I talked briefly with a dying man.

It is mid autumn here and the trees have nearly lost their colourful leaves.

I took a funeral a couple of weeks ago.  Attending the funeral was a retired workmate of the man who had lost his wife. He had in fact worked with both husband and wife. He was on crutches and had a bandaged face. He has terminal cancer and when I touched base with him he asked if I would take his funeral when the time came.  I said that I hoped it was a way off yet. He later rang me and asked again, and I said I would catch up with him this week. 

I rang his home several times today, and then fearing the worst went to the Ambulance Headquarters and they told me the story. He had been sent to hospital yesterday, and today they had transported him to the local hospice. I loved this gesture. Apparently they drove out of the hospital and the driver took an unexpected left turn and diverted to the Ambulance station (not far away) so that his old colleague could have a last look around his old workplace.  When the driver saw his boss he said, "I hope I won't get in trouble?" The boss appreciated the gesture and assured him he wouldn't. After a brief visit around the building, with sad but warm farewells, they took him to the hospice. So I went down to the hospice and caught up with him. He was pretty dopey because of medications but he recognised me and we talked briefly. He seemed pleased that I had caught up. 

He is still relatively young, just a few years older than me. He is a nice guy and has been battling ill health of one sort or another since his retirement. When he was involved with the Ambulance station we had often talked. We had talked through issues of his job, his life, his history and current events. We had often laughed and we agreed together on many issues. I liked talking with him, he was a thoughtful guy.  Since he retired my contacts have been few. But as I looked at this man in the bed in the hospice, I was deeply aware that he has only a day or so to live.... then I will never get to chat with him again. New Zealand author Michael King when writing about past friendships said, "One remains grateful for the fruits of friendship and the memories they store up. But the passage of those friends and the ending of relationships by death is the most difficult and the most perplexing aspect of living."  (He wrote that when he was facing terminal cancer himself - although he died in a car accident.)  I expect death. It is the way of all life. I have taken lots of funerals, I have watched people die, I know death is a passage of life. But at the same time I am still somehow shocked by it. It really is so final for those left behind. I may never see this man again, he will be gone. ..... This living, thinking person; this person who can love, smile, relate and care will be gone; this personality will cease to be for me! ..... I remember being with a man from our drop-in centre when his brother died. He just looked at him, rubbed his brother's brow, then looked at me and simply said, "What a bugger."  I know death is an inevitable passage of life, but it is still a "bugger".

It makes us cherish our days though!

Week's end waffle..

Rugby and over-rated sport
I ranted about the rugby world cup. I need to say that I am not anti-sport. It is a strange phenomenon that we tend to get carried away with our sporting teams. It happens all over the world. In the UK people get carried away with soccer, and there have been soccer hooligans and unsavoury behaviour.  Our local rugby team (the highlanders) changed the colours of the jerseys, from roughly blue and gold to almost a lime green. You should have heard the furore! It was like the end of the world! One man who overheard an argument in his workplace said to me, "They should visit Christchurch and talk to some of the people who have nearly lost everything. The colours of footballers jerseys really don't bloody matter!" Sport is artificial life. That is fine and it has its place. But I wonder if we get so wrapped up in artificial living (sport) because we have not got deep significance in our normal living.
Night Shelter
I am on the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust. It has been a long journey getting the shelter up and running. We have recently restructured and had to make two jobs redundant and hire a new person, because of financial constraints. We are reliant on grants and donations and we have to be as efficient as possible. There is not a great number of people using it but it feels like we should have a shelter available when it is needed. We have a street appeal coming up, I hope we get a good return. I have spent a few Saturday mornings working there tidying things up, and fixing things. I have an ongoing concern to keep us viable  and I wrack my brain for clarity about the way forward. ... then sometimes I ask, "Why should I care? Most of the people using it probably take it for granted. Some probably deserve to be on the street!" But something inside says, "There ought to be a place available." and I can't walk away. I have met some lovely people on the Trust, my life is enriched by their friendship.
I could lose a job!
I need to give up a chaplaincy to make more time in my life to do more church related stuff. That is going to be good but also difficult. I have also heard that another of my chaplaincies could be lost because of nationally based decisions. I could be made redundant! I think I will struggle with breaking the relationships I have in that workplace. I went there the other day knowing this though the locals did not know. I felt so sad as I went around talking to people. Wait and see, but if it happens I will miss their friendship.
I am lucky for friendships
I look back on my week and I am very fortunate. My life is full of friendly relationships. We have Muthiah who looks after Space2B. He is a lovely Indian man who is nice to be with. I have two lunch times with St John Ambulance people and go around fire stations regularly, along with my other two chaplaincies. I am met with friendship again and again. We have Curly and Margaret who join us in running the drop-in centre and there is always good humoured banter during the night. Robbie (He likes "Robert" better) is a drop-in guy who is around the church every Sunday to help out. He and I enjoy banter, but deep down we like and care about each other. At drop-in there are people we have known for years, and while some might see them as "clients" they are to me "friends".  (Jonathan, Saraya, Summer, Maurice, Jennifer, Glen, Honi, Mark, Bert, Ken, Terry, Nick etc. etc.) I open the door on a Friday night and I try to greet each by name as they come through the door. I try to say "goodbye, have a good week" to each as each leaves. (The "have a good week" is a prayer) We went to the Farmers' Market on Saturday morning. I parked in the yard at the Fire Station. When we got back to the car I saw a firefighter and slid into friendly conversation. We went to drive out of the gate and a big fire engine turned into it from out side, stopped and blocked our way. Four grinning fire fighters peered down at me. I wound down my window and some banter flew backwards and forwards, then with a good natured wave they drove the fire truck in and out of our way. Tonight I went for a walk with my running friend. We have run or, when necessary walked on a Sunday afternoon for an hour for several years. The conversation is catch up on our working weeks and mutually supportive listening. Another special friendship.  I am a lucky, lucky man - I have lots of friendly relationships.

Photos:
- The view from our front door across the golf course on Monday morning.
- Another friend, Emi, (she comes from Hungary and calls me "dad") suggested that Space2B needed a coat rack. So I made one out of timber that came from a Church cupboard we pulled out.

Sharing the journey

A Muslim perspective....I had a young man from United Arab Emerits skype me out of the blue and he has talked to me on and off about various things over the past month or so. He is a Muslim and through skype messaging I was able to share with him as he cared for his grandmother in the last days of her life. I did not have as much contact with him since he moved to Egypt for study, but we reconnected in this last week. He tells me he has heart failure and is not expected to live long. I have promised to email him every day talking about life etc. In my last email I asked him to tell me about his religion and why he liked it. He replied with the following words.... (His English is not the best but a million times better than my non-existent Arabic!)

my religion give me the permenant happiness and the islam give me the chance to face this pain and this fatal disease
iam thanking god everyday that iam muslim and when i was child i learned how to help people the islam told us not to hate each other and help the people as possiable as you can and talk wthi christians and show them the beauty of islam
its enough for me that islam learn me how to respect every one in this life no matter if he is rich or poor
thank you keep going on sending updates of your life 

It is a very different picture of Islam than we get from other sources. We often hear from the war fostering-barrier building fringe of the Muslim faith. Mind you I saw a survey the other day with the percentages of USA evangelical Christians who endorse torture as a tactic... it was quite staggering. Christianity too has a war fostering-barrier building fringe that we are embarrassed by. I am hoping Hameed will stretch my mind and broaden my experience in the months ahead.

Running alone tonight... I have not really run seriously for about three weeks. My hamstring was playing up and I felt a rest would do it good. I have a running friend who usually runs with me Sunday nights. As well as helping to encourage each other's fitness we share our week's journey with each other.  Tonight however I had to run alone. I ran 9.5k and I think my hamstring stood the test. While I enjoy running alone and sorting the world out in my mind, I did miss my usual Sunday evening company. I have had a Sunday night friend (I used to run with my church organist on a Sunday evening) to debrief with now since 1992 and you get to depend on this once a week therapy. It felt nice to be running again though.

Goodbye my friend

I have just said goodbye to a friend. This friend is from Alaska and turns up every year for a week or two. He is keen on Habitat for Humanity and arrived early in the week asking what he could do. Well I put him to work doing vents in the base of a house. Yesterday he finished that job and he and I spent time together concreting in a big heavy gate post. I enjoy his friendship. He blows in and we just start off where we left the year before. He just had a cup of coffee with me and heads away now on his way back to Alaska and I won't see him till next year, if all goes well. I don't have a heap of friends so I value the friendships I have.

A quotation says;

"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together."

Another...

"A friend is a person with whom you dare to be yourself."

Good bye Tom... Cya next year.