Today is one of those days.

These are the sort of days when to be honest trying to fit a little lentement into my day is hard, frustrating even.

Probably a day when just a little will be important then.

I have just finished leading a workshop with the Bath YFC staff team at a local secondary school.

Presenting is draining.  I am tired and want to just have a bit of ‘me time’

But I can’t.

Know the feeling?

I have to prepare for tomorrow.  I don’t normally work on Saturdays but this weekend I am.

I’m off to lead a workshop at a conference in Exter so I have to get directions, find out times that I need to be there and make sure I have everything I need to take with me.  No time to sit down, no time for others and just chatting about a successful workshop.  I have to get on with it.

However, the staff team, the people I lead, people for whom I try to offer some sort of positive role model have just been brilliant, facilitating and taking part in the day at a local secondary school.

I need a cup of tea.

Shall I offer them one too?  That will take more time.

I internally hesitate, thankfully not for too long.

I am aware of others and I make the offer.

Three normal teas, one with sugar and one decaff tea

I take my time and consider the mugs I will give each team member.

I brew the tea in a pot.

I take my time.

I am more aware of my team.

They are the people around me at work.

One has sugar, most don’t.

A little more lentement

Same route

Same time

Same roads

Same views

Sometimes even the same cars.  In fact even as I write I can recall the grey Hyundai i10 that I pass at roughly the same time going in the opposite direction every morning

I wonder if they recognise my car?

It is so routine.

It is so familiar I hope this time I will be quicker than last time.

I drive almost on autopilot.

I am almost blind to the wonders of the journey I take.

I have become unaware.

On my way to work today I was sat in the usual queue through Bradford on Avon.  I had a choice.

Do I continue up the same hill and go the same route, time, roads and views to see the same houses,

Trees?

And lollipop person?

Or do I go a different route?

Do I turn left?

Different perspective

Corners I don’t know or expect

New trees.

Different houses.

A different traffic jam.

A new awareness of the world I commute in

I turned left.

A little more lentement in my life

What about my day at work? (or home)

When I arrive at work and open that first email, I am often unprepared, distracted and not warmed up for a day of work.  I have often been busy rushing to get up and help the children get ready for school, I jump in the car, keen to miss the school traffic although invariably hitting it, put the radio on, drive with the thousands of others on the roads at the same time, park the car, get to the office and am then expecting myself to get straight into the list of tasks and meetings that face me today.

No lentement

There has been no warm-up for the day ahead.

There is a list.

There are expectations.

There are pressures.

There is a diary with appointments.

I arrive, already with a head full of some incident at the breakfast table, news of some disaster in another part of the world and the latest economic forecast ringing in my ears.

This is hardly good for my working day.

I am certainly not able to be aware of God’s presence in the details of my day and with my head already full I don’t really respond to my colleague’s arrival in the office as I am already concerned about the number of emails arriving in my inbox.

Stop.

Now.

The hectic hour before work is inevitable, particularly as I have children and everyone is rushing for breakfast, the bathroom, the ironing board and the front door.

The Today programme is an option but I like it.

So what to do?

Take ten minutes.  Just ten, when I get into my office.

Don’t turn on the computer (unless it contains my diary).

I pull out my diary (electronic or paper).

I look at the day ahead.

I consider each meeting and action that needs my attention today.

Just briefly.

Twenty or thirty seconds perhaps.

I imagine it happening or me playing my part in that meeting.

What does success in that action or meeting look like for me?

Is my to-do list unreaslistic?

Is it inevitable that I will end the day disappointed that there are umpteen things I did not do?

I consider what can and cannot be moved and get the diary for the day ahead looking realistic.

I warm my mind up to these things that I will be facing up over the next few hours, go over them, think of the people they involve.

I am prepared.

I am more aware, even just a little will help.

There will always be surprises, unexpected conversations or emails possibly a crisis even, but at least I am warmed up for the work I know about, for the list, the appointments and the expectations.

I engage fully. I am more aware of colleagues and focused in meetings.  I give my full attention to the management meeting with the staff member concerned.  Why?

Because I have considered the day ahead and done a warm up lap for the day.

Warm up for the day.

Ten minutes.

Stretch.

And then I am off, warmed up, busy, fully engaged but more aware of my environment and the people I am with.

More aware.

A little lentement at the start of the working day.

Fasting.

40 days.

Penance.

Preparation.

A time to reflect.

As I understand it, it is all of the above.  However that is as I understand it and my understanding of lent has always been a bit… well limited.  I have not grown up within the established church where lent forms an important part of the calendar.  My experience of a non-conformist upbringing is that lent has been a bit of an ‘add-on’, something we doff our hats to through a fasting of one of the usual suspects; chocolate, cakes, sugar, spice anything nice.

This year I am considering, (I say considering because I am scared of the 40 days of commitment) trying to take it a bit more seriously.

At a recent Sunday morning service in my non-conformist church I felt a sense of challenge to consider the principal of fast as something that makes us more aware of God but more than that, something that makes us more aware of the world and people around us.

After the lady speaking had spoken, a French word entered my consciousness.  Lentement.  It means slowly.  My sense was that perhaps this ‘divine prompting’ was for me and others, so I shared it with the church too.

If I am to be more ‘God aware’ and to be more God aware will mean being more aware of other people and the created order too, then I needed to go a little more slowly.

Could I do something or some things during lent that helped me inject a little more lentement into my life?

I like many of us am busy.

I am a husband, Dad, director of small charity, manager, youth worker, school governor, preacher…

I actually enjoy being busy.

I thrive in being busy.

So here’s the thing

I have heard motivational speakers and read various books declare the need for busy people to be better at saying ‘no’.

I agree there is truth in that advice, however the truth is also that actually I don’t always want to say ‘no’.

I like saying ‘yes’ when people ask me to do things.

I really do.

Now some of that is bound up with a need to please people for sure but not all of it.  Actually a lot of it is nothing to do with deep insecurities or my identity being intimately linked to my activity.  Contrary to what some might say.  Actually I like ‘doing’.

I have had conversations with people where I have felt guilt saying I am busy. Now of course being busy should never be a source of pride and watch out for busy becoming too busy.  However busy is just describing that your time is full, you are active, occupied and fully engaged.

That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Being busy is not wrong.

A Eureka moment

It is okay to be busy.  It is okay to enjoy saying yes.  It doesn’t always mean that you have a problem saying ‘no’ (though sometimes I may).

I realise that busy can easily become too busy, stressed, and aggressive and so on.  But it doesn’t always.  It doesn’t have to.

Busy people can be made to feel guilty for being active.  That in itself can be an unnecessary pressure.

So don’t feel bad, guilty, proud of being busy

Don’t feel like you have some unfulfilled need simply because you are busy.  You may do but you may not.

So anyway, back to lentement.

Whilst being busy is okay there is probably a need to go a little more slowly, a little more lentement at times.

Could lent be an opportunity to explore this?

Could I build in a spirit of lentement into my busy life whereby I can be busy slowly as it were?

Could I be busy but also have a greater awareness of God, people and the world around me?

Could I be busy but not be consumed in my own little world?

My hunch is that I can be, so I am going to try.

So my challenge over lent is to come up with 40 ways to build lentement into my busy life.

Small things that just slow me down a little.

I may not do any less.

In fact who knows, I may do more?

40 days.

40 things to build a little lentement into a fully engaged, occupied, busy life.

I am not proud of being busy.  It is just a fact.

It is not a reason for boasting.  But I do thrive on being busy, occupied, full engaged with life and active.

That’s okay.  But I also need to build in some lentement.

To build in a little more God-awareness

So here goes…

Wielders of power, able to use it to our own ends

We throw it around as if we own it

Transactions cross boundaries as bankers negotiate prices

Money

It is not the root of all evil

Our folly is to think that somehow we can control it

But we misunderstand

Money will never be our servant

But we can be its slave

Controlled by the fire that it lights within us

Its mine

My precious

And we loves it we do

It is not mine at all

It is more fluid than liquid, moving from hand to hand

Whirling around our world like an incessant wind

Money speaks soft words of cold comfort

That gently lead us down the rabbit hole

Money humbly convinces us we can harness its power

Fools!

Deception of the highest kind

We can’t live without it

We can’t live with it

It is money that wields the power

The banker is not a master or commander trading funds

But enslaved with all who think they have the strength to make it meet their own ends

But have you noticed

It never does

It never quite satisfies

It is never satisfied

It always leaves a question

Could you spend more, make more, take more, have more?

It always wants more

God is like the old lady who has found what she has been looking for…

There was once old lady who lost some money.  This wasn’t just change it was £30; half the money she had left in the house until she picked up her benefits at the beginning of next week.  It was the money she would use to buy the little food she needed for her and her disabled son until the following Monday.  It was the money that helped feed the electricity and gas meter and, importantly for her, the money that meant she could give 50p each Saturday morning to her grandson.

She didn’t have much money, she was poor but happy.  What money the old lady had, was spent just surviving, she had little savings.  She was desperate to be able to heat the house, which was getting colder each day with the coming winter, and to be able to give her six year old grandson some money; money she knew he looked forward to receiving nearly as much as she loved giving to him.  So she set about going through the house, she was very careful, checking the places she had been in the last 24 hours and looking underneath furniture and in draws.  She looked upstairs and she looked downstairs.  The old lady tidied the house until it was spotlessly clean.  Having looked everywhere with no joy she decided she would vacuum the sofa, having looked under the cushions earlier and seen all the dirt when she had been searching for the money.  She lifted one cushion, moved the knozzle around the sofa, along the back and then down the side, FALUN, FALUN, two pieces of paper vanished up the pipe of the cleaner and into the bag.  She couldn’t be 100% sure but she thought she caught a glimpse of what looked like a £10 note.   “Why hadn’t she seen them before?”   She had looked there, she was sure of it.

The old lady set the vacuum cleaner on the floor.  She opened it up so she could see the opening of the bag.  There, dusty and a little crumpled, but still as crisp as they were when she had picked the money up from the post office, were a £20 and £10 note.  She couldn’t believe it.  She called to her son, “I’ve found the money, I’ve found the money, I thought I had lost it”.  She called her daughter to share the good news.  She was so pleased that she invited her daughter and grandson around to join her and her son for a meal.  She went out and bought some nice meat even spending a bit of her meagre savings to buy some extras such as a bottle of lemonade.

As she walked home from the shop she thought about how blessed she was to have such a great family and be able to share this special meal with them.  Her thoughts lingered in particular on the smile that she pictured her grandson would give her when she gave him his pocket money.  She smiled inside and went home to cook the celebration meal.

How do you read those words?

Do you read them with a full stop at the end?

As if we seek, we find; job done?

Is not rather that in seeking we find and we find we need to keep seeking?

Is it that what we find when we seek is that there is infinitely more to discover?

Go on seeking and you will go on finding…

The more we discover of God, the more we find God is unfathomable

Seek and you will find… is a voyage of discovery into the unknowable, God is not a destination.

We live in a world obsessed with self.  We live in a world where ‘I’ am god and where ‘I’ do my utmost to put ‘me’ first, where ‘I’ will put others down to get ahead; I’ve seen it in work, in church, in communities, in families and I have done it myself.  Even supposed benevolent actions and words can be tinged with selfish ambition and self aggrandisement.

Being a star is, it seems, only possible by self elevation and self promotion.  This is seen most obviously within celebrity culture, currently being played out in Celebrity Big Brother, where alleged celebrities compete for attention and votes, desperate for the moment that will give their flagging ‘careers’ a temporary lift.  In our own way do we simply ape this approach to life?  Looking for moments to give ‘me’ a lift?

In a letter written by St. Paul to a church in Philippi, the readers are challenged to ‘shine like stars’ (v.16).  At first reading this appears to be a call to be ‘light’ in the world, to be obvious, to stand out so that others may see those who follow Jesus and be drawn to him.  We see churches and denominations promoting their courses, services and programmes; inviting people to ’come’.  Christians put themselves in public places, promoting books, songs and their theologies.  Stars are after all, rather obvious.  There is nothing necessarily wrong with this…

…however this is a letter not one-liner…

Up to this point in the letter St. Paul has written about his sufferings, Christ’s sufferings and the privilege of suffering.  He has warned the readers about selfish ambition and conceit and encouraged them to be humble.  Paul has then gone onto describe how Christ forsook position and status and made himself ‘nothing’, obedient to death; even a cursed death.  Paul then reminds the reader of how God then exalted Christ.

With that build up, Paul encourages the readers to ‘shine like stars’.

So I find myself wondering, what sort of star was Jesus?

A suffering, humble one, one who did not exploit his position, one who in the eyes of the watching world, did not shine at all!

To shine like a star in God’s kingdom is not to make myself more shiny at all it seems.  But rather to shroud ourselves in the cloud of putting others first, humility and pursuing the way of a servant, to obey, not to exploit status and position but to make myself nothing.

Only when I live like this do I ‘shine like a star’.

“Oh?”

“Yeh, it’s got punctures”

“Are you going to get it fixed?”

“Yeh, my brother says he is going to get me new inner tubes, we’re gonna take my bike apart together”

For the next few weeks I asked Sam if is bike had been fixed and whether he and his brother had worked on it together.  “No” came the reply each time.  Sam is from a family that would be considered below the poverty line.  Having asked the question several times I began to realise it was probably not going to be fixed. 

I asked Sam if he would like to do some bike maintenance during the the times when we meet.  He enthusiastically accepts the offer.  I start my hunt for an old bike that someone is getting rid of.  My thought is that if nothing else we could take the inner tubes out and put them in his bike to at least make it rideable.

A few weeks later we have a bike, kindly donated by one of my colleagues at Bath YFC.  Actually quite a decent bike in usable condition.  I bring the bike into school and show it to Sam.  He doesn’t show enthusiasm in a way I would but I can tell he is excited; it’s the energetic way attacks the bike, working with me, leading me even, as we unscrew, pull cables and unbolt various bits, dismantling the bicycle.  He’s a natural.

It’s lovely to watch him at work, he seems to just know what to do, whilst I struggle clumsily with alum-keys.  He talks; Sam is not really a talker.  When he does talk like this you know he is happy.  He’s articulate, laughing and enthusiastic.  In the first week he manages to solve the ‘removal of the chain challenge’.  I can tell he is pleased by the way he repeatedly retells the short-story of his success with the bike chain.

The following week, in spite of weather that means we need to shelter inside for ten minutes – which we use to research bike maintenance - we continue our attack on the bike.  Last week the chain thwarted progress, this week it was the front forks.  Our bit of research had revealed the need for a mallet.  Sam, heads off, telling me he’ll find the caretaker who should have one.  Again I see energy and enthusiasm.  Back more quickly than I expect he sets to work on the front forks.  Initially we make little headway.  Sam keeps going, while I fiddle about with the gear cables.

He’s hitting the top of the fork gently but firmly as I turn to see, not expecting any progress, success.  Again Sam’s initiative, perseverence and commitment to the task have paid-off.  The fork is coming free from the frame.

Life has given him less opportunities than most have, but he has so much potential.

The Bike, like Sam is a work in progress; I wish more people would see that.

One Eighty has got me more involved in things out of school, now I have something else to look forward to rather other than just the weekend, it’s not just something to pass the time, its somewhere I can get together with friends and have a good time. The Think Slots and Switch Course at One Eighty has made me look at things in a different way and made me think more as a Christian rather than a person that doesn’t follow a religion.

Bath YFC has prepared me for later life, as it is where I had my work experience placement; I’ve learnt new skills that will be helpful for me in the future. I appreciate what they do a lot more now as I’ve seen all the effort that is put in for everyone.

I am happy that I got involved with Bath YFC and think that it has helped me and changed me for the good.”

Dan