One of the big questions at this time of year, obviously, is are you a Strictly house or are you a Factor house? We are a Factor house so I’m afraid that last weekend I was moonlighting for the opposition.
This week is Faith in the World Week and it struck me as I watched, just how much more the X-Factor is about believing than it is about singing. People tell each other that they have to believe in themselves; and that if they only believe then anything is possible.
Maybe it is. The other day in Oxford I met a swimmer. I asked what sort of swimming and she said ‘open water’. Now I love swimming in the sea more than almost anything, so I was happy to chat casually about the beach, only to find that this was Dr Victoria Cox, one of only seven people in history to complete the ‘Triple Crown’ of marathon open water swimming in a single season. She is, frankly, astonishing.
Now the self-belief needed to do what Victoria does is positively superhuman. But as we talked I realised that this wasn’t just self-belief but other things too: training and preparation certainly, but also a sense that other people believed in her and supported her.
In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah had the terrifying experience of coming face to face with God and he immediately lost all sense of self-belief, fearful of all the ways he’d failed to be a good man. ‘Woe to me,’ he cried, ‘I am ruined’.
But God reassured Isaiah, and forgave him his failings such that when he asked for someone to speak for him, poor, woebegone Isaiah was first out of the blocks, yelling ‘Here I am! Send me!’
Isaiah found that when he couldn’t believe in himself, God believed in him. Christians believe that, but for any of us, I reckon that it’s when someone else says, ‘I believe in you’ that we really start to live up to our potential.
And that’s why the X-Factor and champions like Victoria Cox are so compelling. Their stories are not just about self-belief but also the shared belief of families, friends and whole communities. And that’s what makes some people into great singers or brilliant athletes, and all of us into braver, bolder, better people than we ever thought we could be.
The Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming comprises the Catalina Channel swim in Southern California, the English Channel and the circumnavigation of Manhattan. There are actually a couple more than seven people who have now done it in a single season. It’s still ridiculous.