00:00:00 Paula: Welcome to “TesseTalks” with your host Tesse Akpeki and cohost Paula Okonneh where we share with you top leadership and management strategies. This is a journey of discovery. We are learning that leadership is personal and professional, and we hope you, our listeners will walk with us in this adventure. Our guest today is Steve Morris and, we that’s Tesse and I will be talking with him about “Wonder”. Up to recently Steve was the vicar at St Cuthbert Northwest London. He’s a priest in the church of England and works between parishes. Before that he ran a brand agency and was a writer. He became a Christian in his forties, went to Oxford to study science, suffering and faith, and was ordained into the church of England. Steve, like Tesse and myself, loves hearing people’s stories and the everyday courage of keeping on. He’s also an established author. His latest book is called “Lost In Wonder Glimpsing Or God And The Good Life. Thank you Steve for your second time with Tesse and I, at this time on “TesseTalks”. Thank you so much.
00:01:26 Steve: It’s a pleasure to be here.
00:01:28 Tesse: Hi Steve. I really am excited having you on the show again. And this time with your second book “Lost In Wonder”. Talking about wonder, what is it that fascinates you about wonder?
00:01:42 Steve: I suppose it was because I think the world is full of what you might call cheap wonder. Like stuff that looks wonderful, but actually leaves you feeling quite hollow at the end of the day. And my question, especially during the COVID lockdown was, is it possible to feel more wonder that lasts rather than fleeting experience, that kind of informs your whole life. So whatever goes on ever goes wrong, you still got this common childish sense that the world is beautiful, things are amazing even when we go through a difficult time. So I suppose it was for me, I just wanted to feel a great deal more wonder in my own life. And so I went on a quest, I decided to go and find out, where is wonder? Who is feeling it? Why am I? We all have a bit more of it. Yeah, it was a noble quest where I set out during COVID. I just wanted to find out more, and it was something I’m really glad that I did.
00:02:36 Paula: So, what did you find out? Can you elaborate on that?
00:02:39 Steve: Yeah, I can. I mean, I actually found out that wonder is really close at hand. The temptation is that you think that one does something out there, you go out there to find it. But actually it’s just like at our fingertips. And during the lockdown I spent a lot of time in my garden and watching the birds and the trees, I wouldn’t watch the trees, but I sat by the trees. And I just got this extraordinary sense of nature, and I think it’s very hard to be an atheist or sit in your garden, because you have this sense that there’s a guiding hand behind it. And so I suppose I started very locally by sitting in the garden, drinking tea, and there’s a lovely little Robin that used to hop up to see me. And he and I, we had a bit of a friendship going on there. I tell you that we had something. It was great. And that little Robin and I looking at each other and enjoying each other’s company set me off. And then there was no holding me back after that.
00:03:36 Paula: Awesome.
00:03:37 Tesse: Oh yeah. I think you talk about a noble quest steve. What actually gets in the way of people experiencing wonder?
00:03:48 Steve: Oh that’s such a great question. I think that sometimes we can’t step outside ourselves, we’re stuck in there. And as someone who has had many years of wrestling with that myself, I do understand it. And I think it’s not paying attention. The more you pay attention to it, the more you realize, hey, there’s a lot of it out there. I mean, one of the great lines of Bible is “where love is God is”. And really that’s what wonder is wherever love is go there, right? Because it’s much easier not to love someone. Love is painful. Love leads to all kinds of problems. But if you go to places where love is, you tend to realize that it’s a miracle. It’s a miracle that people stick with each other, even when it’s difficult to do so. It’s a miracle when someone’s struck down with dementia, that their partner and family don’t run off. In a way, I suppose we’re not meaning to be coached, schooled in wonder and expect to find it and to pay attention and then be grateful when we do find it.
00:04:46 Paula: I love that answer you gave. What I’m hearing from you is that love is the answer. When we love them we can actually look and wonder and look beyond the circumstance and look at other things surrounding it. Like you talk about dementia. Yes it’s tough to have your loved one be struck down with dementia. When you look beyond, maybe you look at the wonderful person that you knew, there’s some all that goes in there that it’s still that person.
00:05:16 Steve: Yeah, I think that’s it. I do think that dementia is not the end of the story in a way. I think what I saw when I was running a memory cafe was the extraordinary devotion of people, everyday people who would not let their loved ones comb. If you believed in Richard Dawkins thing, you know about the selfish gene, then the minute someone gets sick, you really should just kind of discard them. But also we can recount at church people who just would not let others go. And that in a way was one strand of wonderment, you know, that love thing. There are other places that we found it, you know looked for it, but that was in a way, if you want a bit of wonder then think about the people who’ve loved you and who love you. And it’s one place to start.
00:06:03 Paula: Amazing answer. I love what you just said. It’s one place to start. So your book “Lost In Wonder” has many great stories in it. Can you pick two of them and tell us a bit about what impressed you and why?
00:06:19 Steve: Well, I suppose the first one I would talk about was someone I never knew an astronauts called Ed Wyatt and a friend of mine put me on to it. He was the first American astronauts to do a space walk. And basically when he got out there, he didn’t want to come back in. He took a look at the earth and it was so glorious, he began dancing around, around, around, and round and it was so extremely. Looking at the earth, he lost all concept of running out of oxygen and they basically stuck a kind of stick out from the command module and they pulled him in. It was very primitive, you know? And then when he got back down to earth, he didn’t say much about it. And eventually he said something like “when I was up there looking at the earth and I was weightless and I suddenly felt free and I understood what my Sunday school teachers meant by original sin. And it was wonderful just for once to feel weightless”. So I suppose in a way, the real tragedy for him, why when he died? He was about to go back up into space and there was a terrible fire down on the ground he was killed. So he never got back to going to space again. So I wanted to understand something of Ed’s thing. I suppose the other one I’d say was, I went to New York and there’s a little church just around midtown ish. And there’s all a massive buildings around you, know what New York is like. It’s like a cave in these canyons of buildings. And as a tiny little church that has been there for well more than a hundred years. And it was the one of the judges that allowed actors to get married because actors were seemed to be very disreputable back in the day. And it helps a lot with the liberation of black people and the ending of slavery. Anyway, I went in there every day when I was there and sat with the priest and we just went through this very old ancient old liturgy, you know the words. And I remember him saying to me, every time I put the key in the door to open up the church in the farm, the only one in there. There’s something wondrous, because I know that God is close. And as I was about to leave, he said to me something like this, he said, “Stevie be kind because your kindness might be the only Bible people read today”. And I suppose those two things, there’s loads of them in there. But I just, the minute I started looking for it, it was just like I couldn’t get away from wonder, people talking to me about wonder. So those, those two little stories inspired me. They really inspired me to keep writing.
00:08:47 Tesse: That’s absolutely so beautiful that your kindness, your connection might be the only thing that someone experiences. What wonderful way of looking through that lens of compassion and of care. You know, something Steve that comes into my mind and that is the pandemic we’re still in it. And I’m curious really about your perspective on what we’re learning about one demand in this time? What are we finding that can be moments or incidents of wonder?
00:09:23 Steve: I think that’s a really, and as you say, we know we are still in it. I know we’re kind of carrying on. But my daughters and her husband had just contracted COVID and they had just been so tremendously ill. So we’re in the middle of it. I’m not alone in this because I’ve spoken to lots and lots of people, and many people are re-evaluating their life during this period. They’re saying “life’s too short”. What’s the stuff that’s going to bring joy to me and to those around me? And let’s try and do a bit more of that. So I think there’s been a massive refocusing. Now I’m in my fifties, and a lot of people I know are in their fifties. And a lot of them are for instance, trading in some of their very high powered and not very healthy jobs. They’ve been doing things that really, they want to do, authentic jobs that actually reinforce something that’s really beautiful. So I think that’s one thing that’s come out of it. And for me, it’s just, I don’t think I’m ever going to take things for granted again. The stuff I had in my life, get a taxi, go to heath road flight to the states, go out with friends, go down to the pub, go and have a meal, go to the cinema, sit down and enjoy a play. All those things have been stripped away, and even now they’re not the same when you do them. And so I think that if we can ever really go back to normal, I don’t think I’m ever going to moan again. I think I’m just going to try to be grateful that the little things in life though or love we can do again. So I think those two things, and I think the whole thing about family has been really important for me not been able to see people. It’s just made us realize in relationships are so important. So it’s the other side of the coin of pandemic, which are things I think that’s something positive that might come out of it. I really hope so.
00:11:08 Tesse: Steve, that’s awesome. I’m going to get pretty personal here, because I was going through my folders as I was preparing for today. And I dragged out an email which was dated the 14th of December, 2020. And if you recall, Maggie had just died and her funeral hadn’t taken place yet. And what I said here was Steve, it’s been good talking to you over the last few months. Darkness and light sit together, and in our faith we celebrate lightness driving out the darkness. These months have left me realizing the depth of my not being okay. And I’m learning to be okay with not being okay, trusting that God will heal my unhealed wounds. Anxiety and depression have played a large part in this. And with hoarding being an outward manifestation of suffering and pain within. And this is something that I wrote you on the 14th, as you can recall three days later, that’s the 17th of December Tony was killed. He was killed by a hit and run driver in Dover. You know, as I read your book and I read this email, which I have forgotten that I even sent. I thought I’m going to ask Steve about Wonder at moments like this when life just seems to be so sad, and my heart seems so broken.
00:12:27 Steve: I think it’s the most extraordinary. So there’s a kind of tendency to almost want to trade wonder to kind of present it as something that’s kind of brainless, but also just if you’re not feeling it’s something or there’s something wrong with it. And I have a tremendous problem with churches that are obsessed with signs and wonders, that you go and suddenly gold teeth are falling from the roof. And I mean, I just think personally, I just think it’s all made up. I just don’t believe it. But what you’re doing there is you’re seeking for a little bit of a thrill that will try and make you feel a little bit better. But the theology of that, if that’s your theology, the minute anything goes really badly or wrong in your life, you will walk away from God because it is not enough. It is not enough to sustain you. It really, really isn’t. And that’s what makes me so sad. Often, very young people go to some of these churches and events, and I worry that what happens when something awful happens. So I think the wonder as a Christian, and I said this today, I was speaking to a hospital chaplain about an unspeakable tragedy that has happened for one of my wife’s friends. I mean just beyond tragic appalling . And I said, well, what would you say? What would you say to them these parents? He said the only thing I can say is God give him a chance because he’ll be there he’ll be weeping alongside you. And the idea of the weeping God, the idea of the God who’s hurt, wounded, disabled, anxious. There’s no other faith at all that has a picture of God like that. And in those moments when I’ve had them in my life and almost everything else has been stripped away, that is one thing I can at least count as true. And I can put some faith in that and I can say I’m trusting and hopeful that one day I might feel so full of wonder I will be skipping up and down the street. But at the moment, there’s a wonder that there is love in this world. And the wonder is that God cares and is, and has been one of us. And I suppose that’s as good as I can get. You know, I do not want to give a trite answer about that kind of stuff, because the older I get and the more tragedies that I see and have been through, it would be completely disingenuous of me to say anything other than that, really. So that’s where I am Tesse, that’s where I’ve got to.
00:14:53 Tesse: Yeah, I actually I’m touched by that response because it’s not triet and I don’t hear it like that. I think, I was going through your book and there was just so many, really honest, real authentic responses and not just responses, I would say insights in your book. And I noticed some of them. I loved in your book where you said “help me to see the wood from the trees open my eyes to one demand, help me to look for one demand in the right places, help us to look at the people around us and see something of your love, your creativity and your joy in them. Make these moments real to me, and help me to gain courage and strength from them”. I love that. And you know, as I thought of all the discourse around racism, social justice, failures, poverty, hunger. I just thought that a call to actually see how we can use a sense of curiosity and link into the connection with the struggle of others and actually see people as people who have something unique and so valuable in them. How that can give us a wonder that transforms communities and society. And I just thought, wow, wonder as a virtue as a value gives another lens of not just calling things out, but also calling in solutions and approaches that can make a difference to those that need it the most.
00:16:36 Steve: Yeah, I like that. I mean, I think that the older I get, the more I realize that life is much more about giving, you know, about giving out. You need to do something to sustain yourself or you, it’s difficult to go on. One of the chapters I write about is about why call unlikely saints. And as an evangelical it was very, very sniffy about saints, you know, they don’t really know what to do with them. But of course, you know, as an evangelical church, we’ve got loads of saints, we just don’t call them that, you know. We’ve got lots of people we look up to and what have you. And I think that’s the thing, I had to look around at some of the people, the oddest people who’ve just been so kind to me. I mean, my dear friend Adrian, when I was in the music business, he was terribly ill with mental health and drug and other addictions. And eventually he did kill himself, you know, and it was really painful for me, you know, cause I love that guy. But for years, Adrian, despite being so ill, he was just unfailingly kind towards me. He was also really, really funny. You know, that’s the thing, we go and do a gig and he would do our sound for us. Cause he was a brilliant musician, proper, you know, really top man. And then the way back I wouldn’t drink when I was playing. I look and he was in the front seat there with a bottle of wine on the dashboard and a rather nice glass drinking all the way home. And I just thought that was for Adrian, you know. I just didn’t know it was going to be full of people you don’t expect. People who have a bit of joy in life, and, you know. I suppose I’m drawn to the people who aren’t very respectable. I always have been. I’ve had times in my own life that I wasn’t particularly respectable. And so I liked the idea of unlikely saints. I think maybe we should look at the, unlikely the saints, people who blurt out. People who sometimes could do with an editor when they’re speaking. People who are clumsy, just find such joy in that kind of thing. Yeah. So I encourage people to see the unlikely saints in their life. Not just to say all we care, but to really, really value them, love them, build them up. You know, I mean, Tesse we know people at our church who I will call unlikely saints.
We are on-demand is, I like it when people are a bit odd really. When I grew up my grandmother, we used to go down to Brighton the whole time. And her friend Maisie had a sweet shop there, and we’d go and stay in this ramshackle old house, down in Brighton. And I think my parents were probably, you know, slightly horrified really. But there were always unusual people dropping in. You never knew who’d be there. And it was just so inclusive and gorgeous. You know, there was people who worked at the casino, people who did this and the people that are in the antiques business, poets, you know, lost musicians, you name it. And I always thought the church would be much more like that. And as a boy, I just couldn’t wait to go there. So I suppose I’d found wonderment now thinking about unconventional people. Because I think when we convention, by the way, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m simply saying that personally, I get a lot of joy from unconventional people.
00:19:31 Tesse: I love your story about Avril and what happened with Avril. But what struck me the most about the story was when you said that she got an applause, when everything else was going wrong and people just encourage her. And also there was a mention about honouring pilgrims and you say, and these are your words. “We are all journeying and wondering about our lives, we want the experience that unique sense of wonder much more often”. And you ask in the book,” help all those who are seeking a moment of breakthrough to have a time when they can start again”. This analogy of pilgrims and journeying is such a powerful analogy.
00:20:11 Steve: It is. And again it’s about language really. So in the straightforward charismatic or evangelical type of church we don’t usually use the language of pilgrimage we do have them. So when you go away to your summer camp and the big tent in the middle of a field, that’s what kind of pilgrimage right? And I suppose I wanted to reclaim the idea of walking with a purpose. I think my mind was changed when I went to holy island, Linda’s farm, which has been called the holiest place in the whole of the United Kingdom. And I think it could be true. This wonderful island that twice a day is cutoff and becomes an island and the rest of the time, there’s a little crossway you can walk across to it. And then walk across there you’re in the middle of what is normally seen. And all you can hear are the seals singing to each other. The most extraordinary angelic sound of these mammals singing to each other. And, you know, I challenge anyone not to go to one of these thin places where God seems close and feel something strange, because the problem is that doesn’t always last. You can’t bring it back with you particularly. There is other stuff that really roots it in your life. But doing a pilgrimage is important, but you know, what’s going to football every week is a pilgrimage. Going to see the cricket as a kind of pilgrimage. We just need to change our language. Look at it little bit differently.
00:21:32 Paula: I’m talking about changing the language. I mean, I love the language you used about unlikely saints. Because the Bible is filled with unlikely saints. Peter, Paul, you know? Yeah. They were unlikely sainta. And as Christians, we have to remember, Jesus came, not for those who are well, he said, but those who were sick, you know. I’m a Christian too, I’m not perfect because I’m a Christian. I’m a Christian because I know I’m not perfect. And that’s the whole world. I mean, we’re not perfect. Everybody’s got something going on in their life, not conventional. Even those who, “conventional” doing things in the right way. But it’s all about the heart, you know?
00:22:16 Steve: Oh it is. And you know, it’s really funny that, strange that when you look back over a long period, after someone you’ve loved has died, right? You think about them what you often remember is the stuff that was funny about them. The kind of really, really funny, odd things that they did. You know, things that were just them. I often think about Christine’s dad or my dad, my wife’s father and my father, you know, and all I’ve got left really are just extraordinary moments of nonsense. So, I suppose that’s, you know, we’ve maybe downplay nonsense, but we need a bit more. Maybe that’s my next book. I’ve got another book coming out, which is about laughter. So that’s where it comes. But yeah, no, I agree with you. Christians, we’re not perfect, but that’s, as you say, that’s why perfection won’t come this side of the grave, you know, that’s all. And in a way Hallelujah you know what I mean? Because it wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be life, would it? If we were all perfect, it’d be something else.
00:23:10 Paula: Absolutely
00:23:12 Tesse: I just going to say that we need to have Steve back again for more.
00:23:15 Paula: Absolutely.
00:23:18 Steve: And, you know, for people listening to the podcast, we mentioned, Tesse and I, our friend Avril, she features in that book on so many occasions because of the extraordinary things she has said and done. Wow. I suppose in a way the two of them are together. But you know, my main thing was I was feeling low on wonder and I wanted to know without trying to manufacture it. Could I just be in a place and let it become more of my life? And I think broadly, yeah, maybe it has. Has been certainly a very interesting journey to try and find out more about it.
00:23:54 Paula: But these few minutes that we’ve been on this podcast together, you’ve brought me down that road of Wonder. Cause I’m thinking about all the things, that’s a gray, rainy cold day today. But there’s so many things that, I mean, wonder of know, or to be in awe of, and you certainly have brought me down that road of wonder.
00:24:13 Steve: Oh thank you. Talking of which, I know we’re getting towards the end of that song. But this is an example. Before I was a Christian, when I first had the first inkling of wonder. My parents used to have a caravan down at the Butlins site, you know, down in MineHead and my wife and I were going to stay there. And then we would walk up into Exeter beautiful up there, you know. And one day we walked up and we got up really early when the sun came up, we walked up to the top of this place called Dungaree Beacon, and it began hammering down with rain. And we were about two and a half miles away from the car, and we weren’t properly clothed for rain, we didn’t have our coats on. And then we just said to ourselves lets just enjoy the rain. And we go soaking as I’ve ever been. And I remember every time I was playing a bit more on me, let’s have some more rain. And it was just so wonderfully invigorating the field of rain coming down to get absolutely soaked and not to moan about it. The Brits were really good at moaning about weather, but that was a kind of wonder moment where I was accepted where I was. And I thought maybe I should go out more often and get wet.
00:25:19 Tesse: I mean, that is so kind of like enjoy the moment. And I know that we’re coming to the end, but I would love you to say a few words about Hollywood and wonderment, because you have some thoughts interesting thoughts I have to say on that.
00:25:32 Steve: Wonderment at the heart of many films isn’t it like, if you think of a film, like big. They get wonderment by making children grow up into suddenly become adults. So adults can see the world through a child’s eyes, and that’s a common device in Hollywood. And I suppose I wanted to say that I felt that was, and I love films like that. But again, I think it’s like a bit of cheap wonder, you know, because the truth is I can’t really be a child again, because I’m not. And it’s not about me, it’s a lost. So I suppose I liked the way the Hollywood trades in wonder. It’s interesting that during lockdown, the only films I’ve really wanted to watch over and over again, have been like fantasy, like Harry Potter and Lord of the rings. I’ve watched Lord Of The Rings about 10 times, you know. And I suppose in a way I’ve wanted a bit of wonderment and escapism. Big stories about escape, battle, good and evil, you know, orcs and elves and everything. I think it’s really plugs into a very basic need. There’s no accident, no coincidence that two of the great Christian thinkers, you know, Tolkien and CS Lewis grew up on these wonderful miraculous stories of legend and myth. And in a way, Christianity just got that running with it. It’s a big story, it’s a big story of these extraordinary heavenly battles of the people being vanquished of people letting themselves down, it’s wondrous. So I suppose in a way I’m still stuck on those films. And I think that Hollywood might be able to find something that’s a bit more sustainable and that might mean having the camera closer in rather than further out, you know?
00:27:10 Paula: You are an amazing guy. I mean, we brought you back the second time and now you talk about “wonder”. And the next time we are bringing you back, we will talk about mirth. But pulling together everything that you have said, the spoken and unspoken. I think is the unspoken I want to end with. Is there anything else that you can tell our audience as we’re about to wrap up here? I mean, I have just been blown away and be very quiet, listening to the wisdom. And a way, as you said, language. Language is a big part in taking words and using them in ways that bring about, to use your word again “wonder”. Is there anything else?
00:27:50 Steve: I think when I was at some St Cuthberts, we went up to Southern cathedral to sing. And we took all of these people with dementia and people who were elderly. It was a riot really. I mean, it took us forever to get there. It was a half an hour delayed because the coach driver got lost and then all the people have run off into borough market. And, oh my gosh, it was so stressed. We took so long Paula to get onto the stage because of the Zimmer frames, that they did an impromptu interview with me to cover it up, you know. And then all these lovely old people from all different ethnicities, faiths, no faith, we sang one of the old songs we sang when you’re smiling, right. And the whole of the cathedral, everyone stood up and sang along to that great old song of hope, that great old song, popular song of hope. And I think in that moment, that was a moment of where God is love is where love is God is. And on the way back, friends, we were on this coach and we came across the river, the Thames, all these old people singing songs. And I thought that it wasn’t that many years ago when the German bombers were dropping bombs on our great city, you know, and that generation were hiding in their back gardens, in their shelters. And, you know, I just had the most extraordinary sense of tremendous hope that evening. And I thought, whatever else happens in my life, coming back through this, I think the greatest city of the world has ever seen with the greatest people I’ve ever been with singing the old song. That was wondrous and you don’t need to manufacture golden teeth falling out the top of a church or pushing people so they fall over or anything like that in church. That was wonderment, and it’s right there for people.
00:29:34 Paula: You said it all. That was one demand and it’s all the people. I just, in my mind’s eye picturing the scenario, the group of people you were with, some of them suffering from dementia and other ailment yet you are able to sing. Thank you so much. Tesse any last words before we wrap up?
00:29:57 Tesse: Yeah, I think it would be remiss of me not to say to Steve, thank you to express gratitude for the leader that you have been. You’ve definitely taught me a lot of things about love and care and forgiveness and wonderment. And that evening that you speak about, I was in the audience that evening. And before you came, it had been a very nice and polite affair. It had been quite neat, no chaos, it was just wonderfully flowing. And then the voices came on, you know, the memory choir came on and all that happened. And the thing just took off to another level. It was, it began to live, gone was the correctness, gone was the perfection. And now we had hearts and we had voices and we had people and we had life. And I want to thank you for that moment where you brought the memory cafe choir to Southwark. It was a brilliant moment of wonder.
00:31:05 Steve: Thank you. It was exactly that. You’re right.
00:31:08 Paula: And now all good things come to an end, unfortunately I say that, but we do have to wrap this up. So to our listeners, if you love what you just heard, please head over to Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or anywhere else where you listen to podcasts and click subscribe to “TesseTalks”. And if you’d like to be a guest, we ask you to head over to our website, which is “tesseakpeki.com/tessetalks” to apply.