Chris Gribble

Be yourself - Everyone else is taken (Oscar Wilde)

Hope – the key to making an idea work.

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Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.
George Bernard Shaw

When hope smiles

When hope smiles,
“Possible” is not a winsome regret,
It’s an opportunity,
That opens with a new day,
With the sunrise smiling back at me.

When hope smiles,
“Work” is not a drudgery,
It’s creativity,
Born from a Creator,
Well done his voice says to me.
(Chris Gribble)

I wrote this poem when considering the importance of hope in my own life. Two key thoughts for me centred around the words possibility and creativity. Both of these emerge from the idea that “work” is an intrinsically good thing.

Despair is the antithesis to hope. Despair also is the voice of regret and drudgery. Hope makes possibilities possible and reimagines work as a creative expression of who we are. When we lose our way in our work then it can become life draining instead of life giving.

Hope is an important ingredient in making ideas work. Professor Martin Seligam is considered an authority on optimism – In his findings he describes some of the differences between optimists and pessimists.

For example he writes about the differences in how the two mindsets view setbacks. The pessimist globalises the setback while the optimist limits it to the one event.Then in the case when something goes right the pessimist will say that it’s a once off event while the optimists believes that it will continue.

The resilient person views a setback as something that can be changed in the future.

Creative, possibilities – Well done. This is the voice of hope.

“When hope smiles…”, possibility emerges.

Learning to Be

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“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”
Rumi

The Hidden Power of the Gospels: Four Questions, Four Paths, One Journey

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An Excerpt from The Hidden Power of the Gospels: Four Questions, Four Paths, One Journey by Alexander J. Shaia with Michelle Gaugy

 

“The wisdom teachings in Matthew contain such an abundance of sensible counsel that we would do well to keep them close. They are a poetic guide to the promises and the dangers that greet us on the first path. The recommendations and responses they hold are truly Be-Attitudes designed to move us forward. They challenge us to:

• “Accept that we do not and will not know results in advance. We often feel ‘poor in spirit.’

• “Make farewells to our yesterdays and embrace the grief we feel.

• “Be humble in our willingness to journey. Yielding to exile will yield riches of Spirit.

• “Know that our true hunger and thirst are for Spirit, and only Spirit, despite all trials and temptations.

• “Greet all we encounter, within and without, in mercy, and reap the rewards of gratitude. Recognize that mercy derives from merces, a Latin word that translates as ‘reward.’ (It continued into French as merci, meaning ‘thanks,’ or ‘gratitude.’)

• “Be full of heart. Do not seek to remove any thought, any feeling, or any person from our inner life. Each is an aspect of Spirit. Welcome them all.

• “Believe in ‘Jeru-Shalom’ as a home of welcome that accommodates the true peace of respect for differing voices, if we will but listen.

• “Accept inner and outer hardship as needed for the sake of living a new life in the presence of God. Power and applause are not what we seek. Our journey leads instead to humility and service.

• “Anticipate lack of esteem. Be prepared instead for conflict — and meet it with respect and love.

“The nine Beatitudes reflect diverse parts of a harmonious unity which I endlessly reflect and touch each other as we go through our lives. At the very heart of Jesus’s teachings, their practice opens us to compassion. If we are able to place these on our hearts, walk with them on our feet, hold them in our hands, and seal them in our thoughts, we will have more insight along our journey. They will become our walking staff and guide for the arduous times we will face.

“We can certainly find equal relevance in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. All of us have ‘heard it said’ — by parents, by friends, by society, by religious institutions — that we ought to ‘do this’ or ‘avoid that.’ Unreflectively, we may have accepted or rejected what we have heard. Jesus’s words ask us to become more conscious. He tells us that truth is not found on the surface. We are encouraged to explore the original purpose and meanings of the things we have been told, as well as their genuine truth and relevance in our hearts and lives today.

“We have talked about the risk of returning to older, seemingly simpler ways, but an equal peril lurks within this first path: the urge to rush in the opposite direction. Our ego-mind can just as readily deceive us into thinking that all of yesterday’s wisdom is empty folly — that nothing we have ever learned or been told has merit or benefit; that we are without guidance. Rejecting everything and racing off to the ‘new and better’ can be a sprint to isolation and despair. Either one of these extreme positions is only a trick, not a truth. Quadratos requires that we ignore these deceptions and dig deeper, explore further. Although many people and institutions have become protectors of empty practices, there are others who still hold truthful, living attitudes of heart. We are on a journey to discover which have real veracity for us and endeavor to claim them in our own personal way.”

God loves you anyway

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Even when you have made mistakes, God has loved you totally. Even when you have betrayed yourself, God has loved you totally. Even when you have transgressed against others, God has loved you totally. Even when you have hated Him, God has loved you totally. And that is how He would have us love… Those who are mistaken about you, love them totally. Those who judge you, love them totally. Those who betray you, love them totally. Those who despise you, love them totally. That does not mean you should give them your keys, or surrender boundaries or any of that. It means only that love —and only total love — lifts us above the darkness of the world. When we think as God thinks, and love as God loves, we are given wings and a mantle of light to protect us and bless us all ways, on all days. For such is the power of Love. Amen
—Marianne Williamson

Perspective

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“The most common way to shrink someone’s perspective is to put them into a state of fear.”

I remember being very scared as a young person at a school camp. My job was to clean out the butter dishes but not to waste any butter. I had never done this job before so I wasn’t sure what to do. So I did my best.

I will never forget the roar of the teacher who discovered my attempt. I had mixed it all up and mixed the jam and the butter and made a mess of everything.

I was lifted by my neck off the ground by the teacher and yelled at at very close range, face to face

I was terrified. In hindsight that teacher displayed an awful abuse of power. I was 10 or 11 years old and he was a grown man. I spent most of the rest of that camp in a state of fear.

We make choices about the space we create around us. A creative place will be one where confidence is nurtured. Leaders are able to do this with all sorts of people.

They are able to create safe places that enable growth. This place has its challenges. It can be messy but the potential for creativity is far greater.

Starting small – a key to success

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I was reading through the story of brining mobile phones to Bangladesh. Its the tale of GrameenPhone — a partnership between Norway’s Telenor and Grameen Bank, co-winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize — illustrates a new approach to building business opportunities in the developing world.

“Nothing good in society ever started out big,” says Quadir: verything good, whether it’s a company or an institution, tarts small and grows and spreads. If the idea is no good, it doesn’t spread, and no harm is done.” source

Iqbal Quadir’s story is worth the read.

Quotes on potential

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If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. Thomas Alva Edison

It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever. Phillip Adams

Try not to be a man of success, but rather to be a man of value. – Albert Einstein

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.  Norman R. Augustine