Category Archives: Healthcare

Intentional Conversations for a Reimagined Future

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I’ve just had the privilege of spending two days immersed in the ‘Art of Hosting’ in the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft in Bristol. I’ve encountered AOH a few times, but it was beautiful to spend time in such an environment. Yet again, I find my self changed, challenged, stretched and inspired by love and relationship.
The weekend began with us checking in together with a simple, yet profound two-part question: why here? why now?

For me the answer to the first part was connected to the land itself. There are some places that are calling for new conversations. Stokes Croft is such a place and I felt a deep connection with it. The land itself was prepared and ready. Some places resist such conversations, and I don’t think we could have had the conversations we were having in the middle of Westminster, at least, not yet.

Why now? And here I link slightly back to my last blog. I believe we are on a cusp. We are at a moment in time when many things we have felt ‘certain’ about are proving to be very shaky and things are crumbling and breaking around us. We are in a post-capitalist, post-post modern, post-christendom, post-nation state moment. But the imaginings of what else is possible are still in dream form. And so, for me, now is the time for conversations, not only for the sake of talking (although really talking to one another is in-itself wholly worthwhile!), but with intentional actions emerging. I absolutely loved the resonance in the room as I shared this. Forty people from a bunch of European nations, of whom I had only met one before, all sensing the same thing…………

Charles Eisenstein writes in his latest book, “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible”:

“When any of us meet someone who rejects dominant norms and values, we feel a little less crazy for doing the same. Any act of rebellion or non-participation, even on a very small-scale, is therefore a political act.” (Taken from his website charleseisenstein.net).

AOH is a profound experience because it holds a space open in which and from which these political acts can emerge.

For me, and I think increasingly for many, the nation-state project, at least in Europe, is failing or waning. As William T Cavanaugh writes in Theopolitical Imagination: “Nation States are only held together by our imaginations”! But our imaginations have become tired of them. They do not hold the substance of the beautiful world our hearts know is possible! The evidence of this shift is seen with the conversations/tensions happening in Scotland, Spain, Greece and Ukraine. Nation states have become unmanageable, dislocated from reality, unrelational and unsustainable. I believe we will see the rise of regional governments and city states and I am excited to call for transformative conversations to emerge around new possibilities.

 

The Power of Forgiveness

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Forgiveness can be both utterly painful and gutsy but carries with the opportunity to be completely freeing. I see so many patients with complex problems, which present to me as a physical or psychological pain. After I have listened intently to their story and the subtle things they reveal or omit, we explore together the possible reasons for their condition.

Once we have excluded any obvious causes through history, examination and tests (where required), we meet again and probe a bit deeper. Time and again I have found in such situations where there is no obvious medical cause, that that there was some kind of hurt caused to them, which they have never been able to forgive. Many times they don’t want to forgive and sometimes they don’t know how to.

Choosing not to forgive someone always has its benefit to us, in some way, otherwise we simply would not hold on to grudges. It can be that which let’s us feel superior or something which justifies our own feelings or patterns of behaviour. But the cost of unforgiveness can be absolutely crippling, leaving a root of bitterness in our lives which can manifest itself in physical, psychological, relational and emotional pain.

I never put this idea onto someone, but have been amazed as I ask an open question to a  person about what they think the root of their problem might be, how often this issue of (un)forgiveness rears its head. They have become stuck in a moment and they can’t get out of it. (U2)!

Over the past few years I have been astounded to watch people make the brave decision to revisit past hurts and memories. Some of the memories have been so traumatic and horrific that being with them in the process has been both heart-wrenching and humbling.

But the change I have seen in people’s lives as they have chosen to forgive, to be forgiven, to restore and to be restored has been extraordinary. There are so many things that the science of medicine cannot explain. We are so uniquely knit together – mind, body and spirit and the complex intertwining relationship of these is not to be underestimated. I have seen major changes in the symptoms of MS, Chronic Fatigue, Back Pain, Unexplained Numbness, Depression, Anxiety, Addiction and Abdominal Pain (to name just a few) as people have forgiven the “unforgivable” behaviour of others or even of themselves.

James Thwaites defines health as being in right and true relationship with others, with the creation and with God, rather than necessarily the absence or presence of disease or infirmity. If he is right, and I certainly tend to agree with him on this, then the forgiveness of ourselves and others has the ability to heal us of deep pain and shame and helps us to find a beautiful healing, wellbeing and wholeness.

 

The Powers and The Seemingly Powerless

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Galadriel: Why the Halfling?

Gandalf: I do not know. Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay… small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I am afraid… and he gives me courage.

‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ 2012

What good are our small acts of love and kindness in the face of such oppression within the systems we work in? Be encouraged today. They are the very things that bring empires to their knees and transform the world.