{"id":460,"date":"2022-01-07T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T09:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/?p=460"},"modified":"2023-01-11T09:37:48","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T09:37:48","slug":"embracing-grounded-hope-and-being-more-tutu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/2022\/01\/07\/embracing-grounded-hope-and-being-more-tutu\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing grounded hope\u2026 and being more Tutu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Looking ahead to 2022, I can\u2019t help but feel that so much has happened in the last two years that making new year\u2019s resolutions has \u2013 for me anyway \u2013 become a bit irrelevant. I haven\u2019t felt able to plan too far ahead in any case, but more to the point I feel so chuffed every time I get to the end of a week, month, term and \u2013 yes, year -still sane (ish), still functioning (mainly), and still hopeful (at least most of the time), that the space for relentless self-improvement has diminished somewhat, and I\u2019m quite glad about that actually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all the same, there is something that\u2019s been niggling at me, that I need to work on and ideally set right. And that\u2019s keeping the space not for self-improvement, but rather for fun, for joy, for silliness and for lightness. It\u2019s been quite easy of late to be a bit ground down and I\u2019ve found my – what I had thought to be inherent – optimism wearing thin. Perhaps you have, too, and perhaps that\u2019s entirely understandable when living through a pandemic \u2013 but the ability to look ahead positively is a key one to hang on to, and the ability to be light and to laugh absolutely essential to being a human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019m not talking about some sort of unwitting, banal or trite \u2018everything\u2019s gonna be ok\u2019 mantra, or an inane and incessant grinning in the face of difficulty, or even a deliberate burying of one\u2019s head in the sand whilst all around you crumbles; I\u2019m talking about gritty optimism, a lightness that sits knowingly alongside discomfort.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me tell you what I mean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Twitter isn\u2019t somewhere I tend to go if I want to look ahead positively, but I saw this over the holiday and it made me think: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I like that: grounded hope. Seeing all possibilities means recognising there are bright ones, too. It doesn\u2019t make you less of a realist to know that things can work out well \u2013 you\u2019re getting the whole picture. It makes me feel less na\u00efve, this idea of grounded hope \u2013 and we talk a lot about being grounded here at Wimbledon don\u2019t we, that notion of knowing who you are, keeping a sense of perspective and understanding that compassion and kindness matter more than glitzy things like success; but, to me, being grounded also allows you truly to fly, ironically: being light of heart, hopeful and kind actually makes you more successful anyway, in my view, more of a leader and more of a human being who will have an impact but \u2013 much more importantly \u2013 you get to enjoy your life, too.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And why do I say this, and why has being light-hearted and even silly crept into my consciousness over Christmas and into my new year\u2019s resolutions? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it\u2019s because of the great man Desmond Tutu, who died on Boxing Day, aged 90. Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian who worked tirelessly as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He grew up at a time of enormous racial oppression, conflict and violence and yet always espoused hope and peace, mediating not only in his own country to help end apartheid but also playing a key role in campaigning for gay rights, working for an end to the Israeli-Palestine conflict and the Iraq war, too. He had four children, was the first black man to be appointed either bishop or<\/em> archbishop, was a teacher and a writer and won the Nobel Peace Prize. He couldn\u2019t really have done more, or more impressive and important things, with his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And yet, this was a man who loved laughter, and dance, and silliness, and friendship \u2013 and I don\u2019t think this can be better seen than in his friendship with one man in particular, the Dalai Lama. In the many records of their friendship available on YouTube and other channels, we see two these two giants of men, these two phenomenal spiritual leaders laughing with such compassion and tenderness about their fundamental differences, enjoying what it is to share a space of lightness together, knowing that truly lightness can lead to the deepest and most meaningful of connections \u2013 and that\u2019s what 2022 is going to be about for me.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this is my resolution: be more Tutu. And I think it should be yours, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us remember that important work, meaningful work and indeed the very best work can and probably should be carried out in a context of enjoyment \u2013 and perhaps that will allow us to keep our focus on that sense of grounded hope, knowing that great things are absolutely to come, because indeed they\u2019re already here.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a shortened version of Ms Kennedy\u2019s start of Spring Term assembly.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking ahead to 2022, I can\u2019t help but feel that so much has happened in the last two years that making new year\u2019s resolutions has \u2013 for me anyway \u2013 become a bit irrelevant. I haven\u2019t felt able to plan … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[37,34,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whs-blogs.co.uk\/heads-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}