Frosty Flag Staff

Ice formations in the ditch alongside the Flag Staff track on Thursday afternoon. 

Defining "Love"

Someone responded with an email with these few lines about "love".

Love:

• Is a feeling that you feel when you are going to feel a feeling that you never felt before.
• Is an itch near the heart that is hard to scratch.
• Is a feeling of attraction between two people that grows and expresses itself in the unselfish desire of each for the total well being of the other.

Is it fair to the dead?

We have had the proceedings of prominent court trials plastered over the media virtually all year. The evidence recorded is often horrible to hear, and has reflected a whole lot of dysfunctional living. What are private mistakes that all of us make are plastered over the media, often out of context and often highlighted. What also troubles me is that it seems unfair on the dead. Witnesses claim that the various deceased people said and did certain things in private one on one encounters. But would the same encounter be told in the same way by the deceased person?

I have had an email encounter with a person I disagreed with. He read an email of mine and took out of it some things that I never meant at all. We were in the same conversation, but if we were in a court of law our honest reports about that conversation would be quite different! That would be true even if we were attempting to give an honest, unbiased objective perspective. We all tend to bend the truth to our ends, so if there were different motives in our testimony, I imagine there could be quite a distortion of the truth. I sometimes feel that some evidence given is unfair. There is no one there to corroborate it! There is no one there to give another perspective on the context of the encounter. Also the deceased has no way of clarifying what they meant to do or say through the actions or words! Yet these encounters are published widely! Characters are assassinated without any possibility of a different understanding being given. I often find myself thinking, "Who defends the dead?" They often seem to be on trial in the trial of another person, but they do not have a chance to defend their name. They are forever given the character that has been painted. I find myself wondering if it isn't time there was serious reformation of our justice system. Sometimes it seem to be unjust toward the innocent.

Or maybe the media are the ones being unfair or irresponsible in their reporting of the evidence?

Whatever it is, I feel sad often for the deceased. Somehow the offence against them is multiplied and added to by the very system that is meant to be seeking justice.

I made it!

I recall the last part of one tramp I did. I was dehydrated. I had blistered feet.  I had carried too much stuff and it seemed there was just one hill after the other. When we arrived back at the car I just sat on the ground in sheer relief. "I made it!" I blurted out, because there were times when I thought I may not make it. It felt like there were too many hills to climb.

Well its been a bit like that for me in the past week. For a lot of reasons I started the week feeling sad. Tuesday was a "normal" day, except we had a Church Board meeting. This meant extra work and thinking. On Wednesday I was asked to sit in the Emergency Department with a woman who had had a stroke. It took up most of the afternoon, a day I was hoping to get a lot done. Thursday seemed normal, but there were a couple of extra duties, phone calls and conversations. On Friday morning I ended up running a defuse at a volunteer fire station, for fire fighters who had watched a colleague die, in spite of their best attempts to help. I was not that happy with how I performed as facilitator, though there were a number of factors making it difficult. On that day also I heard that a man had died in the hospice and that I would take his funeral on Monday. He was only 51 years old! Friday afternoon involved my normal chaplaincy visits, and in the evening our Friday night Drop-in centre. Saturday morning I worked hard on the Habitat house, (frames are up now) then spent much of the afternoon talking to the family about the funeral. Saturday late afternoon, night and Sunday morning were spent preparing the morning church service, the powerpoints, the newsletter for Sunday and presenting it all. At church I learned of a man who is disenchanted with what is happening at church. I am not surprised, given his theological stance, I would be disenchanted if he was running the church. Though I can understand it, I still find it hurts to have put someone offside with me. The news made me feel useless as a minister and drained my confidence. Sunday afternoon I went back out to the funeral family, helping prepare a powerpoint set up for the funeral. Sunday night and Monday morning (Mondays are my normal day off)  I prepared the funeral service. From 1p.m. - 4 p.m. I was tied up with physical preparations at the church, presenting the ceremony and then packing up after the funeral. The funeral went OK, though I was not on top of my game. It was held at an historic little church at Pukihiki, on the Otago Peninsula. 

It was then I collapsed in absolute relief. "I made it!" I blurted out as I sat in my office chair.... because there were times when I thought I would not. I did not attend the after funeral bash because I wanted to claim some "me" time. I enjoyed a late walk up Flagstaff, arriving on top just at sunset. There was a light dusting of snow all around, which in some places had turned to slippery ice. The lights in both Dunedin City and Mosgiel were just coming on, so the scenery was very impressive. It was just a short climb, but it was a nice way to unwind.

Humour

One of the stressors was the fact that I had only met the man whose funeral I was taking once. That was in the hospice when his mind was a little confused anyway. It is never easy just depending on what family say about a man. You could get it all wrong. I was lucky though that there were a number of speakers. The picture I got of the man was that he had a positive nature tackling any job he took on with a passion to do it well and that he had a sense of humour. As people told of various incidents, I began to see that a sense of humour is such a valuable asset in life. You can help brighten people's day with a smile and a laugh. You can weather any storms with a sense of humour. As I drove along the top of the Otago Peninsula, on my way back to town from the funeral, I sent a prayer up saying, "Lord give me a sense of humour too please!" 

Photos: Bottom to top... Snow on the path up; The summit looking across to Swampy Summit; The sunset; the path on the way down with an orange horizon.

Sacred encounters at the brewery.

This morning I visited the local brewery as their workplace chaplain. I first met a man who told me about sickness in his family and how his exercise was going. Another took me in and showed me the installation of a new chiller. Another talked to me about the beer he was filtering, and showed me how he checked that the yeast was not coming through the system. An engineer let me help him as he pulled the back off a boiler. Another led me to a little room where I found yet another guy, who talked to me about his work and life. ... and so it went on.

I enjoyed the feeling of acceptance. I appreciated that they let me into their lives. I enjoyed having my world expanded as they shared their stories and expertise. Today as I headed into work I grumped to my wife to "find me another job!". Chatting with brewery workers made me feel not so bad after all.

Yesterday I was asked if I could go to the emergency department and sit with a lady who had a stroke. Her husband worked at St John Ambulance in a country district. As I sat there I got to know her and enjoyed learning about another special person. I discovered one of our Drop-in centre women there and she greeted me with a cheeky grin. I bumped into a catholic priest I have known for years and we chatted briefly, with him giving encouraging words. Ambulance workers came and went and greeted, others I knew who passed by gave warm greetings and I watched my wife doing her voluntary Friends of the Emergency Department duties. All in all, while it mucked up my carefully planned timetable, there was a sense of privilege in being there with people.

I struggle to feel positive about so many elements of my job, but there are special sacred "people encounters" that few others have time to have.

"How do I know I am in love?"

Some time ago I had a man come to me to ask if he should marry a certain woman. I was asking him did he "love" her? I asked in various ways..... He asked me, "What do you mean?" .... I said to my son in his wedding ceremony "Will you love.... etc." what did I mean? 42 years ago I asked my wife,(then just my girl friend) to "Define love?"

Are there any experts out there in cyberspace who can define it for me? How does one know when he or she is "in love"? Is it real or is it just an invention of the film makers? How does my friend know if this woman is THE one for him? I see my children and their partners. As a father I ask, have they made the right choice? They seem happy. Is there a "THE one" for us? I think there's a lot of confusion about this in our world.

Just a simple question. Surely someone knows!

The mountain buzz.

I climbed "my mountain" this afternoon. It was late (3:40) when I headed out from Bethunes Gully. The climb just keeps going up and I knew I could not dawdle if I was going to get back to the car before darkness set in. It was great having to have the discipline to keep going even when you are breathing hard and your legs just want to rest awhile. From the car to the top in one hour. From the top to the car in thirty nine minutes. I have done 55 minutes up and 23 minutes down, but that was on a dry track in running gear. I loved being in the bush again! When I finished I was driving away and felt a real buzz from having done it. I nearly decided it was too late and I was too tired. I was so pleased to have done it, it made my day off and lifted my spirits.

Photo: The snow at the top. You could see and hear chunks of ice falling down the big TV/communications tower so I did not go too close to it.