Another Sunday... the need for depth.

The picture does not do justice to the reality... I love the "layers" of hills and mountains in the background.

Great place to sermonise. Loved this sunset view last night.

Serious looking grand daughter.

I survived another Sunday of Church ministry. I could identify with the Old Testament reading today. It came from Ezekiel, the call of God to the prophet to speak an unpopular message. Some of the words ascribed to God are recorded as;
^"7You shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear; for they are a rebellious house."
I could  identify with the prophet. I often feel my words in Church and in other places fall on deaf ears. But then again, maybe mine are not clearly "Thus says the Lord" words. 
I did not sleep much last night so after Church I was exceptionally tired. We went out to the recently opened "Mad Butcher" shop where they had a special opening deal on sausages. It was "Buy 50, get 20 free." We serve sausages to about 40 people every Friday night so we went out and bought heaps of packets of 50, scoring a packet of 20 with each. A shop assistant looked at us as we were piling these in the trolly. You could hear his mind going. "These guys are greedy!" I am sure he was saying to himself. "You must love sausages!" he said to us. "Oh. Not for us." I stammered, "we run a drop-in centre." We went to the checkout and the wide eyed woman said, "Are these for a sausage sizzle!" "No" I repeated, "We run a drop-in centre." I was glad to get out of the place and walk our trolly full of sausages to the car with other pedestrians staring at our loot.
Lacking depth.. a "spirituality".... thinking out loud???
As I was preparing my sermon for this morning I got to thinking about the substance abuse, the abuse of alcohol and the impact of greedy materialism on people's lives. Our first reaction is to say, "The government should be doing something!" But I think you will never legislate a truly healthy lifestyle. These abuses are symptoms of something deeper. People are simply not happy. They are missing significance in their life. Somehow we need to enable people to discover lives of depth, fulfillment and meaning. If that happened, teenagers, and adults (a news item suggested the heaviest drinkers were men in their fifties) will value life too much to get into such destructive abuse. Somehow we in the west need to attend to the "depth" of life. We need to discover a meaningful spirituality that enables us to navigate our way through life. We, even in the Church, are afraid of depth. We are weak, or malnourished in that dimension of life. Because we are weak, we are suffering. Let me say that traditional and contemporary Christianity has been found wanting, and no longer meets the deep need. The Church needs a reformation which would lead to different emphases, different patterns of serving and communicating, and a simple but profound "gospel". Perhaps it is coming.. but probably not in my time. Though the church is distorted, society still needs some group whose job it is to keep reminding us to dig deeper, and not just live on the surface. Superficial living, even religious superficiality, destroys us in the long run.

On top of a drunk woman

Just home from our Friday night drop-in centre. We were just about to close up when a couple who had left came back up the stairs. Nick called me over and said, "It's 'x' (one of our well known women) she's out the door on the foot path drunk as!" I went down and she had decided to visit us, got to the church door and collapsed. I tried to sit her up, but she kept sliding down. I wandered across to the ambulance station to see if I could get help but nobody was home. I went back and she had crawled into the door of the church intent on getting to the drop-in. I thought I might be able to take her home and a guy and I tried to lift her onto a chair. He gave up, and she was determined not to go outside, yelling her protests, while the Korean young people were trying to hold a prayerful service next door. I was trying to pull her up on my own, she pulled against me and before I knew it we were face to face on the floor. In the end I called the emergency number and called an ambulance. I knew the guys and they said they had seen her already tonight. Security at the hospital had kicked her out of ED because she was causing a disturbance. But with their help we got her into the back of the ambulance and they took her back to hospital.
So many questions went through my mind. A human life wasted, why? Anger at all the things that happened to her, even before her birth, in her family and in her life which contributed to her state of being. There was the question as to why there is not an appropriate place where she could be looked after so she is not continually ending up in messes like this? Who sold her the alcohol? Why is there not a detox place where such people do not take up time of the ambulance, police or the Emergency Department? What else could we have done? It was a freezing night.
I drove home deeply disturbed. Here is a child of God. Smelly, dirty, stumbling and drunk. This is how she lives! It is so so sad!
I apologised to the ambulance crew. I feel sorry for the staff at ED. But I could not handle her on my own. I ended up on top of her on the floor... I tried.

Sickness

Images of sickness...

• The week started with a picture in the  newspaper of a house in Mosgiel (A township within the wider Dunedin City) which had suffered an explosion. Apparently two young men (18 - 19) had been "huffing" from an LPG cylinder when there was the massive explosion. "Huffing" is inhaling the gas to get some sort of narcotic reaction/experience. Two of them are severely burnt and critically ill! On Tuesday as I spoke with people from the emergency services I received some of the horrific details and read the concern in the faces of those who attended the scene. Why do teenagers imbibe in such behaviour? The prevalence of such things as glue/gas sniffing, drug taking and the abuse of alcohol is for me a real concern. It is a symptom of empty lives, lives lacking purpose, meaning and direction and it is deeply sad.
• I read too in the papers and on the internet of street brawls, stabbings and violence among young people in various incidents around the country. Why? It is irrational. 
• The trial of Ewan McDonald for the murder of Scott Guy has been hitting the headlines. While he was found not guilty, lots of dysfunction and distortion within the wider families has been brought to life. It seemed relationships in the extended family had been poisoned by jealousy and greed. One commentator said, "Such things are in all our families, it has just been exposed in this one." Well ... "no" not in all our families! But, unfortunately, I do know of many families in which greed has ruined relationships.
• A coroner's report on the death of a young teenager in an accident on the road leading to our place has shown it was because of the use of cannabis. So sad.

Such events leave me feeling sad. Wasted precious lives. I am aware too of not just the lives in the incident, but there is always collateral damage and stress others have to carry. Such incidents make me want to work harder to show a different constructive, life-valuing and life-enhancing way of life. 

Medical questions...

I have something happening in my body that needs investigated. I have made an appointment, but it is annoying and leaves me with a certain amount of apprehension and uncertainty. Part of me wants to stop and take time out while I get it sorted, but that is unnecessary.  It is an annoying distraction. At such times I learn to admire those who live day in and day out with difficult health issues that are not going to get better. So often they face such situations with courage and positivity. I need to learn from them.

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.