Catharsis about the St John Ambulance decision.

I have been confined indoors all day by the snow falling outside, so I have taken the opportunity to do some cleaning up of my study at home. While I have been doing that I found myself stewing on the decision by St John Ambulance at a national level to do away with on site chaplaincy. I have known about this for some time and had thought I was accepting it.

 I read an article today that made the point that no job these days can be seen as permanent. The article said that the nature of the employment scene these days was that you had to recognise that any job is temporary, change happens so fast. This highlights the need to be flexible and seize retraining opportunities. So I accept that losing the job is just a part of life and anyway it is only 2 hours a week (Well... I was there for much longer) and not my full time job. Many these days lose their main source of income, I really cannot growl.

I think the thing that is getting to me is the loss of relationships. I have shared lunches twice a week with this group of people since 1998 or 99 (not sure when I started) and had heaps of conversations. I will miss the contact after August finishes when I am not allowed to visit any more.  The other thing that sort of hurts is that I believe the service I offer is better than the alternative. Nostalgically I look back on the times I have had and the things I have done and think, "I bet the new people wouldn't do that!" Here are a few....

• I had a call from a colleague of a one of the staff. He knew that his mate was at home struggling in his marriage relationship. "They are in a mess" he said, "Would you visit now?" I said "Yes" and spent the afternoon with the couple as they talked, wept and unloaded with me as a third person. We made plans for the way ahead. Will the new group respond like that?
• I was asked by a manager if I would go to the hospital emergency department and support the wife of a rural manager who had been brought in after suffering a stroke. The rural manager had to return the ambulance home and come back to Dunedin. For three hours I sat with her in the emergency department, chatting, supporting and encouraging her. I doubt the new support service would do that.
• One man rang me on my day off and asked to see me. His sister was in the hospice, would I visit her and would I conduct her funeral. I was intensely busy at the time but this I did. 
• I got a phone call from a policeman at the police station once. One of the staff was down there and stressed out. I spent two to three hours sitting in an interview room with him supporting him, as police sorted out what turned out to be false charges against him.
• I have taken weddings for a number of the staff and their families, for no charge. I have taken funerals for fathers, mothers and other relatives, again for no extra charge.
• One Saturday I was preparing to take a wedding for the sister of a staff member when I got a desperate phone call. A staff member was in a bad way, life was all going wrong. Could I do something. I rang our Workplace CEO and arranged for her to go out that afternoon to give  supportive counselling. I rang one person involved in the situation and talked with them. Then rushed off to take the wedding, stopping briefly to farewell my son and daughter in law who were going off to live in Edinburgh.
• I have spent hours, a lot longer than my contracted hours, listening and interacting as the staff have let off steam about jobs they had been on, the bosses, life in general and often personal situations they were facing.

I could list off heaps of such things. This is my job. I am not boasting. But the on site chaplaincy is a very good service. It is somewhere between constant supportive friendship and professional support. It is a christian ministry and so it goes "the second mile".  It has people talking through stuff informally before the "molehills become mountains." The people have someone "walking beside them".  I do wonder if we charge too much per hour for the service? I would do it for nothing. I think I have the training and skills where I could have been used more fully by St John.  But I would love to list off all these sorts of things I have done to St John HR people at a national level and shout at them, "I bet your new support service will NOT do these things! Damn you for stopping me from continuing this ministry!" Anyway, that's my rant for tonight. I will cope with saying goodbye, and accept it with professional behaviour, but just now I am a bit p'd off about it.  

Tuesday ramblings

God's love...
There are deep divisions in our world with people hating Muslims and Muslims hating the west. I go to the fire stations where at the moment the average fire fighter is looking with suspicion on "management". "They are trying to screw us!" The fire fighters have a kind of strike going trying to force a settlement on their contract. We have a bunch of "different" guys who come to Space2B, others don't like them being there.  I find it hard not to get resentful at people who write me off as if I was a religious nut of some kind. To some people it seems like any person of faith is an inferior out of date low-intelligence life form.  It annoys me that these ardent atheists do not engage the more scholarly and modern thinking theologians. They prefer to write us all off as if we were believers in a flat earth. On the other hand I get angry at fundamentalist Christians who in my view distort the way of Jesus. There is no doubt I have offended a few conservative brothers and sisters, who would write me off. Sometimes I find myself angry at people who do not try to help themselves, who expect endless handouts as their right. Divisions abound, and we all can write people off, as the "other" "unacceptable" "outcast".  I found a challenging statement in my preparation for this Sunday. "If God does not love us ALL, he does not love at all." An implication is that as soon as I say "I hate..." I am denying the love of God for me that I might like to claim. Anyway it challenged and rang bells with me. Everybody, even bad buggers, is loved of God.
St John NZ say "no" to on site workplace chaplains.
It is official. At a national level St John Ambulance have, because of financial issues, ended the concept of on-site workplace support chaplains and I am to finish visiting the Dunedin centres at the end of the month. They are going to a different system of support for staff. I have known this for a month or so, but local staff have not known. When I went there today the first person I saw said, "You will still come and visit us won't you?" (News had gone around in an official email) Others said the same thing. "You can still pop across and have lunch?" The difficulty is that professionally it may not be tolerated. The new support "firm" will not like the competition. When I pointed this out, they just said, "We invite you! Surely we can do that?" It is going to be hard having Dunedin St John HQ virtually opposite the Church, and yet not be able to call. I have been visiting there since 1998/99. (Not sure exactly when I started?) I am contracted for 2 hours a week at St John. As I have said before, I believe there is an incredible amount of support given in the informal "chatting" that I do.  I would do it for nothing, but the system would not allow it. Sometimes in my mind I question the overheads of the Workplace Support "firm" that I work for, and wonder if we are too expensive as a Christian ministry, but better economic minds than mine set the fees. I have enjoyed supporting an organisation like St John, they do so much good.