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Tag: Sir Terry waite

  • Exclusive: Prosper in a busy world – Sir Terry Waite

    How to prosper in a busy world, Sir Terry Waite

    I retain equilibrium in our busy world by having time alone. Everybody needs some solitude and everybody needs a break from other demands of life because we live in an instant age. We notice the effects of this very clearly in all sorts of behavioural patterns – most particularly, in the anger and resentment we all see online.

    It is as if people today now have a very short fuse: they expect to get everywhere instantly, and this is an unconscious development arising out of our constant use of the Internet. Today we have to answer emails immediately whereas before there was a necessity to take life at a more leisurely pace, and to be able to digest things. The best antidote to all this and to prosper is to take time for reflection, and ideally a period of time off each year for a retreat or something of that kind.

    There are three goals to work towards in life in order to prosper. The first is to work for harmony in yourself and establish a healthy balance between body, mind and spirit. The second vital goal is to work for harmony with other people – and to be compassionate and understanding in that regard. The third, which we see people more conscious of today than ever, is to be in harmony with our environment.

    If you look at these three areas, the bad news is that we seem to be suffering crisis on all three fronts. The fact is that the rapid rise in mental illness particularly amongst young people is often due to this lack of inner harmony, and a failure to achieve internal coherence. On the second point, the anger and frustration with our neighbours tends to be brought about by a lack of understanding and compassion. Finally, the way in which we treat the environment is already wreaking a tremendous revenge on us in all sorts of ways when we see all the effects of climate change.

    Of course, there is such a thing as natural climate change, which we accept. However, we have confused the situation by our exploitation of the environment: we are out of harmony with nature, and sometimes behave as if we have forgotten that we are a part of it. The atoms that constitute our human body are the very same atoms that make up the stars. We are a part of a much bigger creative process: we are called upon to be creators and co-creators with God, but too often we behave as consumers and destroyers instead.

    We therefore need to encourage everybody – and especially to encourage young people – to be active in co-creation. The moment you accept this understanding, then an interesting thing happens: a sort of happy responsibility is bestowed upon you, and you become a creator with God. In my experience, this is the moment when the possibilities of life open up, and can be felt in your personal life as much as in your working life.

    The point is, of course, that God has created us in freedom: we are not just here to obey his commands, important as that is. We’re actually called to something far higher: we have been given the ability to choose between creation and destruction. It hardly needs saying that these are enormous powers given to the human species, and that we have to take them with the utmost seriousness.

    Quite naturally, if we don’t realise the importance of this, then we begin to suffer – and it is this suffering which makes up such a visible aspect of our present predicament: the restlessness and uncertainty which we all see when we look at the world. It is because we are not engaged in what we should be engaged in: the co-creation with God of a better world for ourselves and for others.

     

  • Sir Terry Waite on careers in faith

    Sir Terry Waite

    Faith has been a vital part of my work, and that has been a gradual growth over the years.   My understanding of these matters has not been dramatic in the sense of having had a sudden conversion: instead, I think that one’s understanding changes as life goes on and experience teaches you to reflect – if you can make time to reflect, of course.

    When I was younger I thought I knew myself and thought I understood myself. But as I get older I recognise that one has a capacity to deceive oneself – and perhaps that is true of all human beings.  We can go on thinking that we are in the right way, and we might do that for a whole variety of reasons.  Part of the process of life is to try and gain a greater in-depth understanding of yourself and your motives.

    All of this is aided or supported by our Christian belief and by our belief in our spiritual life – but it’s a long process and it doesn’t come quickly. Hopefully when one gets into one’s latter years then perhaps one has gained a little more understanding. We ought to grow in our lives, and to some extent become different from our young selves. And yet I also find that none of this is in contradiction to the essential principles I was taught when I was young.

    I sometimes asked if I have refreshed my faith over time; I think it’s a gradual process. It will involve a constant self-examination. For instance, I am still an Anglican which I was brought up as. But I am also a Quaker, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends: I call myself a quanglican – a mixture of both.  As I grow older in life and experience, I recognise the necessity of silence and how silence is important and how communal silence is of the utmost importance.  That time alone, spent in meditation, is where we can sometimes make great spiritual leaps forward, and that is an important part of the Quakers approach.

    Perhaps this will not always appeal to young people who may sometimes prefer much more exuberance – much more clapping and jumping around.  As one progresses, one finds that perhaps there is nothing wrong in expressing yourself in those ways but that it is important too to balance that kind of worship out with reflection. It turns out to be a sound scriptural principle: Christ himself went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and also spent time alone on the final night of his life. That means that there is precedent throughout history, but it is something we must grow into.

    All of which means that we need good teachers and educators in our faith groups – those who not push people prematurely in any particular direction, but who will be gentle with people in their development rather than letting people stay at one particular point. That said, it is worth thinking very carefully before you enter a career in faith: it can be a very hard life. I had to think very hard myself about myself.

    It was often said that I ought to be ordained as a clergyman and I never felt that as a vocation and I chose to remain as a layperson within the church and have worked from the church base most of my life as a layperson. That wasn’t an easy choice in many ways because there was no chance of promotion and becoming an Archdeacon or Bishop or a Dean: you remain a simple layman. Looking back, it was a big risk because with a young family a mortgage that wasn’t an easy way and I remember acute anxiety all the time. Even so, I am glad I did it. I don’t have regrets: it was absolutely the right decision not to be ordained but to remain as a layperson. I never had a vocation to be ordained – it’s just not me.

    So somehow this is where self-knowledge comes in. We need to know ourselves, and to what we believe to be right. Of course, we also need good counsel, and it would be a mistake too solitary in our decisions. But if you follow your vocation, it will work out for you. Of course, perhaps it won’t work out in precisely the way you expected – but it will work out.

  • Sir Terry Waite: Maths is important – but we can’t afford to forget the lessons of history

    Sir Terry Waite

    I have been observing the government’s education priorities, which currently place particular importance on maths. It is important that we focus on this subject, of course, but we shouldn’t do so at the expense of others: most importantly we are almost at the point where we begin to find that history doesn’t matter – and yet, of course, it matters very much.

    That’s because you have to know where you have come from, and what has happened in the past. For instance, I have just been reading about and understanding the Churchill family. If you do that you discover that John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, was an extraordinary general – perhaps the most famous in Europe, in the pre-Napoleon era. He was instrumental in winning the Nine Years’ War against King Louis XIV. If you read about Marlborough’s command of his troops, you see an almost exact parallel with his ancestor Sir Winston Churchill who would play such a prominent role as Prime Minister during the Second World War. History is full of such lessons, and we can learn from these links and correspondences.

    Our problem appears to be that we don’t take the trouble to learn from history – and especially the past mistakes that have been made. In a society which seems not to place sufficient value on history, we tend to carry on regardless, creating havoc, misery and mayhem in so many parts of the world. Unfortunately, we have arrived at this rather stupid idea that aggression and warfare is going to resolve our problems. It doesn’t resolve our problems; it increases them. When you consider the suffering and disaster that is continually being meted out to millions of people, you realise we need more politicians and people in positions of leadership who have this understanding.

    This is not to say that this kind of historical awareness alone will solve matters. It is extremely complicated to know how to deal with international conflict and to know what structures both domestically and internationally might be required. It goes without saying that if we don’t give some thought to that, then we are heading straight into the abyss. By that light, history isn’t just a mere curiosity – it calls to us with urgent importance.

    Russia-Ukraine remains a very difficult situation. I think we should be making active attempts to seek a negotiated agreement but it is extremely difficult when you have a person such as Vladimir Putin in charge. The fact is, he has committed himself and if he fails, he may well recognise that he will follow the destiny of previous leaders who overreached. Russia has a history of getting rid of its leaders: if you are a leader in Russia it’s unwise for you to go to the top floor of any apartment and keep well away from the windows.

    In a sense it’s not only that Putin is fighting this war, he is also fighting for his life. When someone fights for their life they become desperate and this fact alone will make a negotiated settlement extremely difficult. But this doesn’t mean this goal should not be worked towards. We need the best brains to help resolve this particular issue – not just for humanitarian reasons, but also because of the scale of what might go wrong if we don’t. Of course, for a long time now, there has been the threat of nuclear warfare over our heads and though it would be extremely stupid for that to happen, if we have to admit the possibility then that increases the urgency of the need to find a resolution.

    We have a lot facing us in the future. If I might conduct some basic mathematics, since I’m 84, I am old enough now to say I’ve only got a few years left. Much of this will be for future generations to know – and I hope that they will have both maths and history at their disposal in order to meet these many challenges.