by tashmcgill | Sep 25, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas
Great beauty or purpose without design is a rare and miraculous thing. The more beauty, ease and purpose, the more likely you are to find great design. That is why architecture is such an important part of communities and hospitality. It starts with our homes and ends in our town squares and public spaces – at it’s core, town planning is about creating functional and healthy communities that live well together,
Hospitality is my great art form. Welcoming people into my spaces and making them feel completely at home, as if they were their own. Part of that love includes a love of designing and making spaces that encourage conversation and comfort. For this reason, I love front porches. My love of the American South is birthed in my love of these homes with wide open entranceways, homes that greet the street with living spaces, spaces that are meant to be seen and enjoyed. I also love the hospitality that flows naturally through these spaces and into neighbourhoods and streets.
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by tashmcgill | Jun 20, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas
“Criticism, you are
a helping
hand,
bubble in the level, mark on the steel,
notable pulsation.
With a single life
I will not learn enough.”
Pablo Neruda remains one of my favourite poets. Beyond the schoolgirl days of Sylvia Plath and Shakespearian sonnets – Neruda was writing so politically, so astutely of his time and space that it’s nearly impossible to call him anything but a political writer.
His prowess is equal only to his capacity for immense failure at times – epic screeds of verse that would never make publication in today’s world, but in the reading and comparison of such, create the wonder of the times he landed his composition so eloquently right.
As a writer, criticism is often captured with red pen edits in my life. As a speaker, the crowd goes quiet. As a member of communities and a family – it comes in loud voices, arguments, discussions, silences and facial expressions that do not bear dissecting. Where do you face criticism? Your boss, your colleagues, your lover or your children? (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 17, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Strategy
As kids, we’re taught that honesty is simple. Tell the truth, it’s better that way. We learn that honesty is black and white, everything is either true or untrue. We learn that lying is usually a tactic employed while trying to cover up something else. So we get schooled in confession – the act of coming clean.
Truth is so much more than confession. Confession (and honesty) is like a doorway for truth-telling. It’s opening a door for truth to take a more prominent and transformational role in your life. Honesty is a philosophy, a habit, a way of speaking and sharing – it is a practice. A way of engaging with the universe and others, but it is not a substitute for truth.
When people talk to me about their search for identity, for meaning and purpose or when they talk about their relationship and work struggles, often I find myself observing the bigger truths that people avoid through focusing their honesty in the wrong place. Honesty has become a series of trade-offs we make to fake intimacy and avoid discomfort. It’s not how honesty was meant to transform us or weave us together through sharing our victories and struggles.
Honesty might be admitting you’ve had a tough day at work. Truth is admitting you’re not making it any easier fo (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 9, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas
A secret can be a sacred thing – something that deserves to be hidden away, held precious, close and carefully. But in turn, some secrets need to be shown the light – gently and gracefully. Some of the secrets we hold are keeping the dampers on life: releasing them is like turning up the colour, the volume, the taste of it.
Some secrets are like a kiss; so intimate they bind us to each other and their keeping is a safety net, a close retreat.
I think of my soft-hearted friend, whose empathy is a gift to the world but they struggle to reveal it through insecurity and bravado. They keep the secret of who they are tucked away, asking me to keep its hiding place quiet too. The secrets of ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ really matter much; but the secrets of who we really are – those are the ones that need the most wisdom.
That’s the lesson about superhero super identities: who you reveal your deepest, secret self to is probably one of the most important decisions you can make. Those people will either be your worst enemies, or your very best friends.
Considering how much I’ve written about honesty and being honest this year, it’s only fair to keep things on a level footing. Here’s the truth of it: life is full of little secrets. Things we keep to ourselves and things we keep hidden for other people. I keep a lot of secrets. Maybe it’s not so bad, a little mystery. Or maybe it is. (more…)
by tashmcgill | May 28, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Strategy
“You’ll get what you give.”
“You’ll get back out what you put in.”
“You’ll reap what you sow.”
There are lots of ways that we imply that action or investment should generate a return or reward. That philosophy underpins lots of daily interactions and decisions we make.
It’s not just about how much effort we invest in something, but also how much effort we invest in people and relationships. We reassess our commitment and friendships when we feel like we’re giving it more than the other person. We determine the priority of tasks in our work days based on how much it matters – or, what’s the consequence (lack of return or reward) if I don’t get it done.
Mostly, society has accepted this principle at large as a pretty good way of being. Society isn’t often wrong, right? Except, well – except in a bunch of cases.
Like charity, or when we try to describe what it takes to be a hero. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Apr 26, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Spirituality, Youth Work
You talk to your young people (the way you used to talk to me).
I spent this last Easter weekend at a Baptist Eastercamp, with 5000 young people, leaders and volunteers. It was a bit of a returning for me. About 6 years ago, you would have found me behind the scenes and on stage, running the programme and writing all sorts of creative experiences for young people.
At writing school, they try and train you to make your point up front, then produce your evidence summarised with a convincing conclusion. They also tell you not to begin sentences with the word ‘but’.
But today, I need to give you the supporting evidence before I make my point, so you have the opportunity to understand why it matters. So you have the chance to know why I can say it, must say it and say it with conviction of honesty, love and hope.
6 years ago, we parted ways from each other, that Eastercamp and I. About 6 months after that, I moved away from my formal connection with the Baptist church. So going back to that place where I have poured sweat, blood and plenty of tears – well, it was a big deal. It was like returning home and returning to the scene of the crime all at once. They were tumultuous days then, they still echo now in the peaceful times.
Here are some things you might want to know:
- I went back because the young people I work with now, in a different spiritual community really wanted to go, so their needs came first
- I have plenty of dear friends who continue to serve and volunteer with that event and do an amazing job. I admire them and love them deeply.
- I’m no longer part of the Baptist church, but I am connected deeply to dozens, even hundreds of youth workers & youth volunteers, young people grown up and young people still growing. I’m as invested in that community as I ever was. As I ever was.
- The event was good. Reconciliation is a process of years and it’s ongoing.
But this is my open letter to the Baptist church in New Zealand. As one of your born and bred. You trained me, you were my home for many years. I fought you and you fought me, and now I’m happy not to fight about it. But I will fight for you.
Here’s what I love about you, Baptists.
Here’s what I love about the Baptist church in New Zealand, and why when people ask, I still describe my way of following Jesus as being bred in the Baptist tradition. Which, for me, means ‘freedom of conscience’, the ability and invitation for every believer to participate in governance, theological practice and missional engagement. The tradition I grew up in was full of pioneers, ground-breakers, boundary pushers, people who engaged at the edges of society and innovated.
Baptists, please learn to love your boundary pushers again. Don’t fool yourselves that ‘inclusive’ doesn’t also apply to a line of political correctness that easily draws us away from provocative truth. Those who push the boundaries are diving into new territories of what truth looks like in today’s emerging reality.
Learn to love your provocateurs again. Don’t settle for talking to young people about sexuality in a way that gives them all the responsibility and none of the tools. I was horrified when my amazing friends, who worked so hard on the programming, had to swap out a movie choice. Somehow, no one complained about showing The Hunger Games (where children are forced to slaughter each other in a dystopian future) but it was unacceptable to show Captain Phillips, a movie that highlights the plight of Somali pirates in a cycle of economic oppression and slavery.
I’m not arguing the merits of the film, I’m pointing out that you can’t embrace some justice issues (freedom from sex trafficking) and deny the reality of others; like gay marriage, refugee policies or economic reform. You can’t choose the sexy stuff and deny the messier truths. There’s no film rating on the real world.
Eastercamp is just a shopfront window. It’s an insight into who the Baptist church is and will continue to evolve too. Everything you’re doing is good, even great – but you need to keep following through. If you’re going to continue to encourage young people to become agents for justice and social change – please realize you’ll be part of the society they’ll end up changing. You better damn well ensure there’s room for them at the table.
You see, you can read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Outliers’, but it won’t make you a change agent. Reading it so you can talk about it, doesn’t make it real. Please don’t settle for the soundbite of philosophy that sounds good but doesn’t mean anything without hard yards and uncomfortable moments. It’s not enough to talk about social justice issues alongside the Gospel. We have to somehow engage with what an expression of these things will look like in our own lives. It requires some provocation to get there because real transformation of people, culture, churches and mission will always be more than a slogan that sounds good and an easy-fix of donation money to a cause.
The Baptist church, nor any church community, cannot thrive on Facebook likes, fundraising campaigns and easily digestible, dualistic snacks of the Gospel alongside justice issues. For more on this train of thought, please read the 2010 commentary by Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker, ‘Small Change‘. He argues that social media requires less motivation of those who participate.
Prophets and commentators
Societies need the prophets and commentators who cry out from the edges. Please be careful that you don’t lose too many of us. The way we think, often pushing and arguing with you will not ever be comfortable – but if you lose us all, you’ll begin to realize something’s missing. It’s part of your identity – to wrestle, to provoke, to engage.
The first Baptist church I went to as a young person was started by a group of rebellious 20-somethings. Don’t lose what it means to our history, to embrace the diversity and spectrum of who we have always been. Fight against the gravitation towards middle ground. Treasure the diversity at each end of your theological spectrum. That’s what has powered your ability to be accessible to such a broad range of New Zealanders and to wrestle with complexity in your missionality and governance.
In the last 20 years, the NZ Baptist church has bred and housed some amazing theologians, community leaders, creatives and philosophers. What I noticed last weekend was how they were missing from the shopfront. I saw lots of people excelling in their work – but they used to have prophets and provocateurs around them and beside them. They were the ones I called on, wrestled with and relied upon. Where have they gone?
Well, I know where I am. I still have the phone numbers, blogs, email addresses of many of those provocateurs. So I know where some of them are. It’s not our lack of fortitude that sees us finding other homes and places of respite, nor a lack of desire to engage. It’s that you don’t love us in the same way you used to.
It’s ok, I know (I’m) we’re hard work. We step on toes and speak out all the time. But it’s our role – we provoke, in order to give new ways of being and thinking a way to emerge.
You talk to your young people (the way you used to talk to me) and inspire them to take a stand. To be bold, inspired, challenging. But be careful what you wish for, because if you want us: the outliers, the goalpost changers, the innovators and boundary pushers – the ones our Baptist history was written on – you’ve got to follow through with what you’re asking us to be. We won’t be satisfied with ‘inclusive’ or politically correct, or safe. We’ll want to shape and change you, as well as the rest of the world.
You’re calling a generation of kids to be something you don’t know how to love yet. I know you want to love us, you’ve got to love us; sometimes we’re more Baptist than you.
