Music and lyrics

I watched a romantic comedy last night. Films are so predictable aren't they.

An action film... like Rambo.. Die Hard etc... The hero has an incredible task to stop bad guy doing bad stuff, and it all depends on him. He begins to tackle the job and it only gets tougher. Somewhere the hero gets beaten up and ends up in a bad situation. .. Usually with a makeshift bandage over a bleeding wound and his clothing torn and a bare chest showing.... But hero overcomes the odds, and in spite of many many bad guys against him, (or her these days) manages to beat the crap out of bad guys and saves the day with an "only doing my job" shrug of his/her shoulders. Sometimes he even gets the gorgeous girl with whom he has been arguing and protecting all film long.

Romantic or romantic comedy film. (We watched "Music and Lyrics" with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in it) Man and woman meet in unlikely circumstances and often an unlikely couple (e.g. "Pretty Woman" ... Prostitute & Business tycoon... Another Hugh Grant film with Julie Roberts- famous actress with secondhand bookshop owner etc.) They seem to have chemistry and the relationship begins to blossom. She makes a stand on some principle, they begin arguing and tension develops. Then usually the man says something stupid. (Obviously men are stupid in chic flicks!) and they split up. Then there are sequences where each is alone aching for the other, obviously hurt. The last scenes of the film the man in some way returns to her and apologises for his stupidity and they end up in a rapturous lip-bruising kiss. (Gere brought balloons to Julie Roberts in "Pretty Woman".. last night Hugh Grant created and sung a sloppy "give me another chance" song.) The thing is that basically they are all the same! As soon as I saw the girl come to the door of Hugh Grant's apartment to water the plants last night I knew the story line! Can't the writers get more imaginative? Basically its the Cinderella story retold in different guises. Why? And why do we keep watching them?

I guess one reason is that in real life we often find that love happens in funny places with the people we least expect, and this basic story line reminds us of those experiences.

Music and lyrics...sex and relationships. One of the key lines in the film last night interested me. The couple were working on creating a song together. He created the music, she was the lyricist. He claimed the music was all important. She argued that the lyrics were just as important. In stating her case she said, "It is like relationships. First there is the sexual attraction and the sex. That's the music. Then, if all goes well there is the relationship and talking, where you get to know each other. That's the lyrics."  Of course by the end of the film this lucky couple had the music and the lyrics. But I found the order in which she placed things interesting. First the sex, then getting to know each other. It reminded me of a documentary where they were interviewing young women clubbers in NZ. They had the same order of things. You pick someone up at the a club, have sex and if that goes alright then you build a relationship. It does not ring bells with me.

Now I am not an expert in these matters. I was nicknamed the "Bull Virgin" before I was married, so I have not had sex partners, so some would say I have little experience to speak from.  I "saved myself" for marriage, though some interesting, exciting and valuable "exploration and learning" took place between my girlfriend/fiance and I. (I am thankful for that because the lessons learned in exploration actually help lead to a creative sex life in marriage. Also I am forever thankful that we became good friends and had a good level of intimacy in terms of ability to talk openly with each other, before we became lovers.) It was the way it was for good little Christian girls and boys in those days. Perhaps with a broader perspective if I was young these days I may be more adventurous. But... even if I was young and more adventurous I still think that the best way around is for the physical intimacy to grow out of the intimacy of relating and knowing one another. It seems to me to be the right way around. When I have been talking to youth groups and young people about such things I have always said that whatever physical relationship we choose to have needs to be commensurate with the level of intimacy of the talking- sharing-knowing each other side of the relationship. I recall one relatively liberal thinking sex expert in a book writing sentences that said such things as; "If you can't talk freely about contraception, should you be having sex in the first place?" and again, "If you can't freely talk about the sorts of things you want to do and and have done to you while making love, should you be having sex with this person?"  So I disagree with the "music" coming before the "lyrics". Its the difference between "sex" and "making love". It seems healthier to me for intimacy of relating to come before physical intimacy.  I may be in-experienced and not be able to list off a stack of sexual partnerships, but I have seen a stack of hurt people, stifled lives and stuffed up relationships when the "music" has come first and the "lyrics" (true intimacy) has come later or perhaps never really happened.

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.

"Write a letter and... screw it up"

"Too late, it's gone"....When we were getting ready to leave college and head out as young ministers... "God's gift to the church"..... the various lecturers each gave us bits of advice. Our Practical Church Work lecturer, "GR", said that often you will be tempted to write angry letters to people who have done you wrong. He suggested that we ought to write them... pour out our heart and let them know how we feel. But then having expressed how we feel and what we think.... "screw the letter up and don't send it." I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and he was saying how the "new" technology of emails causes problems. Where as once you would write out an angry letter... stew on it, think better about it and screw it up... now we tend to just blast away on the computer, push the send button and ... too late it has gone... there is no retracting it!

I received an email complaining about my wife this week. One of our drop-in centre guys who came to a new venture we have at church did not like my wife limiting the number of cups of coffee he had. This new venture is different from a drop-in, aimed at different people and people wanting a hot drink are asked to give a gold coin donation. He treated it like drop-in and wanted more free stuff. If I was being cruel, I would say he is one of the world's bludgers.  He is, but there are reasons he is the way he is so it is cruel to just write him off like that. Well he sent me an email complaining about my wife's unwelcoming, uncharitable attitude etc. Now it has to be pointed out that my wife spends nearly every waking hour in voluntary service of people in the community. This made me see red, but I replied with what I thought was a nice email explaining that this new venture was different from the drop-in. I explained why my wife may have expressed caution at the number of free (good cona coffee) coffees he was helping himself to and that perhaps if this was not what he wanted, this was not the sort of place to come with the expectations he had. He wrote yet another short angry email. I replied and said in essence, if he did not like what he experienced then he was free not to come, that it was meant to be more like a coffee bar than a drop-in.  Then I got a really angry email back. I was a nasty uncharitable, unsupportive person who was attacking him when I should be apologising for my wife's actions etc. etc. Well I was then angry... I wrote a most descriptive email back to him.... but finger poised on the send button... did not send it, deleted it. I worked away at other stuff for a while and again stewing, composed yet another email... again, so nearly sent it... but fortunately deleted it. When I see him next I may express some thoughts, but I am glad I never sent those two compilations. This new technology demands quicker wisdom.

A second complaint came. A guy who loves to gamble on the horses used to switch the TV at the drop-in to the racing channel and "Turf digest" in hand watch his races. It annoyed others who wanted to watch TV, but also it was not something we wanted to have going at the drop-in where often people have gambling problems anyway. I also know that he involves some younger guys in gambling when they cannot afford it. Well he came to my office to complain. Why can't he watch his horse racing? I told him our policy and he essentially said he would not be back. I said in essence, "That's your choice." He was there last night again, scoffing cups of free soup. After two complaints like this in one week, you wonder why you do it.

Balanced by..... I received two contacts from experienced people working in the community who said they had heard that we were "doing good things for these people and they want to learn about what we were doing." That put balance to my week.

Abuse of alcohol and other stuff...

I am an industrial chaplain to a brewery. I love a guinness, or a Speights Old Dark, a variety of other interesting beers, a Stone's Original Ginger wine, or ... some other drink. I am not a tea total parson, though I don't think I have really been drunk in my life. (I have let my wife drive home a couple of times.) ... but I am growing more and more concerned about the attitude toward drink we have in NZ and the damage it does to people and in our community.

I read of a couple sleeping in their camper van getting attacked by a bunch of teens, fueled by drink. The Octagon, in the centre of town is often a place of violence because of inebriated customers spilling out of the many bars. Cruise ships coming to town are warned about drunken behaviour on our Dunedin streets. If you bother to read the court news (not a good idea) you will discover most of the cases have some relation to abuse of alcohol or sometimes drugs. These type of incidents that you read of are just the tip of the iceberg of the problems caused by abuse of alcohol. I talked to a social worker in a hospital and she told me of so many cases where families and lives were ruined by preventable problems brought on by long term alcohol abuse. Much of this abuse was relatively respectable "harmless" private, but long term abuse.  Spend a Friday or Saturday night with ambulance crews and you can see the results of abuse. This afternoon I was invited to a function. It sounded attractive enough. There is to be a band playing and I know one of the main musicians. There is going to be big screen rugby, a test match to watch. But the invite came in these terms.... "Booze, a band and rugby.... come and get pissed with us!" Why do I need to get pissed to have a good time? If I go and don't get pissed but everyone else does, I probably won't have a good time. What is it with our attitude toward drink?

I read in the paper a retired cop searching for answers to this problem and it seems others are thinking things through too. Many suggestions are made. Make it more difficult to get alcohol.... Tax it through the roof. Limit the outlets. Raise the drinking age. Put time limits on when and where it should be sold. Bring back the old "Drunk in public law." And so we could go on in the search for solutions. 

Let me suggest another question to ask. I over eat. I most often over eat when I am stressed. If I am stewing on my work, uncertain about whether I can cope or do a good job, I will tend to graze. I'll open the fridge, spread another bit of bread. ..Buy some morning tea. etc. Now to deal with it I could put a lock on the fridge door.... Make sure there is not spare bread around. ...Go to work with no money in my pocket so I cant buy a snack etc. All good ideas, but wouldn't it be better to do something about my stress? It is stress that causes it, not the fridge, or the bread or the money. If I was just prevented from over eating I might exhibit my distress in other ways, that are just as harmful or even more harmful. Surely the best way to deal with it is to find a way not to get stressed or to find ways to work through whatever stresses me? The same is true of alcohol abuse.

I think that as a individuals and as a society we need to be asking, "Why is it that we feel the need to 'get pissed' to have a good time?" "What is the distress or distortion in our lifestyle that makes us need to abuse alcohol?" There are deeper issues at steak, and the abuse of alcohol is just the symptom. Is there an "existential vacuum" (lack of meaning) that causes it? Is there a lack of hope? Is it related to a lack of esteem... we need the booze to feel good among others? While we may control some of the negative outcomes of abuse by legislative action, it would be better to do some thinking about these deeper issues. I have no answers, but just feel we need to be asking deeper questions. They not only relate to abuse of alcohol but other "symptoms" obvious in our society. Why the senseless vandalism? Why the over-the-top frenzy over sport? Why the increasing violence? These are trends and symptoms of deeper issues. We need to ask deeper questions if we are to address them. That's some of my questioning and stewing so far.

Karen Armstrong... you go girl!

I am currently reading a book by Karen Armstrong. (The History of God)  We have just increased the number of gigs I can have monthly so tonight I listened to a "Ted Talk" by her. She put into words some of the things I struggle to put into words. Here are some sentences from her talk.

"Up until 17th Century 'belief' meant 'I love' or 'I engage myself'', it was not about giving intellectual assent to doctrines"

"Religion is about behaving differently"

As she compared religions she came to the conclusion that essentially being religious is "To behave in a committed way and then you begin to understand the truths of religion." (I had a post that said a similar thing... I talked about different ways of knowing.)

In a comparisson of main religions "Pride of place is given to compassion... to feel with the other... as a true test of religiosity" and "it is compassion that brings us into the presence of the divine."  ... because "our ego is taken out of the centre of our being".

"A lot of religious people prefer to be right rather than compassionate."

"Our situation in the world today is so serious that any ideology that does not promote a sense of global understanding and global appreciation is failing the test of the times."

It is so inspiring to hear of a faith stretching the boundaries of love, and having a real breadth, depth and relevance. Unfortunately so much religion in the west today seems to be a religious expression of a selfishness and tribalism that causes the problems in the first place.

Great stuff, Karen Armstrong, I liked it.

My hobby could kill me!

Thinking about blowing a fuse.......I learned from some medical people the other day that it sometimes happens that men at the height of sexual enjoyment can have a sudden headache and end up with a bleed in the head... which can sometimes be fatal!  My first reaction was, "Yeah but what a way to go!"  But that's scary! They call it post coital head bleed or something like that. Oh no... I thought biking on the road was dangerous! Now I can get sick doing my favourite hobby? 

On reflection, it does not put me off.  You have to live while you can. The women who were telling me this said that women have known that headaches can be dangerous for a long time. Just thought you might like to know this useless bit of information. I still think it would be a great way to go.

A busy week.... fuses blow.

I have been sitting in front of the fire watching the box after a busy week. There were a number of areas of my life that threw extra duties at me. There was of course the normal ministry/chaplaincy duties. This week that included an extra devotional and those darned time sheets and stats for chaplaincy work. But three parts of my life all contributed to my busy week.

Night shelter....I have been responsible for running adverts and publicity in an attempt to gain more volunteers for the night shelter. We had 30 people at a training night that I hosted at the church on Thursday. I realise it is a big ask having people stay over at a night shelter among people they do not know, and who may not be the most trust worthy souls. Anyway it was an extra.

Inner-city ministers..... On Pentecost Sunday we in Dunedin have traditionally run an evening ecumenical service for the inner-city churches. This year it is our turn to host it. I suggested that the theme be "Celebrating chaplaincies" since this is one area where the churches actually work together to infiltrate the community with God's love. Pentecost Sunday is 31st May so in this past week I have been trying to put that together so that I can involve choirs, chaplains and other clergy. 

Habitat for Humanity..... I had to turn out a newsletter for Habitat for Humanity. It took longer because I am a slow typist and writer and my normal Newsletter help person was out of town. Secondly I had to organise and MC a groundbreaking ceremony up on the site of our Habitat build. It was quite moving to hear how much the family wanted this house. It is a big family so we are to build a six bedroom house. As I stood beside Mike, the dad as he turned over the first bit of turf I thought of the months ahead. Every Saturday will be taken up building! I will be trying to gather as many volunteers as possible. I will be trying to organise various parts of the job. It is full on building a house! We do not have many volunteers so life will be hectic, but I know that this will be a great big step up for this family. It is my 13th Habitat house and on each I have poured hundreds of hours. I felt tired thinking of the journey ahead! It will, however, be all worth it when I see the family move in. 

Blowing a fuse....On Thursday evening at the church we had three groups using the building. An AA group were upstairs in the drop-in centre. The women's tea (with men invited) were in the downstairs hall. The night shelter information night was happening in the church. I was sitting there in a support role while the chairman was talking. I was meant to come in with any extra material as he spoke. The door opened and my wife beckoned me over. She informed me that the lights and some of the heaters had gone off for both the tea and the AA. Could I find the fault and fix it?  I raced upstairs by the light of the little torch on my cell phone and checked a switch board. All was well. AA guys were unplugging heaters to lighten the load. I then raced down stairs to the basement area to check the switchboard.... blown fuse. I took it out (It was HOT!!) replaced the fuse wire and put it back in. Everyone was happy.... for about 30 seconds. ... bang! ... out it went again. I instructed my wife to lighten the load and replaced the wire again...30 seconds... I had not reached the top of the few stairs and .... bang! again. I laughed cynically and said, "I know how you feel fuse! Sometimes things get a little too much!... but PLEASE!!!" I replaced the wire... don't tell anyone but I added 5 amps more... (Don't worry, I took it out later) This time it stayed on and I felt soo clever. (It blew again the next night during Drop-in centre. ... Grrr)

After a week like that I am kind of glad that someone has wired me so that generally I can handle big loads. But I do think as you get older, sometimes you get closer to blowing a fuse than you used to. I will enjoy my day off tomorrow.

Photo: Mike and Christine dig the first bit of turf to start the "Build a house" journey.