Medway Messenger column, 25th Apri, 2003: Sons Of Encouragement

I love a good whinge. Don’t you feel better after a well-earned moan?

In fact, like many people I can concentrate on the one bad thing when everything else was good. I can have nine good days on holiday, but the one lousy day out of ten is the one I tell everyone about when I get back.

I remember one incident eighteen months ago. My wife and I went to a food fair in Tunbridge Wells. We went from tent to tent, sampling all the freebies: exotic sausages, fabulous cheeses, amazing pies, gorgeous breads. We crammed the freezer with sausages when we got back.

But it isn’t the sausages we talk about when we recall that day. We went to the lunch tent and ordered some plates of chicken salad. We just didn’t expect any of the meal to be still alive. But our salads were inhabited by creatures running around, training for the Maggot Olympics. I’ve never been given a refund so quickly.

We could have had reason to let one small thing dominate something good again recently. This time we chose not to.

Last month, we entered upon that miracle known as parenthood. The beautiful Rebekah has entered our lives and changed them forever.

Originally we had hoped for a home birth. But baby was too comfortable inside mummy (must have been the craving for Creme Eggs). So we ended up at the Medway Maritime Hospital for an induction. To cut a long story short, the induction didn’t really work, and the dominoes kept falling until we ended up with an emergency Caesarean.

Now we could tell you about the one slightly insensitive member of staff. But we don’t want to whinge. We'd rather tell you about all the wonderful professionals who helped us. They say it’s invidious to single out individuals – but what the hey, let’s be invidious.

There was Mandy, the midwife on duty in the Delivery Suite when Debbie gave birth. There was Frank Olaleye, the Registrar who performed the surgery. There was Gloria, another midwife on Kent Ward, and Ruth, one of the nurses. And we can’t forget Anne-Maria Scrivener, the midwife attached to our GP practice.

If I stop with those names, it’s purely due to fading memory of the other names. And this column will resemble the credits at the end of an American TV show.

These people treated us with dignity. There was none of the “We know best, so just do what we say” attitude, let alone “Do this, because it’s convenient for me”. We need no convincing about the turnaround in the Medway’s reputation in the last few years.

So Debbie and I resolved to praise, not to criticise. Complaining is cheap and easy. Encouragement is a rare and priceless commodity. As one cynic said, many people make a little praise go a long way.

Somebody was asked what his desk would look like if all the letters of praise and criticism he had received during his career were put on it. He said, “I’d need a new desk. All the complaints would break the current desk.”

There’s a character in the New Testament called Barnabas. His name means ‘Son of encouragement’. He was well-named. He saw potential in those distrusted by others.

He was Paul’s advocate to the other apostles when they wondered if his conversion on the Damascus Road was a ploy. He took John Mark (who wrote Mark’s Gospel) under his wings when – ironically – Paul thought he wasn’t up to much. Take Paul and Mark’s contributions from the New Testament and it halves in size.

Could you change someone’s world by being a Barnabas? A phone call, a card, a bunch of flowers – no fancy gizmos are required.

But you might bring light to someone who’s doing a good job, yet who only gets brickbats. Someone who is discouraged by the criticism and is thinking of quitting. They would be a loss if they resigned.

Your simple encouragement might be all they need.

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.