I had an interesting weekend involving Coldplay and church.
I caught the Coldplay concert at Sheffield Arena on Saturday and loved it. It exceeded my expectations as they made the event (all seating), a lot more active than I had imagined. The lighting was fantastic (giant Chinese lanterns with live video projected on them) and Chris Martin was as energetic and bouncy as Tigger. Plus they sound fantastic, have great songs and moving lyrics. The crowd knew as many of the words to the songs as the band that demonstrates the power of words and the power of sharing the emotions they evoke.
At church we had a guest speaker. Muriel Shelbourne had to be helped on stage as she was frail but then had me transfixed with the strength of her words as she spoke about Catching a Dream. Aside from obvious references of Joseph (the dreams and technicolour coat) and Martin Luther King, I enjoyed being reminded of the power of dreams and finding our purpose. We are all made for something bigger than ourselves and I suppose that the lucky ones are those who find this out and put it into action. Those unreasonable enough (not to settle for being ‘OK’) or those who rise to challenges (such as Lance Armstrong coming back to win the Tour de France after terrible cancer) they never anticipated.
I liked Muriel’s comment that: ‘We are all made to be history makers – to make new history in the world in which we live’. It made me think of Doxmart. The founders’ vision is to leave a legacy where quality knowledge can be offered and found to help solve problems of all kinds. We all know that there is loads of knowledge out there but finding the right stuff at the right time is always the issue. We could all say that there are lots of internet info sites but we are mad enough to believe that we can offer something better (Muriel observed that you have to be sufficiently mad and compelled to do things that have not been done before to really make a difference so I guess we are covered on this one then!).
As Michael Angelo says: “The problem with most of us isn’t that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and hit it”. Interesting.
I need to trawl thought those files on my computer that are literally gathering dust and see what knowledge I can share again. I like to think that my advice has been of benefit and hey, it’s nearly Christmas, so the revenue will come in handy too!
