Sabbath

I can’t take a day off. I don’t get it. Why sit down in some place devoid of activity and purposeful attainment when I could be achieving, supporting, producing, and generally propping up the rickety structure that is my life? Or why take a day off when all the chores need to be done?

I can’t take a day off, which is why I observe the Sabbath. One day a week not spent chasing the things that so easily become temptations –  ambitions and appetites. It’s a religious observance but not out of a sense of religious perfectionism, but out of a sense of grateful thankfulness that everything I am responsible for is not ultimately dependent on me.

It’s difficult to change the rhythm of life, and this has not been easy, but the introduction of a Sabbath has been the most significant change in my lifestyle – ever. Try it: it is to be highly recommended.

Parables of Leadership: Foundations

A large, fine, lush, fertile, plot of ground.\r\n\r\nAnd the owner.\r\n\r\nA Man – energetic, creative -\r\n\r\nWho digs Foundations.\r\n\r\nAt first, here for a house.\r\n\r\nAnd then there, for a barn.\r\n\r\nThen over there under the trees. For a summer house.\r\n\r\nThen on the boundary. For a set of gates.\r\n\r\nAnd so on.\r\n\r\nAnd so on.\r\n\r\nAt the end of autumn (as winter approached) he looked up and saw\r\n\r\nWhat was once\r\n\r\nHis large, fine, lush, fertile, plot of ground\r\n\r\nBut which was now\r\n\r\nHacked and excavated and heaped up and sterilised.\r\n\r\nA field of trenches.\r\n\r\nAnd then it rained.\r\n\r\nAnd then it snowed.\r\n\r\nAnd then he remembered.\r\n\r\nDo one thing at a time.

Parables of Leadership: Bob’s Litter

The word that summed up Bob’s day was ‘LITTER’. He was sitting in bed in the dark. His wife was asleep beside him and he had only his own mind to explore. As he rummaged around in his day’s thoughts he noticed all the discarded wrappers that had packed his best ideas and that now lay like litter cluttering up his inner world. It was just like his office, he thought. Or his car. Or his computer – especially his computer, where the litter had proliferated to such an extent that he could no longer keep track of all the folders and sub-folders and favourites and websites and images and snippets of word and sound and clips and software. As he lay there thinking he realised, he had so much litter that he had lost all the good ideas that had been inside the wrappers.