Dunedin, New Zealand, my city - my people

Friday, January 31, 2014

A day with workplace chaplains.

We were given certificates recognising our years of service. At 20 years I was the longest serving chaplain.
At this time of the year Workplace Support gathers together the chaplains from Otago/Southland and we have a "Commencement Day".  Today in Dunedin was one of the sunniest days we have had this summer, so as I travelled to the event I growled about having to spend this beautiful day inside. Out of the experience of the day I share three things...
Collegiality 
I turned up and waited for other chaplains from wider afield to arrive. Clyde, a guy who does chaplaincy at the fire service and city council in New Zealand's southern most city (Invercargill) arrived along with his friend Jim who does chaplaincy amongst the likes of timber workers and freezing workers. As we talked with each other, and later to others in the room, I enjoyed the sense of collegiality. These guys would be a lot more conservative than I am theologically, but we had similar passions, experiences and insights from the chaplaincy work. I appreciated that sense of not being alone in my job.
"Be still and know that I am God."
I frequently get annoyed at chaplaincy gatherings because there are a couple of people in leadership positions who frequently push in devotions, discussions or training events the line that goes, "The carer must care for themselves" or "We can't be doing all the time we must learn to just 'be'" or if you are a busy person, you are made to feel guilty and shallow because you are always active. I understand their message, but it is said so often that it feels a bit like a stuck record.  Sure enough devotions this time emphasised being silent before God, and "just being."  "God" she said, "does not come in activity, but in silence and stillness. We need to have places of silence and stillness." At this something in me wanted to scream, "No you're wrong!" Now don't get me wrong, I know we need silences etc. I have my walks up Mount Cargill, my gardening and other times of "silence". But she is wrong in saying God does not come in activity and busyness. I have had deep and meaningful experiences of the sacred in the busyness. Sometimes in the midst of a chaplaincy or pastoral conversation I sense "the sacred". When I am my most extended and tense, I have calming experiences of partnership, and these have happened e.g. during a funeral service, dashing around in near panic at a christmas day dinner, or scared out of my brain in tense situations in the drop-in centre. When I am working with a group to achieve something, often the divine within and between us emerges.  No! - God does not just come in silence, the sacred emerges anywhere any time.
Why do you do what you do?
We were invited to go away by ourselves and write a sentence outlining why we are a chaplain - a sentence explaining what our motivation is. They wanted us to reconnect with our inner motivation. I came up with two sentences that I will share with you. I would head mine;
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.."
"In the 1970's as a plumber I was disturbed by the disconnection between the lives of my workmates and the way the churches represented God, his purposes and his love. I sensed a "call" to be active in bridging that gap, and now 44 years later that call is still deeply imbedded in who I am as a person and even more of an urgent force in my life."

I ended up being pleased to have attended our commencement day. 

No comments: