Of influence?

There has been a lot in the news lately about ‘influencers’ – especially those like Andrew Tate whose misogyny has had such a big impact on teenage boys. (See on for a helpful ‘Guardian’ article about this and the impact in schools.)

Influencers in social media

‘Influencers’ come in all guises. One of the most impactful of late is a ten-year-old girl from Kashmir (writing under ‘What Aqsa says’) who at least focuses on the beauty of her part of India, on sport and on health. Another is called Pedro Alvarez from Venezuela who writes about fashion, make-up and comedy. There are plenty of avowedly Christian ‘influencers’, too, such as LA pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts, who also heads up a lifestyle brand, and Jerry Flowers of Redefined TV. Whilst these largely inhabit the social media world, I was delighted last weekend to see someone well known speak out on mainstream TV about his faith, catching his interviewer off guard.

An influencer in sport

I am not sure that England rugby player Maro Itoje would call himself an ‘influencer’ but he speaks up for the greatest influencer of all time who has a following far and away in excess of Tate, et al – Jesus Christ. When Itoje was interviewed at the end of the New Year’s Eve Saracens’ rugby match on ITV by pundit Topsy, he was asked if he was going out to celebrate that evening. Itoje replied quite simply that he was going to church to worship God that evening – to sing His praises. In an interview a couple of years back, Maro Itoje said this: ‘I feel as if everything I have, everything I’ve been given and the position I am in, is as a result of God. He can take it away but fortunately He’s given it to me. It’s about giving all the praise and glory back to Him’. Now there’s an ‘influencer’ worth considering!

If you want to read more about Tate and combating his malign influence, then here’s the ‘Guardian’ article:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/andrew-tate-misogyny-schools-vulnerable-boys?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

A sporting moment?

For many of us interested in sport, our thoughts this past month have been focused on the men’s football World Cup. I hesitate to add to the comment online and in the ‘papers except to say that I was shocked by some members of the Argentine team mocking their crestfallen opponents, the Netherlands, on the pitch after their quarter-final match. I was also perturbed to see Ronaldo leave the field quickly after the Portugal semi against Morocco without, it seems, shaking hands with his opponents or consoling team mates. Perhaps this came later? In contrast, the sportsmanship of the French in the ways they approached the English team after full time, and also the genuine support offered to the distraught by the coaching team and other players, were heart warming. Images, too, of the Japanese tourists helping pick up litter in the stadia and the bravery of the Iranian team speaking out about the treatment of women in their country, brings much uplift to the human condition.

The ‘professional’ foul

In thinking about sporting behaviour, I don’t suppose I am alone in hoping that one day in the so-called ‘Beautiful Game’, there will be a move to be more honest on the pitch. The ‘professional foul’ is clearly a misnomer, a euphemism for cheating, and it always baffles me when a ball goes out of play and inevitably players from both sides claim the throw-in or the corner kick when in most cases it must be very obvious to the players immediately involved who it was who last touched the ball. What a moment it would be when a professional footballer actually ‘owns up’ to having touched the ball last and asks the referee to change the decision that initially went in his or her favour! And don’t let me start on the way referees themselves are abused, hassled and intimidated by so-called ‘sportsmen’.

True sportsmanship

Whilst of a very different era, and no doubt our minds are impacted by images in the film ‘Chariots of fire’, it is abundantly evident that Scottish athlete Eric Liddell was the consummate sportsman in all senses of the word. At church two weeks ago, I met a 90-year-old lady who had been interred with Liddell in China in the 1940s, a prisoner of the Japanese. Two things stood out in our conversation: Liddell could have been released (after Churchill’s intervention) in a prisoner exchange. He chose instead to have a pregnant woman take his place. The other incident especially referred to by the lady I met was Liddell’s willingness to put aside long-held beliefs about Sunday sport and to organise games on the Sabbath for other internment camp children. As we go through the week ahead and endure the Press ‘noise’ over the victors in the World Cup final, let’s consider afresh the legacy, compassion and sportsmanship of athletes like Eric Liddell and be thankful for positive role models.

The foolishness of this world?

How many April Fools’ Day jokes did you spot last week? ‘Walkers’ offered sliced bread-sized crisps, for example, and a soap manufacturer in Scotland called ‘Arran’ urged customers to order their newly bottled product which would hold its tartan pattern as you squeezed out the soap. The best of all time was probably the 1957 Panorama special about spaghetti trees but the 1980 BBC joke that the Big Ben clock tower was to go digital (sight and sound) went badly when eager first caller customers called in to claim a prize – one of the clock hands – only to be disappointed. Angry complaints went on for weeks!

School foolishness

I do remember the Upper Sixth (Y13) pupils in my boarding house in the 1970s replacing our Housemaster’s new red sports car with a Dinky version. Somehow they rolled the real version off the drive and hid it around the corner. They then hid behind their study windows and watched the incredulity and frustration of our Housemaster as he stepped out of his house! The sixth formers only escaped censure because the Housemaster’s wife had played a part! And then there was the occasion when, as a Deputy Head at a school in Cheltenham, I was ‘arrested’ and handcuffed by the Police as I left Chapel. Part of an April Fool and a charity stunt, I was only released after funds were raised that day for a local charity. (Fortunately I spent the day in comfortable surroundings drinking tea – and, more importantly, the school thought enough of me to want me back and so paid the charity ‘fine’!)

Laugh in Church? You must be joking!

I agree with James Cary, a BBC sitcom writer (‘Miranda’, ‘Hut 33’, ‘Bluestone 42’, etc.) who spoke this year at a TISCA (The Independent Schools Christian Alliance) regional meeting, who argues in his book, ‘The sacred art of joking’, that there’s plenty of humour in the Bible – and should be in church – but all too often we miss it. What, for example, do we make of Jesus’ comic exaggeration in Matthew 7 when He calls on us to remove the ‘logs’ from our eyes’? Moreover, for centuries the church practised ‘Risus Paschalis’, the ‘Easter laugh’, where priests regularly told jokes in Easter sermons. Whilst not seeking to make light of the seriousness of the cross and Jesus’ suffering, there is surely underlying humour in the religious authorities (and the devil) seeking to get rid of Someone who has proved he can raise the dead (Lazarus).

Let’s enjoy some laughter this Easter amongst all the seriousness.

Heart Beat

This week sees the inauspicious anniversary of the death of William Harvey in 1578. He was a London doctor, credited with being the first to discover that blood circulates around the body, pumped by the beat of the heart. The heart as our life-source, sends oxygen and nutrients through veins and arteries, so that, physically, we as humans can operate as we do. The pump of the heart has, however, become the symbol of what we are emotionally and psychologically. We talk of the ‘heart racing’ when there is physical attraction towards someone; we speak of the ‘heart being full’, may be of praise and admiration of others’ accomplishments; and we articulate the words ‘our hearts are heavy’ when referring to tragedy or crisis in our lives.

Heavy hearts

It is certainly the case that the lattermost ‘heart expression’ is all too true for large swathes of the globe at this moment, as we are facing what is a second world crisis – first pandemic and now the fall-out of the war in Ukraine. As we sit in front of our screens and are confronted daily with heinous atrocities perpetrated against the most innocent and defenceless, such as in Mariupole, our hearts are, indeed, heavy as we stand and watch what was a normal, thriving, Western city suffer such decimation, and its inhabitants reduced to starvation, homelessness and loss of all semblance of life as they knew it.

Broken hearts

In the Psalms, King David writes: ‘the Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.’ Jesus echoes this sentiment in Matthew’s gospel: ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.’ The incarnation of God in Christ is a message from the heart of the Creator and Sustainer that he forever identifies with pain and trauma – with those who are suffering and with those who feel for the pain of others, and it is the responsibility of all those who claim to follow him, to be those who carry burdens and share in the heaviness of heart that others experience. But emphasis should be on the ‘sharing,’ for none of us is expected to bear the weight of the world upon one’s shoulders and heart. On reflecting upon the import of Lent, it is that we who may be ‘heavy in heart’ are driven to prayer and to share with, and inquire of, God what he may be asking any of us to do in response. It is then to understand that it is His task for us, and not the task of the lone stoic with the sense of ‘ought’ around his or her neck. It comes back to the Christian’s understanding of service, which we can do with purpose, but also with joy, even in the midst of pain: holding both these things in tension is to reflect the very nature of the passion and triumph of the cross and resurrection.

Heart restored

So let us go where the heart says but be directed by the one whose heart beats for each one of us, whatever state we find ourselves in.

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, Chaplain of Prestfelde Prep School)

Gritty love

It was St Valentine’s Day this week but rather than share a story of romantic love, here’s a true one about gritty, Jesus-shaped love…

Sing Sing

In 1921 Lewis Lawes became warden at Sing Sing, New York’s maximum security prison. This correctional facility had the reputation of being the USA’s toughest institution but when Lawes retired 20 years later it had become known for its humanitarian ways. When asked the secret of this transformation, Lewis Lawes said: ‘I owe it all to my wonderful wife, Katherine, who is buried outside the prison walls’.

The Angel of Sing Sing

Katherine Lawes was a young mother of three children when Lewis became warden. Against all advice, she took the family inside the prison to support basketball matches. She was determined to help where she could, even learning braille to teach one blind prisoner and sign language to communicate with a deaf-mute prisoner. Many said that Katherine Lawes was the presence of Jesus in Sing Sing from 1921-1937 and she was nicknamed ‘The Angel of Sing Sing’.

A freak accident

In October 1937 Katherine died in a freak accident on a bridge. The following morning Lewis didn’t come to work and an acting warden took over as Katherine’s body was laid to rest in a casket at the family home just under a mile from the prison gates. The next day the acting warden was shocked to see an immense crowd, including the toughest of criminals, gathered at the main gate, many in tears. He knew how much they loved Katherine: ‘All right, men, you can go. Just be sure and check in tonight’. The criminals walked to Katherine’s home, without a guard, to pay their final respects – and every one checked back in. Every one! ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild? As if!’ That’s gritty love – and its impact.

Weird stories – and opportunities

Towards the end of January, and I set out on what, in recent times, was a ‘weird’ opportunity: to visit some TISCA (The Independent Schools Christian Alliance) schools in person and to hold regional meetings without depending on Zoom and a screen. And what a joy it was!

The strongest shot in tennis?

Revd Martin Poole, a governor at Ballard School, spoke at the South regional gathering at Castle Court Prep School. His enthusiastic accounts of sharing stories at school assemblies ranged from showing us how to ‘tell the Bible’ using the fingers of one hand (a thumbs up for encouragement, an index finger to point to things needing attention, the middle finger – taller than the others – to be Jesus, a fourth – the ring finger – for commitment, and then the little finger for prayer), how to divide 19 camels fairly between a sheikh’s three sons (my maths was mightily challenged) and also how to use sport to tell the gospel. The latter illustration was very effective: what’s the strongest and often the winning shot played in tennis? This is, of course, the serve. Our service as Christians is often what draws others to Jesus.

The meeting at Castle Court was also remarkable for the overflowing excitement shared by staff from several schools, but especially Castle Court, of being able to have fellowship together (over a very fine meal I should add). Some schools have been unable to have in-person staff meetings until very recently and whilst we remain in awe of what technology can do to bring us together, there is nothing to replace seeing others face-to-face.

Weird stories

On our tour we took in two other schools before going to King’s Bruton for the South West regional meeting. We were treated to BBC sitcom writer James Cary’s musings on weird stories in the Bible. Here’s what Revd George Beverly, chaplain at King’s, wrote after the event:

Have you ever considered how the Bible is jam-packed with weird accounts: Baalam’s donkey talking! The transfiguration! Absalom’s long hair getting tangled in a tree, leaving him stuck hanging until he was captured! The physical resurrection of many bodies from tombs in Jerusalem when Jesus Christ rose back to life – and they walked around Jerusalem talking to people – a bit like zombies!

What do we do with such accounts? Shy away from them? Focus on the more “rational” sections of Scripture? Try and explain them away as deceptions that tricked supposedly gullible people thousands of years ago? No – none of those are wise or responsible approaches to make. We believe in a God who made the very laws of science, who is all-powerful and created everything. Thus, He is not constrained by such laws. The very fact He brings about miracles, shows he is God. And on Thursday evening, it was lovely to welcome James Cary, Christian writer, speaker and comedian to speak at TISCA (The Independent Schools’ Christian Alliance) regional meeting hosted at King’s. James sits on the Church of England’s Archbishops’ Council, hosts numerous podcasts and writes comedy for the BBC (e.g. Miranda, Hut 33, Bluestone 42, Think the Unthinkable) often alongside Milton Jones. James commended us to not shy away from the weird and controversial aspects of Scripture. God has given us these passages and they richly overflow with the message of His gospel love. Moreover, as teachers/chaplains/staff in schools, we are surrounded by children and teenagers whose world is immersed and full of an obsession with the weird and wonderful. Consider: Star Wars, Marvel, Narnia, Harry Potter and so much more. Best of all, as we engage with Scripture’s stranger segments, it often prompts genuine discussion and enquiry between pupils and staff – and isn’t that wonderful! What could be more important and fascinating than debating and discussing the message of the One who claims to hold the answers to life’s biggest questions?!?!

So, our challenge to all is to seize opportunities to engage in the weird and wonderful in the Bible – and to do the ‘weird thing’ of meeting up again in person! (COVID secure, of course…)

(Lead article in the Spring 2022 edition of ‘TISCA News and Views’)

Nurturing talent

How do we recognise and nurture talent and potential?

Sporting opportunity

As a Prep School boy in Scotland, I was a keen sportsman but not especially talented. I can remember one of my Schoolmasters, looking at a rather gangly 12 year old, tall for his age but somewhat uncoordinated, and saying: ‘Reid. Keep working hard at your rugby and you’ll get in the 1st XV and get your ‘colours’. He was right on both counts although my ‘colours’ were only awarded after the final match of the season!

The following term, this same Master spotted that I have a little talent at cross-country running (a sport I went on to develop significantly at my secondary school). Once again he encouraged me by setting a target of getting into the top three when the end of term school event took place. Again he was right to set the goal. I may, of course, have managed this without his interest and challenge – but I doubt it.

Professional sport scouts

Scouts for professional football spend less time these days on the side of muddy pitches looking for talent and much more in front of screens analysing data. Nonetheless, they still have to spot potential. In a course run by the Professional Football Scouts Association, they start with the photo seen above of a team of young kids in red and white shirts. It’s from the 1990s and they are on a dirt pitch in less than salubrious surroundings. ‘If you were a scout, which of these ten players would you most be interested in?’ You might pick the lad in the front row with the wide smile as he looks like he’s enjoying himself and so could have a good mentality. What about the boy standing taller than the others: he is presenting himself with confidence? How many would be drawn to the lad on the back row, far left, with his shirt hanging off his shoulders? He’s smaller than the others and has a shy smile. This young man is the future football megastar – Lionel Messi!

Nurture well

Let’s nurture well all those in front of us – at home, in school, at work, in a hobby setting, at church – and be prepared to be at pleasantly surprised by the outcome!

Where there’s no vision…

As we enter a new year, some of us will have taken on resolutions and some, perhaps, embraced a vision for 2022. Can I encourage us to hold tight to the latter – the vision on our hearts and in our minds for a better tomorrow for ourselves and those with whom we have been called to serve and to live and work alongside?

Interview challenge

I remember, as part of my interview for a Headship post, being asked: ‘Mr Reid, what three things would you change if you were appointed as Head here?’ It flashed through my mind that this was a key moment in the appointment process: I sent a quick ‘arrow prayer’, took a deep breath and said: ‘Firstly, building on the work of my successor, I will do all I can to make this a more family-focused school.’ (Safe ground, I felt: there was a general desire to slow down the pupil expansion and consolidate.) ‘Secondly, I’d like to put in an Astro-Turf field hockey pitch.’ (Also safe ground: my love of hockey was well known and this much needed facility would benefit boys and girls as well as have wider community use – and there was money in the school ‘kitty’ for it.) Then, taking an even deeper breath and realising that what I said next was ‘make or break’, I looked round the interview room (actually the small school chapel which had been turned into a multi-faith classroom) and said: ‘Thirdly, I’d remove much of what’s on the walls in this room and return it, sensitively, to being a school chapel at the heart of the school.’ My first point had been greeted with knowing looks, my second by encouraging laughter and my third…by a dramatic pause, almost a gasp, and then a collective sigh of agreement. I got the job!

I mention all this because I know that ‘vision’ can be contentious and unsettling at times. It can also be life-changing and energizing – so long as we have the courage to embrace it.

Don Quixote

Many will be familiar with ‘The Adventures of Don Quixote’ by Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra. There is a musical based on his story, too, called ‘Man of La Mancha’. In this there is a scene where Don Quixote and his servant stand gazing at a dilapidated inn. When Quixote describes his vision of turrets and magnificent gates, his servant tries hard to see the same picture but all he can see are ruins. When he attempts to describe them, Quixote say, ‘Stop! I will not allow your facts to interfere with my vision!’

All too often great visions are undermined by those who can’t see beyond the hurdles, difficulties and ruins of the present. Look up and look out – embrace your God-given vision for 2022 and be blessed!

A journey justified

As the Omicron virus variant begins to bite, again the question lurks in our minds in this merry month of December: ‘Will journeys be curtailed to keep Christmas alive?’ As travel cancellations escalate and holidays are again delayed, there’s a growing fear that visiting relations and friends may be reduced to avoid the ‘Déjà voodoo’ of a hapless lockdown.

Journeys, however, feature strongly in that first Christmas story, and risks were taken – well beyond the realm of the sensible, sanitised, modern mind-set of the West. Firstly, through the demands of a Roman census, a heavily pregnant mother was forced to travel seventy miles by donkey through the dangerous Samarian countryside which would have taken four days at its smoothest – not quite the 1 hour 50 minutes that it takes today by car from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Joseph, who would naturally have wanted to protect his wife, might therefore have opted for a safer route, but this could have extended the journey to a week, despite knowing that she was ‘great with child.’

Then there was the epic journey of the Parthian magi from the borders of Afghanistan and Syria guided not by sat-nav but by the stars, or rather, one in particular. It had been their conviction after much soul and sky searching that a regal birth had been ushered in, and a sense of mystery and divine curiosity goaded them on to cover the 500 miles, taking them eighteen months or more.

For the shepherds out on the Judean hills, the journey was not nearly so long – but they were ‘under the influence’ of angels and bright lights, and this caused them irrationally to abandon their flocks, potentially to the ravages of wild animals.

For all the central figures that first Christmas journey was fraught with risk and danger, but they were put aside for greater purposes: the celebration of a new-born king who would ‘reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever,’ as the prophet, Isaiah puts it.

It is a similar sense of daring and abandonment that the Christian message calls us all to make: to go with haste and inquire into what this story could mean for us in our hearts. Of course, it might mean disposing some of the excess baggage that we’re so tempted to carry at this festive time – an over-emphasis on self-indulgence, a preoccupation with consumerism and ‘stuff,’ and a scant regard for how the poor and marginalised might be coping as they languish in Yuletide shadows. Our travelling to meet the Saviour face to face, like the crib figures, is down to will power and a heart-felt conviction. Do we want to make that journey? For those who are making it now and have done for centuries it needs no justification. As Ralph Washington Sockman once said: ‘The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.’ History was changed by that journey, and ‘his-story’ for each one of us can begin there too… and transform us.

May each of us consider making that personal journey this year and keep Christmas alive– a very happy and joy-filled season to you all!

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, chaplain of Prestfelde Prep School, Shrewsbury)

Coping with the unexpected

Across the news this week we have seen terrific volcanic eruptions in Palma,
Canaries, an earthquake in Melbourne, Australia and the increased threat of
energy companies shutting down around the country. In each of these
situations, no-one could have anticipated any of these intrusions in our daily
lives; and the same could be said about so many life-events that cross our
bows – whether it be accidents, illness or, perhaps, the more positive news of
an unexpected rise in one’s salary!

Despite how many risk assessments that we might make in schools, industry,
government or in our own personal lives at home, life always has the
propensity to throw us a curved ball. Aside the need for each of us to take
responsibility for how we conduct ourselves in relation to our world, it is a
challenge to see how we can better cope with the unexpected. Even if we play
ostrich or genuinely hide ourselves away in our homes, we can never be sure
that a roof tile doesn’t strike us! To follow such a line can only lead to a prison
of neurosis, which binds, breaks down human relationship and prevents vision
and confidence in a world to explore and enjoy.

Whilst Jesus was on earth, in his Sermon on the Mount, he pointed his listeners
to nature: ‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store in
barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more
valuable than they? Who by worrying can add a single hour to their life?’
Worry is not only unhelpful but can itself be a source of harm, as any
psychologist or neuro physician will concur. But what Christ is underlining here,
positively, is that we have a heavenly Father who genuinely cares and loves us,
in the midst of the unexpected as much as in the humdrum, and as he reminds
us earlier in that Sermon, we are all called to be light and salt in the world, not
hiding away but shining, supporting, and demonstrating God’s love to our
hurting neighbour.

There is, conversely, within the Christian message, the need for us to be
vigilant and watchful and knowing that we need to be prepared for eternity.
Life, unlike what some may say, is a dress rehearsal – the three score years and
ten, or thereabouts, is never guaranteed but can be viewed as an opportunity
not for obsessive indulgence in good works, but rather permission for God to
have his way in our lives by his grace, seeking what the day given to us might
hold, according to his will. That, I believe, will give us a divine perspective on
the unexpected and a readiness to greet each day with joy and gratitude and
our life in the next world, whenever that might be.

(With thanks to Revd Alex Aldous, Chaplain at Prestfelde Prep School)