JC's helper: NZ's All Blacks won!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

NZ's All Blacks won!

I have just watched the semi final of the Rugby World Cup. It was Australia against the All Blacks. While the All Blacks have won all their World Cup games, some of their play had not looked up to scratch. They had not faced a really tough team. There were a couple of top players injured and out of the team. It was quite funny because there was quite a lot of nervousness about tonight's game. Australia are a young, talented and fit side. They beat the All Blacks the last time the teams played. They are coached by a very able NZ coach, who was turned down by the NZ Rugby Football Union. It was all lined up really to be the "final" that was a semi final. Sorry my Australian readers but a very clinical and accurate All Black side out played the Wallabies. NZ won 20 to 6. We had to listen to an Australian commentator all night who up until the last 3 minutes thought an Aussie miracle might happen.
We have had the Church open for a lot of the Rugby World Cup games with the games playing on the big screen TV we have up the front. Not many extras walked in and watched with us, but a few of us have enjoyed sitting with hot drinks, sometimes soup, chippies and biscuits to enjoy the matches together. NZ should be able to easily beat the French in the finals next week. They have beaten them solidly in an earlier World Cup game when the All Blacks were not playing as well as they are now. But it is not over till the ref blows the final whistle in the final. Go All Blacks! Sorry Aussie mates. There was a collective sigh of relief throughout NZ when the final whistle blew. For now the world has righted itself again and God is good.
:-)

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The Blog's title

I am a Workplace Chaplain to the NZ fireservice.

At the firestation every time one man sees me he yells, "Here comes JC's helper!". I guess I am happy to be called just that... "Jesus' helper". I am a follower of Jesus.
A a quote from Dave Andrews in his book, "Not Religion but Love".
"Being a devotee of Jesus is not a matter of subscribing to a certain set of dogmas, obeying rules and regulations, and getting others to subordinate themselves to them.

The essence of being a devotee of Jesus is to live in sympathy with God as Jesus did; feeling the throb of God's heartbeat, and teaching our hearts to learn to beat in sync with the love that sustains the universe.

It means developing our capacity to sense intuitively what causes love pleasure, and what causes love pain, and doing everything we can to enhance the pleasure, and diminish the pain."

I love this charter.

The Charter for Compassion

The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.