A timely word

A recent daily devotion led me to Proverbs 15:23, ‘A person finds joy in giving an apt reply – and how good is a timely word!’ In the NLT version it reads, ‘Say the right thing at the right time’.

I was in London this week taking my 88 year old mum to a musical as a birthday treat. Mum is a Londoner and she hadn’t been to the City, let alone live there, for many years. She is proud of her place of birth and it didn’t disappoint! Looking somewhat lost in the street, someone stopped and helped us find the theatre. On the crowded tube, Mum was given a seat three times and, on the last occasion, the young man who had given up his seat took the time and trouble to wish us a pleasant evening as he left the train. Mum was thrilled with ‘the timely word’.

Whilst from a radically different era and setting, our experience this week reminded me what Victor Frankl, a former concentration camp inmate, wrote: ‘We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances’.

Let’s choose to smile and to give that ‘timely word’, even to strangers, even if we are rebuffed or ignored. I suspect we shall find our attitude and our words accepted many more times than they are ever refused or scorned.

Smoke alarm moments!

I recently attended an excellent conference organised by CCE (Centre for Chaplains in Education) on the theme, ‘People of Hope in times of change‘. One of the workshops was led by Dr Kate Middleton (not a royal personage!) who spoke engagingly about mental health issues facing young people today. It was an upbeat message but she did relate, from her work with teenagers especially, how some no longer look forward to the future with keen anticipation but consider it may now be ‘rubbish’. Many adults perhaps also share this jaundiced view of the future. She then encouraged us to consider how we might help change this perception.

Wired brains

Our brains are wired to recognise three ‘systems’ in particular: threats, a drive for pleasure and a sense of clam and soothing. Unfortunately, perhaps, the only one ‘turned on’ all the time is ‘threat’: whilst a necessary response mechanism to perceived and real danger (a speeding car, an aggressive dog, a sharp drop…) it is also increasingly engaged by a negative and scaremongering Press which causes a ‘smoke alarm’ reaction in us. We rush to detect the danger which we then spend time analysing, dwelling over and imagining further. There may indeed be a ‘fire’ but more often than not it’s a false alarm – an insect walking across the sensor, a battery which has run down or a faint wisp of harmless moisture. We need to find ways to balance threat’s adrenalin with dopamine, stimulated by a drive to engage in pleasurable hobbies, sport and work routines. In addition, threat and desire are best aligned with the soothing effects of oxytocin which is released through positive social connections and love.

Hormones

I am no scientist and won’t pretend to understand what these hormones are, but I do relate to the need for all of us, and not just young people, to engage each harmoniously. Dr Middleton recommended three measures whereby we can take control of our wellbeing and, in modelling them (particularly to family members and young people damaged emotionally by the lockdowns and the pandemic), help others to do the same. The first is doing something over which we can exercise personal control: this might be engaging in art, building a Lego model, tidying out a cupboard or completing a puzzle. The second suggestion involves ways to stimulate endorphins, chemicals released by the body to relieve stress and pain: exercise, social connections and engaging in ‘awe’ such as watching birds soar, clouds move and stars sparkle. Finally, we should pursue joy (safely and legitimately!) by making time for those hobbies and pursuits we so enjoy.

Listen

I believe there is every reason to expect that we shall emerge from the difficulties of these past two years stronger, resilient, more caring and complete but we need to be gentle on ourselves, take sensible advice and listen wisely (and not just to the ‘smoke alarms’). As it says in Proverbs 16:4, ‘Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones’.

You’re on mute! Or…

It is the fate of lockdown. We cannot sing, play or make music together, but if ever there was a chorus that has rung out like a clarion call on Zoom’s sound waves over these COVID times, it has been the unequivocal mantra: ‘You’re on mute.’ We’ve all done it; we’ve all been there – we chat into the void and wonder why there is no sympathy for what we’re saying, but it’s because we’re not using our voice in the right way: to borrow the axiom of yesteryear’s technology, we’ve not ‘adjusted our set.’

Amidst the maelstrom of 2020, now leaking inexorably into ’21, there have been many voices which have vied for attention and a multiplicity of issues, personal and social, have screamed to be heard. But as individuals and communities representing the voiceless in our nation and world, there are times when we might look in the mirror and lament: ‘you’re on mute.’ It is easy to accuse others of being on mute: the government, the councils, the powers that be – we claw for answers to this crisis and claim that ‘they should have spoken earlier.’ And for some of us, maybe as we turn our faces heavenward, our cry might be: ‘Lord, why are you on mute; why don’t you answer? Why are you causing us so much pain?’ At times, the psalmist echoes such sentiments, as in Psalm 28: ‘To you I call, O Lord my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me, for if you remain silent I shall be like those who have gone down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call for help.’

Pete Greig, author of ‘God on mute’, provided this powerful reflection as he wrestled with this issue: ‘I asked for strength that I might achieve; He made me weak so that I might obey. I asked for health that I might do greater things; I was given grace that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I received nothing that I asked for, all that I hoped for. My prayer was answered, I was most blessed.’

To hear, as God hears and to see as God sees, is indeed an ‘adjustment of our set’ – our mindset, our perspective and the way we view the world and ourselves. It could just be that we’re being called to listen in new ways – first to hear the pain within His heart; and then the overflow from this eustachian canal will be to hear the needs on our doorsteps and give them our voice.