Quickly from Singapore ...

As if I were Dr Who in his Tardis, here I am in Singapore, jet-lagged and wide awake at 0530 local time, 2235 back home in Coventry. Travelling is so much easier on family life these days; I've just signed off from an internet chat with Catherine so I feel up-to-date in all the important ways - the day has gone well back home and everyone there is safe.

I'm here in Singapore for just 3 days - silly silly timing, but the only way I could squeeze the trip into a busy work schedule back home. Why so important to come to Singapore? because Louis Chen is turning 70, and the local Maths and Stats departments organized a special conference in his honour.

And we do that sort of thing in my job: we go to birthday conferences for old and dear friends, and we celebrate all they have achieved - in Louis' case a very great amount of achievement indeed - and we do business; we give talks (mine seemed to go well), we make new friends, we get new ideas (my list of things to think about has extended substantially).

I expect wedding parties in 1st century Palestine were like that too; the occasion itself mattering hugely, but all sorts of useful business and contacts and alliances being made on the sidelines.

Does it help or hinder the churchwarden side of my life? well it certainly makes life more complicated, and means I have to re-jig my participation on rotas in complicated ways, and rely on friends to cover for me. On the other hand - I've blogged on this before - church communities and academic research communities have some remarkable similarities, and that does help. In both cases, when you get really down to what matters, it's the people and their relationships. Not in a vacuous fuzzy warm-feeling kind of way - both kinds of communities have jobs to do, and hard edges, and discipline (indeed the church must have pretty much invented the idea of discipline - think "disciple"!) - but because when all is said and done it's people who are at the heart of things.

Which is where I came in, because when I woke up for this wakeful spell I found myself preparing my talk for Sunday week 0930 service. I think I've got the three or four main points sorted. Not only do they all start with the same letter, but they are actually all the same phrase. Well, here in Singapore at 0530 local time the passage seems to be saying just one thing to our people, just one thing very loud, very clear, very distinct. We'll see ...

Making a difference

Some of the most powerful moments in drama are concerned with peoples' need to feel they are making a difference. Consider the famous "Band of brothers" speech in Shakespeare's Henry V

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or the dark and moving "Battle of the line" speech from the cult SF TV and film series "Babylon 5"

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But how do we make a difference? The desire does not guarantee the result.

There's a saying I can't track down, that one invariably achieves much less than one hopes in a single year, but on the other hand one often achieves much more than one could imagine in five years. This rings true for me. Last week we as churchwardens wrote down what we hoped to have achieved after 12 months. All I could hope for was to have made a start on my key objective. But in five years it is possible that the accumulated systematic effect of steady application might make a difference.

I think it is easy to get distracted by the modern cult of performance targets and measurement. The Hawthorne effect claims to account for much measured performance improvement as arising simply from the effect of people being studied, rather than the intrinsic merits of any particular change. Thus one can form the impression that alterations in strategy, variations in detail, reorganizations of structure, all provably lead to dramatic measurable improvements after definite and quite short periods of time - and then be continually disappointed when these changes do not translate into effective change in one's own experience. All because the measured changes arose from the good effects of extra attention being paid to the subjects of the original experiment, not at all from the technological innovation. (It's only fair to note that the wikipedia reference above says that the existence of the Hawthorne effect is hotly disputed by certain social scientists. Fair enough, but also reasonable to note the vested interest; such people would tend to dispute it, wouldn't they ...) 

Personally I lean to the view that what makes the difference is personal relationships.  When people feel valued, when they notice that they are being attended to, when they are convinced that what they are doing is worth while, will make a difference, then they are prepared to make extraordinary efforts over long periods of time. And all these prerequisites are delivered in the currency of careful personal relationships, and nurtured over substantial periods in which consistent attention is paid to the things that really matter.

What have I got to prove this? It's all anecdotal of course, but I recall the six or so years I spent in Hull as an ordinary member of a church there, and seeing how it took most of that time for many people to learn to trust an incoming southerner and decide I might not after all be some transient who would inflict bright ideas on them and then shoot off somewhere else, leaving them to pick up the pieces. Or the twenty years I have spent in my present department, and noticing how the leadership when I arrived was determined to trust people to do the best they could, and how that has over the decades built a community committed to excellence - not just individually but corporately too.

If you want to make a difference, then sometimes the way to make the difference is to spend the time, the days, the years, even the decades, consistently focussed on building trust and cooperation. In the language of mathematics, big changes come from small perturbations directed towards the same end over a long period of time. Bit of a moral there, not just for a churchwarden fortunate enough already to be serving a wonderful community, but also for people wanting to make a difference at work, or when joining a church, or when contributing to a more general enterprise ...

This weekend after a very busy week ...

This weekend after a very busy week I had to prepare a talk for church, and also a talk for work on Monday. This is one of the talks, in lieu of my weekly blog ...

HTC 1100, 13 June 2010

Nehemiah 2:1-10

Introduction

Here is the story so far of our Old Testament reading. We begin with Nehemiah, son of Hacaliah, an exiled Jew living in a country far far away from his homeland. Nehemiah rises to the very top of the civil service of the mighty Persian Empire. He is cupbearer to the king Artaxerxes – I had to look this up to find out what it meant – think of someone who is always close to the king, who is at the king's hand for every discussion, every council, who is trusted to ensure that the king's wines contain no poisons, who is responsible for the safety of the king's signet ring, and for the king's finances. Think of a combination of chief finance officer, presidential aide, and commander of security. Nehemiah has come a long long way.

Nehemiah will hear all the politics, know all the concerns, be able to name all the main players in the machinery that runs the Persian Empire. He will be aware that Artaxerxes has had to deal with two major revolts – one in Egypt that lasted 5 years, another in northern Mesopotamia in a highly sensitive region, close to the aggressive Greek city-states who soundly beat the Persians 35 years ago at Salamis, and who may be looking for an excuse for a further play-off.

Nehemiah will also know that someone who has risen so high is also someone who has far to fall. You'll remember similar Egyptian officials mentioned much earlier in the story of Joseph, a cupbearer and a baker who are cast into prison by Pharaoh when things go wrong. In that earlier story, the cupbearer is restored to his former high position, but the baker comes off very badly and loses his head literally. It is dangerous to be the confidant of a king.

And last week we heard of Nehemiah's reaction to shocking news from home, brought by his trusted brother Hanani (Nehemiah 1:2); his home city of Jerusalem remains a shambles, defenceless, walls broken down, gates burned to ashes; a previous attempt to restore the defenses has failed completely and indeed is now forbidden by imperial decree (Ezra 4:7-23).

1: Praying that feels

Nehemiah is shattered by this news, and in last week's OT reading we heard how he turned to prayer. Note the timing and the place: Kislev (Nehemiah 1:1) is a winter month, perhaps the end of November; Susa is the Persian winter palace, far to the East, perhaps 200 miles east of Babylon, four months hard travelling from Jerusalem. Nehemiah engages in focussed and determined prayer for some time, weeps, wonders what to do, worships, waits.

Nisan (Nehemiah 2:1) is a spring month, perhaps end of March. Nehemiah has waited four months, four months of distress and concern for his people, four months of wondering. The waiting and the weeping come at a cost; Nehemiah's face starts to show the strain. This is not cheap detached prayer, it is not an interesting intellectual or spiritual exercise. This is prayer that arises out of commitment, out of care, out of a deep and profound grief and sorrow. Suddenly, disastrously, unexpectedly, the king notices. Nehemiah's personal tragedy intrudes at the worst possible time, just as he is fulfilling his position of trust by bringing wine to the king.

Remember the Joseph story, and the sense that cupbearers and other officials can fall from favour suddenly and fatally. Ancient historians tell us, such people were expected always to show their joy at being in the king's presence. Bringing their personal concerns to the king's service was highly unprofessional, and not a habit that would at all recommend them to a life-insurance salesman. Nehemiah's head is still on his shoulders, but he may already be a dead man walking. Nehemiah 2:2b: “I was very much afraid”. All Nehemiah can do is tell the truth to the king about his sadness.

2: Praying that plans

When I was a very young Christian, a friend said to me, if I knew that my prayer was going to be answered then would I dare to pray at all? It's a thought to bear in mind, to help us focus our prayers on what is really on our hearts, to get to the connection expressed by our Lord when He encourages us to ask for what we really want (eg, Matthew 7:7). Here we see Nehemiah's committed and focussed prayers being answered before his very eyes. Firstly, the king responds not with anger but a question (Nehemiah 2:4, “What is it you want?”). Nehemiah clearly sees that this is the crucial moment, takes an instant to ask his God for help, and …

… suddenly the king and Nehemiah are engaged in sorting out a major renovation and re-ordering project, planning details, times, letters of instruction, letters of protection, everything.

It leads me to wonder exactly what kind of praying we should think Nehemiah has been doing in those past four months. My own picture of prayer is sometimes rather limited, constrained to set phrases, set patterns of behaviour. But when I see Nehemiah coming straight out with his shopping list, knowing exactly how long he needs, aware of all sorts of practical details, I just have to wonder whether much of those four months might have been spent by Nehemiah planning out matters in great detail before his mighty Lord. Something along the lines of, Almighty God, if somehow you were to choose me to do something about this, if somehow you were to make it possible for me to go, then I'd need such and such amount of wood for the gates, and I'd need letters of protection along the way, and the best place to get the wood is probably by contacting Asaph the local forest warden, and …

praying that plans, indeed.

Nehemiah knew the risks he was taking, bringing this matter before the king. But he would have also known there was a chance of being able to reverse the previous imperial policy, of getting the king to back the rebuilding of Jerusalem as an opportunity to build up a strong community loyal to Artaxerxes in a key area of his empire. I don't think Nehemiah left behind his knowledge and his experience when he got down on his knees. Nehemiah's praying was praying that planned.

My own view of prayer was greatly enlarged the other week when I visited the 24/7 prayer rooms in Priory Row. Let me recommend that to you, as we face our own challenging times here in Coventry. I found myself writing, and drawing, and covering my hands with sticky red paint, all in different kinds of praying; very liberating, very creative, very inspiring. Don't miss out on the 24/7 prayer room – it's a wonderful experience. Make time some evening this week to drop by for an hour (though if you are like me then to your great surprise you'll find yourself wanting to spend longer!). And let's all do prayer that plans, each in our own way, as we face change and opportunities in the next few years, because the Bible's story of this faithful man, praying creatively in a crisis, this story is there to encourage us to look and pray and plan beyond the crisis, to see what the Lord wants us to do here and now.

3: Praying that goes forth

And finally, Nehemiah's praying is the praying of someone who is ready to go forth. He sets out on a four month journey, leaving behind the comfort and privilege of a life at court, facing 12 years as governor rebuilding his city. There will be careful implementation of the original vision; dealing with a demoralized community always ready to turn against itself; night after night of anxious watching, dealing with disappointments and false prophets, seeking to restore a sense of commonwealth and (Nehemiah 2:10) always the deep jealousy and unremitting hostility from powerful locals who want the project to collapse and fail. Time and again in the remainder of this account, the personal voice of Nehemiah breaks through to say, remember me, oh Lord, remember how difficult it has been for me, remember how hard I have had to work and how lonely it has been, and don't let it all be for nothing.

I wonder sometimes how Nehemiah might have thought of himself and his own times. Nehemiah 1 conveys the sense of someone who is aware of how deeply his own people have offended the Lord God, how necessary Nehemiah finds it to repent. (As the leader of the 0930 service said today, in a phrase which for me had the impact of a word of knowledge, “we need to be honest about our brokenness, or else we only have a soft gospel”.) I think perhaps Nehemiah would have seen himself as simply not in the same league as the Bible characters who came before him, who worked miracles, and fought successful battles, and defied overwhelming odds. But when I think of what Nehemiah and his colleagues did, how they worked together to use the opportunities and trust they had gained by service in a huge empire, all to restore God's people and to deliver their city; when I think of the care and planning and commitment they showed, not in winning great battles but in careful and astute management to make sure the battles never happened, why then I think of them as absolute stars. So Nehemiah and his colleagues are a wonderful example to us today, both to each of us separately and also as the community of Holy Trinity in the heart of Coventry; to use the position and the voice we have gained in this city to recommend to people the Kingdom of God; to learn to work with other Christians in the Lord's service, to learn to pray with feeling, to learn to pray through planning, and to be ready to pray the prayers that go forth, into whatever future the Lord has planned for us.

I was going to say “Amen”,
but really this is only the beginning ...

Kingston upon Hull: city of romance and mystery

We went back to Hull yesterday, to help celebrate the civil partnership of a very dear friend. A wonderful party; it's amazing to meet friends again after (ahem!) a year or two ... Some excellent evening entertainment too, including our friend's erstwhile neighbour, the really impressive Ted Key. Try the following for an example of how to make basic mathematics deeply attractive to your average punter.

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My first job was in Hull, at the University, teaching sums (I too played the guitar, though not nearly as well as Ted Key). I was in my mid-twenties, finding my feet socially as well as professionally. The local church was an important place for me. Both the church and myself have come a long way since. I remember feeling very alone in the first year, eventually suggesting to some of the other twenties in the church that we needed to put together a weekly group to meet and talk and pray.


Unfortunately, for good reasons too complicated to go into here, it turned out I wasn't able to come along to the group. That was a real sacrifice, and I felt I was missing out. Especially as it became clear that the group was working very well indeed. Having formed with a moderate number of people, it then attracted in further new arrivals, people who had come to Hull for various reasons, usually job-related, and who then wanted a place where they could share and be sociable.

One girl in particular, working through a teacher-training course at the local college, who told me much later what it felt like to have a place where there were people like her, people to whom she could relate. The group made the church seem relevant, and the group together with the church made Hull seem a place in which one might stay after graduating from teacher-training, so that she went for a maternity-leave vacancy at a local school and stayed in the area. 

Thus that little idea of a twenties group in its small way brought benefits to the wider society of Hull. It's a good feeling to notice when a chance idea has made a difference to one's locality. And I'm reminded of this now, as Holy Trinity Coventry has just begun to identify the needs of twenty-year olds as one of the challenges we maybe ought to be facing up to over the next few years. Groups like this prove their value exactly when there aren't many mid-twenty types around, because that's when the group can make a real difference. Not just to the mid-twenties, but also to the wider society, to Coventry as well as to Hull, because our wider societies need this kind of person and the gifts and character that they bring.

I still felt lonely, though, since the group was going well but I wasn't a part of it. Sometimes altruism doesn't seem enough.


Fortunately it doesn't always have to be enough. The girl whom I mentioned, because she stayed on in Hull, got to know me a bit better, and amazingly started to like what she saw. Three years later I married her, and our dear friend (with whom this little piece began) read the Bible passage at our wedding (Ephesians 3:14-end).


And so, for ever more, Hull for me is a city of romance and mystery.