The building has started...

I thought that I would place on my blog site some photos of the work we are doing on my daughter and her husbands house and keep you updated on progress. On Monday night we worked until dark and put as much of the roof on as we had iron for. The only hitches were that the supplier had not supplied enough and a neighbour came out and yelled... "Shut the F*** up!" Now that was a nice neighbourly gesture! It was not that late and we were not making a lot of noise.

Fear...

Something I have been thinking about a bit is the subject of "fear". I am a fearful person. I could, perhaps, blame it on childhood and the parenting I received. But, then again, at 60 years of age, should you really be blaming your mum? Perhaps I need to take responsibility for it. Fear stifles my living. It hinders my creativity. Sometimes it makes me avoid relating to people. It makes me stressed out when I have to lead stuff I know I am quite capable of doing. It causes me to procrastinate. It basically can limit how I spend my life. Here are four examples.

I do not have a great list of close buddies. Why? Well I am fearful that close relationships can bite you in the backside. People can hurt you, especially those you love or who are meant to love you. So why set yourself up? I learned this in childhood but around twenty two years ago I had a long standing close friendship, but it bust up. When the break happened, I felt a failure. It hit my personal confidence in a big way. When we see each other now (which is not often and only by accident) we are like distant acquaintances, polite and cautious as we catch up. My readiness to let someone else "in" took a big knock, and even since then I feel sad and hurt about a later friendship. So I have a big list of acquaintances but few close friends, because I am fearful.

My daughter has asked me to assist them in an extension project on their house. I trained as a plumber and have worked on building sites. I have done handy man things all my life. I have put in hundreds of hours on each of twelve Habitat for Humanity houses. But I have been stressing out about taking this project on. What if I don't know enough? What if the building inspectors rubbish me? What if I really make a rough job? What if... what if...?!

We have this dream of starting a venue here at the church. It will be a bookshop, cafe, think tank, support centre, experimental "Jesus centre". I have put it out to the leadership, to the church and to others. There is a lot of work, exploration and planning to get it off the ground. I am convinced it is a worthwhile venture, exploring new shapes for a down town church. In some ways, all of my journeying has led to this point in time. But I am tending to procrastinate! It could cost the church heaps of money? What happens if it's a dud? Have I got the skill to see it through? Do I want to commit myself to this place? I guess if I won "Lotto" and could do what I want with my resources, it would be easier. But I am fearful? I am responsible to others and what if I fail? And it's stopping me taking the next steps!

I have been preaching regularly since 1972! Yet still every Saturday night I get little sleep because I am stressed about Sunday morning's service. I go over it again and again in my mind. After it I am so emotionally drained I head home and bomb out as if I had run a half-marathon. Yet again and again I get feed back that at least I am an above average worship leader. Why am I so fearful?

I need to remember three things.

1. The "presence" within, beyond and behind the universe is a loving, affirming, accepting Spirit... ultimately I need not fear.
2. "Fearfulness" is not all bad.... I often do a good, thoughtful, sensitive and diligent job because of that fearfulness. Our weaknesses are often also our strengths.
3. And thirdly, something my father used to say from his war experience, the brave are not the people without fear. People totally without fear are foolish. The brave, said my father, are the ones who are fearful, yet still go to do what they are called to do.

I guess I pray for courage amidst my fearfulness, to do what I am called to do, in spite of my fears. (Photo: A fearful me on a scary flying fox device about 1978)

Pathetic prophet embarrassed by Wanda.

I am so weak really. I rant about the consumer society and against the materialism that we get carried away with. I love to knock the values that say we need to have a flash car, fancy clothing and all these status symbols. I agree with John V Taylor in the old book "Enough is Enough" when he says we should say to all the adverts that push these things, "You have got to be kidding!" I love thumbing my nose at such things. I love it when someone comments on a new jumper I have and I proudly say, "I bought it at the second hand clothing store!" I feel so righteous and superior and see myself as a modern day prophet like Amos, Isaiah, Micah etc.

In line with this thinking earlier in the year I bought a 1990 Nissan Bluebird. It goes well, it did not cost me much and I name it "Wicked Wanda". (Don't ask!) I chuckle at people who face annual depreciation on their high priced vehicle each year that is more than I paid for Wanda. I love thumbing my nose at snobby, status symbol hunting values. But..... On Wednesday afternoon after my midday funeral I had to go to a meeting with the CEO of a company I am assisting through Workplace Support. I am trying to help them develop working systems and structures. I was driving there in Wanda. (I had been to meetings there before with my boss in her fancy racy looking BMW) As I drove toward the company I thought about the people I was going to see. I knew that they would measure success by looking at what sort of car I drove. I pictured myself pulling up in Wanda and them questioning my credibility and saying or thinking such things as; "Look at the old car he's driving? How can he be telling us how to succeed?" I was suddenly embarrassed about Wanda! I have been known to call her "the love of my life" I so enjoy driving her... but now she embarrassed me! I parked across the road, down the street a bit and walked up to the building where I was to meet them! I wanted to avoid them seeing what I drove! Poor Wanda! I am all talk about simple lifestyle and alternative values etc, but so weak when push comes to shove. What a pathetic prophet!

Jesus kept doing dumb things!

Jesus kept doing dumb things. No wonder he got crucified! In last Sunday's reading he is talking to a bunch of powerful religious and civic leaders and he tells them a story with a simple point to it. Its the story of the tenants in the vineyard in Matthew 21. The story as it has come to us may not be exactly as Jesus told it, but the point was pretty plain. He was basically telling these religious and civic leaders of the Jewish people that they were failing in their responsibility and not being true to God's ways. Now it was told in a nice story but they did not have to be rocket scientist to feel it hitting home with the full force of an accusation. I preached on that story and I was nice... I said God cared for us (Like the landlord cared for the vineyard) God lets us join his team wanting us to be fruitful. And I said that we are responsible for how we use all that we've been given. Now that was nice and sweet and positive... If JC was that savvy he would not have got crucified! That's how I have stayed in church ministry... you have to be niiice and pander to the people! Now I know that as I meditated on this passage in the context of the goings on in our world and the needs of people I mix with, it seemed like the mysterious "presence" was challenging the church in different ways. He seemed to me to be saying that the church has failed in the past 50-60 years to be the prophetic church it should have been. It has got into bed with the self-centred consumer, instant gratification society and failed to really question the values we build our societies on. Now when economic things are biting us in the back side and our environment is screaming in pain, we have people who cannot get out of that self serving mindset. They do not know how to find meaning in deeper things. They live in an empty existential vacuum, rich and poor with a hole in their heart. That the church has just looked after its religious self and presented a consumer driven "bless me Jesus" gospel that fails to truly meet the deep spiritual vacuum in the west. That's what the "sacred" seemed to be saying, but I have a church full of nice older people who would look at me blankly at best, or plan my departure at worst if I said that. So I compromised... that was the wise thing to do... don't you think?

The message of the story of the tenants challenges my compromise... I am one of the wayward tenants who refuse to listen to the voice of God. But, at least I won't get crucified! :-)

"Now he's dead..."

I am taking a break from preparing a funeral for a man who collapsed and died over the weekend and I need to talk... it does not matter if anyone listens. My first meeting with this man happened about 19 years ago when he walked into my office. We will call him "Jim"... Jim came into my church office and asked for a food parcel to tie him over till benefit day. His story was that he had to pay a hefty fine for being caught drunk driving and had run out of cash. I gave him the food parcel, a cup of tea and we sat and talked. That was the first of many visits to my office. He never asked for food again but he sure enjoyed the listening ear and the cup of tea. He got involved in the Church walking group and a wider group of people reached out to him in friendship. I towed his car and helped fix his car. I visited him and transported him. I helped him move house three times. He got mad with me and my church on a couple of occasions and wrote me nasty personal insulting letters, and I worked through that with him. He was quite deaf but would not recognise it, so I made an appointment for myself to get a hearing test and invited him to keep me company and got him one too. We were like two mates on a hearing test adventure together. At times he would ring me up at 2 or 3 in the morning and he would suppossedly be having "flashbacks" to Vietnam days, and be out of his tree. Over the years I have listened to the same stories again and again as he would love to share his memories. I married him eight years ago to an older lady and they have cared for each other since that time. "Jim" ended up in much better circumstances and encountered a whole lot of love and friendship from a wider group of people because of my involvement in his life. It has been an interesting journey and now he is dead. Tomorrow people will see me as the minister leading an adequate funeral for "Jim". They will not see that inside I am sobbing and one of the chief mourners.

Why this pain? I was not really close to "Jim" as a buddy? There was still much about his life and attitudes that I ached about and disliked? Why am I grieving? Here is my theory. Jim was a guy whose life was deeply hurt and wounded by life. His childhood, broken relationships, military service, the company he kept, the booze and more all led to a very broken life when he walked into my office nineteen years ago. To help facilitate some healing and mending I, like a car's shock absorber, have had to absorb and carry a lot of that brokenness and hurt in different ways. I have invested in his life heaps of spiritual and emotional energy. And now that he is dead that spiritual tiredness, that hurt and pain float to the surface of my life somehow, and I feel it all over again in one big lump. This aching for other peoples' lives is a part of ministry. "Jim's" death in a way exposes my loneliness. No one can fully understand or take away this aching inside that is part of this crazy journey I am on. Like the old country song says, "You gotta walk that lonely valley, you gotta walk it by yourself." It's a lonely calling and you would have thought I would have got used to that by now. Now he's dead I have to talk... that's why today I blogged.

"A dead dog!... why me?"

Another ministerial memory.... I have had quite a long association with an alcoholic guy in town here. I have helped him move his stuff several times (heaps of it! He gathers rubbish.) and generally tried to be a supportive friend in his life. He was helping a woman tidy up her section and rang me to ask if I could use my van to move the weeds and rubbish to the rubbish tip. Wanting to support this positive activity in his life I agreed and turned up at the house at the appointed time. He met me and asked that before we loaded the rubbish "would I do a favour for the lady of the house?" He would not tell me what the favour was but led me up the path to the house where I met the woman and a couple of her friends. They too did not tell me what was wanted, but led me down the hall to a bedroom, there curled up on the bed was a dog, dead for the last four days! The favour they asked was would I "say a prayer over the dog?" They had a special "coffin" made and they were going to put him in it and bury him, but before they did it, could I say a prayer? They did not teach me about "Prayers for dead dogs" at theological college? My mind was racing, what can I say? What should I say in such a prayer? Did I believe in "dog heaven"? ... and then the wicked side of me thought (because the lady was obviously very fundamentalist) .. was the dog "saved" any way? Well of course I said I would. We reverently gathered around the bed and we thanked God for pets, for friendship, for memories and I prayed for the people as they adjusted to their loss. They were happy, and now ready to bury their dog in this expensive looking polished box. I went back to loading rubbish in the van thinking, "Well that was a new experience!" One thing about ministry is it keeps throwing at you new, interesting and mind stretching experiences.

The "presence"...

Dawn at Jubilee Hut, Silver Peaks, Otago, NZ.