The dilemma of Lot’s Wife – To look back or not!

17 Jan 2015 4 Comments

by OutTales in Courage and Vulnerability, Faith, Holding On and Letting Go Tags: , , ,

Ade FBOne of the tales that has always stayed with me from the “Sunday School of my childhood” is the story of “Sodom & Gomorrah”. Now, it would be easy to base this on the fact that I am gay, and that the story of Sodom is often used by fundamentalists to chastise gay people. But, that is not the case. Long before I knew for sure that I was gay, I knew about the story of Sodom.

More specifically, I knew about the story of Lot’s wife. It was a story that our Sunday School teachers would come back to, time and time again, and it was certainly the most haunting of the bible stories from that period of my life. I was fascinated by the story of this woman who was turned into a pillar of salt! I guess the story felt like it was straight out of 1001 Arabian Nights or Greek Mythology – two other delights from my childhood. More

Let’s do lunch soon!

31 Dec 2014 4 Comments

by OutTales in Courage and Vulnerability

P1020795It’s that time of year when familiar faces from days gone by are starting to reemerge. Like something lost down a deep well, over the past couple of weeks old friends and acquaintances are resurfacing – and I guess to some, I am also doing the same.

I suspect it has to do with it being that time of the year where many of us are reflecting – consciously and unconsciously – on what the year brought and what it is taking away.

An aspect of the reappearing familiar face is where that conversation subsequently ends. I find that in many cases it concludes with the phrase – “Let’s do lunch soon”. There are many other variations to this – “Let’s do coffee soon”, “Let’s have dinner soon”, “Let’s catch up in the new year” – and I’m sure there are many many other variations. More

Daring Greatly with Brené Brown

18 Jul 2013 2 Comments

by OutTales in Courage and Vulnerability Tags: , , ,

Ade - Daring

I remember being filled with such excitement and anticipation when in early April I discovered that Brené Brown was coming to London to give a talk at The School of Life. I immediately posted the details on Facebook, and notified a few of the guys who had journeyed with us at The Quest about the event. Since discovering Brené’s work via her TED talks, Darren (Co-Founder of The Quest) and myself had often referred to her research in our work with gay men on the issue of shame, vulnerability and courage.

I got out my diary to put in the date and then noticed that I had another engagement on the same day, which I could not get out of – or could I? I was in the process of starting a monthly group coaching session in June, and our second session would clash with the Brené event. I debated whether to move the session, but everything was already in place and so I gradually settled to the possibility of the talk making its way to YouTube and seeing it there.

Few weeks later as Ernesto, (fellow collaborator at The Quest) told me that he had his ticket for The School of Life event, I silently debated whether I could take my coaching group for an outing to see Brené, but by that stage the tickets were all gone. ‘Oh well, that’s that’ I thought!’ More

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