Convocation at Chisholme House, 4-6 September 2015


This weekend was about setting a new intention for the School at Chisholme

Understanding the Past: a talk by the Principal, Peter Young – read or listen here...

Considering the Present: an exercise in intention and imagination; read more...

Looking to the Future: 
               Richard Gault, the 'about-to-be' Principal, 
               Aliya Ryan the Development Office Coordinator, 
               Aaron Cass, Director of Studies for the next Six-month Course
               Tim Roberts, Chairman of the Institute
               Open Session – comments from participants 

Sunday Morning: looking to the future...

Warm sunshine and a bright, cloudless sky welcomed us all back on Sunday. 
Peter Coates opened the morning to introduce Dr Richard Gault, the principal designate 

Richard Gault introduces himself:

 

Well, good morning! 

I am to be, as of October 1st, the acting Principal, or as a friend of mine said, I am going to be the 'thespian' Principal.  

I hope to put on a good show...

 

Well – it’s a very, very great honour to be invited to take on this role. 

But the honour is not mine.  
I am also extremely grateful that I was able to say ‘yes’ to this.  And, in part, that was because of my wife Ciska – and she said immediately when she heard of this extremely unexpected invitation, that I should say yes.  Without her support, I could not have said yes. She has truly had to make a sacrifice for this to be possible. I shall be ever grateful to her.  

During the last few days, many people have come up to me and asked, ‘How are you? How are you feeling?’  And I’ve respected and appreciated the sentiment with which people have asked me this question. And even Peter, the first time I went to walk up the hill, I encountered Peter, and he just looked at me and he said, ‘I cannot imagine how you are feeling.’ 
Well – in fact you do not need to exercise your imagination to any great degree to imagine how I am feeling, because the way I am feeling is, primarily, a great ease – also delight – but, ease.  
Why do I feel ease?  
Well, to confess, I think partly it will be because ignorance is bliss.  
I don’t know what I am facing.  

But, more largely, it is because everybody I have met has said, ‘If there is anything I can do, I am here – just ‘phone, email anytime, anything.’  So I know that in the coming year I am going to be offered an enormous amount of help. And it is only with that help that it will be possible – but, with that help, it will be easy! 
So I am really looking forward to the next year. 

Peter mentioned yesterday – he quoted Bulent, and I don’t know if I will get the quote quite right – but he quoted Bulent as saying that ‘...the proper role for an old man is to serve the future’.  
So you got the right man here. I am a contemporary of Peter’s and many of you, so I fit into that category.  

But here I am talking to you about the future – preparing for the future.
I am not the future. I am the preparation for the future. I am a bridge to the future.  

I think in some ways I am the right person for that; not just because I am old, but I have a foot in the past – we looked at that yesterday. The past very much involves Bulent and I overlap with Bulent. Around 1982-83 I did a weekend course at Sherborne and came here [to Chisholme] with my wife in 1985. We did not meet Bulent – he wasn’t here unfortunately. He passed away a couple of years later without me ever meeting him, so I am also part of the next generation because the next generation is the generation who will have heard of Bulent but will never have met him.  
So, in that sense, I think I am the bridge and it is appropriate that I should have this role.

I am here to talk about the future.  

Now, like so many terms that we use daily, it’s a word which is of great importance.  We understand that, but we use it thoughtlessly, carelessly and perhaps too easily – what do we mean when we use the word ‘the future’? I think there are two senses in which we understand the future. The first sense, and the most common sense – the sense we encounter daily I think – is a future which we predict and plan for:  
You encounter it when you turn on the radio and you hear the weather forecast. 
You encounter it when you pick up the newspaper and read forecasts for oil consumption, passenger traffic, or whatever, next year. 
This is a future which is man-made – we determine the future.  
It is a future based on conjecture and extrapolation of the past, through the present.

In my view, there is a great danger in this view of the future – as hubris – it’s an invitation to hubris! 

We have to be very careful.  If we predict something, or plan something, it should be, inshallah. 

This form of future is a new form of future. Traditional, pre-modern societies had another view of the future. Our view of the future has come with the coming of the Clock. With the tick, tick, the future could be measured at even intervals. Before the coming of the Clock in pre-modern society, the future wasn’t a chronological future – the one I have just spoken of – but the kairological future.  

This is the future and time of ‘right times’ – things occur when it is ‘right’ for them to occur. 
The seasons will help determine when that is, so there may be an apparent coincidence between kairological time and chronological time, but they are different.  

In my view – in a certain sense – the chronological future, the one we plan and predict, has no reality – it is false images; whereas the kairological future, that is real; it exists. 
We can’t get to it but we know it is coming, with a certainty.  
We can’t control it – it’s not ours to control.  
What can we do for it?  
We can’t plan for it, we can’t predict it, but we can prepare for it.   
We have to be ready for it when it comes, whenever it comes. Now, we do that by storing food for the winter. We know it’s going to be cold in the winter. Things aren’t going to grow, so we prepare for that future. 

Here I am speaking, I suppose, with a bit of my academic hat on – I think what our education does, amongst other things – or ought to be achieving – is that people leave here with a better understanding of the reality of the future. 
It is there, and we have a responsibility to it – and with that also goes a better understanding of the reality of the past – it is not a past of stories.  
It happened; it is real and it is still real. 

We go into chronological future, we face it, our backs to the past.  The kairological future we go into it with our backs to it – we can’t see it – but we can look to the past and based on the past and past experiences we can help prepare for it. 

But, in a way, there is not a lot we can say about the future, so perhaps I should sit down now.
But now that I am on my feet and being an academic and a teacher, it’s very difficult to sit down, so I won’t.

How are we going to prepare? 

Well, the way that I have begun preparing is by consulting – I have already spoken to, or got in contact with the Directors and some others and asked them. 

What are your hopes? 
What do we need to do, do you think, to prepare for the future? 

I am very thankful for the replies and the information they have given me. I have only just got it so have only really scanned over it – I will need to look over it carefully – correlate it, go back to them and talk…but some things have already emerged quite clearly and I don't think it will be a great surprise to you when I reveal what they are – what I think my task will be.

I will divert a little bit and say I think I see my role as a bridge, and I have also mentioned my wife, and my wife has, in my view, a slightly peculiar interest in bridges!  It’s not everybody’s thing….. well, it’s nice and she’s helped me to appreciate bridges because in modern bridges – architecturally designed bridges – it’s not just the function, but the form that’s important.  So there is the extrinsic role of getting you from one side to the other, and an intrinsic beauty to them. And in Holland certainly, they are creating some really beautiful bridges – so you just look at them – you don’t need to go over them to enjoy them…and that’s what she does.

It was her birthday recently, so what on earth do you buy a woman who, I think she’s got almost everything. So I thought I would get her (audience member: ‘a bridge!’) a book of poetry by Rumi.  

We already have several, so I went on Amazon to see what there was. There is a huge choice. But there was one I spotted and thought, ‘ah, that will be the one’, because it is a relatively new translation of poetry by Coleman Barks called ‘Rumi, Bridge to the Soul’ So that’s the one and it is indeed a lovely collection. And at the beginning – and it was just right – there is a long introduction in which the translator Coleman Barks meditates on the significance of bridges and particularly the Khaju Bridge – I think that’s what it’s called – in Isfahan in Persia. 

Well, it was a left-handed present of course, because I enjoy reading Rumi’s poetry. I would like to quote just a line of one of the poems in there, which struck me when I read it, and it was this:   

‘Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with  Beauty.’

When I read that, well, Chisholme came to mind.  Here is an oasis of peace inside an increasingly troubled world I think…and, yes, beauty – so much of what this place is dedicated to – the education. 

But, there are different sorts of secrets. 

There can be closely guarded secrets and there can be open secrets.  

And this place – it’s an open secret.  

One of the things I seem to have picked up from the discussions I have had, from the questionnaire I set out, is, that people would like this to be a more open secret. We want more people to know about this wonderful place and what it has to offer. 

So I think one of the ways that I suspect I am going to prepare for that, is to make even better use of the possibilities that modern communication technology makes available for us – and that’s a challenge for an old man, because for new technology, it’s very much young people who have a feel for it and its’ possibilities – but there are young people who can help me there. 

Another thing that I seem to have picked up is that we can bring this secret out, extend the boundaries to the local community; Joe, I think, talked about the idea of inviting  disadvantaged children – we can go out to the world a bit more.  ‘Lovers find a secret place inside a violent world…’ 

This world – can we help make it a bit less violent? 

Alan Williams talked about the possibilities there, so I think our role then may expand in the future and we need to prepare for that. 

For myself – I’ve only arrived here on Thursday and I’m about to be, in the future, preparing for...becoming the 'thespian' Principal!   

One of my ideas – I would like to see more people here obviously – and one way might be by offering even more courses than we do now; so I want to look at that possibility.  But you yourselves probably have ideas and so I would be very, very grateful, very grateful indeed, if you would share them with me – I would welcome them! 
Anything, anything, you have to share – not just your help, but your ideas, wishes, suggestions – please, please communicate them to…. well, you now know where I live, so my address is obvious. You could, if you want to use modern technology, email me via the Secretary or – I don’t have a special email address here yet but I think an easy email address for you to remember is: richardgault@hotmail.com

So please, please, get in touch.

Well – then, I am ready for it, I am at ease with it, I am in awe.  
I have to say, it is hard to believe that I am here, at this place, in this position.
It is a very, very great privilege and I hope and I intend to do justice to it. 
Really, every time I come here, I can barely comprehend that I am allowed to be here, that I am allowed to be given the knowledge and the understanding that is here – it is incredible.  
I am extremely grateful and very, very thankful. 
Thank you all. 

Thank you!

Richard's talk was followed by Aliya Ryan, the Development Office Coordinator, Aaron Cass, Director of Studies for the next Six-month Course and Tim Roberts, Chairman of the Institute.