We don't have poppy day. That is reserved for the 11th hour of the 11th of the 11th. In countries that remember that day anyway. We have Anzac Day.
The national identities of New Zealand and that large island we sometimes call the West Island were born on those messy Turkish killing fields. It seems we realised that we were not just servants of the Empire but people of our own something or other.
So I wore a poppy at church Sunday.
I am not sure it did anything for my presentation. Maybe the red blob kept some of our sleepy ones awake. The powerpoint would have helped too as the text was mainly purple. We will see if the masses become witness as a result of the message. Oh yes you can have a look there if you want - at http://robinpalmer.wordpress.com/.
A journalist has thrown a cat amongst the proverbial Anzacs this week by asserting that the Australians overstate the national identity thing - and another alleges that the Australian soldiers were all a lazy bunch of thieves. They do pick interesting times for battle don't they - in the week we remember those who have sacrificed their lives for others.
Now that Anzac Day has arrived the mud slinging is over. While some programmes on TV make too much of the development of national identity (apparently even the Irish got on for a while with a common Turkish enemy but then reverted to killing each other across a religious divide thereafter), many give credit where it is due to the many brave men who gave up their lives.
Thinking about their courage - how badly trained we are for the battles we face. Being a pastor and all that, I've noticed how domesticated the Lord's army has become. We don't know the rules of engagement very well in the spiritual battle we face. How easily we fit God's agenda into a controllable spot in our lives ruled by the dollar and other demanding powers.
Even sports teams practice more than our dear parishioners read their bibles or get together to share and encourage one another. Having been in an army, I think I have some idea of the distinction I am making.
Having had that little moan, I am delighted to have had a holiday today. And full marks to my bank who fixed the problem that many had today (as did I) when my stipend did not arrive in my account. They put in some extra hours to sort it, so to speak. Yay for ASB. It's a very Anzaccy bank really - being the local manifestation of the Commonwealth Bank (of Australia). How connected we still are across the famous ditch.
Stipend? you ask. What is that? That's the fancy term for the living allowance pastors receive as they serve in the army of God. It always reminds me of horse racing somehow. The stipendiary steward is a very important person in that industry. They have the power to inspect stables AND check that horses are not doped! Apart from making sure that everything there is done with integrity. I wonder if pastors do that in some way? Nah, probably an unrelated business altogether.
So this weekend I will not wear a poppy at church. Won't even be there as I have a weekend off - which is intended to refresh the pastor by enabling him - in the minds of some parishioners anyway - to sneak off to some other church to get new and fresh ideas - hints and tips etc. Funny thought really - when community should be that which sustains you. How odd that pastors build community and in some places are compelled to move away when they retire.
I digress of course. But that's exactly what happens in these so called "blog" entries. We reflect on peculiar things and then post our inner confusion on a virtual notice board to see how many countries are represented in our list of "hits".
This Anzac day then - a grateful thought for those who sacrificed their lives for our peace and security - and for those who serve still today.
In the words of Laurence Binyon:
They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
We will remember them!
Tuesday 24 April 2012
Monday 16 April 2012
Talking to trees
I've always been nervous of these tree hugging types. I remember living in Port Shepstone when our national church was building retirement homes for ministers up the road from where we lived. Never mnd the problem of ministers not being able to afford the homes. They rented one out to a retired minister and the others to what are now termed "randoms". And when the Moderator consecrated them (an interesting thing to do) he used a service for consecrating churches (in the absence of another obvious service in the book). Who knows whether it improved the singing in the showers of the four homes.
The point is that when the land was cleared a local American lady of Buddhist persuasion objected to the trees being cut down (they were exotic if I recall). She wrote to the local paper and intimated that she would ordain the trees so as to preserve their sanctity (and prevent them from being turned into something else). She must have thought that ordained people and thus trees would be safer (which I have discovered over 25 years of ordained ministry is not necessarily true).
So I've been nervous of tree loving souls who elevate trees beyond their actual position in the order of things. Here's the irony. My mother used to sing "I talk to the trees" when we children did not listen to her. (The song continues - "and they don't listen to me..."). Well I now stop and engage trees most nights. Yes I have succumbed. I am the ordained one and they don't answer back when I say hello. Mind you neither do the sparrows I greet (clearly I have no direct line dating back to St Francis of Assisi).
I walk the dog you see. I talk to her all the time. She doesn't say much as she is too busy reading messages left - you guessed it - on trees. So our fast walk (intended to exhaust her and get me fitter and looking less like a tree in girth terms) grinds to a halt when her nose discerns a message at the base of a tree. Which happens often as the trees (exotic I suspect) are fairly evenly spaced in the street. So I have taken to look up at the trees and question them on what they have seen in their lives. I mean, like parishioners, they are here when you arrive, and unless some other "random" chops them down and incurs the wrath of the city council, the trees are there when you leave. As are many parishioners.
Which is exactly my experience in every church I have served in. Key people watch the pastor come and eventually go. It's a kind of life tenure. The same applies to headmasters of course!
Well I have started engaging trees in this peculiar fashion - something like the old milk train that used to stop at every station. There are trees that are very very old. There is a particular tree called Tane Mahuta for example that is estimated at 1200 years old and is 51 metres high (and 14 metres wide!). Agathis australis - the Kauri of course. These relatives of my humble street trees clearly have a story to tell!
Well I will persist in my new conversations. My dog does listen at times - and is improving in her stop-start ways. But she can't help stopping at these trees. So I stop now as well. And look up. They may not listen. Neither do some people. But I do give them a chance!
Stop. Look up. It sounds like a great sermon title.
The point is that when the land was cleared a local American lady of Buddhist persuasion objected to the trees being cut down (they were exotic if I recall). She wrote to the local paper and intimated that she would ordain the trees so as to preserve their sanctity (and prevent them from being turned into something else). She must have thought that ordained people and thus trees would be safer (which I have discovered over 25 years of ordained ministry is not necessarily true).
So I've been nervous of tree loving souls who elevate trees beyond their actual position in the order of things. Here's the irony. My mother used to sing "I talk to the trees" when we children did not listen to her. (The song continues - "and they don't listen to me..."). Well I now stop and engage trees most nights. Yes I have succumbed. I am the ordained one and they don't answer back when I say hello. Mind you neither do the sparrows I greet (clearly I have no direct line dating back to St Francis of Assisi).
I walk the dog you see. I talk to her all the time. She doesn't say much as she is too busy reading messages left - you guessed it - on trees. So our fast walk (intended to exhaust her and get me fitter and looking less like a tree in girth terms) grinds to a halt when her nose discerns a message at the base of a tree. Which happens often as the trees (exotic I suspect) are fairly evenly spaced in the street. So I have taken to look up at the trees and question them on what they have seen in their lives. I mean, like parishioners, they are here when you arrive, and unless some other "random" chops them down and incurs the wrath of the city council, the trees are there when you leave. As are many parishioners.
Which is exactly my experience in every church I have served in. Key people watch the pastor come and eventually go. It's a kind of life tenure. The same applies to headmasters of course!
Well I have started engaging trees in this peculiar fashion - something like the old milk train that used to stop at every station. There are trees that are very very old. There is a particular tree called Tane Mahuta for example that is estimated at 1200 years old and is 51 metres high (and 14 metres wide!). Agathis australis - the Kauri of course. These relatives of my humble street trees clearly have a story to tell!
Well I will persist in my new conversations. My dog does listen at times - and is improving in her stop-start ways. But she can't help stopping at these trees. So I stop now as well. And look up. They may not listen. Neither do some people. But I do give them a chance!
Stop. Look up. It sounds like a great sermon title.
Friday 13 April 2012
Easter and beyond
We're still in the Easter season in church life - all the way to Pentecost. I guess that should be at least 7 weeks. The $28 million spent on Easter eggs must have made some people happy on these happy islands we call New Zealand. I gave it my best - is what some people say in their persuits. Exams, motor racing, surfing, preaching. Preaching? What an odd pastime! Well it's really my job - as an ordained minister I "preach" on a sunday to people who choose to show up and listen. At the same time I advocate that people should not preach AT each other. Something weird here. Preaching can be dullish monologue and pretty boring to boot. I "preached" at a funeral today. The lovely people said I did a good job! And that it was a lovely speech that I gave!
Easter and beyond. I spoke on the resurrection last Sunday. Again. For decades I have spoken about this new life and at umpteen funerals spoken of the hope we have after death.
So what lies beyond your Easter? Another long wait to the next long weekend? The next party, celebration, birthday or even Christmas? Do we really lurch from Friday night binge to the next on these our islands? To each new reason to drown our sorrows or eat some exotic new something to boost our energy and lagging enthusiasm?
What really keeps us going? A quest for something better? A new cure so that we can live longer? A new holiday so that we can escape again? Or as in my case a new Monday to recover from the mysteries of my job - preaching to people who volunteer to listen politely and forget quickly.
Easter and beyond. We will continue to reflect on the resurrection appearances of Jesus - the new community that He established which kept on telling more people about that same resurrection.
Life after death does not seem to excite this generation. Their "other" world is primarily a cyber-world - so connected are they across the wireless networks, copper wire families and fibre-optic friendship circles - their "otherworldly" life a present utopia. Or so they tell me.
But wait. Just a minute is the old way of waving a conversational flag or pressing a pause button in our thinking. I am talking to you, dear reader, using this same network of keyboards and screens. How few of you talk back. Comments do not abound, despite my readers who have a little look from all over the globe at these mutterings. Blogging is it? I had a 7 year old asking me this week to help him blog - to set up a place where he can write.So like me he sounded - words wanting a place to sit for just a minute.
Words - my food, my blood, my drink - they run around this aging brain and kick away in depths of conscience and in my thumping heart which for a reason known only to greater authority bangs away in my head and ear in the silent hours of the night. Next thing the adverts on my Facebook page will shout "tinitus" alongside nagging requests to share in new gout trials. How perverse you are the ism of consumer. Forever twisting these old arms to buy or test some new source of sickly sweet corporate profit.
Beyond Easter? So much awaits us - the calming and inspiring lines of new songs and tunes we could write. More poetry that waits to paint vast new landscapes of rythmn and lexical cohesion or subtle confusion. Or the animated conversations over coffee on street corners in predictable cafes with their unpredictable chatter. Perhaps there await new hours of solitude in which we reach far deeper - nearer that place between soul and spirit in our very depths - those prayers that creak and groan in agonising rooms of doubt and hope all jumbled up together.
Easter and beyond. The shiny wrappers tossed away and tonnes of chocolate processed and forgotten - what joys could there waiting be for you and me - beyond.
Easter and beyond. I spoke on the resurrection last Sunday. Again. For decades I have spoken about this new life and at umpteen funerals spoken of the hope we have after death.
So what lies beyond your Easter? Another long wait to the next long weekend? The next party, celebration, birthday or even Christmas? Do we really lurch from Friday night binge to the next on these our islands? To each new reason to drown our sorrows or eat some exotic new something to boost our energy and lagging enthusiasm?
What really keeps us going? A quest for something better? A new cure so that we can live longer? A new holiday so that we can escape again? Or as in my case a new Monday to recover from the mysteries of my job - preaching to people who volunteer to listen politely and forget quickly.
Easter and beyond. We will continue to reflect on the resurrection appearances of Jesus - the new community that He established which kept on telling more people about that same resurrection.
Life after death does not seem to excite this generation. Their "other" world is primarily a cyber-world - so connected are they across the wireless networks, copper wire families and fibre-optic friendship circles - their "otherworldly" life a present utopia. Or so they tell me.
But wait. Just a minute is the old way of waving a conversational flag or pressing a pause button in our thinking. I am talking to you, dear reader, using this same network of keyboards and screens. How few of you talk back. Comments do not abound, despite my readers who have a little look from all over the globe at these mutterings. Blogging is it? I had a 7 year old asking me this week to help him blog - to set up a place where he can write.So like me he sounded - words wanting a place to sit for just a minute.
Words - my food, my blood, my drink - they run around this aging brain and kick away in depths of conscience and in my thumping heart which for a reason known only to greater authority bangs away in my head and ear in the silent hours of the night. Next thing the adverts on my Facebook page will shout "tinitus" alongside nagging requests to share in new gout trials. How perverse you are the ism of consumer. Forever twisting these old arms to buy or test some new source of sickly sweet corporate profit.
Beyond Easter? So much awaits us - the calming and inspiring lines of new songs and tunes we could write. More poetry that waits to paint vast new landscapes of rythmn and lexical cohesion or subtle confusion. Or the animated conversations over coffee on street corners in predictable cafes with their unpredictable chatter. Perhaps there await new hours of solitude in which we reach far deeper - nearer that place between soul and spirit in our very depths - those prayers that creak and groan in agonising rooms of doubt and hope all jumbled up together.
Easter and beyond. The shiny wrappers tossed away and tonnes of chocolate processed and forgotten - what joys could there waiting be for you and me - beyond.
Sunday 1 April 2012
April's Fool and Palms
April fool's jokes have not made any appearances in our house this year. It turns out it was just another working day really. One worked at recovering from a late night out. One went to work in Auckland city. One paid pastor went to work doing two Sunday morning services and playing the piano at one of them too. And one unpaid pastor and mum continued keeping the rest of us in food and various kinds of attire.
And Jessie the dog had a daytime and nighttime walk!
At church the first anniversary of our arrival in the city of sails was marked with flowers and chocolates which were gratefully received. Amazing how quickly the year has gone. I guess we are pretty settled, with three of five in a seemingly sorted employment and/or career path.
The interesting parts of the day included Palm Sunday at church (a lovely family did bring some Palms)and the peculiar end to New Zealand's daylight saving spell. Clocks went back an hour, and we all slept longer in theory. Naturally there were some casualties in terms of arrival times. There seemed to be lots of early people and some who arrived in-between things.
The question of the long term vision of the "parish" remains fascinating. We are slowly investigating the nature of being missional (the whole church being called to reach out into the community in love and service - the hands on aspect of being good news when you proclaim it). I was reading tonight something that I wrote in 1994. Years away and many years on I could read the same message and it would make sense - names and places would have to be changed (perhaps to contextualize the conversation - there are no innocent people involved to be protected). In short the church is still not doing what I suggested was its raison d'etre 18 years ago. So I can only conclude that the problem is not the idea but the how - the way we are meant to be church in the world requires major change. Should we fail to make this adjustment (adaptation is the better word) and it may well be that we (our local church) will continue to be stable and declining with the latter simply winning the race.
My predecessor is said to have hankered after the community life he knew before - and I am told was very happy to return to a rural New Zealand. "Loving communities" feature in our mission statement. What that means and how to "build" them is perhaps a process of mutual discovery between pastor and people! :-)
So no one tried to fool us. Palm(er) Sunday has come and gone.Being back on the piano was really great - there is a sense that I really belong there. So many have been asking me just recently (voices from my past) about this business of me leading worship at the piano. It was really easy with the amazing musicians on vocals and guitar!
New Zealand was once described as "lurching from one problem to another". The insular nature of things (a geographical and psychological reality) makes local politics quite frustrating. And television interviewers are quite rude on the whole. It makes for peculiar viewing but hey - there is less corruption than our motherland and crime is relatively minimal (although violent crime has increased in our six years here). And we are a happy blend here on the north shore of voracious eaters of koeksusters and biltong and other South African goodies, together with a wide range of European and Asian expats and their yummy dishes! All the more reason to walk the dog more often and at greater pace.
Our volcanoes are behaving. The earthquakes in Christchurch seem to have waned in number, but the rebuilding issues there are so terribly slow and disheartening to the locals. Our millions of sheep seem happily oblivious of their ultimate international destinies, and our cows have to contend with their penalties on account of global warming and their methanic flatulence.
Tomorrow is Monday. I shared (by way of being interviewed) at our men's breakfast that while I do take this day as sabbath, more people apparently die on Mondays. So far we have not had too many such days of sudden loss or final surrender. Our faithful folk in their 80s and 90s are such treasures. As are our wonderful children and young people who generate such energy and joy. We pray that all may be safe as this new month progresses.
The forty-plus days of Lent are progressing well too and the challenge of personal prayer and group study have reminded us quite emphatically that God's love message in Christ is not a mere text message or truncated tweet. It is a bold act of service, love and sacrifice in the one aptly termed the "man for others". As we come to this very special week of Easter, may the enormity of his love touch your life.
April showers of blessing refresh you greatly!
And Jessie the dog had a daytime and nighttime walk!
At church the first anniversary of our arrival in the city of sails was marked with flowers and chocolates which were gratefully received. Amazing how quickly the year has gone. I guess we are pretty settled, with three of five in a seemingly sorted employment and/or career path.
The interesting parts of the day included Palm Sunday at church (a lovely family did bring some Palms)and the peculiar end to New Zealand's daylight saving spell. Clocks went back an hour, and we all slept longer in theory. Naturally there were some casualties in terms of arrival times. There seemed to be lots of early people and some who arrived in-between things.
The question of the long term vision of the "parish" remains fascinating. We are slowly investigating the nature of being missional (the whole church being called to reach out into the community in love and service - the hands on aspect of being good news when you proclaim it). I was reading tonight something that I wrote in 1994. Years away and many years on I could read the same message and it would make sense - names and places would have to be changed (perhaps to contextualize the conversation - there are no innocent people involved to be protected). In short the church is still not doing what I suggested was its raison d'etre 18 years ago. So I can only conclude that the problem is not the idea but the how - the way we are meant to be church in the world requires major change. Should we fail to make this adjustment (adaptation is the better word) and it may well be that we (our local church) will continue to be stable and declining with the latter simply winning the race.
My predecessor is said to have hankered after the community life he knew before - and I am told was very happy to return to a rural New Zealand. "Loving communities" feature in our mission statement. What that means and how to "build" them is perhaps a process of mutual discovery between pastor and people! :-)
So no one tried to fool us. Palm(er) Sunday has come and gone.Being back on the piano was really great - there is a sense that I really belong there. So many have been asking me just recently (voices from my past) about this business of me leading worship at the piano. It was really easy with the amazing musicians on vocals and guitar!
New Zealand was once described as "lurching from one problem to another". The insular nature of things (a geographical and psychological reality) makes local politics quite frustrating. And television interviewers are quite rude on the whole. It makes for peculiar viewing but hey - there is less corruption than our motherland and crime is relatively minimal (although violent crime has increased in our six years here). And we are a happy blend here on the north shore of voracious eaters of koeksusters and biltong and other South African goodies, together with a wide range of European and Asian expats and their yummy dishes! All the more reason to walk the dog more often and at greater pace.
Our volcanoes are behaving. The earthquakes in Christchurch seem to have waned in number, but the rebuilding issues there are so terribly slow and disheartening to the locals. Our millions of sheep seem happily oblivious of their ultimate international destinies, and our cows have to contend with their penalties on account of global warming and their methanic flatulence.
Tomorrow is Monday. I shared (by way of being interviewed) at our men's breakfast that while I do take this day as sabbath, more people apparently die on Mondays. So far we have not had too many such days of sudden loss or final surrender. Our faithful folk in their 80s and 90s are such treasures. As are our wonderful children and young people who generate such energy and joy. We pray that all may be safe as this new month progresses.
The forty-plus days of Lent are progressing well too and the challenge of personal prayer and group study have reminded us quite emphatically that God's love message in Christ is not a mere text message or truncated tweet. It is a bold act of service, love and sacrifice in the one aptly termed the "man for others". As we come to this very special week of Easter, may the enormity of his love touch your life.
April showers of blessing refresh you greatly!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)