So you think you work hard?

This is almost the title of Lucy Kellaway’s column in today’s FT about working hours. It makes interesting reading.\r\n\r\nA summary is that most of us overestimate the amount of TIME we say we work in a week. We simply don’t do the number of hours productive work we say we do.\r\n\r\nApparently the amount we overestimate is related to two main factors. The first is our seniority – the more senior we are the more we exaggerate. For example a doctor overestimates more than a nurse, a lawyer more than a paralegal. This has been proved by research undertaken by professors in Oxford and Maryland.\r\n\r\nThe second factor is, ironically, the number of hours we work: the longer we work in a week the more we exaggerate the number of hours we think we have worked. For example, if we have worked 37 hours we are likely to overestimate an additional 3 hours and say we’ve worked 40 hours. But if we work 50 hours we can easily claim we work 75 hours, not because we are intentionally lying, but simply because we misconceive our working week due probably to overwork.\r\n\r\nThe professors suggest two reasons for this exaggeration: if we perceive our work as important we then overestimate our involvement in it; and if we see work as a badge of honour we tend to overestimate the time we have put into it.\r\n\r\nI read Ms Kellaway’s article this morning after a gentle workout in the gym. Later in the day I read Abbot Jamison’s chapter on Pride where surprisingly he also adds a slant on working hours. Imagine if, when someone says they are busy, we say to them ‘Oh I’m sorry to hear that”. They would think we had misunderstood, because “being busy being important” is one manifestation of success in the busy culture we find ourselves living in.\r\n\r\nAbbot Jamison points out that hard work is not wrong, but excessive work which excludes other dimensions of life should be criticised. He goes further to say that it is possible that people who appear to be working hard are not doing so at all. Rather ‘their self-designation as busy is a self-important way of covering up their laziness and keeping the rest of life at bay.’ Bill Hybels makes a similar point when he says that extreme busyness can in fact be the dark side of ‘sloth’, a way of avoiding responsibilities that should be fulfilled but are instead slothfully neglected.\r\n\r\nOf course, whatever the reasons behind our exaggeration of the time we work, or even the excessive work we do, the fact is that the number of hours worked is not usually the correct measure of value. Even though I know this to be true I still frequently find it disconcerting when I reflect on my week and the low actual output achieved. I’m obsessive about measuring time, to the great bemusement of my (more casual) friends, and for as long as I can remember I have recorded my use of time on a daily basis. I know that almost without exception the time I spend on productive output or learning is far less than I imagined or hoped for.\r\n\r\nMs Kellaway finishes her article by noting that a successful writer friend, who never looks busy, when pressed said he worked about five hours a week. That sounds about right.

… and …

I thought I’d update my Linkedin profile. I haven’t paid it any attention for months, but I thought it might be worth improving if only on the grounds that it is another public representation of … me.\r\n\r\nIt was harder than I expected.\r\n\r\nMy friend Rob Hook from the Business Copilot asked\r\n\r\n”What’s your headline? The one thing you want to say about yourself? To put up front?”\r\n\r\nWell I don’t have one thing.\r\n\r\nPriest … AND … Painter … AND … Preacher …\r\n\r\nAND … Designer … AND … Vision Caster … AND … Administrator …\r\n\r\nAND … Counsellor … AND … manager AND … writer …\r\n\r\nAND … so on … AND … so on.\r\n\r\nTo be honest, it’s wearing trying to define each point of focus without loosing the other. It’s like having a target with multiple bullseyes.\r\n\r\nStill, it has to be done, because at the moment I’m floating somewhere between targets, let alone bullseyes, and I’m liable to hit nothing.\r\n\r\nMy Linkedin profile … here

Seeds in the pocket?

This week I read Mark chapter 4. The parables of seeds.\r\n\r\nThere was enough in the first parable (“… of the sower”) to keep me puzzling for a long time …\r\n\r\n(are ALL parables really like this as says Jesus? and did Jesus’ theology came fully formed, day one, sermon one, or did it develop over three years? and so on)\r\n\r\n… so that I almost missed the second parable as I got up to leave -\r\n\r\n-  “… of the man with seeds in his pocket”.\r\n\r\nThe story is simple enough. A man takes seeds out of his pocket and throws them to the ground. He goes home, goes to bed, gets up, goes to bed, gets up, and guess what, the seeds grow. How? He doesn’t know. The seeds, and the earth, together, produce life – shoots, stalks, harvest.\r\n\r\nUnlike in the first parable, the man in the second parable is just a man, not a farmer, so there’s no confusion that it’s the seed and the soil that do the work, not the skill of the man.\r\n\r\nThe man just throws the seeds out of his pocket.\r\n\r\nWhatever else you might think this story shows, we could probably agree that seeds in the pocket are no good. Seeds have to be in the ground.\r\n\r\nSo …\r\n\r\nThis week I have been throwing seeds out of my pockets.\r\n\r\nA letter here. A meeting there. A phone call. A conversation. A prayer. \r\n\r\nIt turns out that my pockets are full of seeds. It was a surprise. I usually spend so long trying to grow trees in my pockets that I couldn’t see the seeds for the trees, and hadn’t realised that there were other seeds to sow, and that …\r\n\r\n… the Kingdom of God works this way.\r\n\r\nAnd for more on fruit see Seasonal Fruit

Seasonal Fruit

1st October.\r\n\r\nNew month. New cycle of psalms.\r\n\r\nThe Coverdale translation of the Psalms in the Book of Common Prayer is tolerable (just about, to my modern mind) because of the benefits of pattern, structure and rhythm the daily division of the Psalter offers to my life.\r\n\r\nEvery day, for thirty days, morning and evening, the Psalms packaged up to be read in a month.\r\n\r\nOn a month with 31 days I read the Ordinal – the ordination service – on the 31st, which follows straight after the Psalms. It’s good to remind myself what God, my Bishop and the church requires of me.\r\n\r\nBut today, the 1st October, as I turned back to Psalm 1, I paused at the Commination, a little known and hardly used public liturgy describing sins and judgements found in the Bible. It’s been a while since I read it and so this morning I spent a few minutes going through it, I have to say reasonably quickly because it’s not the most enjoyable text in the book.\r\n\r\nAfter the initial introduction and responses, the Commination doesn’t hold back on painting a pretty bleak picture of God’s judgement. There are no paragraphs, just one great block of unrelenting text. And about a fifth of the way through it says this:\r\n

‘For now is the axe put to the root of the trees,\r\n so that every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit\r\n is hewn down, and cast into the fire.’

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That goes to the heart of the fear and guilt many Evangelicals face when they reflect on their life.

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Fruitlessness.

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How many times have I sat under a sermon where the preacher has expected action on my part – where action equals fruit – from ‘winning the lost’ to serving the poor. And yet most days are just – ordinary days. Up, eat, work, home, eat, TV, bed. Sometimes a home group or PCC meeting (do they count?).

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The good pastor doesn’t leave the congregation without hope, but turns the page from the Commination to Psalm 1 to paint the whole picture.

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‘Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the way of sinners …\r\n But his delight is in the law of the Lord…\r\n And he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside:\r\n that will bring forth his fruit in due season.\r\n His leaf shall not wither:\r\n and look, whatsoever he doeth, it shall prosper.’

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Of course, we remember, fruit is seasonal.

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Nowhere in the garden do we have continual fruit. For two years our blackcurrent bush was fruitless while it bedded in but our apple tree – in it’s season – was prolific. The strawberries weren’t as fruitful as we had hoped, but in due course some fruit appeared. The chillies were great, the tomatoes were small. And so on.

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That’s not to say that we aren’t surprised sometimes by unseasonal fruit, or that there aren’t other times which we expect to be fruitful that turn out not to be, at least as far as we can see with our limited perspective.

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But we should be encouraged. This psalm reminds us that while waiting for seasonal fruit the tree can be still be thriving. It’s a picture of flourishing, not a picture of a long winter between seasons of fruit.

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And the secret to thriving? Be planted in the right place.

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We may not be able to force out the fruit, but we can take control of our garden.

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And for more on fruit see Seeds in my Pocket

The Mindfulness of Meditation

What do the Singapore Government, the IMF, Bridgewater (the world’s biggest hedge fund), and Pimco (global investment advisers) have in common?

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They all have senior executives who meditate every day.

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In an article in the FT this week a number of senior executives described how they are committed to meditation.

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Mr Peter Ng, the Chief Investment Officer of the Government of Singapore, meditates for twenty minutes two times a day. Mr Ng is in charge of tens of billions of dollars of investments. He says,

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“quieting the mind can help managers conserve energy in daily work life …. and bring greater clarity … and greater clarity makes you more orderly”.

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Sean Hagen of the IMF says that mediation …

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“… helps you focus, which is a good skill, and encourages a ‘one-thing-at-a-time’ approach, which helps slow things down”

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The other benefits listed are achieving equanimity, gaining perspective, increasing decision making skills, and removing ‘confirmation bias’ – the tendency to seek out information that supports your own point of view to the exclusion of data that might be right but contradictory.

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I read this article on Thursday morning and later that day I met up with a fellow leader who showed me cuttings from four different broadsheet newspapers this week on the same subject – meditation in business.

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It seems that meditation is having a good week.

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Which led me to puzzle over two things.

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First, none of these executives linked meditation to religion. They practised ‘secular’ meditation for its intrinsic benefits. So how does that compare to the practise of meditation by people leading the church, where meditation has a rich tradition in spiritual formation?

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I wondered how many church leaders (and that’s not just ordained or licensed people) have the same discipline of regular meditation as these successful businessmen.

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It’s worth some research to find out.

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Somehow I suspect that the findings would be disappointing, certainly if the gauge of successful meditation includes equanimity, perspective, increased decision making skills, and (especially) removing confirmation bias (look at most church mission strategies).

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The second puzzle was this. None of these executives related meditation to religion, and yet the Christian tradition has 2,000 years of expertise in developing high quality, life enhancing,  personal meditation skills. How did we loose the high ground on this?

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Answering this question runs the risk becoming being an academic exercise, so perhaps time would be better spent reflecting on the more important question of how Christian meditation leading to spiritual formation could open new avenues of engagement with people around us.

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After all, meditation in the Christian tradition is not restricted to the elite – either of the world’s financiers or even the church. Rather, Jesus’ guidance given in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded by an office worker, was for everyone to ‘Find a secluded place …. and be there as simply and honestly as you can manage’*.

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*Matthew chapter 6 verse 6:  [The Message version]

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From Fisherman to Shepherd – Peter’s New Commission

In John chapter 21 the story is told of Peter fishing when he should have been waiting for Jesus. With the death of Jesus and the uncertain state of affairs Peter faced a key question: What was he meant to do with his life? Was he really meant to go back to fishing?\r\n\r\nJesus answered the question for him. Peter was to change vocation – from fisherman to shepherd.\r\n\r\nIt’s interesting that at the beginning of his ministry Jesus called Peter and said “you’re a fisherman, I’ll make you a fisher of men.”\r\n\r\nBy the end of his ministry Jesus said to Peter, “I’m a shepherd, now you be a shepherd.”\r\n\r\nIn the first case, Jesus, who wasn’t a fisherman, worked with what Peter could offer – his natural skills and training as an expert fisherman. That’s good leadership on Jesus’ part – recognising natural gifts and using them as an entry into ministry.\r\n\r\nBut Jesus didn’t leave him there.\r\n\r\nJesus offered Peter the opportunity to do something he had never done before, a  new purpose in an area where Peter didn’t have outstanding natural abilities.\r\n\r\nThis time Jesus was the expert and Peter was the novice.\r\n\r\nIn the church we love people with expertise. We generally think that anyone with a natural ability will be able to keep using that skill to  ‘keep the show on the road’. But Jesus’ doesn’t just want our expertise. He wants us to reach a point where he can say right, now take on something that’s not so natural, something you will have to grow into.\r\n\r\nIt might be praying for people to be healed. It might be developing a prophetic gift, or going out on a mission team. It might mean leaving the comfort of working in area where your natural competence brings you satisfaction and even recognition and the pride of a job well done. You never know, it might mean becoming a shepherd.\r\n\r\nThe abilities Peter needed to fulfil this new vocation were latent in him waiting to be developed (and quickly – the church was about to be born in a dramatic fashion) but he had the same three teachers that we have today to help him.\r\n

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  • He had the model of Jesus to examine and reflect  upon.
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  • He would also have the Holy Spirit within him guiding him.
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  • And he would have his fellow Christians to support and help him.
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\r\nSo, are you looking for new purpose or direction? Peter’s story reminds us that when Jesus gives us a new purpose we shouldn’t assume it’s something we know about or have done before.

Dialogues on Prayer

It’s good to talk.

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And it’s good to talk about prayer.

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How do you pray? I like to keep a note book for long term prayers. I like to spend time in the early morning, and some times during the day. I’m thinking of getting a cheap digital watch to remind me to pray every hour.

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Too many of my prayers are self-serving or self-seeking. Too few emerge out of thanksgiving and praise, and joy.

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Sometimes at night my wife says “You pray”. And then after a long pause while I’m trying to find a positive prayer she’ll say “Say thank you”.

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I love to talk about prayer and how to pray.

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But talking about prayer is literally like talking about talking. It’s like asking, “tell me, how do you talk?”

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In the end talking about talking either indicates a communication problem (why do you always say …?) or it’s simply a wasted opportunity to talk about meaningful things.

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And so it is with talking about prayer. Is there a problem with prayer? Let’s talk about it. Otherwise, let’s pray.

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(written in The Lodge on the Park, Starbucks, Aztec West)

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