St Aidan, a very saintly leader and entrepreneur!

"Oh Master, make me chaste, but not yet!"
St. Augustine

Recently, I went to my annual pilgrimage; this year to the Island of Iona, one of Scotland's Hebrides' islands. It's a very important religious location in Britain since it is one of the birth places of Celtic-Irish Christianity. It is a form of Christianity that came to England from the north via Ireland and Scotland and more or less died out after the arrival of the Roman form entering via Kent and the English south. St Augustine, the one who wants to have a postponed chastity, is partly responsible for this dominance of Romanism on the British Isles as his religious believes were centre-stage during the famous Synod of Whitby (664 AD). Anyway, that's just some background knowledge. 

Let's get back to my pilgrimage to Iona. Below is a photo which I took upon arrival by ferry. The famous abbey is on the right. The island is pretty small, only a few hundred people live there, if that many at all. 

This pilgrimage was pretty standard in the way it was put together. The theme was Iona and its saints; namely St Columba and to a lesser degree St Aidan. In the addresses by the local vicar we heard about St Mary on day 1, St Columba on day 2 and finally St Aidan on day 3. 

We all know about St Mary, mother of Jesus; and whatever the priest said was okay but didn't rock my boat overly much. Maybe because I am a Lutheran at heart and never really warmed up to her. 

And good old St Columba, well, he was an Irish nobleman and either had to escape from Ireland or went voluntarily after some lost battle, if I remember well. Once he arrived on Iona he built a predecessor of this abbey we can see today and founded the monastery.

The story of St Columba was a bit like the one of Mary. No, he wasn't any related to Jesus, but his life story didn't butter my muffin overly much. I think he has probably chosen the most beautiful spot on God's Earth (and I am saying this because I have not felt any raindrop during my stay and it was still late summer). It was good to be on his island and see where he lived and built his monastery. It's a divine and truly sacred place and I felt uplifted throughout my stay. 

On day 3 we listened to the story of St Aidan. He was a brethren on Iona and also deeply rooted in Celtic christianity. 

One day, he sat in an assembly of the monastery and got told about King Oswald of Northumbria (or maybe the king was on Iona himself, I don't remember). Oswald was a deeply Christian king and needed help in Christianising his heathen people. All monks were a bit "shy" to agree and come over and help, but Aiden, one of the youngest brethren, stood up and told them all off declaring publicly he will do it. And he set out and walked all the way to Northumbria determined to baptise them all. He did. He managed. He founded Lindisfarne, a major British mystical pilgrimage site, situated on an island (only at high tide though) between Edinburgh and Newcastle, at the English east coast. 

(Rowan Lewgalon painted this image of St Aidan. A tad different to the usual saint pictures)

And that's the story of St Aidan, the short blog version of it anyway. Please feel free to wikipedia him. 

At the end of the pilgrimage we should give feedback as to what got stuck in our minds from our time on Iona or affected us emotionally the most; and funny enough, apart from the beauty of nature, with me it was the story of St Aidan. The sheer fact that he stood up in front of his peers and said in a very Obama-style manner "Yes, I can do it!" and then did it by throwing himself into the unknown of the 7th century and was successful, got me extremely motivated. He did it because he firmly believed in something, he possessed conviction that it would be the right thing to do. These are such leadership qualities that earn my fullest and deepest respect. Chapeau! 

I think for me this means a couple of things in terms of to dos: 
1. I want to know more about St Aidan
2. I want to travel to Lindisfarne at some stage and see and feel the place
3. I want to use the story of St Aidan in my coaching sessions with my clients when I talk about mission, vision and conviction and about setting targets.

My trip to Iona was a full success. It is a most inspiring little island in the Atlantic Ocean and a very godly place. I can only recommend to anyone to visit once in one's life. On my other blog I wrote three entries about my trip to Iona - this one, that one, and that one and sorry, the pictures in "that one" entry are the same as on here. 

The Importance of being ... Earnest?

“Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.” 
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

In my endeavour to find out whether the Bible can be used as management handbook, I recently came across a mug at the back of my cupboard which I took from the company I worked for many many years ago. I remember they changed their logos and corporate identity constantly; recently even their name from Proudfoot Consulting to Alexander Proudfoot. It was a very turbulent time back then and probably still is. 

My mind wandered off to one of my last entries on here, the SALT one, where I wrote about Abram who later became Abraham and Sarai, his sister and wife, the future Sarah. They did so after they have received the call from God; a new direction meant a new start with a new name, whether it concerns consulting companies or Old Testament saints. 

Let me look at other religious figures that have undertaken a name change: The most prominent one is St Paul, who changed from Saul after his epiphany on the way to Damaskus. We are all glad he did that, as St Saul would have been just too awful to pronounce. Unlike with modern corporate name changes, this one was probably more coincidental. Well, having said that, since this name change came by divine intervention, I guess, no, I'm sure, God thought about "pronounceability" of one of his most important apostle's names. It was a major godly rebranding exercise that worked. Corporate Identity by divine intervention, I like that!

El Greco's version of St Paul

And then there are other religious leaders like the popes who usually change their names when taking up their office. The most interesting one is our current pope. He named himself after St Francis of Assisi who dedicated his life to God by living an impoverished and modest life. Similarly, Pope Francis refused to move into the papal palace and got rid of many other of those privileges his position would offer. Of course by doing so, he sets a precedence for his papal successors. I bet, the future world will see many popes bearing his name, just to jump on his bandwagon of papal modesty and humility. The power of names!

There is a troublesome English name; and that's Charles. It is not so troublesome for most men bearing that name, but for the current Prince of Wales it most certainly is, or at least seems to be. He wants to turn into yet another George when succeeding to the throne. There have been 2 Charleses on the English throne - the first one was beheaded in 1649 and the second one was once described by the 2nd Earl of Rochester as

"Restless he rolls from whore to whore 

A merry monarch, scandalous and poor."

Alright, I see the point why Prince Charles doesn't think too highly of his name as his "job title" of being King Charles III. But being yet another George? Seriously? 

Rupert Everett as Charles I. Irresistible, even seconds before his film death.

"from whore to whore"

King Charles III?

Other than name changes, there are name additions people gave themselves, probably a pre-stage to having or bearing a title. Back in the times of early Christianity, when the religion was still illegal in Rome, Christians called themselves "com pane", which means "with bread" and classifies us Christians as the ones who consume bread, like Christ and his disciples did at the Last Supper in the Upper Room in Jerusalem shortly before his death on the cross. One doesn't have to study etymology in order to see that "com pane" is the predecessor of our "companion".

Elizabeth I called herself "The Virgin Queen" after her very own epiphany moment and many others did similar things. Name changes work. And the Bible was the first book ever to demonstrate this to us. In this case I would say that very book of books can give us all a lecture in marketing, rebranding and changing any corporate identity. Well done! 

I started my blog entry with Oscar Wilde's Importance of being Earnest and would want to finish it with another quote from that book: 

“I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.” 
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Feeding 5000 and walking on water with a full stomach

John 6:19 "They saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But he said to them, 'It is I; do not be afraid'."  

Our boat on the Sea of Galilee, back in 2008 at our pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

My neighbour Sherine and I talked about my SALT story's moral from my last blog entry - look out for Sarahs and get rid of Lots and Terahs in your lives! And whilst we chatted along I said, "I'm wondering if the Bible could be used as management handbook", and Sherine suggested I should try and find out. And that's what I am doing, finding out about it. 

Last Sunday's Gospel reading was about 2 miracles - feeding the multitude and Jesus walking on water. Quite a challenge, to squeeze any management wisdom out of those 2 stories. Maybe I am getting an idea whilst thinking and writing about it...

Jesus and his disciples were at the Sea of Galilee; and after having performed quite a few miracles before, I think mainly healing stuff, he wasn't alone anymore, but followed by thousands of people. Jesus looked back and must have said something like: "Jesus Christ! How on earth shall we feed them?" His disciple Philip, probably shaking his head in disbelief, replied that even half a year's wages wouldn't feed them. They were basically in trouble. 

Disciple Andrew saw a little boy pass by who carried something like a picnic basket, and inside he spotted 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, probably a week's food supply for his family. Andrew told Jesus about the boy's basket. What is not known from the Gospel is how they managed to obtain the little boy's family's food. Did they kidnap the boy, threaten him to beat him up if he doesn't surrender, steal it from him and beat him up, mesmerize the poor sod, etc... All of this is not known. Also, what happened to the boy after he was "relieved" from carrying his nutritious burden? Did his mother get a hissy fit when he got home empty handed, did the father spank him for having to starve now? All of that is in a biblical grey zone. But then, what's more important, feeding a boy and his family for a week or giving 5000 fans a snack? 

The mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha where the miracle apparently happened. 

Back to Jesus: Once he heard about the picnic basket he probably thought, "okay, it's probably time for another miracle." They "obtained" the food and miraculously managed to feed Christ's 5000 strong fanclub. Hooray, done! Afterwards, Jesus told his disciples to "gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost" and they did and managed to fill further 12 baskets. The multitude saw this and said, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

A little afterthought: I just hope the little boy got one of those twelve baskets, even though it would mean those were just leftovers. 

Jesus knew that after feeding the crowd they wanted to "take him by force to make him king" (of course, who else would miraculously feed them all the time?). It probably daunted him that feeding them wasn't such a good idea because he raised unnecessary expectations. The Bible now says, "he withdrew again to the mountains by himself". How he managed to get out of this situation, I have no idea. Maybe it was one of those "Scottie, beam me up" moments that he just disappeared or that he miraculously made them fall asleep so he could sneak out. This is unknown. 

What's known though is, in the evening after it got dark, the disciples climbed onto a boat trying to cross the lake back home to Capernaum. A storm came up and it got pretty scary whilst rowing on the lake. Jesus was still in the mountains and probably just wanted to enjoy some "me time" but him being who he was knew that his disciples were in danger: "Can't I just leave them alone for one evening without them getting into trouble?" he must have thought, and super powers as he possessed he transposed himself from wherever he was in the mountains right onto the lake on which he walked towards the boat. They were terrified, but he said to them: "It is I, do not be afraid". Of course he saved their lives, hopefully telling them off for being stupid. And yet another miracle was performed on that day. Story over.

Can I draw any wisdom out of this for a coaching session or management training? It's difficult. And whilst wondering and pondering, my thoughts are suddenly evolving around whether Jesus was a good manager himself and what would I have told him in a coaching session. 

Of course, for this, one would need to assume that Jesus was more of a human being without adding too much of the divinity factor. It's sometimes bad enough to coach humans, but coaching the divine, I have no idea how successful I or anyone else would be. 

In a coaching session I'd probably discuss his business of performing miracles whilst on his ministry on Earth. What kind of miracles he produces, how "fruitful" they are, why he is doing them and whether they fulfill their purpose. I'd probably categorise his miracles into "healing miracles" and "others". The first are probably easy to explain, the why and how, but the latter need a deeper insight into the matter and probably a one-by-one explanation. An Excel miracle list would be of help.

For his feeding the 5000 miracle I'd ask and discuss some of the following questions and matters:

- Why did you want to feed them? 
- Did you think they would starve if you hadn't done so?
- What consequences did you expect from feeding them? 
- What other consequences did you expect if you hadn't fed them?
- Why did you know they wanted to make you their king? 
- Why didn't you just go for it and become their king? 
- Why did you feed them after all? What are the pros and cons of your actions? 
- Did you explain to your disciples why you fed all those people? 
- And if, did they understand and learn from this? 
- How did you deal with the little boy? 
- Did you steal his food and how did it feel? 
- How did you justify your action towards the boy and his family? 

And similar questions about the walking on water: Why did you do that? Could you have prevented this situation by better communicating to your disciples not to use a boat at night? Was it necessary to walk on water or could you not just stop the winds from blowing, etc? 

Of course, I cannot answer any of those questions. I am neither a theologian, nor have I had a chat with Jesus about it; anything else would be a sheer assumption, and one thing I learned back in the days when I started my career as management consultant - "NEVER ASSUME!" It has been helpful advice throughout my life. 

In fact, the more I am thinking about it, this gospel reading is a great example of showing what management consulting and coaching is all about - dealing with the impossible and unthinkable. Clients often approach me with all sorts of problems I have no clue about, like feeding 5000 from one picnic basket, walking on water, can sheep have copper in their diet; most essential is, to ask the right questions and to listen what the client has to say, and then draw conclusions from it and take action with the client. 

PS: I am wondering how many of those sermons I am going to think about and publish under the header "The Bible a management handbook"...

Watch out for your SALT!

Genesis 12: The Lord had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you" - A story from the Old Testament and its relevance for business consulting and corporate coaching. 

Last Sunday I went to the christening of my neighbour's boy, Naziih, at Lewisham's Tabernacle Church. The minister preached about the verse above, where Abram (later called Abraham) was called to leave the city of Ur in Chaldea and venture to Canaan, a trip from modern Iraq to Israel. 

Abraham got his family together, mainly and namely his father Terah (who sort of project managed the voyage), his half-sister Sarai (later called Sarah), who he married at a later stage (yes!), and his nephew Lot, son of his brother Haran. 

The preacher then mentioned their names in a particular order and formed the following word - SALT, an acronym for Sarah, Abraham, Lot and Terah. 

So far, so good, and off they went. Halfway through, project manager and father of all, Terah, got a little sick and tired of the trip and settled with his lot in Haran, a place that bore the same name as his son, Lot's father. 

Of course, God wasn't overly happy about it, to say the least, and after a while reinforced his command to Abraham, to finally make a move and drag his lazy "derrière" to Canaan. Abraham said something like "alright then, let's go!" and packed Sarah and Lot and left Terah behind where he died early aged. And that was it with his early retirement. 

Once arrived in Canaan, Abraham went to the one direction and became, in modern terms, a self-made multi-millionaire, and his nephew Lot to the other direction, where he, after moving around a little, finally settled in Sodom. Yes, Sodom, city of sin, which would nowadays be London's Vauxhall area. 

God looked down to Sodom and Gomorrah and wasn't pleased, not pleased at all. Maybe he was also a little embarrassed about his creation and decided to give them the 'fire and brimstone treatment' and eradicate them from Earth. Before doing so, and since he is a just god, he sent out some angelic investigators to maybe save them, Lot in particular. The undercover angels knocked on his door, told him to leave, and got a "yeah, right, whatever! And if I go, then not without my family" response back from him. Finally, after a long struggle, they managed to set Lot and his lot, consisting of 1 wife and 2 daughters, right outside the city gates and gave God the "all clear" for Sodom (and Gomorrah) to be righteously treated for their sinful behaviour. 

The last words the angels told Lot were that neither of them were allowed to look backwards during the time that God sorted Sodom out, otherwise they'd be up for a nasty surprise. Of course, Lot's wife did, as nosey people do, and as punishment she turned into a pillar of salt. Lot then said to himself: "Well, wife gone; I still have 2 daughters" and did what good old Sodomites did back then, he made them both pregnant, thus founding 2 major tribes - the Moabites and Ammonites. 

In far away Canaan, Abraham led a life as god-fearing person and God rewarded him with financial riches, a long life, and a healthy libido through which he got his sister Sarah pregnant, after God told him so! A lot of incest has taken place back then, it appears, be it divinely sanctioned or habitual. Sarah, also an old woman by then, and rather skeptical about this whole pregnancy adventure, loved Abraham nonetheless, and god-fearing as they were, they tried it. They were successful, she gave birth to Isaac, who then became the 'grandfather' of the 12 tribes of Israel... That's as far as the story goes.

During the sermon the preacher referred back to his acronym SALT and what it means to be a good Christian:

S for Sarah: Be like Sarah, loving and god-fearing. And look out for any other Sarah's in your life, those are the ones you want to have around yourself!

A for Abraham: Be like Abraham, follow God's commands and he will reward you with riches in Heaven and on Earth!

L for Lot: Don't be like Lot, stubborn and conventional. And don't surround yourself with any of those Lots. They will hinder you and slow you down from reaching your divinely set targets.

T for Terah: Don't be like Terah, lazy and deviant. And don't have anyone who is like Terah around yourself, as like with any of those Lots, they will prevent you from ever going down the direction set by God. 

The preacher said: "Go and surround yourselves with Sarahs and kick all those Lots and Terahs out of your lives so you can reach your divinely set destiny". 

Of course, I completely disagree with that, especially in a private and family setting. If we always discarded the ones that slow us down, we'd end up living in a heartless world and I think Jesus himself would be a bit embarrassed about us. 

BUT, and there is a big   B U T   in all of this; in a business setting I fully agree with the moral of this acronym: 

S: Surround yourself with Sarahs, followers you can trust and can build a team with. People who know you and don't always question whatever your decisions are. Those Sarahs are the team members you want, the peers you can rely on, and the subordinates who ensure your area or department moves forward to where the CEO (not God in this matter) wants you to be. 

A: Be like Abraham. Listen to what your targets are and go for them. The earlier you deliver results, the earlier will be your reward. Lead your team towards your targets and enjoy the outcome once you got there.

L and T: Don't be like them and avoid those in your team. In fact, get rid of them! Those traditionalists and lethargic team members slow you down, get you distracted, will prevent you and your 'Sarahs' from reaching your targets. Be ruthless when it comes to who surrounds you and when choosing your team!

Part of my job as Corporate Coach would be to look out for those Sarahs, Lots and Terahs, and also for potential junior-Abrahams in my clients' teams. Together we'd make action plans and form teams ensuring the targets of the company can and will be met. As coach I'd take my clients on a discovery tour enabling them to find SALT in their surroundings and taking action afterwards! 

In the end, it was a good sermon and got me thinking. It was an inspirational Sunday morning trip. For further reading, please take a look at my Travel Blog, where I added a few pictures of Naziih's christening and the party afterwards. Also, go on Wikipedia and search for 'Abraham' 'Terah', 'Lot' and 'Sodom and Gomorrah'. Those are quite interesting articles to read and give a bit more biblical background. 

Visit my website to find out more about Corporate Coaching! Thanks.