Be willing to be disturbed.

We stopped work on it when it rained and got dark.

An early morning start enabled the children attending the birthday party to enjoy the trampoline.

My son and I spent a couple of hours erecting this trampoline. It was quite a job with 96 springs to install under tension, 96 net ties to loop, again under tension and of course the manual for such things is not always the most helpful. The size of the finished product frightened my son. It took up quite a bit of the lawn and would make mowing the lawn much more complicated. He was expressing his disappointment and that he tries to keep the place tidy, but this child’s equipment would make it tough. His neat lawn will be messed up by this contraption!

As he complained I commented, “That’s just the way it is when you have kids.”  He continued to complain. Then in the nicest way possible I said, “I remember skateboard ramps that a certain kid built at our place. Their remains are still there!”  He was stunned for a while, and replied, “But not in the middle of the lawn!” “They were - until I moved them! And they made things awkward for me.” (I recall my nails, some of my best timber and some of my tools went missing. )  I could have mentioned the bare patches of ground that happened because there was a home cricket pitch on the front lawn. Or maybe I could have spoken of the holes in the hedge where kids had exuberantly gone through the hedge. …or … or…. the general stuff kids/teenagers have that muck up the normal orderly running of a house. The reality is that when you have children in your family normal life gets disturbed.  It is true in fact, that whenever you involve yourself with others, life is disturbed. 

I recall when I got married, I could not spend as much time mucking around with cars with my brothers as I did before marriage. I missed those testosterone filled nights, my wife was a hindrance to my freedom!– but there were rewards.

I remember too when our first child was born how annoying it was.  Pre-baby we could spontaneously decide to go to the films or to eat out. Now we couldn’t. 

When you care for people, or get involved with people, whether they be your wife, your children or whoever, your life will be disturbed.  If you don’t want to be disturbed stay lonely away from people.  If you want to know love, friendship or experience your own or others’ growth, you have to be prepared to be disturbed.

• ·      I can think of many people who have not got involved in serving, caring, outreach activities at the Church because they did not want their life disturbed. Life went like clockwork for them, and to be involved would mean disturbing their pattern.
• ·      I can think of people who have avoided getting involved because the people were different from them. They would only mix with people like themselves.  It disturbed them too much to meet different sorts of people.
• ·      I am essentially a shy guy and sometimes I baulk at meeting new people. I grumble about going to a function or avoid going where I have to meet others. It just seems to involve too much energy, making conversation, listening, putting myself “out there”.  (Indeed, for me one of the temptations of retirement is a tendency to become a happy hermit.)

But the thing is that when we avoid involvement with people because of the incovenience, we are the losers. Our life is lessened rather than enriched. I have so often found this. At the start of the drop-in centre on Friday nights, I often just wanted to go home. But during the night I found I enjoyed friendship and the involvement with others. When I began in chaplaincy, I was fearful. “Why put myself out there?” “Why set myself up for rejection?” But when I hung in there and got involved chaplaincy has enriched my life incredibly.

To sum up: Involvement with people costs and disturbs.

But involvement with people brings meaning, expansion and enrichment to life.