A night time working bee.

Son-in-law David checking the state of the weatherboard in his over 100yr old house.

Staggered dwangs (noggins in the North Island and Australia)

My drop saw comes into its own with such work.

Tonight we took all the timber sarking off another wall at my daughter's place. We took all the nails out of the wall and got one row of dwangs (noggins) in. The old wood is really really hard to nail through. It was a good night's work. The cars were frosted up before we headed home. I am enjoying using my drop saw. Tools well used are an investment. I will really love the change this work will make to this planned guest room - when it is completed.

The new Night Shelter location.

The new Dunedin Night Shelter buildings. My mate John is standing beside it. He is  the latest Trust Board member and already so valuable!

The above photos are of the new Dunedin Night Shelter at 18 Lees Street. We are renting two units. The front one is for emergency accommodation and the one behind will be used for meeting a need for short to long term accommodation. Hopefully the rent from the back one will assist in covering the rent for the front one. This is a big step forward for the Night Shelter Trust... lots of thought and a little lost sleep have gone into it. It is exiting to be a part of this group. Being chairman adds to my life experience and while being full on, is a very positive part of my life.

Citizens of the globe.

It is Queens Birthday and I spent today working on renovations at my daughter's house.
We put this frame work in forgetting that the ladder we were standing on splayed at the end.
We had real difficulty extracting it!  

I do love doing carpentry - just plain hard physical work.

I was reading an article about the issues facing immigrants in France. Jean-Luc Melenchon asks a question; "Shouldn't people feel at home wherever they are? How many generations are we going to p... off with this question of immigration and where were you born?" This prompted me to think about the common attitude in many countries now. Immigrants are not welcomed! We had an English couple, immigrants to NZ call at Space2B at Church in their first few weeks of being in the country. They were in a bit of culture shock and were grumpy about several things related to life in New Zealand. It prompted me to ask them, "Why did you leave the UK?" Their response was quick and definite, "Too many immigrants!" and they ranted about the blacks, Muslims, Pakistani's etc. that had taken over their country. I stifled a common comment by New Zealanders about "too many moaning pommes taking over our country!" My son is in Scotland and by the sound of it catches some flack about being an immigrant there. (He is Maori/Samoan so probably is easily noticed) The tragic shootings in Norway indicate this anti-immigrant attitude. It is not bad but a growing feeling around New Zealand, particularly against asians and sometimes Muslim people suffer. Australia has its share of anti-immigrant reaction.  Melenchon's question got me thinking again about being "Global citizens". 


It intrigues me. We struggle to raise funds to keep a viable Night Shelter (for people) going in Dunedin, but an Eco-sanctuary just out of town somehow generated millions of dollars to look after native birds and plants.  Similarly Pandas in China will attract heaps of sympathy, money and love from people throughout the world, but when Asian people come to our shores looking for a decent lifestyle, we say "Go home!" How about we begin to feel a solidarity with all people, like we feel linked to Pandas, native birds and local fauna? How about we see ourselves as citizens of this world? How about we recognise that the problems we face in this world belong to all of us? How about we truly see ourselves as brothers and sisters on the journey of life? A song we sing in Church goes;
We are pilgrims on a journey,
 and companions on the road;
 we are here to help each other
 walk the mile and bear the load.

This is essentially true when the "we" encompasses all people every where. The President in the United States makes a statement and economic markets throughout the world react. We are all impacted. The economies of some relatively small country trembles and world currencies shudder. Forests are cut down in the South American continent, and the weather changes in the Northern Hemisphere. The problems of people facing famine and political oppression in Zimbabwe are really issues the human family must feel. The struggles of the drug addict on Dunedin, NZ streets, are my concern even though I have never touched such drugs. They are my brother or sister! I had a guy come to me at our drop-in on Friday night asking for a blanket, he was sleeping out during freezing nights in Dunedin! I offered the services of the Night Shelter and began to dial the number. "No" he said, he had overstayed his welcome there, and besides "they make you get up early!" He was desperate for food too. Another guy offered him a bed - he took my blanket anyway - but why was he in such dire straits? He gets a benefit?  What addiction consumes his money? Another guy came up, away with the fairies on drugs of some sort. He is often drunk. I said to my wife when we got home, "How would you feel if these guys were your son?" ... It would be heartbreaking... but they are my brothers!


I just think we would truly begin to deal with the massive problems facing our communities and our world if we stopped trying to put people in boxes and saw ourselves as a family, on a journey. When we classify people as untouchable, immigrants, another race, a different class etc. etc. we add to the problems the world faces!


I recall as a student minister visiting an elderly couple. Looking at the photos on the wall I asked about the family. I got told about various ones and their success, but one was never mentioned. I pointed to him in a photo, "What's his name? Where is he?" "He" was somewhere, probably doing no good, - end of discussion. It was like "he" did not exist. He was not a good little Christian boy. They did not want to know about him. They did not want me to know about him. We are often like that. People near and far are struggling with one problem or another, and we don't want to know about them. They are our brothers and sisters, but we are like ostriches burying our heads in the sand.


Some of the words by Bob Dylan that Peter Paul and Mary sang go like this;
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
How many times can a man turn his head
and pretend that he just doesn't see?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind.
We naive teenage visionaries loved this song nearly five decades ago. The questions still challenge. The answers are still "Blowin' in the wind!"  The world is so much smaller now. We are much closer to each other. We need to be acting and thinking as global citizens, brothers and sisters in the human family! 


I think it was Dag Hammarskjold who wrote;
"Human beings are like parts of a body
created from the same essence.
When one part is hurt and in pain,
the others cannot remain in peace and be quiet.
If the misery of others leaves you indifferent
and with no feelings of sorrow
you cannot be called a human being." 

What's going to happen?

The old fireplace and chimney at our daughter & son-in-laws' house.

The two Daves (son-in-law & me) pulling the chimney to peices.

Further down... I am as stuffed as I look.

End product. Tomorrow we take the sarking off the walls and add frame work.

My wife stacked the bricks... the mortar fell off them.

Latest grand daughter pic... she has grown so much in a week! 

I do wonder what is in store for our community, western society and the world? I have always been concerned and try in my small way to make a difference for good. It may be that having a grand daughter has heightened my concern. Let me outline some events.
Locally.....
We have had a city councillor get caught drink driving for the second time. He is an intelligent leader in the community, but he drinks and drives. I have little patience with intelligent adults doing such things. It is just so dangerous for other innocent people! Here we have a community leader without the commonsense to make other arrangements when he has had a few. It is a sad reflection on our community. Another city councillor wrote a nasty personal email sent around to others, to his enemy on the council. From what I saw, it read like the rantings of a mad man! He has had to apologise, but good grief again a community leader acting like a fruit loop! I am disappointed often with the antics and calibre of the people in leadership positions in our community. There are few true statesmen.
There have been images on TV again of the mayhem of binge drinking on our streets. A paramedic told me that these were not isolated cases confined to big Auckland city but nearly every night occurrences on our city streets in Dunedin. The damage caused, the waste of hospital, ambulance and police resources and in many cases the stuffed up lives are all tragic. Some people interviewed said that they had to "top up" so that they could feel uninhibited enough to dance and party. A bit sad, not being confident enough to be themselves. Where are we falling down, the numbers are horrific.
All around I hear of people losing jobs because of the financial squeeze. I am not convinced about our government's handling of the situation, I think once again it will be the poorer or more vulnerable people carrying the brunt of the problem. I also feel there are blatant and not so blatant attempts at social engineering, which makes you wonder where it will stop. The gap between rich and poor widens and is one of the widest.  I used to think NZ was a pretty egalitarian place to live but not any more.
In the wider world....
I was watching TV and the goings on in the Australian Parliament. Once again leaders in the community behaving in immature ways. I receive emails loaded with anti-muslim sentiments with war mongering intent. The Greek economy is apparently fragile and could like a line of dominos cause more economic woes for Europe and further afield.
Attitudes....
 I was talking to an Iraqi man and asking him why the Iraqi people seem to be turning against one another. He commented that when you feel your people or your family is going to starve your morals go out the window. That is what is worrying me. We live in a a world with a fragile economy. We have tense relationships between some nations and cultures. One of the attitudes in response to this situation is to build bigger fences between "us" and "the others" and to look for scapegoats to hate or blame. We can search for strength by pushing a dangerous "us against them" mentality. This happens internationally. (President Bush's "If you are not with us you are against us" statement.) It can also happen locally. ( Beneficiaries, Maori - whoever - are causing the government overspending.) In other cash strapped times there were accepted moral guidelines. I'm not sure that people were more deeply spiritual or moral but there were community reinforced roles or ways of behaving that kept life running on reasonable lines. These days we don't have that sort of accepted community standards and pressure. People are much more all out for themselves. I tend to think that as communities in the western world we do not have sufficient people with the moral or spiritual grounding or foundations that enable us to react constructively, peacefully and in a unified way to the problems that confront us as communities and on a worldwide scale. I fear for the future. I also feel that whether people are rich or poor we often lack a deep sense of meaning and purpose in life. We have, if you like, a massive poverty of substantial meaning or spiritual depth. Where there is a vacuum all sorts of other lesser meanings (like the scape goats, "tribalism", racism or an unhealthy patriotism) can fill the gap. Sufficient to say that I am fearful of the future.
Hope...
I see some signs of hope. I meet various people who may not have a traditional christian spirituality, but are finding a connection with the environment and are moving on to sense a solidarity with all creation including humankind. I enjoy being around these people and their attitudes give me some hope. I may sound pessemistic. I do meet lots of people, and nearly all are good fun to know, are generally kind and well meaning. But I am fearful they do not have deeper foundations and when the pressure comes on I fear they will slide into reacting in ways that "look after number one" only.  Then again, when the pressure comes on it may cause them to discover a deeper essence and unity in life and they will make noble choices. I hope so.
DIY experiences...
Our daughter and her husband helped us with our bathroom so it is our turn to help them. They are doing up, insulating and lining a room in their house. Yesterday we pulled down a chimney and old fire place. I also went to the Night Shelter to do a couple of little jobs. One was installing stays on two window frames. Unfortunately I cracked a window. Oh well .... you cant win them all!

Oh heck.....

Me take on more voluntary responsibility?
I got sounded out today to see if I would be interested in taking on a voluntary chaplaincy/coordinator  position for a pilot community scheme. I am interested in why I am being asked? I listened to the dream and was excited by the possibilities of the scheme, but why me? I struggle to cope with the stuff I am doing now? I am not a guy who easily meets people, I am essentially shy? I would not put confidence in me and my abilities?  They really don't know me! .. there needs to be more thought put in on both sides and I think perhaps I have enough to do now. But it is intriguing how things come together and why things come together? Habitat for Humanity when it came along seemed to be a bringing together of a lot of my skills and experience. The Night Shelter too was a similar situation. I could help get that off the ground because of my experiences through our drop in and my social work training. This is similar. Many of my experiences, outlooks and attitudes point toward this. But am I looking to face the new challenges involved? Can I fit something new in my life? It will be interesting to see which way I bounce. ... I do have difficulty in saying that small word sometimes... I'll practice ... "N O" "no"! Wait and see.
Redundancy is so hard for people
Today I got to listen to people who had been told they will lose their job in a month or so. It was so sad. It was like they felt their existence and contribution was not valued in any way. They are worried about their future but I think that is not the worst thing about redundancy. It essentially feels like the people at the top are saying that your hard work, your contribution, your conscientious endeavor does not mean squat.  I think people are deeply injured in that process. I went along and listened, but I never know what to say. I know I will miss these guys' presence. I have visited them twice a week for quite a number of years now. The thing is too this one does not seem to make dollar-sense. ( I was last year on the other side of redundancy. At the Night Shelter we made somebody redundant. I hated being in the "nasty boss" position then.)
Night Shelter events... coincidence?
There has been a series of events happen at the night shelter that does not feel like coincidence. We had a new member on our trust and our funding issues forced us to  restructure and refocus last year and he was the right guy at the right time. At the end of last year our rented house was up for sale. I bumped into an old friend who is a property developer and he wanted to get involved with us. Another property became available and we have moved in there with the idea of subletting that and ultimately expanding our work. This old mate is the right guy at the right time for us. A group has come to us expressing a need for short to long term accommodation and we may be able to use this resource to the benefit of the community and get an income. It feels like we are going for a ride and some mysterious presence is navigating the journey. ... maybe... M Scott Peck called such an experience as an experience of "Grace". 

The chief of procrastinators

I went into the office today but called in at the Night Shelter before work to add a wire to a fence I made yesterday. I came across one of the volunteers and had to be sociable. As I was about to leave another trust board member arrived to paint what we had built yesterday. We got involved in a project to get the TV working properly. I kept saying "I better go and work!" and he kept saying, "This is work!" I arrived at the office at least an hour late. I settled down and did a heap of "work" responding to emails that had built up last week and other issues. I switched the computer off during lunch time and went over to St John to talk with folk there. When I came back and switched the computer on it would not go on. It came up with some horrible error notification. I got it going on safe mode to get some information off it. The phone kept ringing with people lining up meetings for me to attend. At that point my cell phone ran out of money, the Church car park was so full I could not get my car out and nothing was going right. I then called a computer company. To my surprise he said he would come straight away, so my chaplaincy for today went out the window. (A job for tomorrow) After trying various things he told me my computer was very old and he would have to take it away to computer "hospital".  (It could be "hospice") I took off out of the office to go back to the night shelter to get the tools I had left for my friend to use. (I am VERY protective and possessive about my tools!) I ended up talking longer than anticipated and came home at around 6 p.m. with not much done for the day... and needing to do stuff. After our evening meal I went into the study to "work". My dead "apple" power adapter was there on my desk so I determined to fix it. Eventually after soldering, swearing and sweating it was going again. (I had a wee scary moment when testing it. Two wires shorted out and my computer went dead! All is well now though.) But .... the power adapter really could have waited until a spare moment say on Sunday afternoon? I had more urgent work to do especially considering my lack of work during the day? I would rather fix things than read. I would rather do the physical "easy" stuff than try to work out what is most important for me to do. Sometimes you have so much to catch up on that it is hard to know where to start... so I tend to procrastinate doing anything other than attacking the list. I can be the chief of procrastinators sometimes! Tomorrow I will move the world! :-)

Sounding off...

What part of "turn all electronic devices off" don't you understand?
On both our flights to and from Auckland I was astounded by the non-compliance of many passengers. We climbed aboard in Dunedin and the announcement came several times. It said something like, "We are refueling the plane so we ask you to turn off all electronic devices, this includes cell phones, lap tops etc. etc." To my astonishment people in front of me, beside me and behind me kept sending and receiving texts and phone calls as well as doing stuff on their lap top and ipad.  The announcement was repeated several times but as far as I could see it was only when the plane was moving toward the runway that these folk made any attempt to turn off their cellphones. When we landed both at Auckland and Dunedin we were instructed well before landing time to turn off all electronic devices. People on both occasions delayed turning off their devices through several announcements asking them to do so. On the return flight even though the instruction was repeated the people in front of me kept playing games on their ipad until the plane was just about to bump down on the runway. When the instructions asked us to "please stay in your seats until the plane has come to a stand still" they seemed to see this as a signal to stand up and start getting stuff out of the overhead locker. I had to be amused - at the beginning of the flight the man in the seat in front (one of the offenders) was ranting on about NZ flying conditions and how "you would expect a meal at least". He complained about all sorts of things. He was, in my opinion, an arrogant loud mouthed Australian and I would liked to have reminded him that it was an Australian airline we were flying with. I do not know all the dangers involved in electronic devices being turned on. I suspect they are not that dangerous, but I do think passengers should obey the instructions of the crew!
It is the Church's decision and a theological decision.
We once lived in a little rural town called Apiti. We had a part time ministry at Levin 70 miles away so did not attend the local Presbyterian Church very often. We went to their mid-week study group from time to time and had a combined camp with them. We knew some of the elders well because they gave me work on their farms. The poor little church had small attendances most Sundays and it was suggested that it combine with the one in the nearby rural town so that the services were more encouraging. All hell broke loose in the town. People who had never darkened the doors of the church complained and agitated to keep the Church open. (For weddings and funerals I guess) They did not help to pay to keep it open. They did not intend to attend. They just wanted a church in the village.  It seems a similar thing is happening in Christchurch. The Bishop and the Church have decided it would be wrong to spend millions rebuilding the old earthquake damaged Christchurch Cathedral and want to pull it down to build another one. People are marching to save the Cathedral in their hundreds! I bet they never attended! I bet they never put their offering in the plate! My guess is they mostly are not active Christians. It is just a civic icon to them. The right stewardship of God's money does not enter the equation for them. They are not interested in the mission and purpose of the Church or "the Kingdom of God".  I am not a Christchurch person but I say the Church is the body to decide what to do with the Church resources! If I were a Christchurch Anglican Bishop I could think of all sorts of new and interesting ways to replace the Cathedral. A multi-faith gathering place? A centre for community concern and care? I don't know what they will do, but I do know it is a theological question and the Church hierarchy are the ones to decide it.  They can listen to the needs of the community, but the agitators should MYOB ... mind your own business!
Night Shelter Work continues.
I have spent today working at the Night Shelter. We moved into new premises on Saturday and there were a number of handy man jobs that needed doing to help it function as best it can. Today, Monday my weekly "day off" was spent doing these jobs. During the course of the day we had assistance from various other members of the trust, again asking how they can help. I am physically tired but happy to have got the jobs done.