 English translation of a short talk I delivered at a Prayers for Peace meeting in Germany this week: What a week. Peter Hegseth, the US Minister of War, declared brazenly that “We negotiate with bombs”, then prayed at the Pentagon for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” – “in the name of Jesus Christ.” I’m not sure which version of the Bible he is reading but something very seriously seems to have been lost or omitted in translation. Some Christian friends, Ian and Samantha, used to drive around in the UK in a VW Campervan with a sticker emblazoned across the back window that asked: “Who would Jesus bomb?” It was a satirical question yet begged the more thoughtful response: “Nobody.” Violence and bombing – in Jesus’ name – is a cynical political distortion and a total contradiction in terms. So, to the real Jesus now. (The one we see portrayed here in the crucifix at the front of this church). This is the Jesus who sacrificed his own life…listen carefully to this…for whom the writer Paul describes in the Bible as “God’s enemies”. We can imagine Hegseth squirming squeamishly at this news: “No! This is all wrong!” Yet Jesus calls us, as disciples, to follow his example. Jesus spoke very directly about this: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." It is (paraphrased) in the Lord’s prayer too: “Forgive us when we behave like an enemy, in the same way we forgive others who behave like enemies towards us.” Paul reiterates this ethic when he says: “Do not repay evil for evil.” I find this really challenging. It recognises there are others we may rightly regard as enemies, and who will regard us as enemies too. The Bible doesn’t shy away from that. Yet it calls us beyond forgiveness – to love. Does that mean to love Putin? To love the Islamist regime in Iran? (To love the warmongering Hegseth too?). It seems to push hard against all sense of justice. Difficult as it is to say this, I believe Jesus would answer with an unequivocal “Yes.” Love is God’s antidote to hate and the only true means of hope. Whoever we regard to be on “the other side”, on “the wrong side” – we are called to pray for them. Forgiveness and love hold out open hands and open hearts, even when it feels humanly impossible to do so. May God help us do it.
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 ‘A virtuous cycle is a self-reinforcing loop in which a series of positive actions and outcomes continually strengthen each other.’ (Marc Wilson & Donnée MacDougall) I hardly slept on Saturday night then, yesterday evening, I spent time with friends in Germany. As it got late they offered me a lift in their car back to the apartment where I’m staying and, to their surprise, I declined. ‘Why not?’ they asked. ‘You’re very tired, it’s a 30 minutes’ walk and it’s freezing cold outside.’ ‘It’s OK. I'll walk.’ ‘But why?’, they persisted. ‘Because I don’t feel like walking.’ They looked at me completely puzzled now. Had something got lost in translation? ‘The last thing I feel like doing at the moment, when I’m tired and it’s so cold, is to walk back. Therefore, I’m choosing to walk back.’ It opened a curious discussion about self-discipline as a way to strengthen character, personal agency and resilience. It’s as if each time we make such a decision and act on it, it reinforces or changes something within us. Some philosophers argue that who we are and become is a cumulative consequence of such decisions and actions. Now don’t get me wrong. Even the best principles can get a bit crazy when pushed to extremes. Yet picture this. A person is feeling lethargic, demotivated, anxious or depressed and says they don’t feel like getting up in the morning; eating or drinking healthily; going outside for exercise, fresh air and open sky; meeting up with other people; doing something (e.g. as a volunteer) that creates a sense of achievement or makes a positive difference for others – so they don’t do it. The decision and action of not doing it, because in that moment it’s the last thing they feel like doing, actually reinforces their experience of lethargy, demotivation, anxiety or depression. It’s a vicious spiral. The solution, known in psychology as a virtuous cycle, is to do the exact opposite thing – whether we feel like it or not. In the moment, it will feel counterintuitive and we may need support from others to help break an old, fixed pattern and create a sustainable new one. Do you want to re-create your future? Get in touch!  ‘Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.’ (Dr Seuss) Looking online this evening, I found myself browsing for the Palestinian Christian hospital where I worked with children and teenagers with disabilities in 1982. Much to my amazement, I found a very old photo of the hospital itself and one of the actual staff team I worked with. Vivid memories immediately came flooding back – the people, the sights, the sounds, the smells. This was during a previous Israeli invasion of Lebanon and I remember us watching the long column of tanks and other military vehicles rolling over the border on TV. The hospital was near Jerusalem in a small village called Bethany or, in Arabic, al-Azariya (‘the place of Lazarus’). I didn’t realise it back then but it was a significant place for Jesus during his earthly lifetime too. Looking at the photos, I find myself wondering: what happened to all those people in the picture? The man in the back row in the middle with a moustache was a very serious figure, and my boss. The man in the middle row at the far left, also with a moustache, showed me great kindness – and cried when I left. As war rages on again, I can only fear and hope for them – and pray.  ‘Coaching should be a process of inquiry, not a series of questions.’ (Marcia Reynolds) I’m often stimulated by the great questions, insights and ideas that people bring to coaching training workshops. This week’s advanced-level participants were in Burundi, Pakistan and the UK and mostly in leadership and management roles. Some of the questions they raised were:
The first question touches on culture and boundaries since where people draw the boundaries between ‘life’ and ‘work’ may be different in different cultural contexts. Many managers are willing to explore outside-of-work issues insofar as they impact on a person or team in-work. The second question touches on perception and capability; firstly, the degree to which the way in which a person construes a situation and themself in relation to it corresponds with ‘reality’ and ‘truth’; then how far critical environmental factors are constraining or enabling their progress. The third question touches on emotional and cultural intelligence; that is, how far the manager is aware of their own emotional triggers and how far they have developed themselves to recognise and address them. It’s useful to work through these things with a trusted supervisor. The final question touches on relationships and systems; that is, how the manager positions themself in relation to others in a team, and the others in relation to each other, and how they then choose to navigate the cultural and relational boundaries that emerge between them. Do you want to develop your coaching skills as a manager? Get in touch!  ‘Democracies have no obligation to facilitate their own demise. Fascists can only succeed in conditions of excessive democratic tolerance.’ (Karl Loewenstein) As a teenage anti-Nazi activist in the UK, I can remember arguing vociferously that hard right parties like the British National Party and National Front should be banned. A wise older person disagreed with me, suggesting that banning parties simply drives them underground, out of view, and that makes them even more dangerous. He had a point. It’s a tough dilemma for democratic societies – one we face again now when UK society, like others throughout the West, is increasingly polarised between hard right nationalists, hard left progressives and ethnic sectarianism. The centre ground is losing ground and grasping weakly at paper straws to survive. The UK government has tried various tactics to address this, at times mimicking the hard right to appeal to voters on that front, then swinging towards the hard left in an attempt to appease voters heading in that direction. It looks chaotic, often driven more by pragmatic expediency than vision and values and, paradoxically, adds to the attraction of the extremes who appear far clearer, more principled and more decisive. The government also tried silencing free speech via police Non-Crime Hate Incident recording then, after widespread public backlash, repackaged elements in a counterproductive ‘Anti-Muslim Hostility’ definition that even Muslim leaders opposed. This level of instability and uncertainty, with its associated anxieties and risks, is driving some of those balancing precariously on the residual centre ground to argue that urgent and muscular action is needed to defend democracy itself (see, for instance, Paul Mason: Britain Needs Militant Democracy). I see profound resonances here in Germany (where I’m writing at the moment) with its dark history of fascism, where the Nazi party seized power by manipulating the liberal-democratic process to its own advantage – then subsequently dismantled it. German democrats are wringing their hands helplessly as they watch the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The hard left here argues that, if Germans had been more forceful (using violence, if necessary) to crush the Nazi party before it got into power, Germany and the wider world would have been spared the unspeakable horrors of the Third Reich. It’s a compelling argument until we question, along with Mahatma Gandhi, whether using violent means to achieve a non-violent end is ethically defensible and effective practically. Martin Luther King cautions that ‘The ends cannot be used to justify the means because the ends are pre-existent in the means’. I pray for wisdom and courage in the face of such challenges. Democracy itself hangs in the balance.  ‘What feels polite in one language can sound evasive in another – misunderstanding is often our first shared culture.’ (Yoon Jeong Kim) I had a funny and embarrassing experience in a German supermarket this weekend. I had gone to buy some milk and fruit and, when I arrived at the checkout, the young assistant picked up the loose bananas, looked at me quizzically and said, ‘Wiegen?’ (pronounced in the same way as the English word ‘vegan’). I was puzzled. ‘Is she asking me if I’m vegan?’, ‘Is she asking if the bananas are vegan?’, ‘Aren’t all bananas vegan?’ After an awkward moment – and with a visibly restless queue forming behind me – she pointed to a weigh scale. ‘Aaah.’ Now I understood. It felt to me like a classic illustration of what can happen in communication more broadly. It’s a particular risk when speaking in a different language, or when trying to understand what another has said in a different language. We can wonder, ‘Have they understood me correctly?’, ‘Have I understood them correctly?’ It’s even more complex when communicating cross-culturally where the same words, expressions or gestures may carry and convey very different underlying meanings. Misunderstandings occur when we think we've understood, and we haven’t. Peter Cotterell explained this phenomenon well when, as Principal and lecturer at a theological school where I studied, he introduced the idea of a presuppositional pool. This is a concept used in linguistics to describe a set of shared, background assumptions that speakers, authors or presenters from a specific culture and context take for granted in communication. It’s a bit like a subconscious underlying framework that enables their communications to make sense to others. Problems arise when we find ourselves swimming in different pools without realising it. Do want to enhance your communication skills? Get in touch!  ‘The validity of a question does not depend on the availability of an answer but on the question's capacity to open up new perspectives and horizons.’ (Henri Nouwen) Questions were in the political spotlight this week when the UK Prime Minister doggedly refused to answer questions at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQ) time in Parliament. It provoked rage from the opposition and left some people questioning, what's the point of PMQs if the PM won’t answer Qs? I guess the PM was concerned about leaving himself exposed so tried to duck and dive, deploy evasive tactics, hide in the shadows or change the subject. It didn’t work. Questions in coaching and action learning have a very different intention in mind. It’s not about putting someone on the spot, catching them out, testing their knowledge, expecting them to demonstrate something to our own satisfaction or simply to fulfil our own curiosity. Questions are offered as a gift, not like Q&As to evoke a response, but more like a stimulus or an invitation to reflect, to enable the other to think more deeply, broadly, creatively or courageously. Questions can also tap into vision, values and motivation, enabling a person to tear through doubt, ambivalence, or procrastination and to enhance their own sense of agency. This is often the focus and goal of coaching and action learning, to challenge with support, enabling a shift from problems or passivity to solutions and action. In my work in these fields, I pray to be a source of hope, to inspire hope in others. Great questions are full of promise, possibility and potential.  ‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’ (George Bernard Shaw) How quickly things can go wrong. ‘I’d like to meet with you for a review.’ Our intentions are innocent, yet we see the other person tense up and the colour drain from their face. What has just happened here? What might we inadvertently have tapped into without realising it? It sometimes happens in line-managerial relationships if trust is low or has not yet been established, where a person has had bad experiences in the past or if they fear the worst. Some psychologists call this action-intention inference. An invitation to a meeting is an action and, if we don’t clarify our intention up front, the person may assume or infer our intention (see Chris Argyris: Ladder of Inference) – whether it reflects our true intention or not. In hierarchical relationships or where trust is low, people may fill the void of not-knowing with their own anxieties. There is a risk of jumping to conclusions that could stress or derail the relationship. Imagine this alternative scenario and framing as a 4-step approach. The line-manager speaks with the team member in an open and invitational tone: 1. Affirmation: ‘It’s great that you’ve been here to support us for the past 3 months.’ 2. Impact: ‘Your work has made such a difference to the team.’ 3. Intention: ‘It matters to me that this is a great experience for you too.’ 4. Invitation: ‘Fancy a coffee sometime to hear how you’re doing and if there’s anything you need?’ Do you want to enhance your communication skills? Get in touch!  English translation of a short talk I delivered at a Prayers for Peace meeting in Germany last night: A few years ago, a colleague in the UK, Rick James, was the keynote speaker at a forum for international development experts from around the world. Rick is a follower of Jesus and is widely respected in this arena for his own work in many different countries, especially in those that are poor. As the participants waited eagerly to hear his words of knowledge, wisdom and expertise, Rick sat quietly for a moment then said, unexpectedly, ‘There is so much I don’t understand.’ What an astonishing opening for a presentation. It demonstrated deep humility in the face of a complex world in which so much is truly beyond human comprehension. As we look at the news today, for instance, in spite of our prayers for 4 years, the world seems to be getting worse. Who could have imagined a month ago that the USA and Israel would attack Iran? Who could have imagined that, as a consequence, Russia is now even stronger than before to attack Ukraine? This may test our faith and challenge our hope. Some of you may have heard of Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest who wrote an array of books about spirituality and Christian living. In one of his texts, he advised that, when faced with such painful questions, we should avoid the temptation of offering or accepting simple or easy answers. Instead, he advised that such questions should be raised and faced with honesty. Sometimes this will mean being present yet silent before God and one-another – like here this evening. His guidance reminds me of another priest, Iain Matthew, who is from the UK and lives in Spain. Iain offers profound reflections on the biblical account where Jesus is at a wedding in Cana and the host runs out of wine. It’s a painfully embarrassing situation for the host and we can imagine how, if we were there as his guests, we might try quickly to hide it, reassure him or find a solution. We might also call on Jesus to do what we think is best, what we think is needed to fix it. Yet here is Mary now. 'She perceives the need and names it, ‘They have no wine’ – without prescribing a solution. She takes it, holds it, and allows it to ache before Jesus.' Iain suggests this may be, at times, a pattern for prayer, 'to feel our way to a wound that is in us (perhaps a hurt or disappointment that our prayers seem unanswered), to go the place of our need.' He suggests, 'Go there, name it and hold it before Christ.' In doing so, we offer our doubts, confusion and fears to God. He then goes further, inviting us 'to feel our way to the wounds in this world, to those people or situations in dire need of help or healing. To go there, take them, name them, and hold them before Jesus. To go there, not to dictate to Christ what the answer should be or what he should do about it, but to hold the wound before him.' This is prayerful advocacy. We play our part by presenting our concerns and hopes before God in trust, and Jesus is Lord – the wisdom of God and the power of God.  ‘The map is not the territory.’ (Alfred Korzybski) Coaching is often concerned with helping a person to explore and navigate their landscape. This landscape could be, for instance, the person’s reality, situation or circumstances. A coach may ask, ‘What’s the key challenge you’re facing at work?’ then, perhaps, ‘Who could support your success or, conversely, make it harder for you to succeed?’ or ‘What resources will you need to achieve this?’ Such questions typically help a person grow in awareness of the features of their external context in order to help them take them into account, draw on them or address them. Today, I ran an advanced-level workshop for experienced coaching practitioners in Burundi, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda and the UK. On this occasion, we focused primarily on a person’s inner landscape, recognising that the inner landscape is often shaped or influenced by external factors too, including key relationships and culture. The inner landscape is the swirling pool of a person’s thoughts, feelings, motivations and preferences, along with subconscious influences such as introjected beliefs and values or the enduring emotional impact of past experiences. We touched on Timothy Gallwey’s core insight, expressed in the formula P=P-I, where the first P stands for Performance, the second for Potential and the I for Interference. The interference that can affect our wellbeing or achievement often arises from whatever floats to the surface in that pool; for instance untested limiting assumptions, performance anxiety or a fear of negative evaluation by others. In view of this and the essentially subjective nature of such experiences, we explored how to address such issues with a person using a phenomenological approach. In practice this could entail, for instance: Explore the person’s world as they see, experience and feel within it (e.g. ‘What’s it like for you when you’re in that situation?); Explore cultural influences on the person’s beliefs, values and behaviour (e.g. ‘What messages from your family or community influence the choices you make?); Explore the person’s individual preferences and norms (e.g. ‘How do you prefer to make decisions?’). It enables a person to map their total landscape with greater clarity, colour and texture and, from there, to find their own way forward. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! 
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