Category Archives: Dealing with stuff

Tonight we were discussing Chapter 3 of The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.  In this chapter the author talks about the “table fellowship” of Jesus.  Jesus shares his friendship with sinners and other rabble. 

Then we began talking about what we do.

There are some people we all know that are not very lovable.  They are not lovable because they are manipulative, have addictions problems, mental health issues on top of this and a host of other problems that make them less than desirable to hang around with.  Most of us have been targeted by the persons in question.  Most of the time they want to be bailed out of some situation they have gotten themselves into. 

We discussed together what should be the loving reaction when we are accosted  by such people.  We all have people like this in our personal lives and among our mutual acquaintances.  We do know that we are called to be loving.  How to be loving is the dilemma we face.  Sometimes the love needed is our ability to set limits, to be fairly tough in our expectations.  It is easier to just give them a handout so they will get out of our lives.  But it is not loving to let someone manipulate us into supporting their bad habits. 

Maybe when we let them manipulate us we are in effect saying “there is no hope for you so there is no use working on those bad habits”  So we take the easiest way or the quickest way out of the situation to get on with our lives. 

I suspect we fall far short of what is really needed on our parts to be loving.  That could take a big chunk of time and effort; no quick fix.  Some of these people need more time and commitment than we have. Would Jesus in our places have limited his involvement with them?

So are we just rationalizing the fact that we fail miserably at caring for people or what? 

Sorry this is long. 
Just some of my own philosophy of life that I have been working through this week.

I have always had an admiration for people who hold definite opinions on issues and know exactly what they believe, backing up all their beliefs with facts and statistics.  In the 60’s and 70’s as a Christian young person trying to understand my faith and explain what I believed to others, I often wished I could pull facts and proofs out of my head that would leave the people I talked to with no choice but to choose to follow Christ.  But I never got to that point, especially being able to whip irrefutable evidence out of my head.  I still had many unanswered questions myself.  I always carried around a fair amount of guilt because of that.  I figured that if I was really strongly opinionated, that would be a good sign that I was certain about what I believed.  I can remember wishing that I knew the answers to life’s questions in more black and white terms.

So I studied books like Josh McDowell’s evidence books to learn more facts to prove my beliefs.  I thought this is what I needed to do to be able to defend my faith better. 

But, you know, my mind does not seem to process information in this factual format very well.  I never could remember the factual details, the lists of proofs by probabilities.  I just became frustrated with myself.  All the reading of proofs was about as interesting as memorizing the periodic table in chemistry or the dates of wars and treaties in history.  Because I didn’t have a good grasp of these proofs, or much of a taste for them, I felt incapable of adequately witnessing to my faith.  I couldn’t help but feel pretty inadequate – I simply could not debate issues on the basis of proofs.  And I thought that was the way it needed to be done.

I guess this was my attempt to fit my understanding of my faith into the modern, rational, scientific culture of my youth.  Scientists were using research to prove things.  Philosophers used logic to prove the irrefutable truths they proposed.   We tried to do the same with a very rational approach to faith – one that needed to be substantiated by facts and proofs.

But this approach never was a good fit for my personality.  I am more comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, working through my doubts till I come to an understanding of an issue.  Although I have strong beliefs and some basic beliefs which I will not back down on, I remain a person who can be persuaded by good evidence to modify my stand on an issue.  Many of today’s issues are not simply black or white.  Love modifies how I put what I believe into practice.  I am trying to be sensitive to what Jesus is trying to teach me through the words he left us and through what he is able to teach me as I spend time listening to him. 

Don’t get me wrong – I believe facts about things exist and are important but there is more to life than just facts and things that can be proven.  What can be proven by science; what is believed as fact, is not all there is to life.  Things I have experienced in God’s presence can’t be proven but they have changed me.  Now when I tell about my faith, I don’t get hung up on trying to present a bunch of facts.  I simply tell my own story.  I live my life and they see how it goes for me.  Facts to awe others with would be a lot simpler.  I am an imperfect demonstration to watch.

I can still be intimidated by people who have all their facts together.  Sometimes it causes me to listen to my fears of inadequacy rather than focus on how God wants me to live.  So I try and remember that love for others is still more important than knowing “everything about everything” (1Cor13:2 NLT).   

Life- it is really tough sometimes.  Just found out a niece is very ill – has a long way to go to get better. 

Then Grace came home and when I told her we need to remember her cousin in our prayers, she said and yeah, we need to pray for Amber who I work with too.  She has cancer and she just found out.

At times for me written prayers help settle my soul.  There is comfort to me in knowing that down through the ages people before me have called out with these same words to my God who is always here, always has been even when things are difficult.

From the Compline for Saturday  of the Northumbria Community

In the name of the King of life;
in the name of the Christ of love;
in the name of the Holy Spirit:
the Triune of my strength.

I love you, O Lord my strength.
The Lord is my rock,
my fortress and my deliverer.
My God is my rock
in whom I take refuge.

 I will praise the Lord who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.

I have set the Lord always before me.
Because He is at my right hand,
I shall not be shaken.

I am placing my soul and my body
under Thy guarding this night, O Christ.
May Thy cross this night be shielding me.

Into Your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O Lord, the God of Truth.

The God of life with guarding hold you;
the loving Christ with guarding fold you;
the Holy Spirit, guarding, mould you;
each night of life to aid, enfold you;
each day and night of life uphold you.

May God shield me;
may God fill me;
may God keep me;
may God watch me;
may God bring me this night
to the nearness of His love.

The peace of the Father of joy,
the peace of the Christ of hope,
the peace of the Spirit of grace,

the peace of all peace
be mine this night
in the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Tonight I was together with some friends.  We just sat and shared some deep stuff.  I feel a bit like I’ve just been to a hospital – but his was a nice place and a place that tonight was full of healing for me. 

I guess it hurts a bit to really tell others what it is that hurts – to uncover the layers of calluses that you have been using as protection.  I’m tired of pretending that all is great and healthy when it is not. Tonight it was as if the friends were there administering the healing stuff that comes from the great physician himself.  When it’s laid bare really good healing stuff can be poured on it and it feels good – so good. 

Tonight I feel like I will sleep well.

This fall – late fall when it gets nice and cold around here – Leo and I are taking a cruise down the “Mexican Riviera”.  This is how Leo is using up the backlog of funds he gets to use for continuing education.  The group he is a part of is very generous when it comes to these kinds of funds. 

Anyway we are in the process of getting things arranged and someone contacted me about signing up for this “Partner Program”  which I think is designed to entertain the spouses of the physicians.  It costs extra but I decided to check out what they do. 

The woman who called me was very pleasant – in fact she made this program sound like it would be a mistake not to spend the mere $400 or so to get involved.  But it was all very fuzzy as to what I would be getting so I told her by e-mail that I was in fact looking forward to relaxing and reading, etc but maybe if there were some shore excursions included, then OK I would consider it.  This was part of the response from her:

          Based on your comments it would seem to me that the partner program might not be for you.

It is designed to align with the physicians  program.   There will be speakers on topics such as Practice Management, Physicians Health and Wealth Management that our program will have their own sessions.

Another session is entitled “Living the Life You’ve Earned”.

 

Sara really wanted to go to a party at one of her friends houses.  The parents were going to be there and about 15 other teenagers all about 15 years old.  Sounded OK till she told me there would be alcohol there.  And that the parents were OK with them having alcohol to drink if the kids brought their own. 

Now we are not a dry household.  But it is one thing to offer my own child a drink under my supervision and another to have them offered or allowed to drink in another person’s home when they are only 15. 

So I struggled with what to do.  She was open and honest about this with me.  She did not intend to drink herself and I trusted her on that.  But it bothers me that in order to have a fun party there has to be alcohol served – especially at this age. 

So we discussed it and I agonized over it.  I am not a very legalistic parent with cut and dried rules.  If I was, I wouldn’t have these difficult situations to face.  But that just isn’t me so there you are – I had to decide whether she could go or not.  And she would have agreed to not go if I absolutely said no. 

We came up with a bit of a compromise.  She could go but I would set the curfew because I would be picking her up. 

She mixed up some concoction she was introduced to in Alberta – 5 Alive and cream soda – and filled her Nalgene bottle. 

About an hour before the curfew we had decided on she called me to come and get her.  She had been playing soccer half the day and was just too tired to stay out any longer. 

The other kids all liked her drink and wanted to know what “alcohol”she had put in it.  Cool – cause it was 100% alcohol free.  She got a kick out of that!

Sometimes God is just cool the way he looks after situations.  And one of her friends has decided that she would like to change “religions” (which I think means churches – to which I doubt she goes much now) and come with Sara to her church.  So we’ll see. 

Ran into this interesting entry about a new version of the Bible via Alan.  Most interesting comments on this entry too.  Can the Bible be true without being inerrant?  I think it can and is but then I have been known to interpret parts of this holiest of books as story and literature at times – but always with the understanding that it is full of truth and is inspired writing.  Inspired by God who still speaks to us through it. 

And I am beginning to look at some of the major questions that plague people searching for the truth, searching for God but not really sure if they believe all they have heard about Jesus.  Or can’t understand how we can believe in the God they have seen demonstrated in the Christian church past and present.  I hope people will be brave enough to ask questions over coffee after church.

There is a quote from C.S. Lewis that I want to use.  He quotes Tennyson “There lives more faith in human doubt believe me, than in half the creeds”  Anyone know just where this is from?  Think it is from Lewis’ Reflections on the Psalms but are not sure.

Some of the resources I plan to use:
Letters from a Sceptic by Greg and Ed Boyd
Mere Christianity by C.S.Lewis
The Jesus I Never Knew by Yancey
A New Kind of Christian and The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian McClaren
“But Don’t All Religions Lead to God?” by Michael Green

Any other suggestions?

And I guess the most important thing I can really share, firsthand, will be my own faith story and the reality it is for me. 

I’m actually rather scared to do this.  Why God nudged me to do this I don’t know.  I hope he shows up as we do this cause he will have to be there with me.  I don’t suppose I have to come up with all the answers –  just be willing to let people ask their questions and listen and direct them to places they might find some answers. 

To start my day my office manager and I had an appointment with the alternative measures folks over at Sask. justice.  This summer, while I was away in the Congo, our regular office cleaners hired a replacement cleaner while they too were on vacation.  He turned out to have a problem which drove him to do a very stupid thing – steal and forge some cheques.  So today was reckoning day. 

Last fall, I began meeting with some women to study Yancey’s book, The Jesus I Never Knew.  We got together over coffee at a local restaurant.  One night, we got talking to our waiter about what we were reading (we were the last people in the restaurant) and then got an earful about why he had decided to abandon his Christian faith; was exploring Buddhism..   He admitted that he was impressed that we let him say what he wanted to say without seeming shocked or telling him what he ought to believe.  But he was changing places of work and that was the last we saw of him – as a group.  Since then, I have seen and talked to him a couple of times.  He’s a good waiter – pleasant, gets the orders right, efficient.  So we’ve talked when I’ve been to his new work place and gotten to know a tiny bit about each other.  But I knew only his first name.  He knew my kids were from the Congo. I’m pretty sure he did not know my name or where my practice was.

When he walked into the mediation room this morning he looked at me and said “So that is who you are.  You came in and I waited on you but you didn’t treat me as if I had done anything to you.” 

And so we sat on opposite sides of the table with the mediator in between and began the process.  We confronted. He apologised. He paid us restitution for the money he had taken. Then we began to talk.  We talked about what had gone wrong for him, about addictions, about getting help.  We talked about his gifts and talents and dreams for the future.  He brought up how he had been really involved in his church and then had kind of taken a wrong turn.  We talked about our own experiences, about needing to have people around us for support and accountability and of how he doesnt have to be “well” before he makes his way back to God.  He doesnt think hes quite ready for that yet.

I reminded him of the group of women who were meeting when I first met him.  And I warned him that we had been praying for him since then.  I laughed and told him his chances of escaping God were slim with a bunch of women praying for him.  I think there are just too many coincidences in the way things have played out for it to be anything but God working.

He seems to have a lot of people in his life now too that are keeping an eye on him.  But I think he had a hurtful experience with some people in the church in his past.  I promised to get a couple of books that might help him get a different view of the Christian faith.  And giving him the books will let us keep in touch a bit too. 

Not sure what the mediation officer thought of all this she did try to keep bringing us back to the nitty gritty details the police have to know about the terms of the alternative sentencing.  And we got those details down on paper too. 

The fellows mother thanked the mediation officer.  She told how she had been asked to be in on the mediation process to deal with shoplifters when she owned a business but had always turned down the opportunity for a face to face meeting with the offender.  Now, on the other end, she realised the value of this type of reconciliation and what a huge difference meeting could make.

So our session ended with his promise of letters, my promise of books, a mediations officer hunting down some options for counseling and a new appreciation for this method of dealing with a criminal offence. 

Oh, yeah, I dont know if we actually talked about forgiveness in so many words.  We just did it and he soaked it up.  The hugs we gave at the end of the hour were real.

Our church is making some changes – worship times, changing the order in which we do things, maybe changing a bit the way we use our space.  Nothing too earth shattering but change nonetheless.  We spent a lot of time at our executive board meeting tonight talking about these changes, making sure we were all on the same track – that we know fairly clearly what we are up to. 

You know, I never thought I would be sort of intimidated by these changes we’re doing.  I shouldn’t be – I’m helping to instigate them – but I find myself a bit nervous.  It’s hard to articulate why but I think we become unsure of each other.  I think I am so non-confrontational that the thought that someone close to me won’t adjust to the changes well is sort of scary.  And who knows if they will, or if I myself will, handle all of this well.  That is what I think I am most scared of.  The not being able to predict how people are going to react or even how I am going to react. 

The actual changes – well they are really nothing.  At least nothing of any lasting importance.  Moving some furniture, switching the order of worship from after class and coffee times to before, etc.  But the way we react to them may be of great importance.  It’s our reactions to them that are liable to hurt someone – maybe irrevocably.

Leighton over at his blog talks about the great time we all had at the lake and in particular the way he connected with Dave and Mike.  He said, It was another experience which I could sit back and say, “yeah, THAT was church””

Then do we have church” that exists within Churches and at the same time extends beyond the walls?  Getting together with good friends, really sharing what is going on at a deep level, listening and caring, discussing scripture and good books that make us think, being together because we want to be and praying together seem to me to be part of what church” is.  But then there is more too
        like being part of the music of worship either as part of a congregation or musician
        like being involved in ministry and missions
        like teaching children (ours and others) about our faith
        even like helping to maintain a space where worship can take place
        or even like being a pastor to people

And then there are those connections between believers that cross all sorts of denominational and cultural lines that are simply great because of the common ties we have to Christ.  That is also church.

The time at the lake was church.  Coming back from the lake to interact with a missionary couple was also church, as was sharing in the service and communion the next day in my own Church.  Jamming last night with the worship team and then sitting and talking for another hour with a friend while the rocking” guys jammed after was also church” 

Do we try and separate out the spiritual” connections from all the rest of our human connections and set those up as church”?  If so isn’t that like being a Christian only at church and being something else the rest of the time.  Or is it just the connections at a deeper level, the powerful life changing times” with fellow Christians the sort of connection we can call church?

Maybe church just comes in such a variety of forms that when we try to define it by what happens or by the form it takes, we will always come up short.  Maybe blogging is sometimes church” too. Can we call church” all the different ways that God connects us to himself and at the same time to other believers (and seekers) around us? 

Just asking.