The Art of No Deal

At the start of 2026, world-changing decisions were made on the assumption that everything is transactional. As long as the pressure or price is sufficient, then anything that is desired can be acquired. This approach has a strong appeal. It is straightforward, immediate and quantifiable. It delivers clear wins to the winners and a convenient explanation for the losers that they lost because they are weak. Winning the transaction is winning at life.

The central organising idea throughout Grain of Sand is the exact opposite. Life is lived to the full by the way we create and curate the entities and relationships that rest on ‘no deals’. Transactions are useful and have their place. But just as organs within a healthy body don’t compete, the meaning of life is found in how we relate, how we impact and are impacted by others, and how we relate as individuals to the bigger collective entities that are more than the sum of the individuals. They hinge on trust, rather than transaction. ‘No deals’ are foundational to life, but they take deliberate effort. They can be costly to nurture; they evolve with shifting places and circumstances and are vulnerable to the actions of any individual. And yet, they offer a reward beyond any individual seeking to ‘optimise’ themselves.    Just as the Rose Window from St Albans Cathedral (pictured) contains many vibrant and beautiful individual panes, it is the way it is formed together that creates something quite so striking. It is an image of the creative, ongoing endeavour in which we all play a part. 

Many people would agree that the value of a person cannot be measured by economic utility, financial worth, stage of life or others’ opinion but we do not always have ways to capture the relational elements. Anchor Friendships celebrates the importance of the shared experience of friendship in a life. The way that we are shaped by relationships is so fundamental that it continues to be a real influence even after a loved one dies; an idea in Fallen Trees/ Living Memories.

Any relationship creates something intangible that is formed from the people, places and emotional interactions involved. Relationships counselling draw on this idea when they encourage partners to think about what they can offer to the shared ‘bucket’.  Two Streams, written for a family wedding, is an image of marriage as something more than two people. Physical spaces have a real impact. Living in these Four Walls captures the idea that the health of a whole family depends on both the physical (the walls and the garden) as well as the emotional. I wrote about a place in Greece, which somehow captured the idea of curating and creating something bigger than the sum of its parts. It was a home, a business, a landscape and a community and yet also A Very Good Place. Thankfully this isn't unique to that place and the poem has been adapted for others since. 

The same idea of creating and holding between us ‘something bigger’ goes beyond the interpersonal. Schools, companies, organisations make deliberate statements about what the whole stands for, but the actual, living entity is created by real decisions, which may or may not reflect the stated aims. The health of families, friendships and relationships in small organisations are largely dictated by personal decisions such as choosing to cherish celebrations and nurturing a place where all feel at home. On a larger scale, the health of the whole is are mediated through laws, institutions and formal structures. However, there are similar principles at play; enabling individuality to flourish whilst sustaining the needs of the whole, protecting the vulnerable, burden sharing through different seasons, and even accepting limits on individual acquisition. Just as a household relies on time spent on mundane housework, any group depends on ‘gifts, offered to the common life in trust that they will be used for collective benefit’. This idea is used by Rowan Williams to describe tax ie. a gift that underpins the health of the national community. This is a counter-intuitive way to think about our public life where policies and decisions are most often framed as ways to benefit the greatest number of individuals, or those who are part of important electoral constituencies. Thinking of a country as a collective whole that we create together may be a stretch. But in its broadest form, this idea of a shared ‘whole’ that we nurture or destroy applies to the whole of humanity and the natural world where policy choices dictate who flourishes and how we balance the duty to immediate communities (whether our families or our country) with solidarity with all people and stewardship of the natural world. Future blog posts may explore this more.

Seeing the world as a collection of dynamic, positive relational entities reflects an ideal as old as humanity. It is the Biblical idea of ‘Shalom’ that runs through the descriptions in the Bible of flourishing, life-giving interactions between individuals and communities. Such relationships are not governed by transaction but are underpinned by a covenant. Isaiah’s picture of the ‘mountain of the Lord’ - a picture of the ultimate future- includes diverse nations, individuals, landscapes, plants and animals all flourishing together. The love of God is described as the  creative source, sustaining energy and inspiration for any relational entity. Even if we can never realise the ideal, the process of striving, learning and growing offers continual purpose and meaning. I write about how human relationships reflect, echo and rely on this love in  Beanbag Parenting. 

Given the brokenness of the world, the idea of underlying purpose or goodness requires wrestling with uncomfortable issues and Grain of Sand does not shy away from the difficult questions. Working for the ‘renewal of all things’ is a faith-based mission and the call of all churches and the blog and resources offer ideas on nurturing collective non-transactional relationships where all can flourish from the individual and the home to the whole world.