaba” is Zulu/ Xhosa thing — the IzinDuna come together to do mutual business in a way which enables each to be heard, and wisdom to emerge from the group. It’s rather like a monastic chapter. It’s radically different from either Institutionalism, where people pretend to agree to save public face, Imperialism, where Billy the Bully rules OK, or Fascism, where you leave your brain at the door and the Führer tells you what to do because he’s always right.

Indaba is a noble ideal. It’s how the early Churches worked, often amidst bitter controversy, as every Patristics student is amazed to discover. Then, slowly, between the fourth and eleventh centuries, like formaldehyde, institutionalism and Roman imperialism seeped in. The reformation was a reaction to all that. Indaba is a gloriously messy concept. It annoys Anal Retentives, Bullies and Fascists, as well as lazy journos who can only understand punchups.

It’s counterintuitive, but indaba, if you stick with it, raises spirits and offers hope to the world.

Peacemaking Boot Camp 2

Transforming Conflict Session Two (One, here and here). The plot thickens. On the train there, I got out some Integrative Complexity homework I’d done, and suddenly saw another way of mapping the second phase of it, leading to an actual (low wattage ecological) light bulb moment. During the day it got more complicated, and our group is now going to try our hand at working a homework problem with RCR, an 8-phase method which incorporates but transcends IC. Hmm...

These methods certainly provide effective, practical ways to slow down the reptile fight-or-flight bits of the brain whilst the intelligent bit catches up. That’s got to be worth knowing how to do, even more than waggling your ears.Their Achilles Bugbear could be that whilst proven peacemaking techniques infallibly help people who actually want to make peace, they only annoy small-minded thugs who derive their energy from getting into punchups, and stave off their terror of insignificance by terrorizing others. Or do they? More will be revealed in workshop 3, which I'm booked into on 26 February.

Don’t make a Drama out of a Crisis

People have been asking me all about last Friday, the first of my 3 days as a guinea pig on a research project about Integrative Complexity. It’s resourced by theologically literate Cambridge research psychologists. What did I learn, and what is Integrative Complexity anyway?

1. You measure IC by language — not what’s said, but how it’s said. It’s a psychological discipline, grounded in our understanding of the functions of different brain parts, and with a big experimental base. People studying Osama’s IC level (as you do) noticed it hit the floor just before 9/11.
   
2. People Integrate Complexity, when they hold the whole picture = all the particular information in a diverse field simultaneously. Telescoping things into simple yes/no’s, Not relating them, or eliminating them are strategies for avoiding rather than integrating complexity. If you can hold things in view for what they actually are in their own terms, you achieve higher integration. The higher your integrated complexity level, the higher your capacity to understand, and the less likely you are to end up punching people's lights out.
3. OK, Wittgenstein fans! Remember those Duck/rabbits? being realistic about what you see and not telescoping one into the other whilst remaining aware of both possibilities, demands a higher level of IC than the ‘be right and persist’ approach.
4. Hi-IC isn’t always the best way. Some situations call for it and others don’t. Before World War 2, for example Hitler’s low IC posturing required Churchill’s low IC, not Neville Chamberlain’s high IC response. We studied a five-phase model of how people evolve tension into full scale wars, along with tell-tale signs of transition between stages. We also worked through other case studies, using an IC toolbox.
   

Violence flares from low to obscenely high in ways that can be described in almost any context. This study is all about how religious leaders use and could use IC awareness in leadership. Different approaches to faith and leadership profile differently in IC terms. This study is finding out how.

Why bother? Scripture tells Christian leaders to accept the prospect of conflict, but to aim for peace and steer away strenuously from fruitless punch-ups. I want to learn how. I am particularly interested, having written a thesis on religious conflict in the Church of England between 1880-1914. I’m furiously scribbling questionaires, writing up notes, and looking forward to stage 2 next year. Watch this space...