The Unessential Father
I always thought that when your child entered Grade 12 – last year at High School – it was all about study. You know what I mean – study, exams OP scores and thinking about the future. However after seeing four children enter their final year I now realize that Grade 12 is about one thing and possibly one thing only especially if you are a girl.
Forget study – it is about the School Formal. YES, that’s right – you heard me all you fathers of high school daughters – it is the School Formal.
This is an event of ‘Ben Hur’ proportions – organizational skill is essential as are the adequate financial reserves of a small nation, a psychologists mind, nerves of steel, patience of Job, wisdom of Solomon and a keen sense of what to say, when to say it and when to disappear completely.
You see the planning is long term – such things as dress, jewellery, make up, hair, shoes and handbag are only the start of the many choices that have to be made and as a mere male these choices are deemed to be far too important for you to be involved in.
Then there is the choice of who one should take to the formal – any suggestions from a father are considered unhelpful and not even barely tolerated. As if a father would know about these things – such as males?
But no one prepares you THE DAY – yes the day – school finishes at 10.30 am because it takes all day to get ready. A completely foreign concept for a male! As a Dad you want to help but you learn that such help is not required and indeed this is the time for absence. There is a rush of activity, the air is filled with a tension that no man can possibly understand, people come from everywhere for a viewing – this is not the time for faint hearted men – this is the time of women on a mission.
One wrong word, one wrong move or one wrong action from me at this time could prove to be extremely costly and I don’t mean financially.
Yes this is the moment where your feelings of being totally useless and unessential flood you.
Then it happens!
Your daughter comes out of the room – she is ready – pursued by hordes of helpers – for a fleeting moment you think how did so many women get into that room but all is now lost as my daughter stands before me.
I now know my role – I have discovered a father’s role in a daughter’s formal. It is with tears in your eyes you look at her and tell her from the depths of your heart, how truly beautiful and grown up she is – that is the fathers moment and one you never forget!
Who’s The Coach!
My exercise regime continues – up till now I have been training by myself and not really having a clue how to achieve those goals that I had secretly hidden in my heart but hoping desperately to achieve.
So I took the plunge and engaged a personal trainer – Sarah is fantastic – very patient and encouraging – someone who will not tolerate my rot!
We sat down and she analysed what I had been doing by myself over the past few weeks. The look of shock was obvious – ‘You do all this! What about a rest day?’ I thought ‘Rest Day! Novel concept but unnecessary because I have certain goals I want to achieve.’ How unlike me to be like a bull at a gate?
Sarah reviewed my schedule then personally went through the exercise and training regime with me. Helping me, demonstrating to me, coaching me and encouraging me through the process – each exercise was for a specific purpose which fitted into my goals.
It was more specific, more concentrated and it would take less time due to the specific nature of the routine and it incorporated a rest day.
As I walked away from this session I thought about how good this was for me. I felt so empowered – so able – so capable and competent. I had a coach who cared about me. Everyone needs a coach – someone to guide them in doing life so we don’t go the wrong way, exert more effort than we should, waste precious time and energy or make too many mistakes.
I realize you perhaps know what I am going to say next but for me one of the best coaches in my life is my daily devotions and journaling. I find reading my bible in a systematic way and then journaling is indeed like having a personal trainer. It guides me, assists me, encourages me, corrects me and teaches me. Even yesterday devotions provided me with some wonderful counsel in an area of my life that I needed guidance upon.
Who coaches you? Don’t do life alone! What a recipe for disaster that could be?
For more information on Devotions http://www.ircc.org.au/joomla//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=155&Itemid=287
Beneath The Surface
The name Georgia Therese Tear is perhaps unfamiliar to many who read this blog yet for me it is a name that I will never be able to forget. The name invokes the memory of a young grade 9 student at IGGS who sadly passed away in her sleep in 2008. I conducted the funeral before at least a thousand family and friends at the IGGS auditorium. It was perhaps the most emotive and moving experience of my pastoral life.
Yesterday at the request of the school and Georgia’s family I helped conduct a short memorial service where a seat was dedicated to Georgia’s memory.
I stood there in front of the hundred or so gathered in the freezing outdoor cold – memories and tears flowed freely as we remembered being in the same place this time last year.
I stood there as a pastor – a shepherd helping in some way a group of people continue their journey of grief and love. Sometimes in the busyness of life it is so easy for me to forget the real attributes of a pastor and shepherd. I know that my role includes being a ‘jack of all trades’ – amongst them leader, visionary, finance expert, strategist, human relations management and marketing guru – none of these I feel absolutely comfortable mentioning. Perhaps it is because I don’t feel competent in many of these areas. Now I hear pastors using terms to describe themselves as change agent, entrepreneur or culture setter – again perhaps none of these are entirely misplaced.
Yet I didn’t feel like any of these terms applied when standing with a grieving family whose sense of loss and sadness was just as real as it was twelve months ago.
My essential calling as someone with a pastor’s heart was very real to me. I cared deeply for the people before me, they wept I wept, my compassion seemed to be bottomless, my love for these people whom I do not really know was profound and real. My heart cried out to just make things the way they were before this tragedy happened.
Then I realized that this is the part of me as a pastor that no one truly sees. People see the supposedly confident communicator on a weekend where mere fragments of a sentence or even a single word can create a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of gigantic proportions that erodes confidence like a mud slide tears a hillside apart.
The invisible and vulnerable side of the calling as a pastor is often hidden from sight. This is the unseen heart that believes in people, loves people, trusts people, wants the best for people, grieves with people, cries with people and encourages people. It is the heart that hurts and scars far too easily at times, gets discouraged too often at times and realizes the weight of responsibility is sometimes too heavy to bear.
Yet yesterday in the midst of all the emotion, with my heart so heavy for the family of Georgia, I wouldn’t have swapped being there for all the influence, wealth, prominence and status of a person who thinks they have all those things.
For that is truly the pastor’s heart in action at its rawest level – perhaps the glimpse into this unique heart of a shepherd helps you understand me more!
Together
I joined a running group – yep – it just happened. Before I knew it I had signed up and then I realized that the signing up was the easy part. Now I had to actually turn up – 7.00 am Saturday morning!
Saturday arrived and off I went – freezing cold, gathered together in a basement car park were 25 fellow devotees of a new fitness regime. Me – the only male – now that seemed to me to be a problem but no turning back now. The talk was nervous but interesting as it is amazing what people tell you when they are nervous. We talked about why we were here – new running gear that had been purchased for the class – weight lose and other confessions that perhaps on another day would not have been disclosed.
I was nervous – no running for about 7 months made me see every other person as a brilliant runner even if they weren’t.
We were off – the trainers spread themselves throughout the pack. ‘Run at your own pace’ we were told – 6.5 kms is the aim but ‘don’t worry if you can’t’ as the trainers would pick us up if we can’t make it.
I started at the back of the pack but gradually I realized much to my surprise I was keeping up – that was a real shock. People started to drop back and then it happened, I found myself in the lead pack – 4 of us left with one trainer. I felt good until the young, very young trainer said, ‘OK you are the runners of the group – let’s break away – 6.5 kms here we come’. ‘What do you mean break away?’ I thought – then it happened, the pace increased and the rest of the pack was left far behind. I was still with the leading group – it was a miracle.
Nat, was the trainer running with us – she encouraged us as we ran. We compared ages on the run – 25, 27, 32, 36, 36 and then me 50. I was now in trouble as we approached the half way mark. The last hill had taken its toll.
I was starting to fade then Nat said something, “We finish as a team – all of us – come on, we aren’t leaving anyone behind.”
Wow, finish as a team – together. Those words had power for me – immediately I was energized. I held onto those words and despite the pain we all finished together.
We didn’t know each other at the start of the morning but now there was a bond between us – we made it together.
Why do many of us attempt to do life alone? I wouldn’t have made the run alone – I would have faded but ‘together’ something was achieved and I know everyone in the group felt the same thing. None of us were going to be left behind.
Nat taught me something on Saturday – she taught me the meaning of being together, staying together, finishing together and what can be achieved together. I thought it was about the run – it became a lesson far deeper than just running. Can’t wait until the next ‘run’.
Guest Blogger – Liz Dell
A New Friend
I had a really significant ‘A-Ha’ moment this morning, while having a devotional time, at the beach. It’s like the beach has this special way of attuning me to God. I think it must for others too, based on the ‘silent worshippers’ I saw there on the beach with me.
Anyway, I realize there’s a few other experiences that have lead to the, ‘A-Ha’ moment, I had this morning
· I have often prayed for God to put a female mentor in my life, someone I can form a good relationship with and call on for advice or support, & wisdom for Ministry life. I haven’t lamented over it, just asked in prayer and also asked that when I met this person that I would know that she is ‘the one’ for me.
· I am reading ‘The Shack’ at the moment; a story about a man who encounters the trinity in the form of people (two female forms & one male) as well as meeting a personification of Wisdom.
· I know that our mind cannot even begin to conceive God, but I tend to talk to Him as Father & Jesus as friend, kind of external to me; while the Holy Spirit is within me, enabling me, guiding me, equipping me & more.
Well, this morning while reading Proverbs, these verses spoke to me:
I, wisdom dwell together with prudence
I love those who love me
And those who seek me will find me
I walk in the ways of righteousness
Along the paths of justice
And this is what I noticed – Wisdom (God’s Wisdom) is speaking of herself, like a person and I know that in other places in the bible wisdom is referred to by the personal pronoun of ‘she’. All of a sudden, it clicked that ‘Wisdom’ is a person of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit lives in me.
I prayed – ‘Lord, I no longer seek to be wise. I seek to know Wisdom, to be her friend, to walk with her and her in me, in the way of righteousness along the path of justice.’
And God said to me, “She’ll not only be your friend, she will be your mentor”.
I stand in wonder of an amazing God & am so humbled by His presence in my life.
Theology of Discomfort
It was easy when I expounded a vision that involved a ministry to those who were abused and traumatised. It sounded compassionate, caring and perhaps even slightly daring. Then something happened! The vision has started to become a reality.
The church commenced a ‘drop in’ centre as a prologue to a residential facility.
People started to come to church as a result – people who had found love and compassion at the ‘drop in’ centre.
Yet they are different than me – different from anyone in the church. They are not like ‘us’. They are the marginalized, outsiders who made me uncomfortable. They smell differently, they do things in the services that ‘we’ don’t do, they walk around in the services, they talk and answer my rhetorical questions during my message and they interrupt me at inconvenient moments.
‘Love your neighbour’ is fine when the neighbour is like ‘us’.
Suddenly my theology is taking a battering. I love the church because the church is filled with people like me. Everything was comfortable, the services attracted people like me, the programs attracted people like me and people liked the church because it suited their needs but God is turning my world upside down.
I am uncomfortable – it is easy to love people just like me. Yet was this the type of love that Jesus expounded?
Embracing the Father’s love means venturing into places we don’t like going, doing things we don’t want to do, being with people we are uncomfortable with, loving them, serving them, embracing them with a ‘not of this world’ kind of love that actually costs us something of ourselves.
It means doing these things in the church not delegating them to the missions department – out of sight out of mind!
When the world sees a church that embraces a love of people who are not like us and treats them as neighbours they will sense that the love the church expounds is genuine. They will see the miraculous beauty of true love and I suspect that people know genuine love when they see it.
It is exceptionally beautiful when a group of people walk out true love to their neighbours through being with people who they find difficult to understand or uncomfortable to be with.
Especially beautiful to God!
Guest Blogger – Liz Dell continues
To Know Oneself (Part 2)
Well, I was pretty amazed that a poem came out of me on my first blog. I haven’t written a poem for 20 years, since my turbulent teens, except for one I wrote for a university assignment about 5 years ago. I find it exceedingly interesting that this emerged last night and I am wondering what will express itself tonight.
Continuing from last nights topic of who I am; I think we all feel, deep down a desire to be known. Not known in a famous sense but to be truly known by someone. To have our soul acknowledged by another. To be understood. To be accepted for all the complexities we are. And to be loved anyway. Of course this requires us to know ourselves, to be more self aware. And this takes time, reflection and a certain attitude.
About 2 months ago, we did an exercise at work where other members of our team had to write comments about us on a sheet of paper. Our team leader then laminated the sheet & it is stuck up on my office wall. The words written about me are qualities like: confident, determined, disciplined, natural, intelligent, genuine, passionate, challenging and leadership. They only wrote the good stuff.
I am passionate. Which at times I think is really, ‘emotional’ – reframed. Passion is an interesting quality… it drives me, frustrates me, consumes me, energizes me. I thank God for it, but at times I’d like to give it the flick… it is relentless. And as great as it is, it has a ‘flip’ side. The flip side is harder for me to manage… impatience…. frustration at indifference … and sometime exhaustion . I see that more mature leaders have learned to harness & pace their passion. I hope I can learn that too.
Guest Blogger Liz Dell
Liz heads up all the community developments programs for Ipswich Region Community Church – a Psychologist AND she writes
Keeping it real
Today was my first day as a Specialised Minister of Australian Christian Churches. Well not really my first day, I’ve been doing the job for almost 2 years, but I got my certificate today. It’s not really a certificate. It’s a card. You know like a video card, a student card, a driver’s licence type thing. But I don’t feel like I am a real Minister of Religion, just because I have a card.
I spent a bit of time today thinking about how we define ourselves. I find the answer to who I am, difficult unless considering which relationship I am measuring it by…. Or what role I am playing…. Mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend or over the years…student, airwoman, receptionist, personal assistant, counsellor, psychologist, and now…. pastor. None of these are really me. Parts of me are in all of them, but the real me is more like ….water or freedom or passion.
Like many, I seek to be who I really am designed to be & integrated in the many aspects of my personality. That’s why I wrote this blog. To see who I am here, in this space… to see which aspects of myself are reflected in this experience.
I want to keep it real…. the highs…. the lows…. the challenges … the triumphs
of being me:
Like water
I am
Sometimes calm & soothing
At times building strength, power and crashing
Like waves in the ocean
Part of something bigger, vast
Sometimes refreshing
Life giving
Nurturing
Sometimes cold
And hard, like ice
Sometimes melting
Or shed through tears
Collected by God
Like water
I am
