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 | Apr 23, 2014 | Culture & Ideas
I’m staring at a powerline, watching a hundred birds in silhouette sit and preen, sing and patiently watch the sun go down. The scene is both hopeful and full of gravity. Hope changes as you get older. In the beginning, possibilities and opportunities seem strung out in front of us, like birds on a powerline, too many to count.
As the years pass; some birds fly away while others stick around, some we pass by and others still, seem to fade from view. But there are always birds on a wire, somewhere in front of us, keeping our eye on what’s to come. Always look up, I say – speaking to the hopeful wanderer within me.
Trouble is, the more birds that fly away, the more important the ones on the wire become. In fact, those little birds start to carry a mighty weight. The weight of expectation, anticipation and trepidation. Even now, looking out my window, I can see the powerlines starting to sag under the pressure. Who ever guessed that hope could be so heavy?
The burden of my hope, once spread on the shoulders of a hundred sparrows, cripples the few now left to carry them.
The longer we live seeking out the opportunities that will fulfill our hopes, the more important each one becomes on the journey of contentment. Being hopeful isn’t just about blind belief – hope is stirred within us once there is a possibility in sight, once there’s a bird on the wire.
Hope isn’t always what you need though. Sometimes hope is a red herring and a distraction. Hope spends all it’s time asking for you to cast your eyes up, to watch and wait, expecting and looking for something to pass into the shape of your dreams on the horizon.
I’ve watched a few birds fly off recently – projects that didn’t work out the way I dreamed, relationships that haven’t turned out to be smooth sailing, things that used to excite me that just don’t have the same energy to them anymore.
Long hoped for places of belonging have become reminders of my alienation, my distinctness and, at times, my isolation. Hope doesn’t have much for me right now – but being grounded does.
Being grounded and looking at the world through eye-level for a while, might just save me.
Be careful where you promote hopefulness as a cure-all to the disease of loneliness and sorrow, to the mother recently miscarried or the lover recently betrayed. Some birds need to fall before they can learn to fly. Carrying on is what we need to learn.
Carrying on for a moment can be enough. One foot after the other on the ground. Taking our eyes off those little birds and grasping what’s in our hands. Right now, in the present.
You can cast your eyes up to the sky some other day, but first maybe you need not to drown in the longing or the waiting. There is a time to mourn and a time to dance. When you’re drowning, it’s not the time to be distracted by thoughts of the birds overhead. It’s time to swim to the other side.
by tashmcgill | Dec 6, 2013 | Church, Spirituality, youth ministry, Youth Work
I’ve been reflecting recently, on a number of problems I see or experience in the Church (global). In my vocational work, we wouldn’t call these problems. We’d call them opportunities, a chance for someone, somebodies or some new method to get involved in creating a better outcome.
As I was thinking about the various ‘opportunities’ I can see around me, I realized a lot of these ‘opportunities’ have been sitting in front of us for a while. Since I was a teenager at least, maybe even further back. I think these are opportunities to drastically improve the manner in which we do Church, community and generally go about our business.
Not all of these opportunities will seem initially apparent, but here’s my crack at the first one. Censorship. Let’s knock that one on the head. ‘What?’ I hear you say. ‘Censorship? But how else do we keep our minds and hearts and eyes pure, the eyes are the windows to the soul.” Yes, you’re right. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Feb 5, 2013 | Church, Spirituality, Youth Work
Honesty is always the best policy, except for all the occasions on which honesty will cost you almost, if not absolutely everything. This is true in a number of places but mostly true in church. This is surprising, considering the enormous effort we invest in trying to help young people feel confident to “be themselves”.
A week ago, I wrote a couple of very honest blog entries on My Fear Of Failure and Frustration: The Agonizingly Slow Pace of Transformation. I loved the comments, feedback and a dozen or so emails and Facebook messages I received from people sharing their thoughts and stories. One friend said “I just thought, wow, Tash is being really vulnerable.”
That comment both graced me and irked me, as I’ve previously taken pride in my ability to be honest and vulnerable. Yet, on reflection – I remembered another conversation just a couple of weeks ago. In passing, I made a statement that was truthful, but sharp.
Me: “Oh, was that a little too honest? I may have crossed the line.”
Him: “No, it was fine – better it be said and heard, than thought and not spoken.”
Me: “Well, you know me – never one to hold back an opinion if given the opportunity.”
Him: “Maybe a few years ago, but if I was being honest, you haven’t been that honest for a long time.”
When Did I Stop Being Honest?
As soon as I learned how honesty could hurt me and that honesty wasn’t always acceptable. And then I realized that I learned to be dishonest in the Church. (more…)
