Me Myself and the Kitchen Sink: Meetings - don't you just love them!

Me Myself and the Kitchen Sink: Meetings - don't you just love them!: I have just left the meeting from hell. For over two hours I have listened to and answered what can only be described as a barrage of qu...

Meetings - don't you just love them!

I have just left the meeting from hell. For over two hours I have listened to and answered what can only be described as a barrage of questions, intermittently broken up by the sound of discontent in the form of a groan, grunt or outburst of “that’s definitely not fair”. This is usually followed by two dark eyes piercing me to my very core, to the point where I can feel the blood inside my veins freeze. I am sure that the frustration and annoyance is betrayed by a pulsing giant vein on the side of my head. Everyone is to a large part being generous enough by going through the chair for their comments.  I am starting to feel an irrational annoyance for the chair who even still now is calm and polite answering the questions. I wonder if I am just too tired today, if it’s the weather, or have I just run out of patience. How can these people think of so many alternatives and possibilities that they need to get them sorted before they come to an agreement. Its definite, I am sure now beyond a doubt I hate negotiations, unless it’s a topic I am truly passionate about. I decided to add my comments and then make a hasty retreat. I can now him them plotting and planning their way to a more beneficial situation. I love technology but now I am starting to hate it. How can these people still be going strong, where do they get the strength, the passion, the questions continue and for what, access time to the Xbox and other techno toys. I think I am going to take them and hide them and then start screaming in the morning that we have been robbed of all the techno gadgets in our house – I would love to see their faces if that happened, that’s not a possibility they thought of but by god, the parents did! Oh God, they just walked into the living room with two white boards and different coloured sticky tabs -  help!

Pope Francis

OK, it seems we have a new Pope, a man of humble attributes who it is said would not live in the cardinal palace but stayed in a small home, preferred to cook his own meals and took the bus everyday so that the people could talk to him. It appears that he followed this tradition last night by taking the bus with all the other cardinals instead of his limo back to the hotel. Not that I know anything about the Pope or his background but it did strike me watching him emerge on the balcony last night that he was a humble man, who truly believes in his religion and not the trappings of his new position but in the value and power of prayer. He does however come with some baggage; he is anti-gay marriage and adoption of children by gay families. It is unlikely therefore that he will make any great changes to the world in terms of bringing about a greater acceptance of the world’s diversity. Last night I felt that somehow this man needs to repair the image and characteristics of the men already in the church. Some of these men have chosen to follow pathways that should see them in Love Hate as opposed to the church. And what of the introduction of women into the church as priests? As someone who really believes in the need for equality a part of me is shouting that the church needs this but with this Pope it is unlikely to happen. However, another part of me feels that this Pope’s job is to redeem the church, to clean it up and to repair the damage caused by some of its male members and that it simply should not be looking to women to come in and clean up their mess. As you might often tell a child “you made the mess, now you clean it”, so too should the Catholic Church clean up its own mess before it starts to reform it theological thinking. It’s ironic that this is my blog today as I have lost so much faith in the Catholic Church, to the point that I feel bitter about many but not all priests and that for a long time I have felt that the best way for me to live as a Catholic was to treat others as I would like to be treated and to live in a Christian way, praying on my own terms. Maybe this Pope will challenge me and my views – it remains to be seen.

On a related but lighter note, the innocence of children is beautiful. Last night I told my youngest son that as I was born on the feast day of St Francis of Assisi that the new Pope called me to ask if he could use by name. This was greeted by a weary question of “did he really mam, are you lying to me?” Preferring to use a little white lie I kept the pretence up and eventually was rewarded by “Dad did you hear that the new Pope rang mam”, his logical mind prevailed however when he returned home and asked me if he could check out the facts, “where is your phone mam? I want to check the numbers” he asked. Eventually I gave in and with his cheeky grin he looked around for our next victim – a child after my own heart!

Success -it's all in the way you measure it

I have often wondered what it is that ensures the success of the few and the lack of success for the majority. Today while contemplating this I am driven to a new question – what is success and why do we define our success by how we are perceived by others. Society appears to hail those who have made their fortunes as heroes or those who have developed new and innovative technologies or gain applause in the arts or pump out of the number of speakers to be found in cars and homes around the world. But what if success was measured differently, what if we looked at values and measured our success by values and not the material aspects of this world, what then. Would we see a world where we had a greater regard for mothers and fathers who reared and cared for their children encouraging mutual respect and dignity. Would we see a wolrd where altruism is king not cash, where conversation and discussion replaced war and atrocities, where participation and involvement resulted in better services and where empowerment resulted in more civic minded people. As a parent we push our children to strive for success, to be the best they can or what we perceive they can regardless of their happiness, just because you are good at something does not mean you enjoy doing it. But as with all things we need to have balance, we do need successful people so that we can dream our dreams and build aspirations. Instead of always looking for the most successful in business, sports and media maybe it’s time we looked in our own locality to see the local heroes who are successful every day; the parent who engages with their children through play, the volunteer who demonstrates altruism but never talks about it, the employee who engages with their colleagues to make their day that bit better, the child that cares about the birds to ensure they have enough to eat when it’s snowing. Every day, I ask myself how I will measure my success today and everyday it’s different. Most days I measure it through my interaction with people and whether I achieved my objective of making someone’s day better as a result of a conversation with me. How will you measure yours?