Stories – Page 4

The More Things Change …

Filed Under: Journeys, Reflections, Resources, Stories · June 27, 2010 · 2 Comments ·

For various reasons this last week, I have found myself in a deeply reflective space.

I’ve walked again in an earlier me, revisiting events and experiences from 10-25 years ago.

I’ve unearthed diaries, letters and other mementos and spent time reading them. It is fascinating to have such a clear record of what I was thinking and feeling so long ago!

It’s good to reflect on how I believe I’ve grown, mellowed and matured over the years since then. But it’s also true that some things just don’t change.

As an example, I thought I’d share a snippet of something I wrote almost 25 years ago – complete with the doodled sketches that graced (dis-graced?) those pages. :)

[Read more…]

Multiple Realities

Filed Under: Featured, Journeys, Reflections, Resources, Stories · April 30, 2010 · 1 Comment ·

One of the assumptions made in Appreciative Inquiry is that “reality is created in the moment, and there are multiple realities“.

The meaning of this assumption is sometimes a little obscure for folk when they first encounter it.

But there are many practical examples of this in daily life that help to illustrate what it means.

For example, have you ever tried to intervene in a quarrel between two children or teenagers? If so, you’ll know exactly what ‘multiple realities’ can look like. :) Those two kids have obviously been in the same place at the same time and experienced the same event when their quarrel started. But sometimes when you listen to their stories, you’d swear they’d been on different planets!

And in my experience as a family mediator some years ago, this phenomenon was equally apparent. When participants in a mediation session shared what had brought them to this point and their perceptions about what had happened, “multiple realities” were always at play.

Finally, here is a wonderful (and very thought-provoking) TED talk from Elizabeth Pisani called “Sex, Drugs and HIV – Let’s Get Rational“. With clear logic, sharp wit and warmth, she shows us how different groups in our community have very different perspectives on what actually contributes to or helps to prevent the spread of HIV.

Multiple realities indeed! :)

Revisiting Brideshead

Filed Under: Stories · March 10, 2010 · Leave a Comment ·

I’ve recently finished re-reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh – and re-watching on DVD the 1981 BBC TV series, produced by Granada Television.

Brideshead Revisited is probably Evelyn Waugh’s best-loved novel, first published in 1945.

It’s the epic story of a great Catholic family in a doomed aristocratic age prior to the second world war and over sixty years has delighted many readers – including myself .

In haunting prose it captures the dying years of an era of British aristocracy and opulence, which would never again return after the war. Another major theme, as Waugh says in his preface (1959) to a modified re-issue of the novel, is “the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters.”

In the book there are many passages of lilting prose – somehow wistful and with a lingering melancholy. And in re-reading, I experienced all over again my initial delight.

Here’s an example … [Read more…]