Speech to 2013 Year Twelve Students

I gave this speech the other night.

There are a couple of moments that don't feature here:

During the build up to talking about Darwin's daughter's death, I made mention of his memoir. The whole mood being created was destroyed when one of the Year Twelve girls yelled out 'MEMOIR?!?!?'

I paused. Then said, "To those of you who do watch Big Brother, memoir means 'diary'. I moved on. 

Anyhow. My address.  

I appreciate being invited to speak to you all tonight. But having heard Mrs. Lacey’s and Mr. Marlow’s speeches this morning – this has become a rather daunting task. I want to leave you with something useful. If I’ve been given the opportunity to speak to you, I don’t want to blow it away on cheap laughs or telling you something you are already familiar with. Which is not the advice some of you gave to me. I was also advised to speak for 7 minutes. This comes in at around about 10 minutes.

I want to take you off road a little bit. Take you into territory that’s not that familiar, that’s a little bit scary and looks like it might end badly. Kind of like a Bali bus trip that suddenly veers off the mountain pass into the jungle, because an overly enthusiastic tour guide decides that today, today you need to see monkeys very close.

Recently, I was standing looking at a stunning view of the mountains. The cool evening air gently ruffling my clothing as I looked out at the distant city lights. I felt one with nature, I felt connected with… I don’t know… life. Then my 15 month old girl knocked my cup of tea over. I have this Ikea coffee table that’s called a Klubbo. It’s quite large and she’d crawled onto it and just knocked the tea over. Which is ridiculous because it was a coffee table, and I’m drinking tea on it. Then again, I don’t know what the word Klubbo actually means – you just don’t know what those Ikea names really mean. Or maybe my baby knew, maybe she knew that a scalding hot cup of tea had no business on a coffee table.  “This is a coffee table! Away with your tea!!!!  Anyway, her spilling the tea over me took me right out of the moment I was having in Grand Theft Auto V. 

And going off road in GTAV is the closest I get to getting away from it all. My life doesn’t allow for much down time and having 4 children and a blind and deaf dog that my wife won’t let me euthanize means that my life is kind of like a long narrow hallway that I have to run down while babies, crying toddlers, yelping dogs, poo, wee, mucous, vomit just… gets… thrown at me. And there are moments where I look at people I know on Instagram, on holidays, and I just go… (mime looking depressed)

So if this strikes you as a little depressing, that’s because it is. At first glance. Even a second glance. Actually if you stare at it, it’s still depressing. But bear with me.

I’ve been trying to understand my life for years. I have spent a lot of time looking at the lives of many different people. Political figures, Philosophers, Writers, Theologians, Actors, Directors, just a whole range of people who have, in one way or another, been significant figures in history. Because I want to know what life is about. What’s it actually for.

Here’s the worrying thing. I think it’s best summed up by the dying words of the Philosopher Arthur Shoepenhauer, who in one of his finer moments pushed an old woman down the stairs. He said at the end of his life about life, words to the effect, “I just don’t get it.” Here is this wise old man, actually not that wise, he shoved an old person down the stairs,  and he says (mime: shrug) Pfffft. I… dunno. And it’s not like he’s the only one that does that. Ok so maybe that’s people at the end of their life… you can imagine that they’ve got other things on their mind. Like death. But if you go trawling backwards through their life you just find movement after movement of ideas that ultimately go… “Life is about this… no wait, I was 17 when I said that… it’s THIS! No wait, that was when I was in my 20s… now that I’m 30 this is the… no wait, I can see now that I am 40 it is clearly, now this is the answer to what life is supposed to be all about… wait… no that was wrong and now that I’m 50 I believe… well… gosh I’m 60 and I’m starting to think maybe…  wow I’m 70… I was 70 and now I’m 80…” And then you go. “So?! What is the meaning of life old person?” And this wizened 80 year old goes “Pfft” throwing up a shrug.

See I’ve been looking for years to find someone that gets to the end of their life and goes –“IT’S THIS!!!!” Because I think we spend our lives straining to reach the peak that just stretches out eternally before us, and this peak we’re trying to get to could be called ‘the things that will make us happy’;  the ideal job, a partner who will satisfy us, a career in the arts, perhaps being famous until we stop and go – this is an illusion, I can’t ever get there! These things do not satisfy me like I thought they would.

This seems to be the pattern for every single one of these lives I’ve looked at.

But if you go back to the lives of the people I was talking about and you stop looking for the conclusion; the point at which you go – oh, so this is the meaning of life! You stop looking for that ‘aha’ moment and then you start examining what caught their breath about life and gave them pleasure, gave them joy, made them happy.

Charles Darwin. You’ll be familiar with him as he refined the theory of evolution and upset everyone forever after that. Pfft something about monkeys. Anyhow. I find Darwin amazing. He was quiet wealthy. Lived a life of tremendous suffering as a result of constant poor health, but the joy that comes out over and over again in his letters, was his family. His love of his family is what gave him joy. And it’s the opposite emotion – grief that demonstrates this. You see Darwin had a daughter called Anne. And a little after her tenth birthday she caught scarlet fever and died.

Darwin wrote in a personal memoir:

"We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age.... Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly we do still & and shall ever love her dear joyous face."[4]

This heart breaking cry by Darwin hits me because it reveals a truth. The meaning you have, is the meaning you give to others. The meaning you have, is the meaning you give to others. My search through all these lives, and in my own life is ultimately a search for meaningfulness.

I think meaningfulness comes from investing in the lives of others. In this you  inevitably invest back in your life. That shouldn’t be your motivation, but it is an unavoidable reward. That as you care for others, love others, that love love will find it’s way back to you. 

I believe that things in life should be fair. I think for life to be equal the most important things in life must be available to every human being on the planet. I think for God to be true, if God is going to exist, this equality must exist, otherwise life, and in turn, God, is not fair. And an unfair God is no God at all.

I have drawn the conclusion that meaningfulness through relationships, out of everything, makes the most sense of what this life is all about. This is the thing available to everyone, and it is the one thing that will result in a fulfilling life.

Universally the joy and meaningfulness to be had in life is in our friends, partners, children, our families. Every person that I have examined that believes this to be important, this is where they found meaningfulness.

Everyone who thought that this was not important, and that work, celebrity, money or anything else was more important, gets to the end of their life and goes – what was the point of that? I don’t get it!

All of this makes sense of God to me. Achieving and doing only has it’s place in the context of relationships having their rightful place. Front and centre in our lives. I think this is true of God. I think that God celebrates and enjoys life. That the plan was always to create and then incorporate into that celebration of life… us. The hints, the answers are all around us. The hint is: where is it that people are struck and caught by joy. Joy that makes you feel good not just in the moment, but has a meaningful effect.  And yeah, there is a price to pay for that joy. Human beings are fickle, they’re difficult, they’ll hurt you, they’ll make you cry, break your heart… but don’t give up on them. Don’t swap them for something else. 

But hey, you have your whole life to test if what I’m saying is true. Is life about  focusing on satisfying yourself as you see fit in work, sex, celebrity?

Or is life about quietly investing in the lives of those around us.  If you invest in the lives around you, every moment of every day is important. Life doesn’t begin when you get to Uni, or get a job or get married or whatever. It means life is now.

And what has the world around us promoted as important? The imaginary end point that will make us satisfied ‘in the future’ and never allowing us to appreciate the moment.

 Jesus said don't worry about tomorrow. If you understand that God is for you, you won’t worry about tomorrow. IF you don’t think God is for you, you will worry about tomorrow. But know this, worrying about tomorrow will mean that when tomorrow actually comes you’ll discover you worried about all the wrong things and the things you should have been worried about – well, you could have barely imagined those anyway.

I think we spend too much of our lives chasing these goals that we imagine will make us happy – the ideal job, a partner who will satisfy us, a career in the arts, perhaps being famous we shrivel up into nothing living on the imagined horizon while we miss the real meaningfulness and joy of life that’s right in front of us. Until they come along and knock your tea over.

Simple Lesson in Self Immolation

I was reminded the other day that I actually had a blog. That neglected pest of a thing that sits at the back door and stares at me whimpering with big sad eyes. I angrily rush past the door every day and wave it away, guilt ridden at it’s emaciated condition.

It’s not dead, won’t die, makes me feel guilty.

A colleague was lamenting to me today that there was not enough time to write or read. A condition I do not suffer as I’ve been teaching my area for quite some time now. I have an obligation to assist others and I am a little busy with that but holy cow does this damned thing bother me. I have no excuse.

What I wanted to share on this occasion was the opportunity I had to speak at a high school on the occasion of their Year Nine camp, late last year. I had been recommended by a chap I know who couldn’t fulfill his obligation as he was away doing work in Malaysia. With no trepidation the woman in charge – a deputy principle I think – checked what I was going to address on the topic of “Challenging Yourself”. I sent her the following:

Hi – (insert un-publishable name here) Just wanted to run some preliminary thoughts past you as to the talk to the Year Nines. I think the two nights might work well.

 In terms of working with Year Nines it's productive to engage them in some sort of conversation, getting their feedback about issues and then tying some of their ideas, beliefs, theories etc to broader areas of thought in Theology, Philosophy, Psychology (and other boring words). 

In terms of addressing the theme "Challenging Yourself" I'd like to start with social media and the increasing role things like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogs etc.. have in our lives and in our desire for community. 

Digging a little deeper it would be good to look at the students motivations and opinions about using these programs and then begin to draw how these tap into our deep seated desire for community (perhaps looking at how Neuroscience has found that we are hard wired for social activity) and how they work and also fail us at the same time. I won't be taking a ‘stranger danger’ approach to the new media, rather trying to explore the world these guys are engaging in. 

Very carefully without making too much noise about it I'd like to examine how these ways of approaching communication are very much self obsessive. They cause us to look very closely at a very superficial version of ourselves (I won't be coming across quite as blunt as this) and that when we begin to look at the very foundations of our Western Culture we find that the basis for successful living (which is what we ultimately want to achieve) is based upon being 'other' focused. (now whether I go to the following place all depends upon my engagement with the students) - But in alluding to the foundational principles of our culture I am addressing the Gospel - the event in which Jesus the Son of God enters and engages with humanity and invites us to participate with Himself, the Father and the Spirit - becoming involved in the eternal 'other' focused nature of God and therefore the foundation of life that resides in all of us as a deep seated and unrequited desire for community. This is the challenge we have. Superficiality/self-centredness  or eternal life. 

Failing that I can spend 2 evenings throwing M&Ms and Skittles at the kids. They usually dig that. 

in all seriousness it will start by looking like I may be a little like I'm not particularly going anywhere fast but we usually pick up speed as we go along. It is also unlikely that I'll get through all that material over the two nights - but I'll give it a red hot go.  

Needless to say – it was a disaster that haunts me still. They offered me a hefty sum of money to do this task – something I ultimately told them they could keep.

Before I did the talk I was speaking to a film maker friend of mine who was making a documentary on the very matter I was speaking on. We sought permission to film and were granted it, of course under the strict proviso that I was the one filmed and that none of the students would be identifiable. So, camera in hand, we arrived at the beachside camp.

It was a rather warm evening and the students were forced to sit on the floor. I already knew that I had one night to get through the material, but upon arrival I was informed that I had 45 minutes.

Then someone in charge got up and gave the most gormlessly threatening address to teenagers I think I had ever heard. It killed any spirit of fun or calm the night may have had present in it. It was pretty much a horse’s head in the bed.

And then I took the floor.

Thank you, scary lady.

The kids wouldn’t freakin’ say ‘boo’. My whole approach depended upon some sort of feedback from the students. I have never, not once in all the years I have addressed students (including students I used to speak to in the context of the street work I used to do) ever had a group refuse to address a single question I asked.

Thrown, I began to lighten the mood. I engaged the students, I joked with them and gradually the heaviness lifted. In this place I began to deliver what it was I wanted to raise with them – and they were engaged. Finally they began to respond and offer feedback to the questions I raised. It was awesome. After 50 minutes I called it to a halt. It was a success. I had held their attention and they were engaged. There was only one moment that was a little odd. It was at the mention of God. There was a shudder throughout the room. This was not a topic they wanted to hear about. I stopped – pointed out that I had grown up in an atheistic household and I understood how offensive and absurd the “Angry man in the clouds with a lever ready to plunge the naughty into the eternal fiery abyss” seemed to be. However there was more to say on this matter – and I left it there.

Upon finishing students came up to me and told me how amazing it was, how interesting it was, how much they loved it.

Brilliant, I thought.

And then the deputy principle came over.

“Well,” she said, “I’ve got to say that was all over the place. There is no way the students could follow what you were talking about and if you plan on making this something you do on a regular basis, you’d better fix it up.” I was stunned. I recovered and said, “I want you to keep in mind that you and your staff are not my target audience. My target is those kids, they’re on a camp and they need a little bit of entertainment along with something to think about. There is no point having a three part sermon that they’re going to switch off in half way through. These kids, have been God bashed – they don’t want a bar of another message about God.”

And that was that.

Staff filed out the door and went off to the next task.

 Look. It could have been a mess. You’re only getting my perspective. It was not the impression I got from the kids. A few days later I got a phone call from the guy who recommended me asking, “what happened??” Judging from his tone I’d say it would be the last time he’d be asking any favors of me. Again – I felt completely alienated, vilified and ripped off. I’d have been better to have said “no” at their request. Maybe the little group of kids that approached me were no representative of the whole, but it wasn’t the impression that I got.