Unlimited Well-being?

7th - 12th May is Mental Health Awareness Week. Here in Nottingham the World Health Innovation Summit is hosting an all-day event in the Market Square, SHINE. The World Health Innovation Summit is an organisation that promotes local initiatives that galvanise communities into action supporting health-care. The underlying notion is that while the health-care services are over-stretched, there is much that can be done alongside such provision by local communities. You can read about their inspiring work and join their Facebook page here

SHINE will be an opportunity for individuals and organisations working in the Nottingham area to come together to share information and ideas about what is going on across the city to prevent and alleviate mental health issues such as stress, anxiety, depression and isolation. As well as that, it promises to be a great deal of fun with the chance to try out all kinds of activities! You might enjoy a Tai Chi taster or join in a meditation, you might watch a dance or talk to an artist or poet, you might find out about the benefits of reflexology or aroma therapy. There will be stalls, speakers and activities for children. There will be a 'mass meditation' starting at 12.05.

I was recently talking to a very senior consultant physician. When he discovered that I'm training as a psychotherapist, he first of all confessed that all his training, background and instincts were 'firmly in the biological sciences'. Test out therapies and only use those that  can be scientifically and rationally proven. He then went on (uninvited and therefore the more convincing!) to say that, however, he had come to appreciate the 'talking therapies' as he put it. He even went on to cite some studies he had made that showed that they were beneficial in reducing blood pressure in patients with persistent hypertension. He was now increasingly open to careful use of therapies that complement scientifically-based western medicine. 

The great thing about the World Health Innovation Summit movement is that it seeks to do precisely that; to bring alongside standard medical, nursing and social care the resources of other approaches to wholeness and well-being. The World Health Organisation determines health on the basis of social and economic environment, the physical environment and a person's individual characteristics and behaviours. This latter category encompasses genetic, physiological, mental and spiritual factors. WHIS work by
'bringing patients, clinicians, managers, voluntary sector, education and businesses together to exchange knowledge, inspire and innovate together.' Their website states,

'Health touches every sector: Education, Transport, Food and Agriculture, Housing, Waste, Energy, Industry, Urbanization, Water, Radiation, Nutrition (WHO). In order to find solutions we need inspiration and innovation. WHIS is about each and every one of us helping to support our health services. In order to do that we need a platform for people to contribute and meet to share their knowledge and the World Health Innovation Summit (Federation) provides that platform to do this in a consolidated structured process and innovate solutions.'

Read about their purpose here

What impresses me about WHIS is its emphasis on local conversations and initiatives - so if you are in the Nottingham area, please come along and join in on 12th May. And, if not, you can find out what's going on in your area from their website. Click on WHIS Summits in the header.

See you there - I'll be in the group doing Tai Chi!

Speaking Truth to Power - Correct Me If I'm Wrong

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be an overuse of the phrase 'speaking truth to power' just lately. I've caught campaigners, journalists, Guardian readers (of whom I am one), bishops, archbishops and insufficiently intersectional feminists using it in what might be considered defensible but sloppy ways.

It's often used to mean communicating uncomfortable opinions or facts to people who are perceived as having some authority or responsibility in a situation. Very often the speaker is, themselves, in what might be perceived as a position of moderate power or authority or is speaking on behalf of others. This is the case when religious leaders confront politicians, white feminists speak for all women or investigative journalists represent the views of others.

The origin of the phrase casts it in a rather different light. In modern times, it was first recorded in 1942 by Bayard Rustin, a Quaker, who wrote that 'the primary social function of a religious society is to speak the truth to power'. He was making use of a Quaker way-of-being that reaches back at least to an eighteenth century Charge entitled 'Speaking Truth to Power'. 

The most often quoted use of the phrase is possibly in the title of a 1955 document. The American Friends Service Committee commissioned a study of international conflict. They were searching for alternatives to violence and militarism by which the American government might be advised to address 'anti American' behaviour of various kinds during the Cold War.  

'Our truth is an ancient one: that love endures and overcomes; that hatred destroys; that what is obtained by love is retained, but what is obtained by hatred proves a burden. This truth, fundamental to the position which rejects reliance on the method of war, is ultimately a religious perception, a belief that stands outside of history. Because of this we could not end this study without discussing the relationship between the politics of time with which men are daily concerned and the politics of eternity which they too easily ignore.'

Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence is a document well worth reading in full. It sets out a distinct approach to the proper relationship between faith and politics and, in doing so, defines the deep basis of the duty of speaking truth to power. Perception of truth, it claims, is a matter of belief in something that exists beyond the boundaries of history yet intimately influences our daily living.

If the idea of speaking truth to power comes from a specifically pacifist attitude, then it also grows, more generally, out of Quaker approaches to what can be known of God. Quakers seldom make pronouncements about 'truth' without much careful inner searching, a great deal of thought and an arrival at a place where their lived experience of God-speaking-to-them is such that they can do no other than speak. It is only by a disciplined and difficult process that common truths can be spoken and acknowledged. It would be rare to find Quakers speaking 'truths' they did not first try to immerse themselves in or speaking dogmatically or purely on behalf of others in a way that did not arise from their own experience. 

By all means, let public figures challenge people who hold power, let leaders campaign on behalf of disadvantaged groups. But don't devalue the notion of 'speaking truth to power' which is a rare, precious and profoundly effective thing. Foucault likens it to the ancient Greek concept of 'bold speech' and describes it this way,

 '...parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). In parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.' (The Meaning and the Evolution of the Word Parrhesia)

This is the approach of someone like the Bible's Queen Esther, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, living the truth they speak. There's an Indian word for it - Satyagraha - 'truth-force'. Chomsky had an interesting take on the notion when he turned it on its head and said that there was no need to speak truth to power as 'power knows the truth already and is busy concealing it'. According to Chomsky, it is the oppressed, not the oppressor that need to hear the truth because this will empower them to help themselves. As Martin Luther King famously observed, freedom is seldom, if ever, given voluntarily by the oppressor, it has to be demanded by the oppressed.

I'm not knocking leaders who have a go at pointing out the defects of political or social systems but I would prefer to call that campaigning. It would also be fair to note that all campaigns have their limits and this may be connected with the limits of embodiment and lived experience we all bring to our campaigning and speaking. Humility is called for!

'Speaking the truth to power' in its proper sense is a rare occurrence. It is something that only the deeply committed can achieve and it is something that even they will likely only be able to do two or three times in their life. When this happens, the heavens will part and something more powerful than politics or human wisdom will gather a momentum that shapes history.

18,000 Miles Round the Globe

I've just returned from an inspiring send-off for my good friend Robert Cleave. Robert's fulfilling a long-held ambition to cycle 18,000 miles around the world. He hopes to complete the journey over the next 18 months, doing it because he loves cycling and enjoys the adventure. He's raising money for Traidcraft and Cancer Research as he goes. You can follow his epic journey on www.robertsride18000.com. The link to his Facebook page is also there. By tonight he will be in Morocco to start the African leg of his tour.

It was threatening rain as we all arrived at Bramcote Park to say 'Godspeed'.  Among the 400+ who turned out were friends and family from all over Britain, former colleagues from Boots, Scouts and lots of folk from St Michael's Bramcote and other churches. After short speeches and a blessing by the Mayor of Broxtowe and the junior Mayor representing young people (what a great idea - well done, Broxtowe!), a ribbon was cut and Robert led a fleet of cyclists of all ages off on the symbolic first mile.

As he said himself, if you have something you've always wanted to do, don't get to the point where you can no longer do it and have to live with the regret - have a go. Even if you don't complete your challenge, you will know you tried! I can't think of anything more inspiring to do with your retirement and Robert's example has set me thinking about how I can combine some of the things I've always wanted to do into a challenging adventure for the future. We wish Robert all the best, bon voyage, safe travel, excellent health, good new friends and generous hospitality where ever he goes and a happy return with lots of stories to tell!

The other part of the challenge is of course Robert's family's. To give someone up for 18 months is quite a thing and they will be glad of your prayers, love and support.

Child Labour and Chocolate Eggs

When I was a child, Easter Monday was always the day for taking stock of the eggs sitting on top of the piano. There would usually be quite a few and you could work out how many days' supply of chocolate treats lay ahead with careful management!

The egg signified new life, nourishment, hope, the opening up of possibilities as the egg-shaped stone was rolled away from Jesus' tomb. It also meant lots of fun with your friends as you shared the generosity of aunts and uncles, next-door neighbours and grandparents.

Not all children have the same innocent relationship of fun with the chocolate Easter egg. Stop the Traffic is an Australian coalition that campaigns to improve the wellbeing of farmers at the bottom of the food chain and thereby irradicate child labour and the trafficking of children. They focus mainly on the fashion, cotton, fishing, tea and chocolate industries.

In West Africa (mainly the Ivory Coast and Ghana) a proportion of cocoa is harvested by child labour, mainly young boys who are trafficked for the purpose. 90% of the world's cocoa is grown by small-holding farmers who cannot make a living wage from selling their product to the large production companies. Stop the Traffic states that 70% of the world's cocoa comes from West Africa where there are millions of children involved in its production. Farmers are locked into a cycle that does not permit them to lift themselves and their families out of poverty and results in the use of forced child labour.

In order to be certain that your Easter egg or other chocolate product has not been produced using child labour you need to look out for 'Fair Trade', 'Cocoa Life', 'Cocoa Plan', 'Rain Forest Alliance', 'Cocoa Farming Programme' or 'UTZ Certified Cocoa' labels.

Stop the Traffic commissioned a report into the activities of six major chocolate companies. A Matter of Taste is a unique and ground-breaking piece of work looking at the steps these companies are taking toward eliminating child labour and there is detailed information to be found there.

In Britain, many of us associate the production of chocolate with Quaker firms like Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry. Since the last third of the twentieth century these companies are no longer in Quaker hands and have been taken over by some of the multinational giants. But the charitable trusts set up in conjunction with these great Quaker companies remain and are now actively working toward sustainability of the environment and the irradication of poverty and slavery. More can be gleaned about the U.K. scene from Jon Martin's article on the Quaker website, A Quick History of Chocolate and Quakerism 

As you eat your Easter eggs, check for signs they haven't been produced using child labour and that they don't contain palm oil whose production contributes to deforestation. Jon Martin also makes the point that eating recreational food with ingredients transported across the globe is not the best way to use resources or celebrate life. So perhaps a look at how locally produced treats could be incorporated in your celebrations in future might provide for a more sustainable way of marking Easter next year?

Or here's an idea for Easter Story Eggs that might be fun (though not chocolatey!) Resurrection Eggs. You could make it with cardboard eggs and real leaves instead of plastic ones.

http://www.creativebiblestudy.com/Christian-Easter-eggs.html
©Creative Bible Study

Beyond the Night Sky - Music for Stephen Hawking

This is the music commissioned from composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad for Stephen Hawking's 75th Birthday. It's sung here by the choir of Gonville and Caius Cambridge, the college where he was a fellow for over 50 years. 

It was moving to see the familiar streets of central Cambridge crowded yesterday to say goodbye to one of the city's heroes. I lived in Cambridge for 14 years in the mid 1970's and the late 1990's and, throughout that time, Professor Stephen Hawking was a well known figure about the city. I remember the days when we used to hurry out of the evening service at Holy Trinity to get to the 8pm debate at Great Saint Mary's where he was an occasional attender, apparently interested in the intersection of science and religion though not a religious believer himself. 

I read with fascination A Brief History of Time and managed not to get completely lost until the chapter on string theory. He was somebody who made physics accessible and interesting. He inspired many through his humanity, doing small things globally to encourage young people to achieve their potential and championing the NHS and affordable, accessible university education, sometimes at cost to himself as when he turned down a knighthood.

It was impossible not to be moved by the power of his mind, by his courage and lack of self-regard and by his ability to communicate using a ready sense of humour - no mean feat through a synthesised voice. His timing was impeccable.

It seemed to me very apt that one of the readings chosen for his funeral was The Death of Socrates from Plato's Apology 40.  It was read by Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal and it reflects the courtesy of the atheist to the religious believer and vice versa so typified in Prof. Hawking's life.

'Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good; for one of two things — either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.

Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain.

For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others.

Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead abide, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?.

What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?

Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again...

Above all, I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next.'

Translation Richard Jebb

This passage demonstrates respect for the view that there is no life beyond this life and explains why it is possible to be not just reconciled but inspired by this belief. It equally captures the joy of belief in opportunity and continued existence beyond this life so important in Christianity and other religions. And it presents us with freedom of choice.

A great life and a personality who 'broke boundaries with his mind' and boundaries not just in cosmology but of the limitations of divisions between human beings.

Crisis?

Today the national living wage rises to £7.83 (if you are over 25.) If you are aged 18-20 the minimum wage applies and that's set at £5.90. Apprentices and under 16's can be paid less. These figures can be checked out on the government's information site

I'm just looking at an advert for a nursery nurse. The pay is £7,280 per annum for full time hours. It's relatively common for nursery nurses' and carers' wages to fall below the national living wage. Many under 18's do not earn the minimum wage. Some workers are not paid when they are sick as they are contracted on an hourly rate. Carers may well be required to own and run a car in order to do their job.

There is a crisis brewing. The U.K. does not have enough workers who will work for the wages offered to care for our children, elderly, and emotionally and physically vulnerable. We are seeing a rapid fall (proportional to the growth of the elderly population) in the number of people who are willing to care under the conditions created by successive government policies. These sectors are groaning under the weight of top down supervision, constant change and heavy handed policy-making.

Those who teach and care for our most precious loved ones - our youngest children and our elderly parents - provide the basic 'oil in the engine' that allows society to function. This 'oil' is the ability of ordinary people to go about their business every day knowing that their family will be cared for and taught at affordable cost by well-motivated, competent, compassionate people.

As a country we are moving to a situation where there will be a crisis of recruitment. What seems to be missing is any consistent, research-based attempt to listen to the voices of the practitioners as well as the policy makers. What research has been done to find out what carers see as priorities for their charges and for themselves as workers? What motivates someone to go into these roles and dedicate themselves to the initial and continual training required? OFSTED and the CQC ought to be commissioning research and taking a good hard look at the results to ensure that measurement systems and inspections are based on a sound understanding of the basic needs of both clients and workers. Only with the buy-in and wisdom of the carers themselves can we ensure our children, disabled and elderly are supported in the best possible quality of life. The problem with setting standards that are not shaped by those delivering the care and the teaching is that the workforce gradually becomes disillusioned, disempowered and de-motivated and it becomes increasingly difficult to attract new people into the sector and retain them after training.

But I believe there's a deeper problem. And that lies in the prevailing attitude toward any 'industry' that does not generate profit. As a society we seem to have lost the notion of vocation - the idea that we are all called to set aside sufficient resources for the care of our children, our ill, our disabled and our elderly. We ought to be doing this as a proportion of the GNP and we ought to be doing it individually in families and locally through the giving of time and voluntary support. 'Called' is perhaps a word with religious overtones to which some might object. However I think it's the right word in this context and it arises from our common humanity. The human condition is such that where there is need, we notice and respond; where this need is among our own, we cannot be unknowing. It is the the mark of the humanity of any functional social grouping that, out of its wealth, it sets aside enough for its most vulnerable members.

Historically 'care' has been the job of the family and often the women in the family. It is no great surprise that one of our lowest paid sectors arises from a trajectory of 'women's work'. The role of women in caring has transferred from the family to the churches to the social services and health care agencies without any rigorous evaluation of the skill or value intrinsic of its worth. As a society we simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs about care. On the one hand it's something anyone can do - don't parents do it all the time for their children? No special training necessary! On the other hand it's something about which lots of people say 'I couldn't do that for all the tea in China.' Too much patience needed, too many menial tasks involved! Put the two attitudes together and you have a profession that is not thought of as requiring much skill or training and where most people do not wish to think about its reality in too much detail. So the myth that there is a plentiful supply of 'angels' who will do this sort of work is perpetuated.

Perhaps as the living wage increases you might spend a moment or two thinking about how you do or could live on or below the living wage. And maybe think about jobs that are often slightly better paid - waiters, bar staff, checkout staff, cleaners, delivery personnel for example - and wonder why it is we value some of those who take on the responsibility of caring for our family members so little.   

Surviving Endometriosis - just!

The strange thing about endometriosis is that no-one talks about it (Endometriosis: quick definition). I suffered from extremely severe 'period pains' between the ages of 13 and 53. For 2-3 days a month I had excruciating abdominal pain. Sometimes it was so bad that I fainted, my extremities would be freezing cold, I would shake and vomit up to 20 times a day. Innumerable doctors shook their heads and talked about dysmenorrhoea; some were very sympathetic others were not. One actually said, 'Well you're not going to die of it.' Nothing they prescribed touched the pain very much. Although I had my suspicions about what was wrong, endometriosis was not diagnosed until I was 39 when, even though he had the results of a laproscopy in front of him, my GP expressed scepticism about whether I was really suffering from it.

At school, the attitude was, 'Pull yourself together, everybody has periods.' That was if I got as far as telling friends or teachers the real reason for my repeated bouts of 'illness'. When I was 16, due to the abdominal pain, I had my appendix out only to be told that there was nothing wrong with it.  I felt labeled as 'someone who can't cope' although, in fact, I managed to do most of the things my friends did - play in an orchestra, swim and play tennis regularly and pass enough exams to get a degree and a nursing qualification. 

In my 40's, I discovered my father's sister had had similar problems but this had never been mentioned or discussed at home.

How did I cope?

I was lucky to have parents who never made me feel guilty or inadequate because I was ill. They lived with it and saw how absolutely incapacitated I was for several days a month. Having a slightly irregular cycle meant it wasn't even possible to plan ahead with much accuracy but they put up with all this and never complained or pushed me to do things I couldn't manage. They unfailingly gave sympathetic support. This usually meant not fussing and leaving me in a quiet place, near a toilet, with plenty of vomit bowls and a hot water bottle. My mother always held out the hope the doctors would come up with a wonderful cure and this occasionally led to arguments as I got older because I increasingly came to see such hopes as futile.  

My husband was equally brilliant. During all the years I suffered, he put up with watching the person he loved in complete agony. He regularly had to cancel engagements (which he hates doing) because I was too ill to make a phone call. He negotiated the mixture of disappointment and embarrassment that met these cancellations - sometimes it was tinged with an unspoken hint, 'you're letting us down'. He drove me to occasional emergency appointments with the GP when the pain became so unbearable we wondered if something else was causing it such as an ecpotic pregnancy. He accompanied me on the inevitable infertility investigations and ate out alone in restaurants when we were on holiday.

I developed a strategy for coping. In my mid twenties I gave up searching for any kind of cure or even a firm diagnosis. I simply refused to spend any more energy thinking about being ill or visiting doctors and dealing with their scepticism. I trained myself to behave as though every period was the last time this was going to happen. As soon I was able to stand up again, I launched back into leading a normal life. I never said, 'no,' to anything because I thought I might be ill. I simply lived with the consequences of having to cancel or have a 'plan b'. I learnt that when the chips are down, there aren't many situations in which you are indispensable. Lectures can be rescheduled, friends and colleagues will help out, things can wait a day or two. 

I had brilliant managers during my nursing career. Perhaps because of their medical background, they 'got it' and it was the one time in my life when I could ring in sick, give the real reason and not be met with embarrassment or incomprehension. I am so grateful for the way they juggled rotas. However, when I was well, I was always the person who could not say 'no' if asked to do an extra shift. Later, as a parish priest and a lecturer, life was a little easier in that my diary was slightly more within my own control and most things could be rescheduled or a colleague asked to help.

Infertility can be one of the effects of endometriosis. I would have loved to have children but my husband was more ambivalent and, as getting pregnant became ever more unlikely, I simply ceased to think about it very much. I appreciate that, given my situation, we are fortunate to be people who did not feel desperate to have children. However, as I get older, I do regret that we have no immediate 'next generation' to share life with.

Are there any positives about living with endometriosis?

Almost none! However, there have been one or two useful spin-offs. I did develop a capacity for hard work. I usually seemed to get as much done as other people while missing out on 2-3 days a month. I felt pressure to be as good as I possibly could be at my job so that people would put up with my regular absences. This, of course, had both negative and positive consequences. The positive side of it was that, on the whole, I learned to plan well and get through a large workload quickly and efficiently and to maintain empathetic relationships with colleagues on whom I was more than normally dependant. I also developed a capacity to observe and listen out for pain in others. As both a nurse and a priest, this is important. Nurses have a saying, 'Pain is what the patient says it is', Samaritans talk about 'steering into distress.' Having endometriosis has helped me to understand that all expressions of pain, physical or emotional, are deserving of being taken seriously - people need support to explore their own pain and to decide for themselves what course of action they want to take. Many of the responses of our medical community and our wider society to pain are unhelpful or inadequate.

What has been most difficult about living with endometriosis?

I have struggled with feeling guilty about the strain it has put on my family and colleagues. The pain has been so bad at times that, while it lasts, I have felt I would do almost anything to end it - the only thing that has kept me going is knowing that it will end sooner or later. 

Undoubtedly one of the biggest problems has been the wall of silence surrounding, generally, anything to do with periods and, specifically, a disease that is gynaecological in nature. My family did not talk about it. We often colluded with the silence by not giving the real reason I was incapacitated. I did not even know endometriosis existed until I was well into my 20's. I grew up with a sense that maybe there was something wrong with my attitude to periods - perhaps I was making a lot of fuss about something others were able to cope with. I did not know that someone else in my family had struggled with the disease and might have had some wisdom to offer.

Even doctors collude in the silence. With two notable exceptions, mine seldom seemed to listen. As soon as I said 'trouble with periods', they would say, 'Oh it's dymenorrhoea' and write a prescription for naproxen or the pill. Some looked as though they believed you, others did not. I used to wonder how there could ever be any progress in finding treatments for a condition if medical staff routinely took so little interest in listening to a patient describe their actual symptoms. Consequently, it took me 26 years to arrive at a diagnosis and that meant I was unaware of the dangers of infertility that are associated with the disease until I was too old to do very much about it.

For the future: 

What is it that makes 'women's problems' so unacceptable that we cannot talk freely about the reality of what is happening to our bodies? If there is one thing I would change (other than not having the disease!) it is to make it absolutely acceptable for a woman to be able to  talk openly about this illness to her family, her boss, her colleagues and her doctors. Why should there be any more shame or embarrassment about saying 'I will have to cancel because my period is making me very unwell' than 'I will have to cancel because I have flu or food poisoning or a flare up of my M.S.'?

Until it is possible to talk about endometriosis openly, we will neither make all the progress we can in finding a cure for this puzzling condition nor enable women who live with it to live as openly, fully and honestly as anyone else with a debilitating, chronic illness.

Please support Endometriosis Awareness Week 2018  (3rd - 9th March). If you know anyone with the disease, listen to them, let them feel it's OK to talk about it if they want to. Educate yourself so that you understand what it is and its impact on the lives of those who suffer with it and their families. Support research if you can. Tell your story if you have any experience of it and feel you can. Especially help young people who suffer not to feel stigmatised or alone.

UN Women: Care in Context

Keeping Wide Horizons

'We live in a world of information overload; and this very overload is beginning to become the handmaid of injustice because it has become the motive force of selectivity and truthlessness rather than the tool of discernment. This is a time when all of us need to dig deep in order to continue to look beyond narrowing self–interests. This is a time to transcend narrowing self–understandings, to undertake creative thinking such as none of us has ever needed before.' 

Archbishop of Dublin, Cambridge, Leadership 2017

Defer or Respect?

Michael Sadgrove, in his blogpost Defer! (Or not...), asks the question, 'Can a culture of deference be dangerous?' What happens when people defer too much to those in authority? You can read Michael Sadgroves's blogpost here

With his usual wisdom and perspicacity, Michael describes what he understands to be a healthy relationship between those in authority and those under authority. The relationship requires both parties to practise five 'virtues'. They are respect, honour, responsibility, loyalty and accountability. That other famous Michael - the priest in the TV drama Broken - shows us what a church that was less focused on deference and more focused on service might look like. It would be messier but somehow more whole and more recognisably engaged in the kinds of moral struggle that shaped Jesus' ministry.

The catalyst for this blogpost was, in part, the revelation of misused power contained in the Gibb report An Abuse of Faith published a couple of months ago. The report shows how possible it is for a person to manipulate their position of religious authority to gratify their own desires, abusing the power that has been vested in their particular office by an institution and misusing the personal mystique that attaches to their role to damage others.

As Michael says, 'deference is a risk wherever there are unequal power relationships.' I agree with his analysis of the virtues essential to good relationships but I would like to add one more and that is truth-telling. It seems to me that all relationships must, at their heart, have a central place for the speaking of truth. It is not possible to have any of the other virtues without truth. Deference can get in the way of truth when people under authority become disabled in their ability to speak out about whatever is important to them. Think of the overly strict parent who brings up a child too afraid to express their own opinion; too much deference leads to internalised frustration and passive aggressive behaviour. Or think of the worker who can see the solution to a problem clearly but dare not risk appearing to contradict or correct the boss's less informed approach; everybody in the workplace loses out. 

This is why most institutions have whistle-blowing policies and these are, of course, important. However, what is equally important is that cultures that promote or rely heavily on deference to those in authority (and especially where this is a small group of people) are aware of the effect this has on the organisation. Deference and respect are not quite the same thing and what, I think, makes them different is that it is possible to respect someone and speak one's own truth to them whereas it is sometimes necessary to remain silent in order to defer. Indeed you could argue that respecting someone requires you to speak the truth in the expectation that they will be willing to listen whereas deferring to someone might require you to hide your true position in terms of attitude and feelings as well as ideas and arguments. Deference can get in the way of truth-telling about events; respect commands and welcomes the telling of things-as-they-are. When we are deferred to, we are often in danger of hearing only what we wish to hear but when we are respected we are usually known for not ducking things we would rather not hear.

Cry for Help is a poem I wrote about the problems encountered by people who try to report abuse to institutions where authority and power demand deference and respect for the institution, prioritizing these above respect for the individual. 

Gratitude at New Year

Years ago an elderly nun gave me a bit of advice. 'Keep any cards you get thanking you for something you've done. Put them in a box and when you have a really bad week, get some out and read them.' Up to a point, I've followed her advice. I've kept a lot of the unexpected cards of appreciation that people have sent - thank yous for things I didn't even realise I'd done or notes from people whose lives very briefly intertwined with mine and who wrote to say, 'That was significant', letters from people with whom I've journeyed at what turned out to be a special time.

Very occasionally, I look at them. They bring back all sorts of memories of precious people, happy and sad times, places and projects. They remind me, too, of words and gestures that have communicated appreciation and a shared sense of achievement. The time someone marched up to me, looked me in the eye for a full 5 seconds said, 'Thank you,' and disappeared. The time one of the doctors I worked with said something so encouraging I've never forgotten it. The time someone looked round at an event and said, 'This is my idea of the Kingdom of God.'

I find that in the days around New Year I'm often drawn to this kind of reminiscing, possibly because early January tends to be one of the parts of my year when there is more time for reflection. My bit of advice to add to my elderly friend's is that as you go over these memories in your head, it's sometimes nice to write a card to someone who has meant a great deal to you and say, 'Just been remembering that time when .... Thank you.' It means perhaps even more to receive a message that someone still remembers a significant exchange years later. It colours the future more brightly with refreshed hope and maybe even renewed friendship.

More Questions than Answers

What a very strange year 2017 has been politically. It's felt as though we've been waiting for something all year - waiting for the outcome of an election, waiting for answers to our many questions. And they are slow in coming.

A review of the papers over the past few days shows that, while there has been an upturn in the global economy, the British economy is bucking the trend. It also suggests that we are already spending £340 million a week on exiting the EU (Financial Times, The Real Price of Brexit Begins to Emerge, Chris Giles 18th December here) and that even the Brexit Secretary might be having second thoughts about a 'hard Brexit' or leaving at all (Daily Mail, Britain Might Not Leave the EU David Davis Privately Admits, Brendan Carlin 31st December here.) I'm usually pretty skeptical about what I read in the Mail but when it prints a story like this which is so contrary to its usual line, you sit up and think there must be something in it. In addition we have, of course, Lord Adonis' words in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister, 'Brexit is a populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump. After the narrow referendum vote, a form of associate membership of the EU might have been attempted without rupturing Britain's key trading and political alliances' BBC News, 29th December.

We have statements from those responsible for the NHS to the effect that there has already been a serious 'talent-drain' caused by key staff returning to EU countries and there are not, in fact, plenty - or indeed any - British doctors and nurses queueing up to take their jobs; rather, there are pressing concerns about how we increase the number of people we are training over the next five years, bearing in mind that it takes four years to train a nurse and six to train a doctor (Why Brexit Britain Needs to Upskill its Workforce, Financial Times, Simon Kuper, 16th November here). Other industries are similarly finding that British people are not trained or willing to do jobs that have already been vacated, in particular in construction and agriculture. Building, land management, food production and health care all appear rather vital to the well being of any country and certainly not things to be left to wishful thinking and chance.

The thing about Brexit is that it has created a whole heap of uncertainties about job security, access to essential services, safety and employment standards, gathering inflation and the extent to which people we all rely on are welcome to remain in the UK. This is undermining, to say the least, despite the fact it all comes to us accompanied by repeated encouragements to 'be positive' and to make the best of new opportunities. I have yet to begin to form any real notion of how these opportunities might be created or accessed or how they might repair some of the damage already done to the fabric of 21st century Britain.

From where I stand, the care industry in which I work has already lost valuable workers along with the kind of dedication to working long hours that is not easily replaced. The farmers among whom I live are in the dark as to where their markets will lie in 18 months' time (try planning what stock to buy and what crops to grow in that scenario!) The city I live near was among those denied the possibility of becoming the European City of Culture with all the investment and publicity that might have brought. My fortnightly shop now costs about £20 more than it did in 2015 and other bills are going up at an alarming rate. Alongside this, people I know are uncertain about the continuance of joint projects on the European mainland while other friends work in services and industries that have been making plans to open offices in mainland Europe at the expense of employment opportunities for scores of British workers.

Where are the plans to recruit and train the workforce we need? Schools and life experience have not prepared many young people for the kinds of employment required. Where are the new industries and markets wanting to partner with the UK from other parts of the world? (Huffington Post, Ministers Cannot name a Single Country that Asked UK for a Post Brexit Trade Deal, 1st January 2018 here). How will our financial quarter and public services be maintained, let alone developed? How will an ageing population (who voted for Brexit in relatively larger numbers) maintain good relationships with the younger members of society who have markedly less sympathy for this new isolationist turn the UK seems hell bent on taking?

Over the course of the year, the sense that we do not seem to be any nearer answering these questions has grown, along with anxiety that there does not seem to be much public awareness of the direction of travel required to find solutions. At the beginning of last year I was more ready to trust that the government was making progress, even if behind closed doors. However as we draw nearer to March 2019 there surely ought be information emerging - and there is scant sign of it.

Not a very cheerful reflection for the start of 2018, perhaps, but an honest assessment of how many people are feeling. Of course we want to be positive and to contribute to whatever scenarios lie beyond 2019. However, there is a sense of 'waiting in the dark' which has increased rather than reduced during the past 12 months. All we can do is to go on making the best contribution we can in our particular fields of expertise and work, trying to keep ourselves as open as we can to the people and relationships around us and to opportunities that do exist. And, of course, there is no sense in which we are called to give up campaigning for a re-assessment of the disastrous decision to leave the EU suddenly and without due planning - a campaign that will continue to be fought with vigour.

Finally, a huge thank you to all the members of other EU countries who have and are contributing to the life of our country in so many ways, not least in the NHS and Social Care sector. May you find that there is still a welcome for you in the UK and may we all work to overcome narrowly isolationist attitudes and policies. Heaven knows, we need to for the health of our future society!