Sharing
Ministerial Meandering
Sharing
Some people find it difficult to share, and I suppose that sometimes I’ve been one of them. I’m not talking about the last scoop of ice cream, or that last chocolate in the box (which just happens to be your favourite) - but parts of our lives that we need to share, and very often don’t realize it until it’s too late.
Perhaps the most obvious example would be where we think (or know) that we can do something better than somebody else - damn it - than anybody else! I can be a bit like that when I’m preparing a meal in the kitchen; I really don’t want anyone else around, because they’ll get in my way and make a mess of anything I ask them to do. That’s acceptable (possibly) with adults, as they tend to be the same, but it’s not so good with children who are learning new skills - and we have to let them make their own mistakes. This is where patience and child-skills are paramount. I confess that I have few of them.
I remember once Sheila asked me to show a grandson how I made a loaf of bread. Despite me offering to let him do part of it, his attention span was about 45 seconds, after which he ran off to play with our dog. The dog was very happy.
This idea of sharing plays critically into our teaching skills in many other fields. I recall when I was a registrar in surgery (resident), being hugely frustrated as my boss at the time was taciturn and gave nothing away at the operating table. Only being used as an assistant, I was learning little, as the previous year I had worked with a different boss who had eventually given me my own slate for each day we operated - he on one table, and me on another in the same OR.
Sharing skills where apprenticeship is how you learn is crucial to the trainee. Surgery is taught at the bedside and in the ER and OR - not in books. Other métiers where practical dexterity are critical to success can only be acquired by watching and following a master.
Other life skills are less easy to define, but I want to share one that our younger daughter exhibited a month or two back.
She and our eldest grandson (he of the bread-making failure, but dog success) were driving along a highway at crawling pace when his newly acquired second-hand car gave up the ghost with a sigh. Ben had been driving, and with a brand new shiny ’N’ on the back of his car, was seriously inexperienced in being en panne. Hannah, our daughter, is good in an emergency, and without any drama helped him to think his way through what needed to be done to remedy the situation. This was a wonderful example of sharing life skills - and he’ll never forget it - when his next car breaks down.
Going back briefly to my first love (surgery), there was a surgeon in our hospital in Zululand who was very like the boss who gave nothing away. He was technically accomplished, but did not teach. He preferred to have his awe-struck assistants applaud at the end of a procedure, and tell him they had never seen anything like it before. Well, that’s fine - but I like staying in bed at night, so I used to take my junior staff through all the work I could safely give them. My philosophy being that the more I taught them to be self-sufficient, the less likely they were to get me out of my bed at night. It worked. I particularly remember one night being called by a rather breathless female resident (who was very capable) that a man with a stabbed heart had just come into the ER. It was - of course - the middle of the night. I went in and as we were scrubbing up in the ER, I turned to her and said, “Katie, this one’s yours.” Her face was horror-struck, but before she could say a word, I told her, “Don’t worry, I’ll assist you, and if you get stuck, or I think you’re going to make a serious mistake, I’ll take over. OK?”
She repaired his heart beautifully. Sharing means taking risks sometimes - but not abandoning.
Philip+