The Sixth Sense

Into the future

In the coming few days I hope to share some significant changes that are on the horizon personally. It has been a pretty draining last week or so, but I’m feeling pretty positive about the changes that lie ahead.

I think every human being has a love/hate relationship with change. It both excites and scares us at the same time. It is so easy to choose the safety and comfort of the familiar rather than venture out into less familiar territory.

For me it seems like circumstances are thrusting me out into new areas to pursue new possibilities. And, honestly, I feel great about it. I have a tinge of apprehension for sure. The practicals are definitely something that is weighing on my mind.

One thing I know for sure though is that this is good for me. I feel like I’m been stretched. Challenged.

Here’s to the the future!

(I promise I will be filling in so details soon!)

Tags: Future, Life, Personal

Are you having enough fun?

I was reading a post on the Official Gmail Blog this morning and loved this particular paragraph:

People often ask how we decide what to build next. It’s usually a mix of factors, like how many users are asking for it (think delete button, vacation responder, and IMAP, among others), how useful we think it will be (think chat, conversation view, etc.) or how much fun it will be to work on (this is actually really important). We have all sorts of debates about each option, we weigh the pros and cons, and then some of the time we probably make the wrong decision.

I thought it was really interesting how much they value fun when weighing up the projects that they will work on.

Clearly it can’t be the only factor in choosing projects, but I have definitely come to a place where I’ve seen that fun is a huge part of success. A project is far more likely to come off well if people are enjoying themselves.

Are you having enough fun doing the projects you’re currently working on?

Tags: Fun, Gmail, Google, Life

Guest Columnist: Deana Watson

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Today I am very pleased to introduce the first of several guess columnists who are going to write occasional posts here at The Sixth Sense. Deana Watson is a great friend of me and my wife Rachel. We have known her and her husband Steve for several years now and they are some of our closest friends. We met through the blogosphere originally, but we have seen holidayed together in California and they have stayed with us in England three times.

Deana has had more than her fair share of life’s trials to go through and she has such a depth of wisdom and life perspective that I am always encouraged, challenged, and refreshed by. Deana has a particular passion and interest in other cultures and I’m sure you’ll see that come through in her posts.

Anyway, enough from me, over to Deana. Enjoy!

PS Make sure you check out Deana’s own blog here: http://obahsomah.blogspot.com/

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My friend asked me last week if I ever read fiction.  He was just starting to get into fiction, and wondered what I liked.  I told him I usually only read fiction.  I’ve got enough real life to go around.

The fiction I read is almost exclusively stories about South Asian women.  Stories of new brides, or widows, mothers, sisters, daughters.  All written by South Asian women.   I have my favorites, and of those favorites, all of their works.

This surprised my friend.  And why shouldn’t it?  After all, I was born smack dab in the middle of these United States. Until I was nearly 18, I had never even been on an airplane.  I live a very typical American life.  I live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, driving my Volvo station wagon (estate for my cousins across the pond).  I stay at home with my disabled son all day every day, while my husband works in his corporate job to pay the bills.

But deep down, running through my veins, the very beat of my heart pounds of other lands.  Distant lands, and not so distant lands.  I love to read these stories, because in my mundane American life, they take me there.  To the dusty streets of Calcutta, or the sweltering heat of Jaipur, to the Taj Mahal in Agra, or the city and sea of Mumbai.  And there are the stories of the many Bengali and Pakistani and Indian women who land in Western countries.  In places like Brick Lane in London, or Berkley in California, or following their newly chosen husbands to university jobs in Boston.

And while I read, I remember, and I wish myself there.  One of the most magical visits to another land in my life, was three weeks spent in India.  But, while we were there, I hated almost everything about it.  It was hotter than any hot I had ever experienced.  The smell choked me in a way that caused me to wretch more than once in front of curious gawking children in every shade of brown.

It was filthy, absolutely filthy. With defecation from animals and humans alike right in the roads to step over. The horns blazed in the bumpy taxi and rickshaw rides.  I wept in my bed at night thinking of the mothers holding children who would pull on my clothes in the markets asking for money.  And the food was hardly something I could stomach.  It was literally an attack on all my senses.

Yet now, when I think of that time, of India, it doesn’t take long for my eyes to tear up. I long to go back.  To walk those same dirty streets, to see all of the same sights over again, to eat every thing that is presented to me.  To make new friends, if even for just that moment.  The same things that were so assaulting to me then, are the things I hold so closely to my heart now.

I have gotten to know these places more through reading about the lives of the women in my books. And I’ve ventured out to areas that I never thought I would want to visit.  Places like Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, and Iran, and Afghanistan.  And I truly would love to visit every one of those places.

But for now, I have medicine to measure, and doctors appointments to schedule. I have insurance companies to argue with, and government agencies to persuade to  give care for my son.  I have a child with a disease so rare that the leading doctors in the world shake their heads in confusion at him.

And because that is my life right now, once he goes to bed at night, I look at the bookshelf beside my chair, and I beg them to take me to a far away land, or not so far land.  Just for about an hour…maybe two…one chapter at a time.

Where do your books take you?  Do you enjoy fiction, or just the facts man?

Tags: Books, Culture, Guest Columnists, Life

Peacekeeping Rapists - Why?

Stories like those emerging about UN peacekeepers raping and abusing children seem to be affecting me more than ever at the moment.

I think it’s tied in with all the thinking I’m doing at the moment about what it means to be human and the blog series I’m doing on that theme.

I’m very aware of my own weaknesses and short-comings, but I still struggle to get my head around the idea of peacekeepers, motivated (surely?) to want to do good in the world, ending up raping and abusing the very people they set out to help.

“Elizabeth”, the girl in the picture, was raped and then abandoned by 10 peacekeepers (read her story here). Why? What satisfaction can anyone get from this? It’s so…inhumane. It’s not human behaviour. I was going to say it is behaviour more akin to animals, but that wouldn’t be fair on most animal species.

How is it that inhumane behaviour is so prevalent? What can be done do turn things around?

How do I ensure that my own life is on a trajectory towards living out my humanity at the highest and not the lowest levels?

I’m sure that those peacekeeping rapists didn’t not set out on their journey through life to become rapists. They, like the rest of us, probably despised that behaviour. What changed? Why?

Were there smaller decisions they were making that led them slowly in that direction?

So many questions!

What do you think?

Tags: Humanity, Life, UN

Reclaiming our Humanity: Greed vs. Generosity

Today we embark on a journey into our imagination. We set out with a simple yet bold ambition: to reclaim our humanity. We are all part of a unique species. Human beings. But what does it mean to be fully human? To be all that we can be. 

One thing is abundantly clear. We are not living out our full humanity. We don’t need to be rocket scientists to figure that out. So much darkness permeates our world. Greed. Hate. Anger. Selfishness. Lust. Apathy. Fear. The list is endless. One wonders even whether we have any idea, or even any way of knowing, what it means to be fully human again.

This five part series is geared to hopefully trigger us at least setting out on the journey. To try and reimagine what it means to be the kind of people who embody all that is good. People who live out and fulfil our potential.

Each week we will explore one theme and seek to embrace one new journey that may just help move us back towards reclaiming our humanity. This week it is greed vs. generosity.

So, to jump straight in, here’s what I think. If the trajectory of our lives is orientated towards greed then the type of person we are becoming is increasing less human. Inhumane. Un-human. But, if our lives are aligned with a pathway of generosity then we are on course to become someone who is human in the fullest sense.

Here we have a problem though. How many of us will put our hands straight up and say, ‘Yeah, I admit it, I’m greedy’? We look at others around us who are more greedy and use them to justify ourselves. This is not good!

If we cannot reach a point of owning the reality of where we are, then it is impossible to change course. It’s like looking at a map and saying we need to go ‘there’ without having any idea of where you are now. To change our trajectory we need to know where we are.

If we are going to move towards a life of generosity, we have to identify the areas of our lives that are on a trajectory towards greed. And then, and only then, can we realign with a pathway towards a life of generosity.

It is vital that we go practical with all this. Greed and generosity are terrible when only theorised about. We all would agree that generosity is the noble path to choose. But what does it actually mean to be generous? How do we practice a life of generosity? What does it look like?

And, on the counter-side, how to we own up and call some of the practices in our lives greedy? We need to be specific about this. We can’t base this on others who may be ‘worse’ than us. We need to ruthlessly root out each and every trace of greed in our lives. Name them, own them, reject them, and choose to embrace new, generous practices.

Questions to think about:

Why is greed bad? We need to think about this from a micro through to macro level. What harm does greed cause in our own lives? But, not only this, how does greed damage our world on a more global level?

What makes generosity something good? Again, we need to think about this through from a micro through to macro level. Is it just something ‘nice’ to do or is there more going on?

What are some practical choices we can make today that we can start to implement which will put us on a pathway of generosity? We should break this down into our time, talents, and resources. (Generosity is not all about money, though that is part if it.) Who could we be generous towards? 

What are the areas of our lives where we know we are maybe susceptible to greed? (Food. Money. Clothes. Technology. Gadgets…)

What do you think?

Tags: Life, Reclaiming our Humanity

Nice long weekend ahead

I love bank holiday weekends. I think a four day week and a three day weekend would make for a great work-life balance.

This weekend some good friends of mine from university days will be coming over to Sheffield. They’re staying at the Hilton and we’ll be hanging out with them, their two year old boy, and six week old baby girl. Should be fun!

We’re going to go for a picnic out at Chatsworth house and gardens tomorrow. It is so beautiful out there and such a relaxing environment. (We’ll see if that’s still the case doing it with the two young-ens!)

What are you up to this weekend?

Tags: Chatsworth, Friends, Life

Reclaiming our Humanity - An Introduction

Beginning next week I am going to be embarking upon a five part series here at The Sixth Sense. The theme will be “Reclaiming our Humanity”. The plan will be to post once a week on a different topic within this theme and then - hopefully - have a conversation that will spill out throughout the rest of the week.

Here’s just a selection of some of the questions that I hope to explore through this series:

• What does it mean to be human?
• Is the trajectory of our lives moving us towards becoming more or less human(e)?
• How do we become ‘more human’?

To put my cards straight on the table, I come from a background and faith community whereby Jesus has been held up as the model human being. I have often been hugely frustrated by how segments of the church have represented Jesus, but I am still personally amazed, challenged, and inspired by the life Jesus lived, his passion for people, and the humanity he embodied.

So, for me, I cannot authentically speak about other spiritual leaders who others of you may hold up in the same way I might Jesus. But please don’t let that stop you bringing your perspective to the table. I enter into this journey both as a learner and a teacher.

Here’s what I think. If more and more people become more fully human as we were originally designed and wired to be, then the world will become a better place. And that’s good for us all. If just some of us end up grappling with what it means to be human, to reclaim our fullness as human beings, and start to look for ways to help others find their full humanity again, then imagine what a difference that could make.

Can I ask for your help with all this? I may be biased, but I think this would be a great conversation to invite friends, colleagues, neighbours, cyber-buddies, etc into. The more people who join in this conversation the better.

So what I’d love for you all to do is share this post with your friends who you think would enjoy or benefit from the conversation. Post this as a link on Facebook. Forward it to them via email. Do whatever you’re comfortable with. Spread the word!

Any thoughts, comments, or questions?

Tags: Jesus Christ, Life, Reclaiming our Humanity

Relaxing Saturday

Today has been a pretty relaxing day. Had a bit of lie in. Went over to the Apple store to pick up a 500GB Time Capsule. And then this afternoon we popped round to our friends Johan and Melissa where we had some AMAZING apple pie!

Tonight we’re just staying in, watching a bit of Saturday night tele. 

That’s all folks!

(Watch out for some site news in the next few days.)

What are you up to?

If you haven’t already, please reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Apple, Life, Relaxation

Burma death toll jumps to 78,000

The news from both Burma and China keeps getting worse and worse. The latest article on the BBC website says that the death toll has reached 78,000. Not only that, the number of people still missing is close to 56,000.

In China too, news is coming out that up to FIVE MILLION people are now homeless as a result of the earthquake there. Five million. I can’t even imagine what that looks like. If that was in the UK that would be 1 in every 12 people.

These two tragedies have really got me thinking about how Mosaic - the movement I serve with here in Sheffield - can become something that really gets our hands dirty in terms of doing what we can to make a difference in these situations and others like it.

I don’t want us to be a passive group of people who expect others to do something. Even though we are just a small group of people, we can make a difference.

One of our strap lines is ‘creating a world that works for everyone’. Surely it is in situations like this that we need to rise up and make the strap line a reality?

What do you think?

If you haven’t already, please reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: Burma, China, Death, Disaster, Earthquake, Life, Mosaic, Mosaic Sheffield, News

China quake toll ‘to top 50,000′

I really struggle to get my head round the kind of news that’s coming out of the tragedies in Burma and China.

It is all too easy to become so blas’e about it. It becomes just a number. I hear ‘50,000 dead’ and I know that it doesn’t move me nearly as much as it should.

I sit here on the other side of the world, happily carrying on with my safe, comfortable daily life. And whilst I do that thousands are fighting for their lives.

Maybe it’s because I feel powerless that I struggle to feel what I know I should feel. Maybe I close my heart from feeling because it could never handle the reality of all the suffering that is happening all over the planet. 

I know I need to break free from seeing the world’s population as numbers. Humanity is not a collection of statistics.

Everyone one of those 50,000 people is a unique, one of a kind, human being. Everyone of those 50,000 people has friends, family, colleagues who know them and love them.

It IS truly a tragedy. I just wish it felt more real to me. Or at least I think I do.

(Read more from the BBC about the China earthquake here.)

What do you think?

If you haven't already, please reply to the ‘Who Are You?’ post. Thanks!

Tags: China, Death, Earthquake, Life