On the way back from Edinburgh on the train yesterday I started flicking through the old notebook that I had taken with me to note down any great words of inspiration that I heard in the presentation. I hadn't written much yesterday but the book was full of notes dating back several years.
Being a neat, pocket sized, notebook it had travelled with me to conferences and meetings all over the place.
The page that caught my eye was from a workshop/ seminar led by my old friend Peter Graves, in the summer of 2007 in the convent conference centre on the Frauenchimsee island on the Chimsee lake in Bavaria. (What a hardship to have to go to a location like that for a one week conference!)
Peters seminar had the title “When the going gets tough” and the page that caught my eye had the following quotation on it.
“To be effective ministers we need the head of a scholar, the heart of a child, the hide of a rhinoceros and a soft underbelly.”
Peter talked about each of these needs and pointed to the importance of keeping the balance between them all.
His presentation had many other memorable quotations:
“people are impossible – love them anyway”
“small minds kill big ideas”
“Never love God's work more than God”
“embrace your brokenness”
"tough times don't last, tough people do"
"The difference between a victim and a survivor - a victim always has someone to blame for their circumstances whereas a survivor always says they will see a way through and will win"
I must spend some more time looking through that old book and see what other wisdom is contained therein.
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