Christmas article..

Tonight I had to write a 100-150 word article about Christmas to go in an advertising feature in the local Otago Daily Times. I thought I may as well add it to my blog. Here it is...

On Christmas day I will be celebrating dinner with about 250 people. We will be remembering the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus in his life demonstrated the love at the heart of the universe and pointed to a “way” of life that has this God-like quality. His teachings, his parables and his relationships all demonstrated this generous, accepting, forgiving and healing love. His perspectives show that we are essentially brothers and sisters in the journey of life together. Christmas to me is a time when we can express and celebrate that solidarity together. May your Christmas be a time of love and togetherness.

Sunday samples...

Why me?

I talked with a lady on the second last day of her life early in the week. Dying of cancer in her 50's she asked me this question "Why me?" As she asked it I selfishly thought "Yes exactly, why me? Why am I in this awkward predicament, talking to a woman I don't know in this circumstance." I told her there was no answer to that question. Of course I have heard fundamentalist Christians pontificating about God calling people home etc. etc. I have heard all sorts of philosophical and theological dissertations on the presence of evil and pain in a good God's world. But there are no real satisfactory answers, there wasn't when my dad died in his 40's and there was none for this lady.

Still doing it.

I am answering the phone and making plans for our community Christmas day dinner. In Church this morning we had a young man who said that on Tuesday he would be 22years old. It dawned on me that when we were planning our first Christmas Day dinner he was born! I would have been the young age of 40. I would never have believed then that I would still be doing it 22 years later! And it is still fun! I would be reluctant to go back to having "normal" Christmas days.

Pleasure?

What is pleasure? I was driving a man home from our Friday night drop-in centre. It was our last night for the year, we will resume mid February. (We have been doing the drop-in for 15 years) He was grumbling. "What am I going to do on Friday nights?" he growled. "Give me the key and I'll go up and play pool by myself! The Drop-in is the only pleasure I get. TV is useless!" Of course I felt guilty, but what is "pleasure".

• I had a great 10k run tonight, not fast but my friend and I stuck at it and I am still buzzing. She has an Iphone and a fancy GPS system that tells us how far and how fast. It was tough because of the wind, but it was "pleasurable".
• I talked to a man recently who runs/tramps in the NZ hills. I was so jealous. He told me he makes time to do it and other things have to fit around that in his life. He described walking the hills as true "re-creation". He described it as "spiritual"- that he was being recreated inside while he traveled. I have similar experiences. My modest walks up "my" mount Cargill is like that... "pleasurable". When I get to tramp, just like that.
• I talked to another man who is battling a bit of a physical set back, he is a year off retirement, and he said of his life, "There's not much to look forward to for the rest of my life!" I did not know what to say to him, he could see little "pleasure" ahead.
• Then there is the physical/intimate/play pleasure of making love, still pleasurable even at my age.
• I had a man get two rulers out of his desk. He lined them up end on end and asked me how old I was. He adjusted the length to count off eighty years, then pointed to where I was now on the scale. "See you have not got long to go! You better make sure you pack all the pleasure you can into the remaining time! Life is for living!"
• I have people telling me to lighten my work load and lead a more balanced life. "You need to have 'pleasure' as well as work in your life!" they say. I must admit I was at a cafe in the country for lunch today and two trampers came in, obviously they had been tramping in the Silver Peaks hills. I glared at them green with envy.
• But... I sweat over a funeral service for a family this week and presented it yesterday, a Saturday when I would normally have some more relaxed time. As I stepped past the bereaved brother he gave me the most grateful "Thank you". Later he said, "I was proud of you." (I am his workplace chaplain) Other relatives shared their appreciation. His team leader shook my hand and said, "Good job" and a friend of the deceased came up squeezed my hand strongly and said, "Thank you so much! You did that so well." The whole art of crafting and presenting a funeral to suit a particular family is stressful, time consuming, but also incredibly "pleasurable" and fulfilling. It is work, but also it "feeds me and fills me up" in a very deep way.
• To reach out to others in chaplaincy is challenging, but also "pleasurable". To listen to people and see and feel the world through their eyes is "work", but "pleasurable." Even to be there as people share their conundrums and pain with me, gives me a deep sense of pleasure and privilege to be allowed to identify so closely with another, though I may ache for their predicament.
• I facilitate groups from time to time. Years ago when I was a Fieldworker I did a lot of this. I sometimes lead chaplains' professional development sessions. I do the odd Critical Incident debriefing group session. It is incredibly full-on work. You are switched on; keeping an eye on everyone in the room; listening intently with ears and mind; your mind going flat tack in dialogue, thinking on your feet the best way to word things; heaps of crafting and preparation sometimes; - all very hard work but... such a deep buzz. So pleasurable to do it well and to see people drawn out and becoming alive before you.
• To take a biblical passage, open up to the deeper truths within the writing, then craft a service experience that communicates those truths is "pleasurable". Stressful, frustrating and challenging, but deeply creative and pleasurable, like a painter completing a painting.
• To dig the garden, see vegetables grow and look at your plate filled with food you have produced is deeply pleasurable.
• To build something useful, to fix a car or repair a plumbing problem is "pleasurable".

I could go on... What on earth constitutes "pleasure"? One point is (though I am not sure I have a clear point only musings) that people who charge me with being a workaholic and imply I have no pleasure in my life miss the point of who I am. I looked at a TV program of people on holiday lying in the sun doing nothing... I tried that once .. for 15 minutes... not pleasurable for me! People say I must learn to just "be". I am just being when I am crafting a sermon, listening to a person, reaching out to someone. It is in moments like that that I feel most highly alive and most fully "being". This is who I am and what I am and it brings me pleasure... I am being.

Anyway, all that to ask the question and muse on it, "What is pleasure?"

Photos: Pleasurable moments;

- Legs sore, body aching completing a half-marathon.

- Me on or near "Pulpit Rock" in the Silver Peaks.

- An illustration of debriefing process used in a training session.

- Working hard building a Habitat house.

- Conducting a wedding.

Statistic and crap!

I know I have already posted today but I need to get this off my chest. I have been a Workplace Support chaplain since February 1994. I have now got four workplaces that I visit regularly. I think it was in my second year of chaplaincy that they decided we should tick boxes and send in statistics. Now we do them on-line and to fit in with national practices. I am struggling to get used to the new system.

I have spent a large part of this morning doing statistics. They do not measure what I do in chaplaincy! They do not measure the ongoing friendship and relationship I have with so many people. The sense of companionship and unspoken support my visits give to people is not measured by boxes and statistics! It is bull shit... crap... or to use the apostle Paul's term, "mere refuse". (Though I understand my aforementioned words would be a more correct translation of the greek) I blame bean counters and computers! They think that life can be measured by these sorts of things. One manager said to me once, "There's so many HR people that know programs and systems, but don't know people!" Another manager said, "I don't need your bloody statistics! I can see how the people under me relate to you. Any manager worth his salt can see that!"

My frustration is that just now with an impending funeral, actual chaplaincy hours to complete, a church coffee area with people gathering who I should be relating too, a radio service to record tomorrow, preparation to do for the weekend, a community Christmas day dinner looming, heaps of incoming phone calls and heaps of parishioners I should be visiting... In God's economy I have more important things to spend my time on!

I HATE statistics! I bet you when I finally resign as chaplain it will be statistics that drive me to do it. I once got a formal warning from the then CEO about my lack of correct reporting. I nearly resigned then. I remember I walked up my mountain fuming. I decided I liked the job too much, but I did resign from his Critical Incident Response group. My added angst then was that I had been in the office chatting with him and he didn't raise the issue. He must have already posted the letter, why not have the guts to talk face to face? Anyway, I hate statistics, they don't do justice to what I do and waste my valuable time!

Mid-week sound off.

Does truth matter?
I have a friend I talk with regularly. He is very active and in leadership in a suburban church locally. Like lots of churches (Even the Crystal Cathedral apparently) they struggle financially. They have a minister who runs the services there and would like to work full time if they could afford him. Apparently some longstanding members of the church decided they did not like his theology so they were going to leave. The leadership of the church had a meeting with advisory people from their denomination to talk about the situation.

I do not know the theological issues involved so I cannot judge on the specifics. I am just commenting on my friend's perspectives. He said that when this minister started preaching there he was not sure about his theology either. But, and this is what he argued at this meeting of leaders, "the young ones enjoy his preaching so who are we to argue? He is popular with them!" Now that sounds OK at a certain level, and it is pragmatic for a struggling church which could easily close its doors. I would like to point out that there are, however, a lot of "popular" things that we could not condone. The most popular thing on the Internet, I am told, is the porn! A pub in town on special days sells cheap liquor to students, so you have lines of teenage students from early morning waiting to get in and getting drunk by midday. That is popular, but should it happen? What I am saying is that while I am not a stickler for dotting theological "i"s and "t"s, some very questionable theology that we should not allow in our churches can be popular with people. Bringing people in the door should not be the measure of OK'ness. There is for instance, a "prosperity gospel" doing the rounds that really is a Christianised religious formulation of the greed and selfishness that already harms our world. I looked up the Internet about "Christian sustainability" and there were some scary theologies I found. "You don't have to care about this world, ecology, other species etc, God's got it all in hand, live it up 'abundantly' and after all we're just passing through!" That is evil and dangerous theology, but I guess popular in that it affirms selfish lifestyles. I also encounter people whose lives have been limited and damaged by the warped and life-limiting views presented by popular "quick-fix-authoritarian-feel-safe" type Christianity. These may be popular, but they are not in line with Jesus' way, and after all that is what "the Church" is meant to be.

I guess I am saying that ultimately "truth" matters. What I would say is that the "spirit" of what is being presented ultimately matters. Again I would line up the life and ways of Jesus as the measuring stick of that "spirit". (The Old Testament and some of Paul's letters can be made to say anything we want!) That's something my weird mind has been dwelling on since my conversation with my friend.

Why do I get so stressed?

Today is my day off. We got up early to be at a farm by 9 a.m. to pick up six hens as replacements in our henhouse. We prepared boxes for transport and carefully worked out other needs like appropriate feed, sawdust for the floor etc., wrote out our "to do" list and set out on our expedition. Went to the farm first and picked up the hens stuffing them in two boxes in the car. With them on board we went to the refuse tip where they sell bags of sawdust. The shop didn't open till 9:30 so we drove to a cafe for coffee. There I received a phone call and texts from someone in a chaplaincy wanting to see me. I arranged to see them in an hour. We picked up the sawdust, then bought mash and parked at the church while I saw the person wanting attention. Thankfully the hens seemed settled in their boxes. After due discussion we proceeded home. We cleaned up the henhouse a little more, spread the sawdust and loaded the feeder. We then introduced the new hens to their home. They seemed suitably impressed as we retired for some well earned lunch. It was quite a busy morning for a day off.

The thing I want to reflect on is that coffee shop missed call, the texting session and final meeting. Right from the first missed call I could feel stress rising. What does someone need? Can I deliver? What if I muck up? I then met the person and it turns out there is a relative dying in the hospice, would I take a funeral service and would I go meet the patient? It later transpired there is some urgency in meeting the hospice patient so I have agreed to do so tomorrow. Just now I have this black cloud hanging over my head. There is all sorts of uncertainty. Can I do a good job? The person has recommended me because he likes my approach, but can I deliver? Will I put my foot in it? I will be stressed about it till it is all over. Why? My supervisor asks that question. "Have you ever mucked up before? Why the fear of failure?" The person who rang me is confident I am the man for the job. I wish I shared his confidence. Tomorrow I have to fit in this scary visit. Think of me.... The funny thing is that once there and I begin to connect with the patient I will probably forget myself and be OK. There is a deeper life then flowing. But just now a black cloud.

Sunday speculations...

Health status...

Since I grumped about my health in the last post I need to tell you I am healthy again, and it is soooo good. On Friday night I did not mix too much with the drop-in folks because I was coping with a niggly back, a sore knee and an uncomfortable lower abdomen. On Saturday morning I awoke and apart from a bit of a sore knee and back, my tummy which had bugged me all week was OK. After doing some manual type work in the morning I decided to go for a slow walk up my mountain. It turned out faster than I had intended and my knee hurt a bit coming down, but I felt so much more alive after the exercise and bush. Tonight I went for a 7k run with my friend and realised I could still run OK. The old man is back!

Where are the Kiwis?

As I say I went up my mountain. It never ceases to surprise me how few people are walking up there. The scenery from the top is great, even if it is fog. The bush is serene. People pay big sums in gym fees to walk on a treadmill when in the city you can have this magical walk. I came across 4 groups of people, two couples, a family group and a man and his dog. The couples and the man with his dog were Americans. The family group sounded as if they were Spanish or something like that, certainly not New Zealanders. Where are the kiwis? We love to have this image of fit outdoorsy type people. But is it true?

A sad waste!

I know a lady who was to celebrate her eightieth birthday this weekend. People were coming to her town from far and near to be with her. But the party never happened. Her 18 year old grandson killed himself experimenting with sniffing petrol! She is devastated! How truly sad this is. A likable, friendly, happy young man wiped out while trying to get some extra kicks out of life. Then we have the spectacle of teenagers up north trying some sort of choking game that has and can also kill them. Why? There is a man, perhaps in his late 40's - 50's, in hospital now waiting to die. His vital organs have been so severely damaged by abuse of alcohol, drugs and smoking. I have known him for at least 20 years. He used to come into my office, have a cup of tea and chat with me. I allowed him to go up to the church piano because he would never have one of his own. He would sit playing it (jazz style) and sing. He had quite a nice crooning type voice. "I believe" was one of his favourites, and he would play the keys with the flare and flourish of an entertainer. He told me that he used to be in a musical group touring around playing at a variety of venues. He also loved to play guitar. But he has wasted his life with too much alcohol and drugs and now sadly he is dying. He was a regular at our Christmas day dinner, often at our drop-in centre and I am going to be sad he won't be around. He and I have had quite a few "adventures" over the years. Why do we do these life destroying things to make life more exciting or bearable? What are we lacking in our values, culture and lifestyle that makes us want to do such things?

I was lazily browsing the Internet the other day and noticed an article on how to get through Christmas and end of year parties without causing yourself damage through over use of alcohol. I have been drinking a tad more alcohol than I used to so I thought I better check it out. (I would still break the heart of any shareholder in a brewery or vineyard and can still say I have never been drunk) It gave the differences between men and women and a whole heap of information about what alcohol does to the body and brain. I was surprised at the information and the impact that even quite low amounts of alcohol can have. (e.g. I did not know that for women the risk of breast cancer increases. .. men to have increased risk factors) I like a beer or two, a sherry or wine. I did enjoy Polish vodka. But I do know we have a major problem with our use of alcohol in our country. Again why do we do it to such a destructive extent?

I leave you with a quotation from the great Albert Schweitzer. He was lecturing students at a graduation ceremony. He said;

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know; the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."

It has struck me how true this is as I have observed my life and the lives of those about me recently. I am happiest serving others. ........ I am off to crack a bottle of beer now..... NZ lost the sevens rugby, the cricket team is doing no good... but life is still ok.

Photos:

- Our lone hen. She is quite a few years old, was originally one of six good layers but her mates have all died one by one of old age. She is still laying. Tomorrow six new ones arrive.

- Boring! Same old! ... shots from my mountain walk. I do enjoy the mountain it is "healing".

Crook again...

For the last few weeks I have had a wheezy chest after a bad cold/flu thingy. I think I am over that by Monday. Starting on Saturday I have had all sorts of niggling hassles. My back, my knee, my tummy and my head. I am getting around like a stiff old man and dragging myself around with no energy. I cannot really say I am sick enough to take time off, the work needs doing, but it is so annoying. I can't seem to shake it, the pains seem to move around my body. I am not sure what a doctor would say, there seem to be so many unrelated things making life difficult. There is something "mechanical" with my knee, I can touch the sore spot. The rest I am not sure of. I am scared to go to a doctor because I would not know how to begin to describe what is going on. A few weeks ago I was on top of the world, losing weight, running well and getting fitter. Now I have gone backwards, it is so annoying!

Then I watched on TV last night an attractive woman who a year ago completed a triathlon, but now confined to a wheel chair, she cannot even speak because of a motor neuron disease which will eventually take her life. No that would be really annoying.

I have just now received a phone call informing me that a close relative has been given a maximum of 2 years to live. That too would be annoying.

So I am not 100%, but better than a lot of people. I should count my blessings.

To younger ones among my readers. Value your health and ability to exercise while you can. Everything gets a little harder as you get older.