Chris Gribble

Be yourself - Everyone else is taken (Oscar Wilde)

ABC’s of Fatherhood – O

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O is for openness. I want to be very open with my children. One of the common experiences of children of my generation is that they never really got to know their fathers. That is they knew about them but they never really got to share some of the more intimate aspects of their life.

I try to be very open with my kids. In many ways that’s easy because of my personality. With people that I know and trust I can be very open. I tend to be more reserved with new acquaintances and unfamiliar circumstances. My children need to see in me the full range of emotions. Not just when I am irritable or enforcing discipline or even frustration because someone has drawn over the covers of our newly covered lounge. They also need to see the other emotions, sadness, disappointment and happiness in a range of situations.

Too often we can be guilty of not having enough time to sit with our kids and explain in their terms what is really going on. So we end up just having closed relationships that only deal with externals. The other day my daughter was talking on the phone to a friend. And she told this friend a whopping story because she thought that no one could hear here. But, I did. That day I took the time to talk to her about why she told the story. I tried to go beyond just dealing with the obvious lie. I had an opportunity to open up to her and say that I love her for who she is not for who she would like to be. I said that she didn’t need to tell stories for people to be her friend and that if they really wanted to be her friend they would like her just the way that she is. We talked about it. We were open. I was open to her about the fact that she was so very special just the way that she was. In the busyness of life it can be easy to just deal with problems quickly.

Openness required the commitment of time and effort into the relationship to ensure that we are able to talk about the stuff that does and doesn’t matter. Because it all matters in some way.

Changing my world – becoming a PPP

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Today I experienced the power of somone who was a positive presence person (PPP). PPP(people) are able to bring people to almost immediately into a positive state of mind.

I walked into a corner store to by a can of pepsi. The young person behind the counter was dressed in a singlet and shorts, was covered in tatoos and had a number of piercings on various appendages. My immediate expectation was that I could expect only a very basic level of customer service. And at worst I could experience a certain amount of contempt.

I was wrong. Completely, totally and utterly wrong.

It started when he served the lady in front of me. He was helpful and smiled and wished here a nice day. I found that my expectation of service was beginning to change. But, she was far more attractive than me and I am a not overly attractive middle aged man.

I was wrong.

It was even better than I thought. Somehow this young man made my purchase of a can of pepsi into one the highlights of my morning. It wasn’t just what he said or how he served me. It wasn’t what he did in the end that made a mundane task into something special.

It was his attitude to life that changed everything. He was a prime example of a PPP. He is an influencer, a leader who is able to change his world.

PPP’s do some of the following things regularly:

  • They change their world, they are not limited by their present context.
  • They change other people’s world – they are a positive influence and are able to change the attitudes of people around them.
  • They don’t worry about their present circumstances – they know that they are not the permanent thing in their life. Attitudes remain with us far longer.
  • They are not lmited by their present circumstances. Hope is a key element of being a PPP. It is a key component of being a whole person, living without hope is living a half life in which we survive with a part of our humanity missing.

 

What sort of worker are you?

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  • Thrill seekers – Do you find challenges in the everyday. Are you able to create an sense of excitement even in the everyday experiences of life.
  • Fear avoiders – These are the workers who want the world to stay the same for ever. And, they resent anyone who wants to upset the status quo. (seth godin)

You will find both of these people in the workplace. The longer that I work the more I realise that there are certain constants that come with work. You will find these personalities and the issues that come with them regularly.

Here are some other constants that I have been thinking about lately:

  1. Conflict – this is the main one that we all will struggle with from time to time.
  2. Relationships – Working with others is a core competency.
  3. Skills – we all need to develop skills that will allow us to perform competently.
  4. Routine – get used to it and be prepared to do the same things regularly even if you have a great job it will require some routine.

There are probably more that I will add to later………

Thanks Adam Walker

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By the way I should thank the appropriate people for the template. Thanks Adam even though I don’t know you for this design. The credit is at the bottom of the page and his site is here.

This template works really well I haven’t found any glitches yet. I still have a bit of tidying up to do but life has been busy in recent days.

Boundaries – what not to do with your children

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Cloud and Townsend (Boundaries) identify four typical ways that people will blur boundaries:

  1. Compliancy
    1. They are afraid of hurting someone by saying no.
    2. Their boundaries are so indistinct anyone is able to cross them and this opens the person up to abuse.
    3. They don’t like to rock the boat and will often give into a child’s demands rather than follow through with consequences
  2. Controlling
    1. This person doesn’t respect others boundaries and will often look for opportunities to intrude in other people’s lives.
    2. Controllers will rarely believe that they have done the wrong thing because they are so consumed with their own needs.
    3. As a parent they will have little understanding of their child’s needs or temperament instead they will enforce their standards or expectations on the child.
    4. Controllers are not really in control, rather they are controlled by their own insecurities and impulses. (For example they will become extremely angry when something doesn’t go their way)
  3. Non- responsives
    1. They are not able to hear the needs of others or see things from another’s perspective.
    2. They often will appear distant from their children. This wall is put up to protect them from further hurt
  4. Avoidants
    1. These people find it hard to accept good things from others Cloud and Townsend say that this is common in men who demonstrate it by finding it hard to accept help or advice.

Australia’s death rate

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Dr Chris Cain, says he is not surprised that the figures show a small drop in the nation’s death rate. (ABC News)
I find this surprising. I always thought it was close to 100%? And, that this figure was fairly stable worldwide?

The influence of parents

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Frederick II the emperor of Germany from 1196 to 1250 was called a wonder of the world by his admiring subjects. He was a keen scientist and conducted the following experiment,

He bade foster mothers and nurses to suckle their children, to bathe and wash them, but in no way to prattle to them, for he wanted to learn whether they would speak the Hebrew language, which was the oldest, or Greek or Latin or Arabic or perhaps the language of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain because all the children died. For they could not live without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers.(Ross and McLaughlin, 1949, p.360)

Children learn to communicate through the messages that they receive from us. They are conditioned by the environment that we provide and are taught by us how to respond. A name given to this is behavioural conditioning.

There is a story about a young psychologist who wanted to train his small son to use the potty. Since children don’t usually find the toilet seat too much fun or too stimulating he decided to change this by bringing an element of pleasure to the toilet environment. He obtained a circus poster of a clown that was colourful and smiling with a big nose. He placed a red light bulb in the nose and switched it on while the child was on the potty. Needless to say the child enjoyed this immensely and as a result wanted to go to the toilet all the time. Later it wasnt too difficult to rig an electrical circuit so that whenever the child urinated the circuit was completed and the nose light up.

This also produced what is called a stimulus generalisation, which means that a stimulus like the original can produce a response like the original. One day the father and the son went on a car ride and were stopped by a red light.

Can you guess what happened?

Choices

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
– GK Chesterton

I think that we all have choices in life. Certain choices are pivotal. I think that what Chesterton says here is very relevant to the sorts of options that we are often faced with. Does the end justify the means we use to achieve that end?

I tend to think that it is the way that we conduct ourselves on the journey that really matters because we can never really know when the end may come.

Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.
– Carl Schurz (1829 – 1906)

Belief and daily life
Few of us apply or know how to apply our belief to our work or lack of work
We make only minimal connections between our faith and our spare time
We have little sense of a Christian approach to routine or monotonous activities
Our everyday activities are partly shaped by the dominant values of our society (Largely shaped?)
Many of our spiritual difficulties stem from the daily pressures we experience
Our everyday concerns do not receive much attention in the church
Only occasionally do theological institutions address everyday life issues
When addressed, everyday issues tend to be approached too theoretically
Only a minority of Christians read theological books or attend theological courses
Most church goers reject the idea of a gap between their beliefs and their way of life

My quote of the day

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About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.
– Josh Billings-

This is very true of most of what is blogged.

Our new house plans

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I wanted to share this because we are just about to start building a new house. This was my son Toby’s input into the process.

Richard Rohr – Manhood principles

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Finding a valid manhood today is not an easy task. We live in a time where men have been forced to reevaluate their roles and in the process of often lost their way. Rohr has developed 5 principles of initiation that men need to realise if they are to really discover their true selves. Like Jesus said, its only those who lose themselves that truly find themselves. These five principles are difficult because they remove one’s self from the centre.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT ABOUT YOU. – I am not the centre of the universe. This is the opposite of the self help mantra which tells us life is all about finding ourselves.

LIFE IS HARD – As we are all aware suffering is universal.
There are two main ways that we deal with this pain:
1. We will become inflexible, blaming and petty as we grow older.

2. We will need other people to hate in order to expel our inner negativity.

3. We will play the victim in some form as a means of false power.

4. We will spend much of our life seeking security and status as a cover-up for lack of a substantial sense of self.

5. We will pass on our deadness to our family, children and friends.

Human beings will do everything under the sun to avoid the problems of me, now, and here.

Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences. All the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience.

YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT

Transformed people tend to transform people (hurt people hurt people).

Herea Copernican revolution of the mind equivalent to that for earthbound humans when they discovered that our planet was not the centre of the universe.

Catholics have made Jesus into a scholastic philosopher, Protestants have made him into a moralist: so when we can’t get a clear moral code or dogma out of Jesus teaching we simply abandoned it in any meaningful sense (so the Sermon on the Mount  the essence of Jesus teaching  is the least quoted in official Church documents

YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL

The essence of modern self-help: Take control of your life!(but the Twelve-Step program teaches that you must admit you are powerless before you can find your true power.

The virtues in the first half of life are about self-control; in the second half about giving up control. This is how we grow:/ By being deciseively defeated by ever greater forces(Rilke).

If you are willing to serenely bear the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter (Therese of Lisieux).

Polarise or focus – its gets things done

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Whatever terminology we use Steve Pavlina has got it right the more we focus on our goals the more we will achieve. The narrower our focus the greater opportunity that we will have for success.

The more polarized you become, the more you tap into your deepest levels of inner power.  Whether you are a darkworker or a lightworker, your source of power is always found within.  It is not a form of agency or positional power.  You could be stripped of all your worldly titles and possessions and still feel just as strong.  As a lightworker your energy flows outward. (source)

And really we need to ask ourselve what sort of impact do we want to have on our world. Those who are truly polarised speak to the world with authority. They are able to energize others and enable them to achieve their goals.

The unpolarised do not have this authority. They are unable to determine right and wrong, what they should or shouldn’t do and so end up failing. They as Steve puts it are the opposite to a lightworker. In the end they draw from others and suck their energy and dampen creativity.

How would I identify a lightworker? What are the characteristics I would look for?

  • Passion coupled with integrity – Without integrity passion can lose its way. 
  • Vision coupled with insight – vision needs discernment.
  • Motivation coupled with compassion – otherwise people can just get used and not valued

I am sure that there are more. What is important is to identify these people and partner with them. Because when two people are polarised together their capacity is developed exponentially.

Creation – according to Bill Cosby

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As Bill Cosby said:

Man invents. God creates. Man invented the automobile. Called it AMAZING! God made a tree said it was good. Man invented the refrigerator. Called it INCREDIBLE! God made a rabbit and called it good. The wheels fell off the car. The refrigerator lost its cool. Tree's still up and rabbit's still running.

Signs of a mid life crisis and how to stay young

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Official definition: A mid-life crisis is an emotional state of doubt and anxiety in which a person becomes uncomfortable with the realization that life is halfway over.There are certain characteristics that are typical. Below is a list of some of these:

  • search of an undefined dream or goal
  • desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
  • acquiring of unusual or expensive items such as clothing, muscle cars, jewelery, gadgets, etc.
  • paying extra special attention to physical appearance
  • need to spend more time alone or with certain peers
  • a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
  • an underlying desire to initiate new sexual partnerships

I need to think about this. I won’t give you my score at the moment but I reckon some of these are a bit close to the mark.

I think one of the bigger issues that I am facing is the realisation of my own mortality. The longer I go on the more I hear about people my age or younger who have died. For most of my life this wouldn’t have been too big of a problem except now I have 4 kids and a wife and I really don’t want to leave them at the moment. But then just the other day I was helping a lady whose husband died tragically leaving his 3 young kids with no father. This is a tragedy and it happens all the time.

That is the emotional side of it. Reality says there is still plenty to go if we abide by the law of averages.

Is this my mid-life crises starting to work itself out in my blog?

I thought that I would add this on how to stay young.

HOW TO STAY YOUNG
1.. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay “them”

2. Keep only cheerful friends .. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer , crafts, gardening , whatever. Never let the brain idle. “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” And the devil’s name is Alzheimer’s.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud . Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music , plants, hobbies , whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable,improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9 Don’t take guilt trips .. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10.Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away ..

And if you don ‘t send this to at least 8 people – who cares! But do share this with someone. We all need to live life to its fullest each day!!

Year 6 – Finding my soul in the workplace

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Ministry in the Workplace

This year began a difficult internal struggle. At first I enjoyed the novelty of teaching at the High School. As time went on I slowly became frustrated with the system. But, I think there was more to it. I continually felt my heart saying that I belonged in ministry. I didn’t doubt that I had done the right thing in studying for a teaching degree. However, I became more certain that I didn’t want to be a Manual Arts teacher for the rest of my life.

I found the Sunday morning services very difficult to attend. I found them boring, irrelevant and often lacking any life as I would understand it. I had to ask myself was it simply because I was no longer the centre of the service? Or perhaps what I was experiencing was the reason why many people drop out of church?

I think that I was searching for a sense of vocation. Where I was able to see a synthesis in my life between work, rest, family, church and play. In my life there was a dichotomy between work and everything else. Work was what I went to and couldn’t wait to be away from. Weekends offered the chance to do things I enjoyed away from something I found tedious.

My entire Christian life had been spent in Christian ministry. For the past 10 years I never had a day where I felt misplaced. Although I hadn’t thought it through I had a sense of vocation. As a Pastor I felt integrated. My personal spiritual life was interwoven with my calling as a church leader.

Eugene Peterson describes in his introduction to “Under the Unpredictable Plant”, the abyss that developed between his private spiritual life and his pastoral life. As I moved away from full time ministry I discovered a gaping hole in my spiritual life. Once the role of Pastor was taken from me I discovered there was a “bad land” of neglected sin and nothingness.

Peterson says that this abyss was not before him but within him. This was also true of myself. No one ever questioned me about my calling. People are mainly concerned about whether you are listening to them, pastoral competency is not usually measure by one’s holiness but by

“Perhaps life is not a race whose only goal is being foremost. Perhaps the truth lies in what most of the world outside the modern west has always believed, namely that there are practices of life good in themselves that are inherently fulfilling. Perhaps work that is intrinsically rewarding is better for human beings than work that is only extrinsically rewarded. Perhaps enduring commitment to those we love and civic friendship toward our fellow citizens are preferable to restless competition and anxious self-defense. Perhaps common worship, in which we express out gratitude and wonder in the face of mystery of being itself, is the most important thing of all. If so we will have to change our lives and begin to remember what we have been happier to forget.”[2]

When I read this quote from Tim Costello’s book, “Tips from a travelling soul searcher”, my heart responded with a fervent, “Yes. This is what I want.” What I desired was not to be the biggest and the best but to be able to strive within myself to discover that contentment. Without a synthesis of work, worship, rest and play I would always fall short of this mark.

The difficulty I faced was how do I do this when I really felt that I should be doing something else? Sometimes when sharing this with other people they would quote scriptures that tells us to be content in all circumstances, or they would give the sound advice that we can serve God wherever we are. Both statements are totally correct but I think these responses are similar to Job’s friends’ evaluation of his plight. Their conclusions didn’t quite hit their target. They may be true sometimes but they don’t deal with the whole problem.

There were the obvious things that I needed to work on. My attitude stunk. I was talking myself in believing from the very beginning of each day that I hated my work. I told myself that I was dealt with unfairly by administration and that I wasn’t well supported when dealing with difficult students or fellow staff members.

[1] Peterson, E., 1992, Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eerdmans, Chicago.

[2] Costello, T. Tips from a travelling soul searcher, P. 78

We’ ve found Jesus – Again

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Does this sound familiar?

Jesus had a son named Judah and was buried alongside Mary Magdalene, according to a new documentary by Hollywood film director James Cameron.(BBC)

It is true for religion as well as every other aspect of life that we sometimes seem to just want to go around in the same tired old circles. It seems that this particular one has still got a few rounds left in it.
They don’t mention that all this was found 30 years ago and that they were not believed to the the amazing discovery that is being touted at the moment.

Anyway it doesn’t matter really. It just shows how easily we are caught up in something that is obviously false and rather tired.

The trouble is that this is often the way that we live life. The search for truth is lost in our fascination with the bizarre and the trivial.

Local residents said they were pleased with the attention the tomb has drawn.“It will mean our house prices will go up because Christians will want to live here,” one woman said.

I think that this sums up this “latest discovery” by this director. Forget what is true and get people arguing about it. There will be some money there for someone?

Cutting back

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I realised the other day that in an information saturated world that I just can’t keep up. I am interested in many things including:

  • Blogging
  • Online learning
  • Open source software
  • Web 2.0
  • 2nd LIfe
  • Theology
  • Family
  • Work
  • Christian living
  • Personal development

And I am sure that there are more. In fact I am an intensely curious person. I love learning and enjoy people. My Bloglines account reflected my interest in many of the things that I have listed above. But, I couldn’t keep up any longer. Even though Steve Pavlina (who I admire greatly) can read at a thousand words a minute, absorb it and do something with that information I can’t. So after missing 1236 articles from Wired I decided that something had to be done.
So I have decided to stop.

I spent some time paring down my Bloglines account.

Here are the people that I read about now:

  • The Blog Herald – to keep up with the Blogosphere – they do a great job of keeping me up to date to the
  • Pro-Blogger – I am not sure if I will keep this one. Darren has put out a lot of great posts but I find I get a little bored with the content. It seems to be the same stuff over and over. But if I ever want to research about what to do to create a professional blog this is the one that I would start with.
  • Steve Addison – World Changers blog. I love the stuff that he shares it inspires me to want to do great things as well.
  • Tech Crunch – Either you love or hate Arrington there are plenty of people with plenty of opinions about him but it can’t be denied that this is the definitive blog to stay in touch with what’s happening in the web world.
  • Steve Pavlina – A great example of what to do when no-one else is doing it and succeed.

That’s about it. There are a few more but these are the ones who post most regularly and who I tend to read most of their posts.