"ministry" & house progress.

I took some photos last night for the blog.

There is a strange looking macrocapa tree branch on our bedroom wall that has been with me since about 1976. When I was on holiday once I picked up the peice of wood and with a little saw, a pocket knife, hammer and a sharpened electrician's screw driver, I carved it. It has hung in our bedroom or my office since then reminding me about what is meant to be important for me. It reads; "Sir, we would see Jesus." It is a line from John's gospel when some greeks come to Philip looking for Jesus. It reminds me that as I relate to people and set my priorities, people should be able to look at my life and see the heart, mind and priorities of Jesus. I never really make it, but I am a slightly better man because of this old bit of wood.

The other two photos are of the toilet now installed in the extensions of my daughter's house and the "seritone" wallboard in the bathroom braced on to the wall. Hopefully over the weekend I will complete the plumbing enough for them to move back in to their house early next week. I will let you know.... My daughter can be heard saying often.... "What a miss!" (What a mission!) and the other night, "I'm over it!" I think they have done well because none of us have much spare time to do things in.

Being with people...

I have a problem. What is ministry or chaplaincy? You see this morning I went with our church walking group on their walk. I dawdle along... most are either in their eighties or nearing eighty... talking and listening. But is it "work"? I go over to St John Ambulance and have my lunch and talk with various people. I listen, I share, I joke and sometimes some serious stuff comes up and we get into "in depth" discussions. But is it work? I went to the brewery the other day and the engineer was telling me with great pride how he solved the problems in the machinery. He was obviously enjoying telling me about it... I appreciated it and admired his work, being an ex-plumber. But is that "work"?

I have been to supervision and my supervisor reminded me that it is. I know it is, but it is soooo hard to quantify or value properly. The image I have in my mind that helps me justify my existence is the image of what one does when someone is struggling with hypothermia. You put your body against theirs under a blanket or in a sleeping bag. The warmth from your body helps heat their body and keeps them alive. I think that's what happens in such "ministry". You sit alongside people in the journey of life, and the warmth, the "life" from your journey helps sustain their journey, .... and vica verca. In my better moments I realise that. Playing pool or table tennis at the drop in, talking, joking, greeting, listening just "being" with people and allowing them "to be" is an important "ministry". And ... anybody can do it! and.... to use the words of a song... "that's what friends are for!" I have realised in the last couple of weeks that an extremely valuable part of friendship is having some people in the midst of life with whom you can "be". It is a life-giving, life-changing, simple, low key yet powerful part of friendship... someone who just simply allows us to "Be".

Existential theologian John McQuarrie speaks of the "letting be" of God. This it seems to me, was the essential nature of Jesus. I hope you enjoy "being" and "letting be", and value it! (Photo: the Church walking group on a winter walk)

"Dangerous minister driver in car park!"

In a split second I could see the headlines, "Minister runs amok in supermarket car park!" I had a horrible experience yesterday. It was my day off and just before lunch we went to the supermarket. As we were going in we noticed two frail women, with walking sticks, waiting by the door in the rain. We did our shopping and came out. They were still there and one looked even more frail. We enquired if everything was OK and she pointed to her car. She had parked her car, but another had come in beside it, leaving about 8 inches between the vehicles. Of course she could not get into the driver's side door, and was not confident that she could drive it out anyway. Well, being the good Samaritan type person that I am (I have a "knight in shining armour" complex according to one friend) I said, "No worries, I will clamber across from the passenger side and drive your car out for you." The poor lady allowed me to do it. In spite of my inflexibility I managed to climb in, over the gear lever and on to the driver's seat with my knees squeezed up between steering wheel and me. (The seat was a way forward... but I can do it, no worries!)

I started the car. It was an automatic so I selected reverse. Now the only thing I can think of that I did wrong was out of habit I gave the engine a bit of a rev, like you do in manual cars before you let out the clutch. I am not sure what happened but in a split second the car seemed to have a mind of its own and shot uncontrollably backwards at a great rate of knots, while I was trying desperately to untangle my foot from accelerator and get it on to the brake. I narrowly missed the car beside it and was racing backwards toward the row of cars behind. I just managed to come to a screeching halt before I hit a car. Every eye in the car park was looking at this "idiot"! I was extremely lucky. It was just good fortune that I missed scrapping the car beside. I was so so close to slamming into the car behind. The mind boggles about what would have happened if some poor unsuspecting shopper was walking behind me! It was indeed a very close shave and could have been a real tragedy. Until she heard the screeching of tyres, my wife just thought, "Oh he's doing that confidently!" little knowing that I had absolutely no control over the car. I was shaken. The poor elderly lady asked, "Oh did you get a fright?" I drove the car forward to a clear park, climbed out and went and hid in my van. She will never accept "help" from any body again!

The lessons learned...
1. Be extra careful and not overconfident when in a strange car.
2. When you see or hear of some "idiot" doing something strange in a car, that you think you would never possibly do... be generous, tolerant and sympathetic, one day that "idiot" could be you!

I went home, got a stubby of beer out of the fridge, and sat dumfounded in a chair sucking on it, still dazed. I am not a big drinker, (never been drunk in my life- I can make a fool of myself without the expense.) I never drink during the day, but somehow it seemed the only response.

Don't listen to the negatives...

You may have wondered what has been happening with my daughter's house extensions. Well I have not had much of a chance to work on it and they seemed to be doing very well. When we began the project nearly everybody we talked to said, "Don't do your own Gib stopping! It won't look any good and will be heartbreaking." etc. etc. ... doom and gloom merchants. Well daughter and son-in-law looked up books and leaflets on how to do gib stopping and how to finish the ceiling etc etc. They have tackled it slowly and diligently, thinking things through as they went. This afternoon while son-in-law David was painting and daughter (and her mother) were doing tiles in the bathroom I did a few little jobs around the place.... But I looked at the gib stopping and the ceiling and it looks GOOD! I am proud of their tenacity! I admire their courage to tackle the jobs, think them through and learn.

If we spend our lives listening to the people who say, "You can't..." we would never do anything! Heed sound advice but be careful of negative people. They can hold you back and stop you learning, growing and adventuring..

"Constant dripping..."

When I was about 21 years old and decided to change my career path from plumbing, I took a nostalgic bike ride around town with a camera taking photos of all the significant buildings I had worked on as a plumber. I have since lost those, but there was something precious knowing e.g. that the toilets in the Clinical Services building were working because I put pipes in there. I felt proud and a little surprised about the work I had done and the contribution I had made toward the functioning of these buildings. I have crammed a heap into this past week. It has been a week from hell in someways... but it has also been a week in which I have sensed moments of satisfaction.

On Tuesday I met with a woman who is writing an article about our next Habitat for Humanity build. I was asked questions about what we have done in Dunedin. As I reviewed the twelve houses we have built, all the hours of work both behind the scenes and on site since 1995 came to mind. I was part of establishing Habitat, raising funds, gathering volunteers. Have we housed twelve families? Really? When did that happen? I, little old muddling Dave Brown have been a part of THAT? Wow! And yesterday I was part of a meeting with Mega store management, making plans to build the thirteenth house in their car park.

The chairman of the night shelter trust was stuck in Thailand with the unrest there and it became evident that I as deputy chair had to create a report and run the Annual General Meeting. As I looked through old reports and reviewed the year in question, I could not help getting nostalgic. A few years ago there was no night shelter in Dunedin. About four of us who had contact with people likely to need a night shelter had lunch together. Another few lunchtime meetings, then a public meeting and now we have had a night shelter in Dunedin for the last three years. We now employ two staff members and at the AGM we received positive feed back from some people in the community. We have had battles, resignations, ups and downs but it is unfolding and little old, average, muddling Dave Brown has been a part of that!

I have been working toward our twentieth Christmas day community dinner at the church. The phone has been ringing with familiar friends booking in, sometimes catching up. I have been explaining our processes to potential volunteers again and again. It is all happening again. Twenty years of Christmas dinners! Unbelievable! Our first invitations were printed on a blotchy old "Gestetner". I typed them up on an old portable typewriter. Computers were a very rare commodity and very limited in capacity. Cell phones were not around. Twenty years of planning, of phone calls, of meeting people, celebrating with people, and cleaning up. Unbelievable! Yet little old, ex-plumber, slow typing, slow thinking Dave Brown has been a part of that!

We can make a difference if we persist in our muddling! Never doubt the Grace of God! Never doubt that there is a mysterious movement at work among people of good will. I had a college lecturer who tried to teach me Greek. His oft repeated words of encouragement were, "Constant dripping wears away the stone." Yep Clinty, you were right!

I did not win...

You may remember that I was embarrassingly nominated for the "Star Community Spirit " award. I said that I would let you know how I did. Well I attended the function last night and was not the winner. (Phew! relief!) They did read out my name and a gave a quick resume of what I did, so I guess I was "shortlisted" at one stage. I must admit there was the little competitive part of me listening to what the winners did and I was in my mind adding up the hours I spent on Habitat sites, doing drop-in etc. and the 20 years I have been doing Christmas Day Dinners and comparing. But basically I sat there terrified that I would be called up the front of this bunch of people. It was indeed humbling to sit amongst such company and to recognise that a great deal of effort is given on a voluntary basis to help our community to be the caring community it is.

My social blooper of the evening went as follows. This young blond lady came up to me, read my name tag, introduced herself, said she was from the "Star" and welcomed me. I dumbly said, "Are you a reporter for the newspaper." "No" she replied, "I am the editor!" I guess I was meant to know who the editor was! She ran the evening. She knew who I was and that my wife had won the award a few years earlier. I had obviously been a topic of conversation.

The other interesting thing about the evening is that they had prepared name tags. Everybody else had just their first name and second name, no title. Mine had "Rev. David Brown". Apart from the fact that I am generally known as "Dave" these days, I hated that it had that "Rev" in front of it! I am me, Dave Brown.... people go funny talking to "Rev's"! or mostly just avoid them.

"The baby out with the bath water..."

I have read Cathleen Falsani's book, "The God Factor" in which she interviews 32 public figures about their spirituality. I recently read a similar one by an Australian journalist. I found them both interesting and exciting. There were so many times when I found myself saying, "Yeah! Great! Amen to that!" and that was often in response to people who would not be seen dead in a church. In both books there was criticism, hurt and sometimes anger expressed toward the Church and/or Christianity. Many had "outgrown" the religion of their youth. I mix with fire fighters, ambulance personnel and other workers who share similar positions. To them, organised religion has had its day at best, or is a destructive, judgemental and limiting force at worse.

I understand these reactions and in some way identify with them. I had a friend who used to say of so much church activity that it was "Spiritual masturbation." I have sat in church services, in conferences, ministers' association meetings and various church meetings and thought of these words and similar. I have often had the urge, but never the courage, to say "we're wanking" or through gestures demonstrate my frustration and repulsion at the distortion of the way of Jesus that goes on. I tend to absent myself from places where I feel such things more intensely. I struggle with the church! I often hate the whole format and sound of Church services that I run! I am a square peg in a round hole! I long for the church to be a servant movement for good in the community. I long for a church ethos in which people can relax and be true to themselves. I find, (and I know others even more so) that I have to deny myself, my personality, my soul somehow to fit into the structures of the church. I feel more at home sitting around the mess at the fire station than I do talking to the saints at morning tea at church. Some how people are being more "real" in the mess.... blunt...often vulgar... but human! Yet it ought to be the other way around? The gospel ("Good news") should be a relaxant!? It is meant to produce freedom? That's how the early disciples experienced it? It was "grace"? But so often, I and many in these books and people I mix with experience the opposite. It often seems to produce uptight, robotic, sexless, life denying people.

BUT....I can't throw it out! There is a lot of "dirty bath water" in the church that deserves to go down the drain! I suspect most of what the church has become is a distortion of the way of Jesus. But the Church keeps the face of Jesus before the world. Who else does? I cannot help but think that if I left the way of Jesus behind and moved on, I would somehow be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." I still find Jesus and his spirit opens the door to those things which are sacred and eternal in life. I still find that the call of Jesus on my life makes me more fully human, a better person with a more complete life. He still "expands" me "stretches me" and brings depth to my existence. I feel a certain sadness that so many lovely people that I feel an affinity with (perhaps more than I do with most religious people) seemed to have left behind or discarded something so valuable and precious as Jesus. I do not blame them, I blame the distortion that they have had to endure. I ache for radical reform and change to a more true "Jesus centred spirituality".