Week's end waffle..

Rugby and over-rated sport
I ranted about the rugby world cup. I need to say that I am not anti-sport. It is a strange phenomenon that we tend to get carried away with our sporting teams. It happens all over the world. In the UK people get carried away with soccer, and there have been soccer hooligans and unsavoury behaviour.  Our local rugby team (the highlanders) changed the colours of the jerseys, from roughly blue and gold to almost a lime green. You should have heard the furore! It was like the end of the world! One man who overheard an argument in his workplace said to me, "They should visit Christchurch and talk to some of the people who have nearly lost everything. The colours of footballers jerseys really don't bloody matter!" Sport is artificial life. That is fine and it has its place. But I wonder if we get so wrapped up in artificial living (sport) because we have not got deep significance in our normal living.
Night Shelter
I am on the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust. It has been a long journey getting the shelter up and running. We have recently restructured and had to make two jobs redundant and hire a new person, because of financial constraints. We are reliant on grants and donations and we have to be as efficient as possible. There is not a great number of people using it but it feels like we should have a shelter available when it is needed. We have a street appeal coming up, I hope we get a good return. I have spent a few Saturday mornings working there tidying things up, and fixing things. I have an ongoing concern to keep us viable  and I wrack my brain for clarity about the way forward. ... then sometimes I ask, "Why should I care? Most of the people using it probably take it for granted. Some probably deserve to be on the street!" But something inside says, "There ought to be a place available." and I can't walk away. I have met some lovely people on the Trust, my life is enriched by their friendship.
I could lose a job!
I need to give up a chaplaincy to make more time in my life to do more church related stuff. That is going to be good but also difficult. I have also heard that another of my chaplaincies could be lost because of nationally based decisions. I could be made redundant! I think I will struggle with breaking the relationships I have in that workplace. I went there the other day knowing this though the locals did not know. I felt so sad as I went around talking to people. Wait and see, but if it happens I will miss their friendship.
I am lucky for friendships
I look back on my week and I am very fortunate. My life is full of friendly relationships. We have Muthiah who looks after Space2B. He is a lovely Indian man who is nice to be with. I have two lunch times with St John Ambulance people and go around fire stations regularly, along with my other two chaplaincies. I am met with friendship again and again. We have Curly and Margaret who join us in running the drop-in centre and there is always good humoured banter during the night. Robbie (He likes "Robert" better) is a drop-in guy who is around the church every Sunday to help out. He and I enjoy banter, but deep down we like and care about each other. At drop-in there are people we have known for years, and while some might see them as "clients" they are to me "friends".  (Jonathan, Saraya, Summer, Maurice, Jennifer, Glen, Honi, Mark, Bert, Ken, Terry, Nick etc. etc.) I open the door on a Friday night and I try to greet each by name as they come through the door. I try to say "goodbye, have a good week" to each as each leaves. (The "have a good week" is a prayer) We went to the Farmers' Market on Saturday morning. I parked in the yard at the Fire Station. When we got back to the car I saw a firefighter and slid into friendly conversation. We went to drive out of the gate and a big fire engine turned into it from out side, stopped and blocked our way. Four grinning fire fighters peered down at me. I wound down my window and some banter flew backwards and forwards, then with a good natured wave they drove the fire truck in and out of our way. Tonight I went for a walk with my running friend. We have run or, when necessary walked on a Sunday afternoon for an hour for several years. The conversation is catch up on our working weeks and mutually supportive listening. Another special friendship.  I am a lucky, lucky man - I have lots of friendly relationships.

Photos:
- The view from our front door across the golf course on Monday morning.
- Another friend, Emi, (she comes from Hungary and calls me "dad") suggested that Space2B needed a coat rack. So I made one out of timber that came from a Church cupboard we pulled out.

Rugby costs too much!

I cannot believe that Dunedin has to pay money to host a World Cup Rugby games! The rate payer, now having to pay for an expensive temple to the game, and having to buy the one they don't want, has to contribute to having the Rugby World Cup games in the city. They will also have to foot the bill for the inevitable tidy up of copious drunken rugby fan celebrations happening in the city! Studies overseas show that big game contests in a city do not add much to the local economy anyway! Haven't we got the whole rugby world cup out of kilter? It is only a game! I am over it already! It is crap. In fact rugby as it is is turning this some time fan into a non-fan. Let me list off just some of the costs I perceive in our society.

• Rugby injuries cost the country's health system heaps. Every Saturday there are emergency departments and emergency doctors coping with various injuries because of rugby. Not only these current injuries, but the ongoing impact of old injuries on old injured ex-players.
• Rugby has with it a binge drinking culture. Rugby is often linked to breweries and alcohol associated sponsors. The binge drinking culture cost NZ heaps of pain, violence and health system costs. Any encouragement of binge drinking, like rugby events have is not what this country needs.
• Rugby, as it is played also encourages violent attitudes and violent behaviour. It depicts the quality that men ought to be hard and unforgiving. That to be a man it is OK to live by the eye for and eye mentality. That we don't need in this country where violence and in particular domestic violence is so high.

We make a God out of rugby. It is only a game. I think if all the sums were added up in terms of economic cost to the country and emotional and cultural wellbeing, I suspect that our love of rugby is costing us too much.

I am over it! I give the fingers whenever the TV implores me to buy my ticket. When it suggests I will be part of "History in the making" I scream "Get real... it is only a game! Big kids playing." It is artificial life! And I think it costs too much!

Mustard seeds and statistics

Kingdom Parables
Lately the Sunday readings have been about Jesus' parables that start "The kingdom of heaven is like..."
We have had a sower sowing seeds in different soils.We have had the mysterious growth of wheat. Then there has been the wheat with weeds amongst it. There is the story of the mustard seed and the woman working yeast into bread dough. Each parable has its own message but there are a couple of things that have hit me.

1. The Kingdom has an ordinariness about it. Wheat was just an ordinary crop. You till the soil, sow it, harvest it and then process it into flour. It was run-of-the-mill seasonal events. The mustard seed was an annoying weed bush, there were even laws about not planting it. Yeast was considered a symbol of that which is not pure - evil even. Working yeast into bread dough was women's work, lowly work by second-class citizens. Now if people dreamed of the kingdom of God similarities they would want to choose things like the mighty cedars of Lebanon, amazing beautiful flowering plants or some mighty powerful waterfall ... or anything "grand". But Jesus chose - duh - wheat, a weed and mould-like yeast. So ordinary!
2. The second thing that hits me is the mysteriousness of the Kingdom. What on earth is the mysterious life force that makes a seed, or wheat grow? How on earth can a little bit of yeast make a difference to a big lump of dough? Mystery, unknown - even in today's world not fully comprehended, but grow it does!  

I got to thinking about this. How we like to align the kingdom with the flashy, big, super-seen-to-be-succesful, big name programs. We count statistics and have "how to" conferences, books etc. on mission etc. ... I am not sure that was Jesus' style. I think he even avoided getting hero worshipped. I got to thinking about the statistics I have to report on about chaplaincy. I have to report the numbers of "contacts made". I report the numbers of "people accessing the service". I report the general topics of the work conversations I have had. I am meant to report the topics of the conversations I have on personal issues, but I don't do that on principle. Now this is meant to convince the management that the chaplain is worth the money paid for his services. Such reporting defines what I do. Crap... Chaplaincy to me is not the special times when people come with "issues", the times when they "access the service". Chaplaincy lies in the "ordinary". I sit and eat my lunch and we compare sandwiches. I learn that they painted their fence on the weekend. I get told about the young guy's new smart phone and he shows me what it does. They sound off about the rugby. They grump about what is going wrong with their computer. I hear about their exercise programs. Someone shares a text joke they got on their phone. I listen to their frustration about the teenagers, or "the wife" or "that husband of mine". Most often they are not issues they are accessing the service about, they are just talking, sharing and most important of all, just "being" and being accepted. You can't make stats about that! It is just so ordinary, but I believe it is of love, of God and of the Kingdom. It is mysterious, because somehow when it happens, you can't explain it. but when you relate in love healing, growth and affirmation happen and people are just better off. At the drop-in centre we just relate in ordinary ways, but I believe love, healing and wholeness grow in the midst of offering people a sausage, playing pool and sitting yarning. Ordinary and mysterious... but not flashy, vain and plastic coated showmanship.
A different kind of "knowing"
I often struggle to put my experience of life, and particularly the inner-life, into words. Sometimes when I am reading a book I suddenly say to myself, "That is what I want to say! What a great way of putting it!" In my last post I made these statements; "I think too that when we have not given ourselves to his servant lifestyle, Jesus is just a vague belief in a metaphysical saviour, and not a dynamic-life-changing-life-enhancing-mentor and "presence".  He comes alive for us when we risk all..." and "It is easy to love in the ideal, much harder to love in reality.... but again, even with the difficulties, much more rewarding and fulfilling. When we do that one's "religion" becomes real."  I am reading a good book at the moment, The New Believers Re-imagining God by Rachael Kohn. In a chapter entitled Re-souling Psychology she is writing about Thomas Moore a former Catholic Monk turned psychotherapist. She writes: "Thomas Moore is urging his students and readers in a direction that is dynamic - he is saying there is a deep knowing in the doing, in  the loving and in the living. Self-understanding in a clinical sense is not a necessary condition for unconditional love - the chief expression of the soul - and may even stand in the way of it."  That is what I find. There is a deep knowing in the loving and living of the way of Jesus that is just so hard to communicate ... it is found in the doing. When I was young I bought self-understanding books and spiritual growth type books to try to make sure I knew myself. I figured I had to "get my shit together" (to use a modern phrase) before I could properly minister. But that is not how it happens. Somehow when you forget self and focus on the needs of others faith, "your shit" comes together - there is a deep knowing in the doing. Jesus said it too. "When you lose your life you find it." ... anyway it is a good book I am enjoying it.
Funeral cancelled... postponed!
In my weekend post I mentioned that I had a funeral on Monday. Well it turned out that it was cancelled!   No there was not a resurrection! The snow covered everything and transport to the funeral would have been tricky. The funeral director said, "We are not going anywhere!" The same time on Tuesday morning we held the funeral. That is the first time in my forty years of funeral conducting that a funeral has been postponed!

Sunday blog...

Funeral time again.
Tomorrow I have a funeral to lead. It is for the father of a guy in one of my chaplaincies. Some years ago I took his mother's funeral, now I continue to have this pastoral contact with this family. (Interestingly enough the man in my chaplaincy says he is an atheist... but still calls on me at a time like this.) Such is the privilege of chaplaincy and ministry. Because of various circumstances it is a little bit awkward but I no doubt will survive. I have done the first draft of the eulogy and am taking a break. (some might say "procrastinating" - putting off the final decisions about what to include and how to word it.) The other thing about it is that tomorrow is my wife's birthday and with it being our day off we were thinking of some special travel to celebrate... she was not too pleased when she learned of the funeral.
Violent deaths in Norway
My picture of peaceful Norway has been shattered with the terrible news of the massacres and bombings there. I understand that the man who did these things is an ex-soldier who had seen action. I am also saddened by the domestic violence and street violence that happens in beautiful NZ. I wonder why? In Norway I guess this soldier had been trained to kill, and who knows what the war service did to his brain and life. I also get concerned about the amount of and nature of violence on TV. It feels like there are more and more weird ways of killing people being shown for our gratification. I saw a documentary on how exposure to violence on TV screen impacts on the way little kids play with each other. I don't thing we "adult kids" are immune, and maybe, through our entertainment, we teach people unhealthy, destructive and tragic ways to deal with life and relationships.
Jesus' parables
In our Sunday readings we have been talking about some of Jesus' parables and the readings have Jesus frustrated with the fact that people are not "hearing" him.  I am a devoted follower of Jesus. (far from perfect I might add) The more I encounter life, reflect on society and the world, the more convinced I am that the ways and values of Jesus bring relevant hope and direction.  I find his way of life to be a challenge, constantly calling me out of my comfort zone to give myself in service. As difficult as it is, I am so grateful because his calling gives me a depth to life, stretches me as a person and shapes me into a better more whole person. Often over the 40 years I have been in ministry, as I have been preaching, particularly as I have got older and given more, I have looked out on the congregation and thought, "Most of you haven't a clue what I am talking about! You don't understand because you have not really begun to taste what discipleship means!" One man said once that many christians "Have just enough religion to make them miserable - not enough to make the happy.". Now it may sound judgmental, but often I suspect this is true, even for people who have been in Church for years. I think many are immune to the real Jesus, because they have a domesticated-easy-to-handle-church-focused Jesus. I think too that when we have not given ourselves to his servant lifestyle, Jesus is just a vague belief in a metaphysical saviour, and not a dynamic-life-changing-life-enhancing-mentor and "presence".  He comes alive for us when we risk all, and I would suggest most church goers have not risked much. I am saddened by that, because ultimately they miss out. But I do find it difficult to really communicate with them. Often I feel like I am just a good entertainer for an hour.
"I love mankind"
I recall a Charlie Brown cartoon that goes like this. Charlie declares he wants to be a counsellor. Lucy says, "You can't be a counsellor, you don't love mankind!" (sexist language) Charlie yells at her,  "I do so love mankind! It is people I can't stand!"  In Churches I often see a lot of "loving mankind", but often little true involvement with people. A Church I know had a service all about volunteers in the community. Great stuff. But I have been mailing that Church for years wanting volunteers for Habitat for Humanity and for the Night Shelter and have had no response. There are desperate needs amongst people in Dunedin Streets, but so many churches sit around doing their weekly religious bits absorbing funds and space. I thought of this with the Christchurch earthquake. Churches rushed to hold memorial services and light candles, but how many of their number went to Christchurch and got involved with people! I recall some time ago sharing with a Christian man the difficulties I was having in coping with the behaviour of one of our drop-in centre guys, and how it challenges one's wisdom and patience to be as accepting and loving as Jesus calls us to be. He came back with something like, "Oh yes, but we are called to love them unconditionally." I wanted to scream, "That's bloody easy when the totality of your involvement with them amounts to occasionally praying for them in the pew on Sunday!" It is easy to love in the ideal, much harder to love in reality.... but again, even with the difficulties, much more rewarding and fulfilling. When we do that one's "religion" becomes real. There's a lot of "loving mankind", not so much real loving involvement with people.
Snow in Dunedin today... I hope I can get to the funeral tomorrow morning. 

Photo: Our road at lunch time today.

Free at last!

I enjoy people.
I left the office just after 6 p.m. tonight. I had a "people" day. I had a meeting with a woman this morning who is going through an interesting time in her life. We got a way off the subject of our meeting and started talking faith, life's journey and our frustrations with "Church". I appreciated talking with someone with similar perspectives as I have. This afternoon I went to two chaplaincies. At the first there were no real deep conversations but there was just good fun conversation and friendship. At the second I was intrigued how several individuals just conversed naturally about events in their life in a relaxed way as if they were talking to a friend.  While it might be said that I am sharing love by listening, there is a certain gift of grace I am receiving as these people let me into their lives. I value this gift immensely.  
Free at last.
Just after 6 p.m. I left the office and came home. As I wandered around the kitchen wondering what I could graze on my wife said, "Well I sent the final cheque away." "What final cheque?" I quizzed. "The final cheque paying off our mortgage!" ... We had talked about this. It is a good feeling.
I turned to a discoloured card hanging on the wall and grinned. "Now we can throw you out!"  In 1968 (before we were married) we put a deposit and acquired a mortgage on our first house on Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world. That was when we acquired that card. We then trained for the ministry and for a time rented that house out. We sold it to help finance our setting up home in a church manse in Palmerston North. We put a deposit on another cottage in Fielding which we rented out, but never really made money on it.  We sold that and bought a house and acre of ground in a country village. It was a run down house most people would bulldoze, it did not cost much, but I remember walking around the acre thinking, "This is mine! The government can stuff the economy up, but I still have a house and an acre of ground I can use!" We moved a little reluctantly down to Dunedin and after a failed project put a deposit down on this house. The deposit came from selling some shares a man in my student church congregation had given us. Around 23 years later we paid our last cheque. It is not very flash, but it has an acre of ground, a creek running through it, and now it is ours. I was down the back feeding the hens and looking at our vege garden yesterday and started dreaming. Maybe in a few years I will have more time to enjoy this, by then it really will be mine and we can do a self-sufficiency thing on it. I have never and will never earn big money. (I discovered a "technician" - glorified labourer - at the brewery received a bigger wage than I do!) We are not good at saving and we tend to use our money regularly in ministry, but that's OK.  It is nice to be free of a mortgage though. It will bring added temptation though. I will have more money each week to waste?  I have often thought I could get an easier job for less money if I didn't have a mortgage... may be I'll be tempted to in my down times?

I think though I am really hooked into some form of working with people, with my personal base being Jesus. For a shy guy I really love connecting with people, and being a "Jesus representative" doing it.
  

Monday mumblings...

Goodbye European cars

Today I cleaned out two cars which have become too expensive to keep going with a warrant of fitness. They are to be sold for car parts. They really don't owe us anything, particularly the little Fiat. It was my wife's car and has provided transport for young people, older folks and food for drop-in centre and Habitat for Humanity building sites. Both will be picked up by their new owner in the next day or two.

My Mountain and fitness

Dave Brown says to his mountain: "Gidday old friend, it is good to see you again. It has been quite awhile. ... me? .... I have been too busy to visit lately... sorry. I always see you in the distance from just about anywhere in Dunedin. I look and ache to visit, but it has not happened.... just too busy... But it is so so good to be here today. I promise to visit more frequently. I need to, it is good for my body and soul."  I got to go up my mountain today. Perhaps I am getting old, but there are very few sensations better than walking in NZ bush, particularly breaking out of the bush from time to time to look at expansive scenery. Today I walked late in the day too, so the sun was setting making fascinating light shows in the bush. I did notice, however, that the walk was not as easy as it used to be. I was breathing harder. I have not been exercising as much as I normally do, and already I feel the consequences. I still think I am fitter than most 62 year olds, but not as fit as I am used to. I worked at the night shelter on Saturday sometimes lifting awkward heavy things. When I got home my muscles ached. I soon came right, but I realised again I was not as strong as I used to be. Even though I have a sensitive knee I need to find ways to exercise.  It will happen, I am not ready to get old yet.

Technique verses love.

My mind wandered on to this subject today. When I was at theological college we had homiletics classes, that is learning how to preach. In our third year we got to preach to each other and invited guests. We had one guy preach one night, it was a work of art. His voice was not monotone, he raised his voice, he lowered it to a whisper. He used silences and pauses to give impact. He sped up and he slowed down. He gestured flamboyantly. ... We had to give feed back and at first we struggled. It was an eloquent presentation but somehow it missed the mark. He was so concentrating on his technique he lost that sense of connectedness and rapport with his audience. He was not communicating.  He could have been doing it in front of a mirror. He wasn't "loving" us as his congregation. 

Over the years I have heard many people read the scriptures in Church. There have been a few who have had elocution lessons. They will read with all sorts of correct expression. They have spoken clearly. They have emphasized words correctly. They have paused, projected their voices and done everything right. ... but often this has been distracting rather than adding to the communication. Then I have heard bad readers who, because of their "couldn't care less" attitude have almost been blasphemous as they have dawdled their way through their reading. Then I have heard people who have believed the message they were reading and had a deep loving passion to pass it on. Their technique may not have been perfect but as they have read they have somehow, passed on love.... in the way they have read they have  loved the message and loved the congregation. There is a difference.  

I recall watching a colleague working with people. this person had all sorts of creative things to get the people involved in. They had skills to work with these people. But somehow I had an uneasy feeling. Over the weeks they had to keep asking me the names of the people they were working with? Why? .... Quite simply they were not forgetting themselves and loving the people. They were rapt up in their techniques.

A friend had some issues he needed a counsellor for. He told me of one he tried. He said of the counsellor that he may have asked all the right questions, but "He just didn't seem interested in me. It felt like he just wanted to get through the session." 

I have been involved in training for trauma debrief groups and for running groups. As I have thought about it and led groups, I keep finding that it all depends on my willingness to give myself to the people involved in listening and sharing. The times I am distracted or too self absorbed to care, go badly. It depends on LOVE, listening, questioning and attending with a genuine love.

 Love of technique, skill, methods can never replace love for people.

Thats what I have been stewing on as I have enjoyed my day off.

Nice place to live.

Driving home from my walk yesterday I went "over the hill" to Sawyers Bay.  I drive this route at least twice a week and never cease to enjoy the view of the harbour on Junction Road. There are worse places in the world to live! Otago Harbour views help you switch off from city life.