Author: Leighton Carr

The Yellow Wallpaper

We arrived at our holiday apartment in London, looked around (delighted) brought in the luggage (vast) and settled down on lovely sofas with a glass of wine (exhausted). Then The Clever One started to tell me a story she had heard on the radio the day before.

A woman was staying in an attic room in an old house. Every day from her attic she saw her husband go off to work in the morning and come home in the evening. At first all was well, but soon she started to notice that there was a line developing around the walls where the wallpaper had been scratched away, just above the skirting at first, but getting higher and higher each day. The woman was completely trapped in this attic room, literally locked in, and frightened because more of the wallpaper was disappearing each day until the whole wall was bare at least as high as she could reach. It was a sinister story, a ghost story perhaps.

Throughout the story I had shown a mild interest –  all I could muster after a long day – but I thought I did pretty well.  Soon afterwards I fished around in various bags to bring out one of the huge number of books I had brought with me. I had chosen a book of sermons by Archbishop Carnelly, one time Archbishop of Australia, called ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. When The Clever One walked into the room and saw the book she exclaimed “that’s it! That’s the story I heard on the radio yesterday. It was called ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”. We checked it out more closely and yes, the sermon of that title after which the book had been named was based on the same story heard on the radio.

It turns out that the woman was in the attic for her own good because her doctor husband thought it would be good for her after getting pregnant to be isolated, to ‘rest up’. She hated it, and gradually fell into increasing insanity, which expressed itself by her gradually stripping the yellow wallpaper off the wall. In her mind the wallpaper held the demons she was trying to exorcise. She locked herself in the room and threw the key out of the window so no-one could get in. By the time the husband came to his senses and broke into the room (clever but not bright, it turns out) she had stripped all the wallpaper off all the walls as high as she could reach. In the words of Archbishop Carnelly, a chilling story of insanity.

Unsurprisingly this was the sermon I read that night. Also unsurprisingly I paid attention. That’s what serendipity is for. When we notice it.

Inverted Virtues

At a recent visit to Knole House in Kent one of the volunteers made a mistake. The main staircase has a painted tableaux of the Virtues. In one of them a king is seen ruling over subjects. The volunteer ran through the five virtues displayed and when she arrived at this one she described it as the virtue of ‘Monarchy’.

When The Clever One with me queried whether that was right (‘is there really a virtue called ‘Monarchy?’) the volunteer’s plucky trainee said of course, it was in the interest of the monarchs who owned the house to show ‘Monarchy’ as a virtue. (It should be said that the monarch only owned the house after Archbishop Cranmer had been forced to make it a gift to Henry VIII –  a example of the virtue of Monarchy at work, no doubt.

As we walked on to the gallery of royalty and archbishops I questioned it too. The Clever One muttered under her breath that the virtue was actually ‘Submission’. That made much more sense. How often to we invert the virtues and give ourselves a pat on the back, I wondered.

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.

Maths Textbooks and Thrillers

When I was at school maths textbooks were designed to allow the student mathematician to progress in a systematic and orderly way from one concept to another, and from one subject to another. The necessities of the subject demanded that if prose were needed it would be sparse and clear, sufficient and subservient to the requirements of logic and concept, and most importantly, formatted under Section Headings to guide the student forward.

In contrast to maths textbooks, American crime thrillers – my favourite genre – use no Section Headings (generally) and more prose, but they are equally effective at keeping the reader locked into a specific place in the story. As in maths, one thing follows another, but unlike maths, the signposts can be more subtle and yet there nonetheless.

The contrast between maths textbooks and American crime thrillers came to mind as I was skimming through some leadership books in the bookshop on Paddington Station. Leadership books often deal with process, in a narrative of sorts, and yet they fail reach the effectiveness of either a simple maths textbook or an elegant crime thriller. Why are leadership textbooks so ineffective?

Perhaps it’s because they fall between the two camps of logic and story that they manage to do neither efficiently. Which is in tis own way a parable of much leadership practice.

Or perhaps it’s because leadership is best caught from others not taught from books.

Sunday Worship

11.00am. Buzzing. Crowded. All ages. All types. Especially families. Not many older people. Engaging presentations. Great lighting. Music – could be different but not overwhelming. Building – big and dull(ish) but lots to look at. Great kit – TVs. Sofas. Bistro. Bistro! Good coffee and snacks.

Ahhh … I love Ikea on Sunday mornings.

Fuzziness

If you see a one-man-band consultant in business it’s a fair and reasonable questions to ask, where are his weaknesses.\n\nSome areas must be fuzzy. Administration perhaps? Finance? Communication?\n\nAnd what’s fuzzy in their consultancy will be fuzzy in your organisation.\n\nSo beware.\n\nHowever, when it comes to church leadership, we love one-man-band leaders.\n\nThey save us so much effort and responsibility and so …\n\nWe may say they are multi-talented.\n\nWe may say look at how they can do anything they are given to do.\n\nWe may say how well they face difficult situations.\n\nWe may even say that this is obviously the anointing of God.\n\nBut beware.\n\nNo-one can do it all. Some areas must be fuzzy.\n\nAnd what’s fuzzy in their character will be fuzzy in your church.\n\nWhere’s the fuzziness? Where’s YOUR fuzziness?\n\nAnd who knows?