This is Thursday, but it feels like a Monday. Very odd and disorientating.
Hmmm. First impressions of the day: it was undoubtedly bizarre. It was a very long day. And a long day of what didn’t seem to amount to much of substance – all the faffing about in the morning and then all the admin stuff… I recognise it’s necessary for the proper functioning of any body of people that we have to contend with these kind of issues – still doesn’t make them interesting.
I am, however, absolutely LOVING the worship sessions with Mark. It’s so cool that, given Mark is my Chris’ flatmate now, here is someone I have been spending relatively lots of time with over the past wee while, and we have been getting to know one another. I had loads of time for Mark before coming here, but now my respect for him has taken a huge leap up – what a brilliant guy. He just puts things in such an accessible way. He is also overwhelmingly positive without straying beyond the ‘cheesy ‘ boundary. I especially liked the web metaphor this morning – he was saying that we have all these different aspects to us – say, Emotions; Beliefs; Opinions; Faith; History as well as Family, Job, Church, Life etc etc ad infinitum…
And we can get away with thinking of these different aspects as being just that – different. Separate. Discrete.
But hey, it’s not that simple – so instead of being separate entities, all the areas of our lives are interconnected. We are whole people, we do not have Private Lives or Personal Lives and then Professional Life. So it’s like a spider’s web – and if you start to tug on one of the threads in the web, it’s not just that bit that moves. Applying pressure on one part causes the whole web to change shape.
So what I think I got from it was that it’s maybe not that helpful just to blindly react to things – perhaps instead we could be thinking about why we are feeling this way. Our emotions are roused not by dint of just being emotions – strong feelings (whether positive or negative) are there because someone or something is tugging on that thread and it’s pulling on the other fibres – maybe stuff from your past, maybe your opinions, maybe your beliefs… I think maybe the point is if we try and think what’s behind our isolated emotions, it might help us to make more sense of them. Rather than being controlled by our feelings, we could take the reigns and control them – and in the light of how eager Commissioners were today in trying to talk about Saturday night already, I sense this might be no bad thing!
Mark explained that a whole lot better than I am able to, but the point is just that I liked it. It made sense for me.
So, to précis DAY 1 at my first GA: worship – BIG thumbs up, business – thumbs wavering to the downwards.
But yes, then we had prep – and I really, really appreciated the chat. The time we have as youth reps to look at the next day’s business together is such a privilege and I want to keep reminding myself that as the week goes on and we slip into comfort zones. We can talk things through, ask questions, find out about what everyone else is thinking. I have no idea how the Commissioners would be able to afford (in terms of money and personal time commitment to being away from home and work) a similar arrangement – suffice to say in the meantime we are damn lucky and I appreciate it.
Also – I am really enjoying the chat from people I don’t see too often or, obviously, those whom I’ve never met before. The prep debate and feedback last night really made me happy – it was great to listen to such eloquently-made points of view – the youth reps, I am quite chuffed to say, are an articulate, informed and passionate bunch! Woop!
