A Constructed Reality

Do we have a core, coherent personality or are we really fractured selves? Personal construct psychology suggests our sense of coherent self may be something we superimpose onto ourselves to feel more coherent - a kind of rationalisation of our experience to feel more whole and unified as a person. It makes sense to me as a possibility.

It's a bit like life. I look back over my life and see a pattern emerge. Is the pattern really 'there' or do I subconsciously superimpose a pattern as a way of post-rationalising my experience so that it feels somehow less random and chaotic and more unified and meaningful? It's a philosophical and psychological hypothesis I find intriguing.

It's as if I choose certain experiences selectively from memory and then draw imaginary lines between them. If this is the case, it opens me to alternative constructions that could change how I understand myself, my life story, and thereby open up fresh possibilities for the future.

A Singaporean friend asked this morning, 'Why is this so interesting for you at this point in your life?' I found that question very thought-provoking. Perhaps I'm at a place of re-evaluating lots of things, viewing my life and the world through different lenses as a way of making new sense of them.

It's often a struggle to find meaningful language to express such difficult ideas that lie at the edge of language and experience. I would be very interested, therefore, to hear from any other people grappling with similar ideas, concepts and experiences. May God guide us with insight, wisdom and freedom.

Whose Thoughts am I Thinking?

I was having a conversation recently with Rudi, a social worker mentor and friend in Germany, about personal construct psychology when he suddently commented, 'I really don't know how much of what I think and believe is genuinely my own, and how much is a product of the government, media, commercial organisations etc.' Rudi is one of the most profoundly insightful, constructively-critical and free-thinking people I have ever encountered and so, at this point, his comment took me a bit by surprise.

As the conversation progressed, we explored how we are each subject to lifelong conditioning by parents, educational systems, organisational cultures etc. combined with ongoing influences from what we read, what we experience, everyday conversations etc. And so even as I write this blog entry, how much of what I'm thinking and seeking to articulate genuinely originates in me and how much is simply a cumulative product of the influences of others? I'm speaking with my own voice, but whose thoughts are they?

Even the language I use, the language I'm using now, is something I have learned from others. It enables me to communicate but also creates and shapes the conceptual frameworks I think in, filters how I experience the world, limits my ability to think outside of the constructs and ideas inherent in it. It's one of the advantages of learning a different language, to immerse onself in the culture of others (as far as that is possible), to stretch one's own ability to think in new ways, to find an ability to and experience and express fresh ideas and perspectives.

Yet even then, how much of my thinking is unique, generated from within me, genuinely my own? Have I simply broadened the range of influences on my thinking? I don't know. Perhaps the awareness of others' influence on my thoughts provides me with some opportunity to choose - and although what and how I choose is similarly influenced by the formative thinking and values I've encountered in others, the sense of choosing is about making my thoughts my own. 'God, guide my thoughts towards your thinking.'

God is Silence

"Speech tends to divide, people cling to words rather than to their meaning. Words give rise to religions, to churches which break up the great family of simple souls, for whom loving worship ought to be enough, into rival sovereign fragments.

Words split apart. Silence unites. Words scatter. Silence gathers together. Words stir up. Silence brings peace. Words engender denial. Silence invites even the denier to find fresh hope in the confident expectation of a mystery which can be accomplished within."

(Pierre Lacout, Dieu est Silence)

Religion as Social Construction

I spent time in Cambodia and Thailand last week and was fascinated by observing and speaking with people engaged in Buddhist practices. The question kept rising with me - what to make of diverse religious beliefs and practices throughout the world?

As time goes by, I'm feeling more and more convinced that 'religion' as worldview and culture is essentially socially constructed, although I feel cautious about saying it because religion is such a complex personal, social, cultural and political phenomenon and social constructionism is complex too.

As far as I can see it, the notion of social construction does not of itself negate the possibility that a specific religious worldview and lifestyle is Divinely inspired, guided and sustained. In fact, I believe the God of the Bible is the principal voice in such construction, at the heart of all genuine spiritual discourse.

However, this perspective cautions me to be careful about attributing too much value to any particular religious dogma, interpretations, cultural manifestations etc. and to stay open and listening to the mysterious Spirit who, in the words of LLS4, 'speaks the (true) language behind language'.

Tales from Asia

Arrived in Cambodia yesterday and spent a sunny, hot and humid day walking and travelling in tuk tuks around Phnom Penh. I was struck again by the uplifting psychological, emotional and even physical power of a simple smile. Even strangers in the street make eye contact and smile here, just as I found previously in Thailand. Yes, some people are hoping to engage in business transactions by foreigners' attention whereas others seem happy simply to show friendliness and kindness. I find this cultural phenomenon very attractive and compelling and wonder what underlying cultural worldview and values this represents that I and we could learn from.

Spaces between People

I was amazed this week to be sent the following extract from Simon Walker's new book, 'The Undefended Life.' It resonated deeply with what I had been musing on in recent blog postings on leadership. Here's the extract (my own emphases in italics):

'Look at spaces between people...the life of God is constituted in the relationships that exist between Father, Son and Spirit. The divine is not an essence in each person but a quality of relationship between them. This observation transforms how and where we look for God's presence in the world. We tend to think of such things as the fruit of the Spirit as virtues or core attributes that exist within a person, like an internal ethical guide or a source of energy that leads to godly action. Our minds easily go to the notion of essence, the fruit of the Spirit as an essence in a person's character. But this notion...suggests that we should see the fruit not as within a person but between that person and other persons. The fruit of the Spirit is the character of the relational space that individuals foster around them.'

...and more Leadership Musings

...I guess the risk is that we locate the cause of the change in the leader, not in the relational dynamic that emerges between leader and led, a dynamic that has as much to do with the responder as with the person who stimulated it.

There's also something significant for me about the wider social, cultural and political context within which we see 'leadership' manifest itself.

For instance, a church minister speaks from the platform in a church meeting and evokes a positive response from those present - and we attribute that response to the minister's leadership qualities. If the minister spoke the same words in the same way in a very different context (e.g. in an environment dismissive of or hostile towards Christian beliefs), it would likely evoke a very different response.

Does that mean the minister exercised leadership in the former environment but not in the latter, or is what we experience as 'leadership' actually the product of a specific social interaction within a specific social, cultural and political context?

More Leadership Musings

A friend, Alex, responded to my last posting: 'When you say leadership sometimes emerges unexpectedly, it also makes me wonder if it isn't always recognised at the time but is construed as leadership after the event, particularly by the follower more than the leader.

In other words, as a follower I am the only one who can legitimately apply the label leadership to what I experienced in my own psychological processes as a result of what you the leader did, how you were, what happened between us. Otherwise, if you the leader use the term leadership, all you can apply to it is a set of behaviours or competencies which may not have landed with me as leadership.'

That strikes me as incredibly profound and provoked fresh thoughts in my own mind too. I've noticed how sometimes an idea or question that emerges through conversation can begin to exercise its own leadership-like qualities, drawing the conversation forward in a way that feels almost independent of the people involved. Weird, strange - and deep.

Leadership as Transformational Dynamic

I'm still struggling with my sense of unease about the notion of leadership as competence - something like management that can be identified, distilled, analysed, abstracted, codified and replicated.

Perhaps leadership isn't primarily something that lies within the individual - that's potential. It's an expression of an inspirational dynamic that sometimes takes place between people, rather than first and foremost a description of the intrinsic attributes or behaviours of a particular person or people per se.

It emerges, sometimes unexpectedly, when people interact with one another in a specific relational and cultural environment. It's a mysterious dynamic that sparks and sustains desire, movement and transformation. In this sense, leadership is essentially a social and contextual phenomenon, not an individual abstract one.

I wonder if this dynamic between people, emerging in the creative space generated through relating and relationship, implying connection and synergy at some deep interpersonal level, is also a dynamic inhabited and energised by the leading and liberating presence of the Spirit. It's about leading between and leading within.

Yes, some people do display observable behavioural characteristics commonly associated with 'good leadership' - characteristics that can be described in a practical competency framework - but I still have the sense there's a profound dimension to leadership that is so much more than that.

Talent Talk

I'm interested in how different people use the word 'talent'. Some appear to mean special individuals with excpetional capabilities, capabilities that would prove successful in virtually any environment. Some seem to mean the distinctive gifts or capabilities that each person has developed or is endowed with.

I'm curious about the former definition because it begs interesting questions about what constitutes 'successful' and what the relationship is between talent and environment.

For instance, it's possible to imagine a very capable person with exceptional expertise who nevertheless has an unhelpful attitude, dubious ethical character or feels no engagement with or commitment to the team or organisation and its goals. It's equally possible to imagine a person who is very capable and successful in one environment but fails to succeed in a different environment.

So, when we consider questions of talent, I believe it's also useful to consider wider questions of attitude, character, engagement and fit.

Reflections on Easter

The cross of Jesus Christ demonstrates in the starkest possible terms that no matter who we are or what we have done, we really matter to God. It offers astounding hope, well beyond human thought, word, feeling or imagination. Good Friday, symbol of God's powerful, painful, paradoxical, passionate and perfect embrace. Easter Sunday, God's most personal, dramatic revelation of presence, power, peace and possibility beyond our wildest dreams.

True Biblical Theology

Biblical theology isn't primarily academic, abstract, theoretical. It's about lifestyle, a journey of discovery, living in the open question with a humble and inquiring spirit. It's about a personal encounter with the eternal God, an extraordinary personal relationship that results in radical transformation of everything that was, is and ever could be. It's amazing.

Pastoral Apologetics

I've been engaged in on-line conversations most evenings for the past month with some pretty vitriolic atheists. It has been an interesting, challenging and moving experience. I don't think I've ever seen so much hate expressed in print and the degree of anger has been astounding. Jim Packer comments in Test of Faith (2009) that, 'when in the name of science people attack Christianity in savage and sarcastic terms, it is not because they have overwhelming arguments to deploy but because they have in some way been hurt by persons who professed a Christian identity and, in consequence, they are now gripped deep down, perhaps deeper down than they themselves discern, by the passion that the world knows as revenge." This certainly coincides with my own hypothesis and experience and I believe it calls for those of us involved in Christian apologetics to act with clarity and kindness, humility and understanding.

It's all too easy to get locked into arguments, debates and conflict with an unhealthy competitive spirit and a determination to win at all costs. We convince ourselves that God is at stake when it's sometimes our own sense of security and pride that's at stake. One thing I've noticed when engaging with atheists at the anti-theist end of the believer-agnostic-atheist spectrum is their surprise and amazement if a Christian is prepared to say, 'I'm sorry' or 'I don't know'. That can feel difficult in the heat of the moment or when under proverbial fire but I've learned that sometimes the best way to disarm the perceived enemy and diffuse a hostile conflict is to put your own weapon down first. I've learned to pray before going online, to ask God to enable me to love, hear and respond with kindness and an open heart.

I've been humbled and amazed by some of the changes in tone and conversation I've experienced as a result. May God give us courage to make ourselves vulnerable and to reach out with an open hand when our natural instinct is to attack, protect and defend.

Theodicy

It's tempting to propose erudite political, economic and spiritual explanations for what's happened in Haiti over the past week. It's understandable in the face of bewildering complexity and pain. The earthquake has been devastating at so many different levels and news reports are filled with harrowing accounts of loss, pain and deep insecurity. In spite of this, I find John Semantu's simple words more humble, refreshing and hope inspiring: 'I have nothing to say that makes sense of this horror - all I know is that the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus is that he is with us.' Sometimes the most meaningful and prophetic thing we can say is, 'I don't know and yet, somehow, God enables me to believe.'

(I posted an 80-second video on YouTube in response to the Haiti disaster: '3 Words - Help Haiti Now'. All feedback gratefully received.)