FAITH.
ENTERPRISE.
LAND.
ENGLAND.
“Without a sense of place the work is often reduced to a cry of voices in empty rooms, a literature of the self, at its best poetic music; at its worst a thin gruel of the ego.”
William Kennedy
Substack - A Sacred Enterprise
Where I host my musings.
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Charlotte, John’s mother
We need a better story to live within than the placeless, functional, nihilistic materialism of high modernity.
For me, my answer lies in faith, enterprise, land and England.
An answer that recognise sense of place, tradition, beauty, ritual and mythos as higher sources of identity, purpose and wisdom.
And I don’t think I’m alone.
Everywhere I go I see more mythic, meaningful ways of engaging with the world trying, messily, to breakthrough our hyper rational norms.
In a way that is rediscovering a sense of enchantment and awe. At scale this will transform how we live, work and play.
My personal writing and work is my small contribution to this transition in an attempt to join contemporary dots, mine ancient stories for guidance and navigate a world in flux.
Who knows, perhaps it may even help you along the way, too.
John Featherby
Somewhere in Thomas Hardy country, Dorset
Latest Writings
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The Return of Spirituality & Religion
One hypothesis of this substack is that Western organisations are caught in a pincer like movement.
Externally, the non West is growing in political, demographic, financial and social power. And so is increasingly able to press its worldview. Spoiler, it is not the same as a secular western institution. Internally, Western culture is witnessing a reemergence of spiritual and religious ideas after decades of formal decline and statistics that masked a more complex picture.
“Spiritual Capital’: Has it come of age?
Building a company or a country is akin to baking a cake: you In economic circles these ingredients, these resources, are referred to as ‘capitals’: financial capital, human capital, natural capital. Resources you can use, steward and invest towards a common goal. Resources you can also deplete.
One capital that is ever present but rarely formally discussed, particularly in an enterprise context, is ‘Spiritual Capital’.
Faith, Sport & The Spiritual Root of Hogwarts
It’s the early 1800s, there is no state education and English boarding schools are feral.
And whilst many of these schools had their historical origins in the church or monastic traditions, the suggestion that someone might come along and use these institutions as a vehicle for social transformation, particularly with a Christian ethic, would have sounded utterly preposterous.
But that is exactly what happens next.
God is Back. And the implications for business will be significant.
One hypothesis of this substack is that Western organisations are caught in a pincer like movement.
Externally, the non West is growing in political, demographic, financial and social power. And so is increasingly able to press its worldview. Spoiler, it is not the same as a secular western institution. Internally, Western culture is witnessing a reemergence of spiritual and religious ideas after decades of formal decline and statistics that masked a more complex picture.