Friday, October 10, 2003

This, below, is an item I did as my last throw on leaving my Christian and Spiritual Developent Officer post. It went out to all who register for the email coming out of the National Office.
Here it is:-

OUTRO from the desk of Pip Wilson in the leaning tower of CSD HQ
Feeling drained after intensity.
Things are not bad, for me.
I am not low, not down.
Drained from intensity of being with people, giving out, driving.
Also some with massive needs that leave me knowing so little.
A man with no solutions.
A man opening himself to the terrors of others and want to.



"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" Albert Einstein



Why am I drained?
I think I am working at a different level of intensity in the YMCA. In my last job and ones before, the management stuff was vital but also not as personally intense. Now I think it was good to do a mix. Now I am not in management (which I like) but the people thing is sat on my lap all the time.



"only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go" T.S. Eliot



My thoughts, I do not want to impose my certainties on others. I have only a few outside my own experiences. They did happen. My experiences DID happen. I just need to reflect and make sense of them.

As you work I yearn for the reality of you reflecting and stepping the next step of development. It may be to do with the body, mind, spirit, or emotions, or indeed a step of faith.

The work of facilitating freedom for others cannot include imposing certainties on you beautiful humans.
People must have freedom to reach their full potential. A caterpillar looks nothing like a butterfly but one develops from the other. No matter what major issues that there are in a humans life, the job is to help to create a climate of freedom seeking.



Don't tell anyone but I would love all the people I know to latch onto God and fall in love. Become a lover and start making love in the world. Being a disciple of Jesus has been the best decision I have ever made, BUT my love relationship, however positive for me, must not be oppression to someone else.



So as I leave the CSD post I share with you my desire to live in zones where comfort does not reside. Outside the comfort zones is where development is.

There is a step for you which will take you into discovery. Of self. Of others. Of eyes that see, of ears that hear. Of God. Of spirituality beyond what you know, beyond where you now reside. Take your pick!

No greater stretch is to be found by getting close, very close to fellow humans in the YMCA, heard of them?
The next person you see in the YMCA who makes you cringe, to shudder, to step back emotionally, that is the person to get close to ...... and yourself in the process!



"Look around you – there are people around you.
Maybe you will remember one of them all your life and later eat your heart out because you didn’t make use of the opportunity to ask them questions."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn



bhp
pip@pipwilson.com




Quote
“If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing”
Zimbabwe proverb