‘Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.’ (Maya Angelou) I can’t create a rainbow. I can only witness its radiant beauty. A rainbow itself is created by white light, refracted as it strikes droplets of water in the air, often seen most vividly during or after rainfall. Some of the most stunning I’ve seen have been in Scotland where sunshine and rain are common together, with bright-coloured rainbows emerging like curvaceous, prismatic streamers in their midst. The Bible depicts rainbows as signs of spiritual-existential promise, of hope, initiated by God. Again, this isn't something I can make happen. I can only witness it, experience it, be awestruck by it. It’s something, or rather Someone, who clings to me amidst the violent storms, raging winds and torrential downpours of my life. Often, quite literally, this has been the only reason why I'm still alive today. Sometimes, I only perceive or discern the traces of a rainbow after the event. It’s like a mysterious pattern that appears, by faith, and is only visible from a distance. I went to theological school for 3 years. Inexplicably, my fees and living expenses were fully-paid. I remember, however, sitting on the side of my bed, alone and in near-despair. Studying God like studying physics felt like a travesty. Years later, the hidden seeds sown through that experience gradually came to fruition. I can now see the deep wisdom in that youthful decision, that strange prompt of divine opportunity that had felt so hard for me at the time. It was a period that had included a broken engagement, a snapped shin bone, tests for throat cancer and many other painful trials. Yet still, somehow...a rainbow appeared.
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‘The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.’ (Albert Einstein) ‘According to these blood test results’, said the consultant, ‘you are dead.’ He stood at the end of my hospital bed scratching his head. ‘Clearly you’re not dead’, he continued, ‘or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. There must be an error.’ He asked a nurse to take fresh bloods and to send them off urgently to the lab. Later that day with a new report in his hand, he looked even more confused. ‘The results are the same. This is impossible.’ We looked at each other. I didn’t know what to say. I had been experiencing severe pain and blackouts, often falling unconscious without warning, and had no idea why. So now the consultant sent me for a CT scan using a radioactive dye to get a clear scan result. The dye triggered an anaphylactic reaction which nearly killed me. An attentive passing nurse pushed an oxygen mask on my face, turned it up full and ran to find a crash kit. Unfortunately, someone had removed the adrenaline jab and hadn’t replaced it. I was within 2 minutes of death. By divine coincidence, that same day my ex-wife left me and took our 2 daughters with her: some would say that when it rains, it pours… I can’t explain these strange medical mysteries yet I can, by faith, trace a rainbow through the rain. The hospital drama that distracted me from difficult home events; the nurse who recognised and responded to my crisis; the availability of specialist medical facilities and drugs to save my life; the compassion of my brother and his family who supported me throughout. When have you experienced the mysterious? ‘It’s the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.’ (Albert Einstein) ‘At such moments we don't choose silence...but fall silent.’ (Philip Simmons) As 2024 opened, I found myself yearning for silence, a sacred space to sit quietly and alone with my face turned unequivocally towards God. I found such a place in Alnmouth, a Franciscan retreat centre in the North East of England. Its spirituality focuses on Jesus and the poor and that matters deeply to me too. I had first found Jesus through a close friend who went on to become a Franciscan so this felt like a familiar place, like returning home after a long journey away. I packed a case and went. The days started early and ended late with a time of silence or spoken liturgy in a simple candle-lit chapel. As I sat or stood listening to the devout Franciscans chanting words slowly and meditatively from the Bible, my attention was drawn to a stark representation of Jesus on a cross at the front, straining to look upwards to his Father. I felt hurt, angry and confused by his suffering and, at the same time, intensely frustrated by my own weak faith and what the Bible calls sinfulness. He deserves better. As I sat in the deep silence that followed, I recalled some words from Iain Matthew (The Impact of God): ‘Someone is there – you notice out of the corner of your eye – Someone is there looking at you...and has been for some time. You realise your whole Christian life is an effect, the effect of a God who is constantly gazing at you – whose eyes anticipate, penetrate and elicit beauty.’ It isn’t about me. It's about God's expression of amazing divine love that holds the power to transform everything. ‘Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.’ (Brad Paisley) It was my first time at a Greenbelt Festival in the UK and I remember wearing simple sandals made from recycled car tyres and a leather headband to keep my hair out of my face. I painted a cross on my forehead, carried a bamboo flute (which I couldn’t play) and walked with friends amidst the crowds towards the centre stage. Radical social activist, Jim Wallis, was the keynote and he spoke passionately about a place in the Bible where Jesus reveals who and what matters to him in this world. I felt spellbound. It resonated deeply with my own spiritual convictions – nothing to do with religious moralising and everything to do with a vision, an ethic, a possibility, a relationship. ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ In this narrative, those to whom Jesus is speaking were puzzled and asked when they had done this. ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Jesus was sharing with astonishing clarity the lens through which he views our priorities and relationships. The way we treat others in need – the poor, the outsider, the sick, the oppressed – is the way that Jesus considers we reflect and treat him. Please God, as we enter this new year: shine your light of love, truth and hope through my life with ever-increasing brightness. ‘Learn from history, maintain your mystery, take your victory.’ (Amit Kalantri) Sometimes, we need to look back to look forward and the New Year can present us with a special opportunity to do just that. We could think of this as analogous to an annual performance review, where we pause for a moment and take stock of progress and learning so far before moving on. At a personal level, I’ve been thinking and writing quite a lot recently about Kairos moments in my own life that have, in retrospect, often proved pivotal. These experiences carry a spiritual quality and significance for me that both transcend the temporal and reveal a deeper sense of meaning. An instance comes to mind when, 3 days into a leadership role in a new organisation (to me), my line-manager called me into his office to confess, in deep disappointment, that funding for (a) a new leadership coaching programme and (b) a new management development programme, both of which were to lay in my area of responsibility, had been slashed as part of broader financial cuts. He apologised that, as a consequence, these flagship initiatives could no longer go ahead. I could see a look of anxiety on his face wondering, I imagine, how I might react to this bombshell news. I prayed silently then responded in a spirit of curiosity that, if these initiatives were priority, I’d just need to find a different way to achieve them. I thanked him for being open, prayed, then placed an invitation on LinkedIn, asking if anyone would like to offer pro bono coaching support for leaders in a national UK charity. Within 10 days, 180+ people had responded to offer their services. I also prayed and asked around if anyone would be willing to run a pro bono management development programme. A prestigious agency responded and ran an annual programme for us for 4 years running. I’m reflecting on why this experience came to mind for me now. It happened 10 years ago yet still feels so profoundly resonant as we approach the New Year. The first lesson for me is that it’s not all about me. God is capable of doing far more than I can ask or imagine. The second is the rich relational resourcefulness of networks, the kindness of so many people who are willing to offer themselves in heartfelt service when offered meaningful opportunities to do so. The third is the power of invitation, not expectation, that draws people freely into co-creative partnership to do something amazing. 'The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.' (Victor Hugo) Bursting with excitement would be an understatement. These poor Filipino children today know that something very special is about to happen, but neither they nor their families know what it will be. Living in a very poor community that exists at subsistence level in a cemetery, they don’t normally expect to be seen, let alone be treated to gifts. When Jasmin, her daughter and her small team of helpers appear, the whole community goes wild. Supported by friends in the UK and Germany, every one of the 127 children receives a mattress to sleep on. Christmas gifts and food parcels are distributed too. With wide smiles of joy, the whole community springs spontaneously into song and dance. God is amazing. Love in action. We can be hope. Today is a dark day. The wind and rain outside reflect the deep, dark feeling inside. One of the women who featured in small things, the video, in July…has died. She didn’t die from an accident or a serious illness. She died because she is poor. She loved to help others and brought joy to the lives of those who live on the far edge of hope. That is her tribute – her simple, beautiful legacy. With no shoes to wear, she got a small cut on her foot. Not wanting to burden her family with the cost of help that they too could ill afford, she hid it from them and didn't say anything. She wrapped a makeshift bandage around it, but couldn’t keep it clean. With untreated diabetes, no sanitation and being too poor to access doctors, hospitals or medication, the wound festered and killed her. I hate that the poor are so vulnerable. And I’m trying to remind myself: we can be hope. ‘Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.’ (Albert Einstein) If you ever read David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade, you’ll get this. Two weeks ago, a song came to mind that I had written then recorded as a duet with a Christian friend, Maggie, some 37 years ago. Life moved on and Maggie and I hadn’t spoken since. In fact, I had completely forgotten ever having written and recorded that and other songs. Wondering what this mysterious prompt might mean, I rummaged through a box of old items and, to my immense relief, found a cassette with a hand-written label, ‘Niksongs’, on the side. Filled with excitement, I searched online to find some way of copying the cassette to USB so that I could listen to it on my laptop. I found a device designed for that purpose and tried it in eager anticipation but, unfortunately, it didn’t work. Whilst pondering today what to do next, my phone pinged. A message from…Maggie. What?!! Living in Sri Lanka now, she had just found a copy of that very same cassette and was in process of working out how to convert it too – and that was her cue to contact me now. Pure coincidence? I don’t believe so. You decide. ‘What is the human being? In our anti-metaphysical age, we regard the question as having little importance. It is, however, the most crucial of all.’ (Felipe M. De Leon) A good friend in the Philippines – St. Paul as I affectionately call him because of his dedication to the Jesus and the poor – works with student educators, teachers of the future. Today, he supported his students to create their own art exhibition as a way of exploring the relationship between art and humanities. It’s a topic that interests me too. I’ve travelled and worked in many different countries in the world but I’ve never encountered a culture as vibrantly and spontaneously artistic and creative as the Philippines. Music, dance and colour are everywhere, and with such natural richness of talent. I find myself wondering – why is this? By stark contrast, in terms of art, my own part of the world can appear and feel quite cerebral, introverted and restrained. (I notice that even using the word ‘feel’ in that sentence can feel edgy and a bit risky in my context.) St, Paul’s students, like so many others I’ve had the great privilege of encountering in the Philippines, inspire me by their passion, energy and uninhibited emotional expression. They danced for me on my birthday even though I’ve never met them before, rather than offering me a simple written greeting. They bring the ordinary things of life to life. In ‘Life as Art’, Felipe M. De Leon makes similar observations and explores cultural and contextual conditions that contribute to this gift-phenomenon. In Filipino society, in which, ‘a person learns to develop an expanded sense of self – a sphere of being which includes not only his (or her) individual self but encompasses immediate family, relatives, friends…closeness to others allows (one) to be more trusting, open and freely expressive. Arts and crafts are richest, most creative and diverse in communal cultures. Food is tastier, speech more melodic and things of everyday life more colourful.’ De Leon goes on to comment on other distinctive dimensions of Filipino culture and spirituality that also play a part. Yet there’s something about the relational dimension that resonates very powerfully with me. I notice when I work with people and groups that, if they feel genuinely loved, valued and involved, they often find themselves at their most free, experimental and creative too. Conversely, if they feel isolated, undervalued or excluded, they are more likely to become defended, closed-in or shut-down. These amazing Filipino students have a lot to teach the Western world, and me…and I’m still learning. ‘The arrival of Jesus in our lives is not just something that happened 2000 years ago. It still happens now.’ (Steve Sutton) 20,000+ people gathered in London to demonstrate against horrific human rights abuses in El Salvador. A friend, Paul, and I travelled down by coach from the North East of England wearing our protest-style combat jackets and keen to add our own voices to the crowd. A large number of people were assembling in Hyde Park, the starting place, with various organisers moving among us to arrange the procession. Suddenly, Paul and I were approached by the leaders to carry a large banner at the very front of the march. We were astonished that, out of so many thousands of protestors, they chose us. God chose us. We were and are nobodies, yet as a new follower of Jesus at age 21, it felt like Jesus was walking with us, among us. Spotters on embassy rooftops monitored and took photos through long camera lenses. Our image appeared on the front cover of a well-known human rights magazine. On arriving at Trafalgar Square, the police mysteriously allowed only Paul and me through the cordon to sit at the foot of the speakers’ platform. 2 years later, I was chosen to meet the main speaker at a secret rendezvous in a basement flat in Islington, but I could never have imagined that at the time. On moving to London a few months later, I attended a vigil at St James’ Church, known for its firm stance on behalf of the poor and oppressed in the world. We were there to mark the inspiring life yet brutal assassination of radical follower of Jesus, Archbishop Oscar Romero. By God’s mysterious design, I discovered that I was sitting beside the Nicaraguan ambassador. At the end of the service, a Spanish nun, passionate follower of Jesus and human rights activist chose me to come forward, a lone stranger, to have my photo taken with Salvadorean refugees. She and I became life-long friends. Some 40 years later now, I’ve had the humbling privilege of witnessing and experiencing so many more such miracles than I could ever count or recount. I don’t know or understand why God chooses us but I’m glad and grateful that he does. When he does, it feels to me like a Divine voice that calls out from within and beyond, that we hear and experience as a realisation. Hitherto 'coincidence' takes on a deeper significance. As we approach this Christmas with all that it holds for us and the world, the arrival of Jesus in our lives is not just something that happened 2000 years ago. It still happens now. |
Nick WrightI'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? Get in touch! Like what you read? Simply enter your email address below to receive regular blog updates!
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