Just one step at a time

“One aspect of serving others is listening to the call within to express your gifts—those talents you have that make you feel infinite when you are doing them. When we express those gifts, the Holy Spirit works through us in ways we may never know directly, touching the lives, hearts, and minds of others.”
- Joanna Bates
Environmental scientist, dancer, and writer

If you’ve seen the film The Pianist, you’ll know what it’s about. If not, here’s a quick summary I cribbed from imdb.com:

The true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who, in the 1930s, was known as the most accomplished piano player in all of Poland, if not Europe. At the outbreak of the Second World War, however, Szpilman becomes subject to the anti-Jewish laws imposed by the conquering Germans. By the start of the 1940s, Szpilman has seen his world go from piano concert halls to the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw and then must suffer the tragedy of his family deported to a German concentration camps, while Szpilman is conscripted into a forced German Labor Compound. At last deciding to escape, Szpilman goes into hiding as a Jewish refugee where he is witness to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943 - May 16, 1943) and the Warsaw Uprising (1 August to 2 October 1944).

I saw the film a few weeks ago, then got the book out from the library. I sometimes think we see so much crap on screen that it becomes easy to just block it out, ignore it and not be moved, even when we know it’s a true story.

But when we read… It’s the Hitchcock effect: if you can’t see it, what you imagine is a whole lot scarier.

And I believe if you can’t see it, what you read, especially if it is personal, written by one who experienced the situation, rather than a detached observer or historian, can be a whole lot more horrific.

“Another month of peace and quiet passed, and then, one June evening, there was a bloodbath in the ghetto. … As the jackbooted Germans marched upstairs the lights went on, floor by floor. A businessman’s family lived in the flat directly opposite ours… When the light went on there too and SS men in helmets stormed into the room, machine pistols ready to fire, the people inside were seated sitting around their table just as we had been seated at ours a moment ago. They were frozen with horror. The NCO leading the detachment took this as a personal insult. Speechless with indignation, he stood there in silence, scanning the people at the table. Only after a moment or so did he shout, in a towering rage, ‘Stand up!’

“They rose to their feet as fast as they could, all except for the head of the family, an old man with lame legs. The NCO was seething with anger. He went up to the table, braced his arms on it, stared hard at the cripple, and growled for the second time, ‘Stand up!’

“The old man gripped the arms of his chair to support himself and made desperate efforts to stand, but in vain. Before we realized what was going on, the Germans had seized the sick man, picked him up, armchair and all, carried the chair to the balcony, and thrown it out into the street from the third floor. …

“We saw the old man still hanging in his armchair in the air for a second or two, and then he fell out of it. We heard the chair fall to the road separately, and the smack of a human body landing on the stones of the pavement.”

How would you answer this guy?

Just submitted it about 5 minutes ago!

My computer stopped working part-way through, but thankfully it was just being temperamental, and after a few minutes of swearing at it, turning it off and on again, it behaved. And I didn’t lose anything! Phew!

Wait and see now… I’ve pushed the door.

OK, so I’m STILL going on about Jim Wallis. Sorry folks. Shaking his hand last night obviously went to my head!

This is about his words “we need to commit our gifts to the maximum” and me not entirely sure what they are or what I want to do. So this is about that midwife thing also.

This afternoon/evening I’ve been ferreting around midwife & student midwife forums and LearnDirect for info and advice on becoming a midwife. Or at least finding out what it entails. A lot of them recommend Access to Higher Education course PLUS working in the area, as it’s apparently highly competitive.

So (indirectly) prompted by Jim Wallis, I ended up doing the LearnDirect Skills & Interests assessment and came out with:

• Skills high score: Data
  Which means, apparently, I enjoy working with figures and systems. I guess that’s why I do admin!
• Top Skills job groups include: Admin, clerical, IT, finance (eek!), marketing, selling & advertising (ha! ha! ha!)
• Interests high score: Social
  Basically like working with people and helping them.
  To Interests job groups include: publishing, journalism, retail sales (never again!), customer services (ditto), security (”Excuse me, Madam, but if your name’s not down…” As an aside, I actually thought about training as a bouncer back in 2001), medicine, nursing, alternative therapies.

Which fits with all those spiritual gifts assessments I’ve done in the past. Though disappointed I’ve moved on from the fish farming days of Uni (every careers quiz I did at Uni, fish farmer was in the top 10!)

So, anyway, whilst poking around the NHS jobs site I came across the sad fact that all the kind of jobs that would look good on a Uni application would mean at least a £2K salary drop! Plus I’d have to fund myself through an Access course (part-time that’s 2 years!)

But I did find an interesting job at Homerton hospital (which isn’t SO far away) for a PA/Administrator to a Reducing Infant Mortality Project! Which would fit with that midwife theme. And would mean I would  be working with midwives.

2 challenges though:

1. The funding’s only guaranteed until March, and continuation depends on the success of the project. Now that’s scary for me. And a big risk!
2. The deadline’s Wednesday! Like tomorrow (now!)And my computer and printer are refusing to behave!

OK, so sometimes I get bored and trawl around Facebook. I came across a Christian Dating tips group, and was amused to see they described date as:

“Typically, dating involves two people spending time together at different places - most often alone.”

Now, am I the only one to read that the way it wasn’t meant to be written?

If that’s what they think typical dating is, then no wonder Christians haven’t been so successful at it.

Here’s a tip:  if you’re on  date, make sure you’re both at the same place!

Day 3 started at The Lighthouse. The Lighthouse is Scotland’s centre for architecture and design, and is in the old Glasgow Herald building, which was one of the first buildings designed by Mackintosh.

Exterior of Mackintosh Tower

The 6th floor boasted a viewing platform, with views over the city centre. It was rather high, and I developed a rather serious case of vertigo, which required me to sit down and have a biscuit!

There were a number of exhibitions, including one about fast food over the years, which explored the culture of takeaway food and other objects associated with eating food on the move.

There was also a floor devoted to Mackintosh and his work, and you could, if you wished, climb the tower which you can see on the photo above. However, after an attack of the vertigo’s, I decided this was a bit to windey and high for me!

After that I hopped back onto the tour bus and headed west, over to the University, Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum and the Transport Museum.

Glasgow University

Kelvingrove art gallery and museum
The art gallery and museum hosts so much stuff! Stuffed animals (including 2 elephants, one of them, Mr Roger, was shot dead whilst eating his breakfast!), Glaswegian artists, Mackintosh work, and other designers of Glasgow style, and Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross

After all that art and culture I needed a spot of lunch, so sat outside on the grass for a while until I got too cold from the wind, then headed off to the Museum of Transport.

After that I walked along the River Kelvin and through Kelvingrove Park, named after William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, a student of Glasgow University and inventor of, among other things, the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature.

Correction (see comment below):

After that I walked along the River Kelvin and through Kelvingrove Park, after which William Thomson, was given his title 1st Baron Kelvin; Kelvin was a student of Glasgow University and inventor of, among other things, the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature.

Other famous Glasgow University alumni include Joseph Lister (surgeon who developed the process of sterilisation during surgery) and John Logie Baird (inventor of television).

Pete Rollins has an interesting post about Christians who continue to go to and be involved in churches they no longer believe in.

Interesting for me because I’m in a place where I’m not sure how much I agree with the church’s vision and direction. Mainly because for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding our Mission Action Plan, there seems to be little else than Alpha and riding on the back of 2 projects that few of the congregation are involved in. I did say seems.

We’ve also been through a tough 2 or 3 years, what with numerous complaints from members of the congregation who didn’t agree with changes the vicar was making - and one complaint reaching all the way to the Bishop of London. Plus issues with staffing, a major building project and moving 2 congregations into 1 as a result of this project.

Yet communication is appalling. Things get changed and moved without the people who need to know being told. It’s not only frustrating but disheartening. You make suggestions: they get ignored. Or rather, forgotten. You speak, but you’re not heard. And yet I am on the church council.

Why do I stay? Because I felt God moved me here, and as yet I can’t figure out why. Unless it’s not about my being in the church that’s the reason he moved me, and about the place I live.

Why do I stay in leadership? Because someone needs to try and stand up to the clergy when they’re heading off down paths noone except the faithful few (and by that I mean faithful to them, not necessarily to Jesus) wants to follow.

I once had a conversation, during all the complaints, with the vicar’s wife, where she told me that church is not a democracy. And I responded that it’s not a dictatorship either. The vicar comes from the church I used to go to, and the vicar at that church once shouted at me during a church council meeting because I wanted a point clarified! But then he apparently had a breakdown last year, which being a control-freak can lead to.

The ultimate question is should I stay or should I go? Part of the India thing was, I think, an opportunity to legitimately run away from the situation. To say I’m going to follow God’s call and go overseas is the perfect excuse to leave a church you’re not happy in.

To stand up and say “I’m going because I don’t agree with what you’re doing” is hard for many reasons. Firstly because I have - or had? - a friendship with the vicar. Secondly because I would miss my friends. But thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, because I can’t concretely voice what it is I don’t like. I just don’t.

Ironically, during the sermon yesterday, the vicar said that God often calls us into difficult places. A certain irony there, I feel!

One of the questions put to Jim Wallis last night was what can we do about the vast number of young people involved in crime. Particularly with 14 teenagers having died in London since January, and the number of violent crimes being committed on the increase. Or at least, in the news more.

• An 18-year-old was stabbed to death on Saturday morning.
• 2 17-year-olds are critical after being shot on Saturday morning.

Jim talked about a group of mega church leaders in Ohio meeting together and a similar theme came up in their meeting. So one of the church leaders went out on to the street to find out why this was such a problem. And talked to a heroin dealer.

Who told him: the most crucial time for school-age kids is between 4pm and midnight. They’re out of school, they’re running errands, they’re hanging out with their friends. And the dealers are there, hanging out on the corners, talking to them, making friends. And because of that, they win. They win the kids over to addiction and gangs and violence.

So the churches worked together to get people on the streets, to talk to the kids, to befriend them, to get them away from the influence of the dealers and gang leaders. And apparently they’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of violence and crime on the streets.

Jim Wallis was over here in the UK, and I’m very grateful a friend let me know he would be talking a church.co.uk about his new book Seven Ways to Change the World.

A few nuggets. He didn’t tell us the 7 ways, and although I bought the book, I’ve not got that far, having found a bunch of friends there too, so went to the pub after.

• When asked what had been the things that had got him most into trouble: Going the places you’re not supposed to go, particularly as a white, middle class Christian. Walking past those invisible ‘No Trespassing!’ signs.
• The 2 big hungers in this world are for spirituality and social action. And the movement that combines both of this will set the world on fire.
• People will get excited about this different kind of faith.
• We’re not to just ignore bad news. Revival is the good news for bad news.
• Politics is broken.
• The most effective social movements - Great Awakenings - have happened when politics has failed to address a major social injustice, and have always had a spiritual foundation.
• Faith is what moves the mountains that are the seemingly impossible social injustices: poverty, trafficking, climate change, racial injustice, and so on.
• Social change requires commitment from each one of us. We need to start in our own lives, lead in our communities and that will make a difference on a bigger scale.
• It takes time. Wilberforce put his first Bill forward 9 times, and it took another 30 years before the slave trade itself was made illegal.
• Charles Finney ‘invented’ the altar call; and got each new Christian to sign up to the anti-slavery movement there and then.
• God needs to be real and personal to sustain the commitment and faith that moves mountains.
• Hope is a choice. Cynicism comes from unsuccessful attempts to bring about a change, but instead of persisting, cynicism gives up and declares nothing can ever change.
• Hope means believing in spite of the evidence. Then watching the evidence change.
• Bad religion calls out of us our bad stuff. We’ve seen a lot of bad religion. We want to see more good religion, which calls out of us our good stuff: compassion, action and so on..

Oh, and I didn’t realise he was married to the REAL Vicar of Dibley, one of the first women to be ordained in the UK, who went on to advise Richard Curtis and Dawn French on the show.