JC's helper: Beginning another week...

Monday, February 25, 2013

Beginning another week...

Old tools which I see as beautiful.

A courtyard we cleaned up a bit today.

Once it was lost but now it is found.

Sunday service...

I am a bad preacher. I have always maintained that you have to listen to where your people are at and as you prepare for the service try to pick them up, beginning in their field of experience and moving them on. But when you preach the New Testament I find that difficult. The New Testament assumes that Christians are on the journey of discipleship. It assumes that those in the church ( i.e. the "called out for a purpose" gathering) are on a mission with Jesus and so much of it is written to assist them in that mission. Many times we think we come to church to get assistance with just the processes of living. How do I cope with illness? How do I cope with stress? How do I handle death? How do I bring my children up so that they don't disgrace me? But the New Testament is not so much a "how to live successfully and respectably" in our world. Rather it is an operational manual for those who are with Jesus, in the currents of the Kingdom of God (the flow of God's life) overcoming the forces that would diminish life. It assumes we have accepted a mission seeking to infiltrate our culture with the values and ways of God. On Sunday I bounced off the gospel reading and talked about the difficulties of persevering in that mission and staying true to its work. About half way through I looked at the people before me and thought, "They are not where I am aiming this at?" I missed the mark.... but how can I be anywhere else? I am a square peg in a round hole - again.

Day off?

Monday is my day off. It has been interesting in that both my wife and I have had to deal with issues relating to our two interests. My wife is still involved with Habitat for Humanity and fielded phone calls related to that. I had various things to do for the Night Shelter and spent quite a bit of time stewing on that. I was chatting with a friend on facebook who was asking me what I was doing. I mentioned the night shelter stuff, and she commented, "You don't know what 'day off' means!" I guess it is all part of our lifestyle.

Stuff around the house...

We got to do some tidying up around the house. In the process we found a tool I lost almost a year ago. I had searched and searched for this prized possession but had not found it. I had bought a replacement, but it was not as good as the original. In the process of cleaning it up I looked fondly on some old tools I have. Some tools are a work of art. They just look good and feel good. They have been well made. I recall going to a vintage car museum and seeing a display of old plumbing tools. I had some of these! If I was going to collect old things and make a museum it would be of these old tools. I have a start of a collection already.

A lovely text...

My youngest son has a new baby a couple of weeks old. He texts his mother regularly about the baby's progress. He lets us know all sorts of details. One text was concerned, the baby had not had a bowl movement in more than a day and a half. Then came a simple text of celebration, "Theo did a big poo!" After a while a cute text came that went something like this; "Wow mum, how our lives have changed! The hot topic is Theo's bowl movements! Funny!" A baby is certainly a life changing experience even for grandparents. One of the things we did today was get a whole lot of photos printed of our growing family. We then displayed them in a fancy nine picture frame on our wall. Grandparents and baby photos go together.

Another week ahead...

I go into another week of the final year of my career. I would love to take time to visit my grandson in Christchurch but weekends are out. I would like to visit there before I have my operation. I think I will have to take a day or two off to do it. I have an invitation to my youngest brother's sixtieth birthday two and a half hours' drive away on Friday night. I can't go, we do not have enough volunteers to run the drop-in centre. It is all part of this crazy lifestyle we call "ministry". Next year I'll "get a life" of my own, but then again this is a busy and exciting life already... just need some extra hours.

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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.