Enjoyable, comforted but envious...

I have had a day off when a few of our plans didn't happen. A trip to the hardware store proved a waste of time. What we wanted to buy would not fit in the car. A trip to a science festival program likewise proved wasted - there was no room in the hall for us. A plan I had dreamed up to make little gifts for a luncheon later in the week did not work out. I had a lazy but frustrating day. Tonight I blobbed out in front of idiot TV for a while then went on You Tube and listened to various speakers. Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan,  Philip Gulley, Philip Yancy, Krista Tippet and Barbara Brown Taylor have all informed and entertained me tonight. I have enjoyed myself.
Less lonely
I get so much mail and religious stuff thrown at me from the religious right that I begin to feel lonely. Am I the only one asking the questions I ask? Am I the only one thinking the thoughts and rethinking the faith? Am I an out and out heretic, really out in left field?  Tonight I have enjoyed listening to people asking the same sort of questions, rethinking the traditional perspectives, but who are still alive "spiritually". It has been good not to feel so alone.
One aspect not emphasised enough ...
It is great to listen to these type of thinkers and to read them. I find though that I feel they often miss out on an important emphasis of who Jesus is and what a "Jesus spirituality" should look like. I love their theological reflections, and it is important to think out the faith. But for me I would want to add that a servant lifestyle is an important expression of the faith, an important experience of the faith and an important part of the theological journey. Progressive Christianity which leaves out active compassion does not know "Jesus" no matter how good its intellectual thinking, or modern its liturgical expression. I love listening to and reading Progressive Christian thinkers, but often get the feeling I want to add this dimension to what they say. So many of my experiences of and insights into the "sacred" have come through a servant lifestyle.
But jealous... 
I listen to these speakers and get jealous. I have the same questions, the same sort of thinking and am on a similar journey - but in my attempts to communicate or articulate it even to myself, I am a babbling simpleton compared to these articulate and skilled thinkers and speakers. I want to scream at God, "Would it have spoiled some vast eternal plan if you had given me a little bit more intelligence and skill!" I get so frustrated with my skill levels when I see such clever intellects.
Oh well you play with the hand you have been dealt as best you are able - but a few more Kings, Queens and Aces would help.

Frosty Sunday afternoon

Our foster daughter who has severe handicaps. She has taught me more about "just being with somebody" than anyone else.

Guilty feeling..

After Church my wife and I grabbed a couple burgers and sat at a park eating lunch in the feeble mid-winter sun. My wife is still involved as a director on the local Habitat for Humanity board and they had an opening for a house they had renovated this afternoon. Partly because I felt out of step with the NZ Habitat for Humanity directions I resigned a few years ago. It is funny, my wife refrains from telling me what is going on because she knows I will get stewed up. I am happy to help with work, but they tend to get trainee groups doing stuff now and not volunteers. (Which I think cuts at the heart of the impact and essence of Habitat for Humanity - but we won't go there.) Anyway Jean had to go to the opening and assist so she had her car and I came home in mine. I felt partly guilty because I should perhaps be there to support her like she often is with me. But I would find it hard. I came home and because of my guilt have been doing stuff around here. I'm now sitting in front of the fire with a cup of tea and my computer. 

Generous lifestyle

In this morning's service I spoke about a generous lifestyle. The passage came from II Corinthians 8 where Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to cough up some money for the Jerusalem Christians. I came up with four reasons for living generously that were a part of this passage. 

• Faith without action was no good. Our faith should lead to putting love into action.
• Generosity is God's way and if we are generous we put ourselves into the current of God. We dance to the same music God dances to.
• Paul sees generosity enabling a fair balance. The Corinthians' abundance can help the Jerusalem need. Theres an important principle for life. There will always be people in need through no fault of their own. Sometimes we may be those people. It is up to the strong to help the weak, the able to assist those less able, the rich to help the poor.
• Paul saw this collection as a means of breaking down barriers that existed between the Jerusalem Christians and the gentile Christians. Generosity breaks down barriers.

Yesterday I ran (jogged)

My knee has not been painful for some time so yesterday I thought I might test it and go for an extended run. (I have run a few times just for 5 minutes.) Yesterday I jogged 6k to see if it impacted my knee. It was nice to be running again. There is something about a run that beats all other exercise. So far my knee feels good.   

Being with people 

I have had reason to think about listening skills lately, or more correctly what makes you good at working with people. I have a Social Work Student on placement with us and that exercise makes you think about such things.

At my last supervision session my supervisor told me, “You have a special way of being with people that other people would love to be able to do. Other people try to be like you but with you it is natural, it comes from your heart. You can be with people and there is nothing judgemental about you.” Now I am not sure that she is correct about me having a “special way” but I do like the phrase she used, “being with people.” 

You can learn creative listening techniques - People will study facilitation skills, group work and social work models - You can say all the right PC things, watch your professional skills and processes etc. etc.... But so often working with people is really simply “being with people”.  You can do all the right techniques but still fail to be with people. You can be physically with people, but full of yourself and concerned about your competency to play the role, so not really with people. Often instead of listening attentively, we can be thinking of the next thing we want to say.  There's a worship chorus that has the line, "So forget about yourself and concentrate on God and worship him." In a real sense to be with somebody is to "forget about yourself and concentrate on them." Sometimes the most help you can give is to just be in silence and still be with that person in a valuable way.  Often we feel compelled to fill the silences. Have you ever looked back on a long association with people a realised you have traveled with them. You may not have been called on to do much for them, but your presence alongside them in  life has been important. To be with somebody is to not let yourself get in the way, and to allow the other to be. At college and since I have enjoyed reading McQuarries' existential theology. In his Introduction to Theology he names God the Father as "Being".  He names God the Son as the "Letting Be" of God. I love that term. It hit me when I first read about it that my task is to live in this world and enable others (people, creation etc) to be! To so live that I "let them be", not in the sense of leaving them alone, but living in such a way that I support them and help enable them to be all that they are. So when I am with people as friend, minister, chaplain or social worker, I am to be with them in such a way that their being is able to find expression and move toward its fuller expression.
Sometimes we impose our being in the relationship. Sometimes we fail to respect or recognise who the person really is, because we want to channel them on different paths. When you think about it, it is pretty hurtful to be in relationship with some body who does not accept you for who you are. Their attitude and demenour really says, "You are a nobody" even though they may think they are there to help you. On the other hand, if that somebody is just themselves with you and accepts you as just yourself, it is an affirming, life enhancing, and even a life changing experience. 
One of the difficulties is a lack of personal confidence. We feel we have nothing to offer unless we say "the right thing" or use "the right technique". In reality people need not so much our exterior skill, but more just to be met by another caring human being. We need to trust that who we are is OK and that somehow when we relax and be ourselves in an open way truly with another, we are offering something very special. 
Enough burble... I did not mean to rant on about that... one thought led to another... but I'll stop there.

Chatting - Of more value than money.

I was in a conversation at a fire station today when the average wage was talked about. If what they say is true I am paid well under the average wage and much less than the guys I was talking with. But I still drove away from that conversation and back to my office feeling like a lucky man. I had visited the Ambulance headquarters at lunch time and had been around three fire stations since afternoon tea time. I felt extremely privileged to be doing my job.

I had "good" warm significant conversations at each place. People talked about their jobs, their future, their health, their family's health, community issues and generally I felt that I was accepted. I felt a deep sense of privilege that these people let me into their lives.

Don't get me wrong, it is quite tiring hard work. At both St John Ambulance and fire stations they are going through change and restructuring. I feel for the people involved. I came away from the Ambulance feeling sad for people there because I listened to disappointed and angry people. People told me about or asked me about difficult situations they were facing in life. It is tiring and emotionally draining work listening. But it also gives me a this deep sense of privilege, worth and "belonging" that is a reward in itself that money cannot buy. This afternoon I enjoyed good conversation.

"All you do is wander around talking!" sometimes people say in a derogatory way of my chaplaincy work. Yep, that is all I do, but in doing that I am doing something immensely valuable and participating in one of the most precious experiences of life.

Sunday night... "If I were a carpenter.."

Three of the seven shelf units we made.

One unit in a wardrobe.

If I were a carpenter...
On Saturday for most of the day my wife and I did carpentry, or to be more specific, joinery.  On the Night Shelter Trust we are planning to open up a building for medium term accommodation. We are in the process of furnishing the rooms. Each room has a big wardrobe so we decided to make a set of shelves for each room. I had made storage shelves for the night shelter some years ago which are no longer needed. On Saturday I used the timber in these to make seven sets of shelves. I enjoy the planning, the plain old physical work and the completion of such a project.  I am not really good at doing a nice finishing job, too impatient, but I do enjoy the ability to plan such a project and use tools successfully. I enjoyed plumbing as a trade, loving beating, bending and shaping copper pipe and working with metal. After 13 years of working on Habitat for Humanity sites, I am sure I would have loved being a carpenter. Constructing things is great for the inner person. To steal the words of a song from the "Fiddler on a roof" I ask God, "Would it have spoiled some vast eternal plan, if I had been a carpenter?"
Oh... now onto a sermon..?
We arrived home from our carpentry not long before 6 p.m. I had to settle down to work on the Church newsletter and then work on what remained of my sermon. .. I had done a heap of reading and stewing during the week, but had not settled on a clear theme. As I sat down to work I had "writer's block."  I was simply too physically tired to shape anything.  Nothing really gelled. By the end of the night, I had "mechanically" worked out a sermon, but was not happy with it. I could present it, it was acceptable, but I had no real "fire in the belly" about it.  I went to bed and slept quite soundly for a Saturday night. When I rose and indeed while I showered, as packed up and drove into the Church and even while doing the power points the sermon gelled to one I wanted to share.  I hate leaving it so late. I have known ministers who get up on Sunday morning and prepare their sermons. I cannot do that. Often on a Sunday night I begin the process of background reading for the next Sunday's sermon. There are several stages one has to go through to do a really good job and properly fit the sermon/service to the people you are speaking with. I was relieved when I had some good feedback after today's effort. I really find that the upfront stuff in ministry is quite stressful for me these days for a number of reasons. One reason is that I am always having to watch what I say in case I offend. I guess I am yearning for freedom from "being nice and pastoral" constraints. In an unhealthy way, I am looking forward to retirement and unlike a lot of ministers I have known,  plan on really retiring from all upfront activity. I will have done my dash.  These days I wish I were a carpenter!

The three prints all framed - an appreciated gift.

Our gift...
In my last post I mentioned that we received a gift of appreciation. It was from our daughter and son-in-law in appreciation of the work we are doing on their house.  When we were on our big overseas trip a couple of years ago we bought a print in many of the cities we visited. We brought these home and were planning to glue them to some black card and hang them somewhere around our old house. My daughter and son-in-law had come and stolen three of these. They got them framed and left these on our kitchen table for us to discover when we got home on Friday night. We have been sitting here tonight thinking about where we will hang each one.
Disturbing marriage annulment...
On the front page of the Otago Daily Times on Saturday there was the story of a woman being contacted by the Catholic Church because her ex-husband was wanting to marry a Catholic woman and had applied to the Church for an annulment of their marriage. I have encountered this process before in chaplaincy conversations. I think it is hurtful, encourages lies and is a waste of time and money. I have some great Catholic friends who I love and respect, but this sort of religious hogwash is, to me, not in line with the way of Jesus. It is old hat! The front page article about it would damage the image of Christianity in our community. It made the church look ridiculous and centuries out of date.
Tomorrow I have a day off... and give blood.
Unfortunately I cannot sleep in tomorrow. I promised to give blood earlyish in the morning. Because of my medications and blood pressure it is much more of a hassle giving blood than it used to be.  I understand that they need all that they can get, so I'll get up early and do my duty. You used to get a little sticker saying; "Be nice to me, I gave blood today." I could do with one of those.

Love actually...

My beautiful fast growing grand daughter. 

I often rant about the evils in the world but I have to tell you about the love I encountered today.

• I went into the office at around 9 a.m. and essentially spent the morning at the church. I had intended to go out but things prevented me. I had a visit from a Night Shelter friend and enjoyed talking night shelter business for a while. I enjoy his company whenever we get together. My wife came in and declared she was taking me to lunch. I bumped into St John people in the street and was warmly received and chatted freely. A representative from the Women Across Cultures Group who I let use our hall came with a donation from the women for the Church, and real words of appreciation. 
• I opened up my emails at one stage today and received a warm email of appreciation for my recent series of "If the Church were Christian..." sermons. The email expressed what they meant to this lady.
• I had a phone call from the Night Shelter friend again and he said I just had to meet somebody, it would be worth my while. I went and met this man who owned a farm a long way from Dunedin and he wanted to gift a regular supply of food for poor in Dunedin. We talked and prayed together.
• We had received furniture at the night shelter from a store but in moving one desk we had broken it. We went back to the store and he replaced the part for nothing, because it was the Night Shelter. Again we chatted warmly.
• I was warmly received at the fire station when I got there.
• We had a really warm and loving feel at the Drop-in centre tonight. We would have had fifty through but there just seemed to be a warmth and friendship that drew people together as a group. I looked at it and saw it was good. There were lots of life enhancing expressions of friendship being expressed.
• We came home from Drop-in and there were beautiful gifts of appreciation for help given left on our kitchen table.

It has been a day of warm fuzzy's, which is good for the soul.

I came home early

Don't tell my bosses but I came home early, and I am feeling a bit down. The thing that convinced me to come home was that the Korean congregation was going strong up in the Church above my almost underground office. They tend to yell at God. I get a bit worried not knowing the language. (They talk in tongues anyway) There is a part of their worship which sounds very like Hitler yelling at crowds and the crowd responding with "Sieg Heil!" It has the same sort of intonation.  I'd love to know the words. At least their worship is alive! But there are a number of reasons I feel down.

• A letter from my Doctor has the phrase in it, "in view of your high cardiovascular risk". It makes me feel fragile indeed. I perhaps should not get stressed? I should eat differently? I should exercise? But as I look at my life I find it hard to get off the merry go round of eating while working, exercise getting squeezed out, (my knee won't let me do the stuff I love anyway) many sleepless nights and feeling that I am stuck in this stressful job for another 18 months at least. My dad died of heart problems at a young age (49) so this Doctor's letter makes me feel fragile. 
• I have heard recently about changes in Habitat for Humanity. My wife who is a director locally does not talk to me about it because she knows I get upset. When I was part of starting Habitat locally it seemed such a simple formula. I think it worked but I have seen bureaucracy changing it and complicating it. I feel sad because I think they have drifted from the "economics of Jesus" to listening to worldly bean counters. I feel deeply disappointed, and in some ways sad that I was once so involved.
• I am trying to word a report about the Church's work for 2011. There are lots of things we have done. There is a tremendous amount of community contact and life enhancing influence. The report will be read by Church people who like such reports and they will not identify with a lot of what has gone on. It is not traditional "Church work". I feel sad that they have missed out and feel sad that I have not really brought them with me. I have a friend who analyses organisations. He says that if you take the leaders out and the organisation stops doing what it has been doing, it is dysfunctional as an organisation. I suspect that if you take my wife and I, my daughter and son-in-law out of this Church much of its community ministry would stop. It really is dysfunctional and I have failed as a leader.
• I am not keeping up with stuff. I feel like a boulder hurtling out of control down a hillside. I am coping but only just going from task to task, without feeling on top of things or in control. I am not sure why, maybe it is just a part of growing older? But people keep throwing extra stuff at me, little stuff, but it feels big at the moment.

Anyway I came home and am working in front of the fire, trying to get a bit more on top of things. Wish me luck.

Where did the time go?

At a Church christmas party, probably 1965 four of us from the youth group mimed the Beatles and joked about them. I'm Ringo Star. (on the drums)

On the drive home tonight I turned on the car radio, which I seldom do. The Beatle's song, "When I'm 64" was played. It came out in 1967 when I was about 18. I had begun dating my wife by then.  I remember enjoying the song and wondering if I would be with this girl when I'm 64? I remember walking home from a date one night feeling conflicted.  "This relationship is getting pretty serious, do I want it to be that serious?"  I remember too, that age 64 seemed a long way off... that is ancient when you are 17 going on 18!

The radio announcer tonight said that today was Sir Paul McCartney's 70th Birthday! This year too, I turn the age of 64! My question is, where did the time go? It feels like it was only yesterday that I was a teenager enjoying Beatles music? How come I am coming up to 64? How come my second favourite Beatle is 70? I don't feel that old? I feel like I am still exploring and learning? I still feel a certain amount of adolescent insecurity? Where did all those years go?

Anyway she's still with me and I'm nearly 64.