How Do You Measure It?

Now that I’m retired I don’t have so many meetings to attend. Staff meetings, planning meetings, finance meetings, meetings about meetings… I often enjoyed the exchange of views with people I liked, respected and valued… and making considered decisions that led to progress could only be good.

I do still go to meetings about the running of the Seagull Theatre. Yesterday we were discussing our promotion of ‘high quality performances’…. But how do you tell if the concert, play or show was ‘high quality’? You can measure how many people attended, or how much money was taken, but how do you measure quality?

It took me back to staff discussions at school. Some skills or knowledge that we taught the children were easy to measure. Spelling words, doing arithmetical calculations, learning scientific facts, can be tested, marked and measured. Other things were harder to measure. A child’s creativity, honesty, generosity, kindness are harder to quantify.  

And discussions in church… we could measure how many people attended a meeting or if we had enough money in the bank, but how do you measure truth, faith, a ‘helpful sermon’ or ‘a good Christian’?

When the Bee Gees sung ‘How deep is your love?’ What sort of answer were they expecting? Ten metres?

Yesterday I had a phone call. ‘Please can you help me…’ A friend is starting a course. Could I please describe her in six words? I was given a grid of fifty-five words to choose from: ‘idealistic, kind, wise, independent, intelligent, reflective…’ Could I ‘measure’ her that easily?

I often come back to St Paul’s list of ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ Measuring them in yourself or others is almost impossible… Could an assessment of 73% for joy but only 56% for patience be made?

Today I’m musing on the many aspects of life that can’t be measured with a grade or quantified with a number… but can be seen, felt, recognised appreciated and valued.