Note the difference between the way most people normally discern and this radical way that Ignatius is proposing. Most lead with the wrong foot: they allow the tools of the false spirit to drive the bus: fear and anxiety…ambition…pride…jealousy…But for now I allow my great desires to drive the bus. I imagine the greatest potentialities … Continue reading
Light sparkled as we drove. Filtered through the trees, shafts of golden green. Air seemed almost misty in the paleness of the September early-evening glow. And, light falling on grassy field by my side, heart clenched. With joy, with pain. Joy because beauty. Joy because this, the Haunting.* Enchanting by One who calls from beyond … Continue reading
Can I be honest? I mean, I’m going to be. I always am here. Too gut-searingly honest most of the time probably. But somehow this time it feels hard to say the thing out loud, even if it is threaded through so many of my posts already. Still, here it is… Depression has been far … Continue reading
Lost. The one word that shows up again and again in my journal in this season. I’m lost. The old knowing of the path is gone. I cannot see what I once could see. I don’t know where I am going this side of heaven. Or even what, quite, is the point. I am lost … Continue reading
Sometimes someone else’s words capture the very thing you have been trying to say: The dreaming of impossible things in the Lord is the act of hope. The act of hope does not ignore the chaos within and without, nor is it a dream for everything to be returned to the secure ways of the … Continue reading
Leaders bear pain. It’s been a theme of mine recently. For strength does not mean being impervious to pain. And leadership reframing of reality means first staring death in the face. It’s been a theme in this space because I’ve seen it again and again in the space of my daily living. Leadership means carrying the pain … Continue reading
January was dark this year. Whether it was darker than usual I don’t know. But it was dark outside and in. Pitch-black mornings and drawn-in evenings. Sleeping for hours and hours and hours. Yet always tired. A tiredness which is almost like an itch, a physical sensation, a mental weariness. No tears but a heart … Continue reading
Leaders are tired. Often really tired. I know that from firsthand experience, of course. It’s a slow leak, an almost imperceptibly small depletion of energies, of passion, of get-up-and-go. It’s that feeling of always being ‘on’, never fully able to disentangle your heart from the work. And you push yourself that bit further every day, … Continue reading
One day earlier this week was another difficult day in a series of difficult days where it has felt like God might be on extended vacation. (In the sun somewhere, no doubt; I can’t see him holidaying in London with all this rain!) That morning, the endless rain mirrored my mood. In fact, it was … Continue reading
The text in this post comes from an article of mine published in the student magazine at college this month. It is the product of deeper thought on the topic of a previous post on this blog, so if you think you recognise parts of it, that is why! What kind of old man do you … Continue reading
The Art of Steering 