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Just caught up on the BBC documentary on leadership featuring Alex Ferguson - hate to say it but it was brilliant!  Some amazing insights to structural change and development through sustaining the strong ideology of Manchester United.  Here are some edited highlights! "It is  vital for a leader to be willing to challenge the existing culture not live with it as it is..."  "The greatest problem when you're leading an organisation is that you take the system as it is and try to make it work when it might be the system itself that is at fault. You can't just amend the message you may need to change it completely..."   "Leadership is a balance of listening learning and leading..."

Typical - day after you preach on Hebrews 10:19-25, not least "And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds " a brilliant Ghandi quote pops into your inbox! "Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being. . . . If love or non-violence be not the law of our being, the whole of my argument falls to pieces. . . . Belief in non-violence is based on the assumption that human nature in its essence is one and therefore unfailingly responds to the advances of love. . . . If one does not practice non-violence in one's personal relations with others and hopes to use it in bigger affairs, one is vastly mistaken." Ghana ( Mahatma Gandhi, edited by Thomas Merton,  On Non-Violence  (New Directions: 2007), 10)

I remember reading somewhere that Dallas Willard used to ask himself each evening two powerful questions. "Have I been more or less irritable today? and have I been more or less hopeful today" . I tried it and found it quite challenging! Add this Carl Jung quote to the mix and it gets a whole lot more challenging! "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."  C.G. Jung Almighty God, unto you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord.

Bel Canto drew a varied response as a choice this time around for book club. I was struck by the impact of beauty in a dark and ominous situation, the transformation it brought, the hope it nurtured and its part in the dignity of humanity. I got home and thought of a connection I wish I had made. Tom Wright suggests that we have  a responsibility  to be 'workers for justice; explorers of spirituality, makers and menders of relationships, creators of beauty...' Wright, N.T. (2006:161). Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. SanFrancisco: HarperSanFrancisco As ever a fascinating discussion last night.

Intriguing quote from Ann Patchett's Bel Canto "If someone loves you for what you can do then it's flattering, but why do you love them? If someone loves you for who you are then they have to know you, which means you have to know them"

Some interesting thoughts today from Richard Rohr about the difference between being punished by your sins and being punished for your sins. "Jesus sought to create a deep sense of personal choice, responsibility, and freedom right now, and not just disconnected payoffs in the afterlife. But we have understood much of the Gospel in terms of divine threats and artificial rewards--a delayed schedule of merits and demerits. This deeply distorted the transformative message of the Gospel and appealed to our self-interest instead of love. In other words, it fed us at the ego level instead of the soul level."

Just parking this Richard Rohr thought on my blog to digest at another date! "Rather than making dogmatic statements about how to get to heaven, Jesus modeled and taught how to live on earth in a loving way, and he said that this was indeed heaven! But Christians have all too often pushed heaven into the future. We've made Jesus' death and resurrection into a reward/punishment system for the next world, which creates tremendously self-absorbed and self-preoccupied people. It doesn't transform anyone into compassionate, loving individuals. Instead it leads to a kind of morbid self-analysis in which people feel guilty, inferior, and inadequate or superior and self-righteous."