Easter Monday was finally a day off for me, and one in which our whole family sorted Reuben’s lego…. ice cream containers from the garage that had been heading to the SPCA were repurposed and bins of mixed up pieces were one by one taken apart and placed acording to size and shape. It was a big job but incredibly satisfying to place the icecream containers on the shelf.
Today, Tuesday is the last day of the school holidays for Reuben, so another kind of organisation is needed. He needs to work out how to access more than School talk and DIsney plus on his chromebook…. now words like Google Hangout and Google Meet have become normal parts of conversation and required for learning. Tomorrow morning he will sign in for a new term online and school hours diminish to 9-noon. Afternoons are now for parents to help their children with arts, crafts, physical exercise and scientific exploration. More organisation required when parents learn to juggle this with their own work.
And so we head into a new rhythm… more change and more adaptation and flexibility needed. As a church leader I have been managing change for the last month, and it has taken significant energy. But as I reflect, I realise I am also a change manager at home, with all the same skills utilised. We have some amazing role models in change management as a country and we can learn much from them. Communication, calm presence, honesty, warmth, empathy and a good plan become vital ingredients. We need all that at a national level, and we need it at a personal level. Leading Change is the subject I teach at KCML so I am particularly aware at this time of the valuable resource we are witnessing. However many are in our bubble, we can help ourselves and others, if we take some time to think sbout how we are managing all the changes we are currently experiencing. On Easter Sunday, I used a lovely image that was shared on Facebook saying a lot can happen in a week. A reminder that Jesus too experience huge changes in a short space of time. Peoples’ attitudes to him changed -both officials and friends. His life experience changed. And Jesus managed to journey through those changes, knowing his ultimate plan, with a calm presence, honesty, warmth and empathy.
