I bet you have heard the phase “He ate his own words?” Well! I recently heard one of the most interesting sermons I have heard for years and it was from a visiting woman vicar in Oxenhall. She told us how Jeremiah (a misery guts if ever there was one) once ate an Old Testament scroll and that Ezekial did the same years later. Her sermon was laced with humour was entertaining and stimulated much thought. Above all it was full of optimism and hope.
As we chatted afterwards, she said that she rarely preaches nowadays as her present job is sitting on committees and doing admin work. This got me thinking of other people who are brilliant at a particular job, but who are promoted up the organisation and then become deskbound and a committee hack. My mind went to the best customer-focussed salesman in a local agricultural store who left because his employers told him they couldn’t pay him more unless he reduced his time with customers and became a manager. He left, and that store has not been the same since.
Why is it that organisations take people away from doing what they are good at and make them into hopeless managers? I expect it has something to do with a belief that the top of the hierarchy should get the highest salary, and that lower levels should get less. Of course it is then inevitable that the most valued person, ie. ‘patient’ or ‘customer,’ is then being seen by the least valued employee.
How different from the New Testament where we are told, “Let him who would become your leader be the servant of all.” No equivocation there! The leader is to be the people’s champion against vested interests not the defender of that interest. Our Biblical champion certainly met his public face-to-face, and willing paid a dreadful price for his success. How different from today, when leaders from Social Services to Banks are paid vast sums and a pension pot for failure.
However, talking about jobs and work, reminds me of our recent holiday in Cornwall. Unlike our frenetic youth, nowadays our holidays are sedate to the point of idleness. Friends tell us that that is what a holiday is for, but I just feel we ought to be doing something.
Much as we enjoy a break, we are always glad to be back home with our animals and the fecundity of all embracing nature in this area. Our house sitters are wonderful and keep on top of the various jobs that need doing around the Holding but they, like us, realise that although we may borrow a patch of land from nature for a time. It is ultimately for our use and not for us to control as though we hold it in perpetuity.
This month being November, Guy Fawkes has been in my thoughts as he was reckless to the point of trying to blow up the leaders of the time. In some ways when we were young we mirrored his recklessness in the way in which we stored and used our fireworks. I took pleasure from saving pennies to spend on bangers, catherine wheels, jumping jacks, roman candles and golden sprays. It took weeks to gather about fifteen items, and I would regularly lift them out of the tin box in my bedroom tallboy. The smell of a sixpenny Brocks rocket is with me to this day. Today’s children are denied such personal memories and pleasures because adults reckon the risks to be worth more than the pleasures.
In my early life we also learned the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles Creed. Unlike Jeremiah I have never actually eaten those words on paper but nonetheless they are written in my heart as though I had done so. The process of learning such texts was for children to recite the text together and it was effective. But time moves on and a teacher decided that it would be easier if a modern child learned just one phrase from the Creed and then said it out aloud with the others following in order. They all practiced their parts before break-time and everything seemed fine.
The bell signalled the end of break and the children trooped back into class. They began reciting the Creed and all went well until, “He ascended into Heaven …………… and from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
At this point an embarrassing silence fell upon the class until a little girl cried out,
“Please Miss, “The Holy Ghost is still in the lavatory but he said he won’t be long.”
View from the Pew 