'our expectations'? more on at-homeness

In the midst of what is summer holidays here in New Zealand there is a very different feel and approach to Christmas/New Year. For us no white Christmas! and thankfully so, though it has been wet. However, that is not to say that people don't feel the rush and pressures.

My friend Craig says this:

One of my favorite Christmas poems comes from W.H. Auden, For the Time Being. It is a fantastic narrative poem that moves through the story of Christmas at many different levels. One of the lines towards the end suggests that what we have done is tried too hard to make Christmas live up to our expectations. (see Craig's Table Talk for more)

Having offered some reflections on Simeon and Anna myself and as we move to New Year in which people (we too) will have new expectations I wonder if we can resist the temptation to merely try and pull our socks up and try harder and better than before, if we can, not just in relation to Christmas, but in our daily living, not try too hard to make church and life or whatever it is to live up to our expectations...otherwise it makes for busy-ness.
(on that note look at Mark Balfour's blog - December 23, 2004'you must be busy...'. He also in November had some stuff re- quiet spaces)

As Craig says,

Christmas isn't about our expectations. I believe my expectations are too low. I'm not cut of the same faithful cloth as Simeon and Anna. I'm not sure I'd last a lifetime waiting and hoping. My expectations are probably too low. They're probably low so I won't be disappointed. I can hear the echo of phrases like "make sure you have realistic expectations." I believe that means "don't hope for too much." I suppose it is a way of bringing solace to children when they don't get what they want. But it's bad advice.

Christmas is about meeting God in the person of Jesus. Anna and Simeon's expectations were very high. And God went beyond even what they could hope for by sending his Son.
Of course Christmas isn't the only time we can be met by God. Any day will do. In fact any day will have to do. How about the day after? And the day after that? God has his own expectations. He expects us to recognize him each day.

As I begin to look ahead into early 2005 and make some 'plans' for Highgate and aspects of mission I have expectations, but I reckon it has to come from doxology/worship and quiet space for us as community of grace and at a personal level. It demands then an at-homeness in Christ to gain the wisdom of the heart to know what to do in ways that are less 'my' busy-ness that only leads to fatigue and relies on my control. The demand to 'wait expectantly' then is the call to exercise a sabbath rhythm.

Christmas Eve - Othering?

This Leunig cartoon gave me much to think about 'Others'



It speaks to me of the sort of questions we ask ourselves. It also seems to me to have the sad sense of wandering lostness that we face in the church fortressed. The sadness in it I think is that this figure reflects on how each "other' one is alone, yet he is no better either. What is it like to be somebody else? - speaks of interpathy. How to connect?
On this eve perhaps we need to consider God's interpathy with us in Christ - the incarnation - God in the neighbourhood! Again we speak much about incarnational theology, we study and research demographics, but the reality is that we need to get connected and relate openly and honestly in our humanity as followers of Christ. We need to be othering in our places!

Leanabh an aigh

Child in the manger infant of Mary;

outcast and stranger, Lord of all!

Child who inherits all our transgressions,

all our demerits on him fall.

Mary Macdonald 1817-1890

Happy Christmas
agus moran beannachan (many blessings)

Crowded space

Often I do not do well in crowds that bustle and elbow and well... so tonight we headed down for 5pm to Otago farmer's Market at the old railway station - a special one tonight before Christmas. (Usually it runs Saturdays) Boy was it busy, squeezed along the platform and wonderful smells of sausage and onion.... not good when you are hungry. Met some folks we knew, bumped into others we didn't. Was struck by the lack of grumpiness in most. Long lines for Waimate Strawberries, flowers and veggies galore, kid's playing carols on recorder, northumbrian pipes also and there were even drummers and 2 belly dancers!(representative of the magi from the east?) and lots more. A fun atmosphere and BUSY for Dunedin.

My wife was amazed as we headed home when I said that I really enjoyed the fun of the crowd and stalls... it made a change from trying to negotiate Union Street in Aberdeen, Scotland and worse Mark's & Spencer's! I did hear a Scottish accent say that this reminder her of Scotland. As a Scot I knew what she meant, but then again it really wasn't !( Billy Connolly was right!!) This crowded space of the marketplace. So often the church has used that phrase for being in the world where people are. I wonder more and more about that image and it's relevance for some cities, however, being where people are is also where we live our daily lives too and so we need to challenge the distinctions that creep into our terms of reference and language of 'mission'. Our dislocation perhaps lends itself to such. This was a contrast to the "waiting space provided last week, but I personally feel that therein is the key, that our waiting space for quiet and still reflection was to be catalytic in our service among the crowded places of our daily living.
One challeneg for us on Highgate is not to set in place a 'come to us' approach, rather to find ways to be good neighbours in the crowded places... even perhaps to see if we can get a stall at the market perhaps?

'waiting' as resistance - 'at-homeness'

I was asked recently about contentment in old age. The elderly lady who asked me deserved some respect and so I listened, but didn’t feel it appropriate to start suggesting and a-z on it as I was at least half her years. Last week in ‘Waiting’ and Sunday we considered what it was to wait expectantly. Simeon and Anna I felt offered some clues. What was it about these two elderly people that caused them to persevere? To seem so content in their daily life of worship, fasting and praying?
Someone asked me if our ‘waiting art space was open this week as they had thought about it last week and it had gone… they got too busy!!!! I was waiting on someone saying something like that and simply looked at them. What can one say when what was on offer was exactly concerned with all that ensnared them and their week. I hope they got the point!
Me? Well I am actually resting up after the last few weeks and am looking forward to applying the things that had started to run away from me. In fact while I was ‘waiting’ I read
Psalm 90 v12 ‘Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom.’ This verse in particular seemed to hit home and I offered it on Sunday to folks as we pondered Simeon and Anna. I think they cherished God’s promises and they held in hope to it. Hope being as Stringfellow terms it ‘reliance upon grace in the face of death’ More it is ‘living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently, joyously in the effectiveness of the word of God’. I believe that in this hoping is contentment that enabled them to number their days immersed in Christ and gained hearts of wisdom to know that this child was the one. Considering Psalm 90 Brueggemann notes the ‘abiding constancy of Yahweh as home’ being the reality of this psalm. It is the sense of ‘at-homeness’ that Simeon and Anna make reality in their lifestyle – lives not captive to proof, evidence, overly impressed by data or demographic but persistently paying attention to God’s Lordship. Life rooted in faith this way gains ‘a heart of wisdom.’
So I find some way towards an answer for this elderly lady who asked a question , as well as find some lessons from advent myself. Our Highgate mission must continue in the new stages in hope (reliance upon grace in face of all that is deathly) and live out it’s at-homeness that others find home in Christ.

Defining your day?

Our installation at Roslyn has been up and running a few days now. For those daring to come it seems to have achieved what it offered as a space to wait and be quiet in. "WAITING- the Quiet Place' seems to have offered an experience that has been positive. For those of us on door, so to speak, it has also been defining. In fact I borrow Martin's words - today he commented on how the 'waiting' has also been defining of his day. I agree. It has been that recall to something that I have felt has been rushing away from me in the past few weeks - the rushing of so many things crowds out Christ, leaves little space to hear him.
More deeply though it is a serious reminder of the things that demand of us and so define our days. It asks questions of what drives us? What motivates? is it 'self' importance that denies Christ?
I came upon this from Paul Fromont. While it is directed at clergy (rightly) I think it can apply more widely. I'd direct you to Paul Fromont's Blog(Prodigal Kiwi).
I've taken liberty to pick this part out -

December 14, 2004
Parker Palmer - Leaders and Functional Atheism

Parker Palmer well articulates a recent learning on my part:
“A third shadow common among leaders is “functional atheism,” the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen – a conviction held even by people who talk a good game about God.
This shadow causes pathology on every level of our lives. It leads us to impose our will on others, [to get resentful and frustrated], stressing our relationships, sometime to the point of breaking. If often eventuates in burnout, depression, and despair, as we learn the world will not bend to our will and we become embittered about that fact. Functional atheism is the shadow that drives collective [and individual] frenzy as well. It explains why the average group can tolerate no more than 15 seconds of silence: if we are not making noise, we believe, nothing good is happening and something must be dying…
The gift we receive on the inner journey is the knowledge that ours is not the only act in town. Not only are there other acts out there, but some of them are even better than ours, at least occasionally! We learn that we need not carry the whole load but can share it with others, liberating us and empowering them. We learn sometimes that we are free to lay the load down altogether. The great community asks us to do only that what we are able and trust the rest to other hands… ” (Emphasis, mine).
(From Let Your Life Speak, pp.88-89).
It's a kind of "messianic complex!" Often it’s all too easy to think that we’re irreplaceable, that we’re the centre of a church congregation or a workplace etc; that somehow if we’re not around those things will fall down around the ears of those who remain. Sometimes we even quietly hope that will happen so that we can say, “I told you so!” This isn’t good for us. Often we remain somewhere longer than we should; a false sense of our own importance damages both us (we burn out, we grow resentful, we grow arrogant, we feel that we have to be involved, be at the centre, be the “experts” rather than co-learners etc. etc) and those we are amongst (they become reliant upon us, never growing up, never learning to take responsibility, never feeling competent or empowered etc. As Palmer says, on the inner journey – that scary journey where we face and confront the realities of who we are (beneath surface appearances), we learn that “we are not the only act in town.” We free ourselves and we free others when we make this discovery. We learn by experience the meaning of grace. In freeing ourselves we learn to become all that God created us to uniquely be, we begin to flourish, we begin to live adventurously. We free ourselves from fear. We learn to worship our triune God.

Art space - conversation

Having had the weekend to formally initiate the Highgate in it's mission, it was good today to begin fresh conversations about 'future orientated matters. as 2 of us sat in the waiting place. Reflecting on the weekend and the preaching from Isaiah- Leaving the past behind now and moving through into the newness - what does that really mean NOW?
Among the things I recall from conversation it seems to me that the challenge we face is not empathy, there's almost enough of that, rather it's that little bit more in mission in calling as disciples -
Interpathy = an expansion of empathy relating to thinking with and feeling with a person who is other to us. It is actually to step into and genuinely be involved in the experience of the other and see from their world view. Interpathy is cross cultural and is, I think/suggest what Jesus was doing in relation to all alienated groups/people in his day, therefore what about us?

It isn't so much laying on new things and expecting people to turn up, we need to really get into others shoes, genuinely here Therein lies the immense challenge to go deeper and further into the uncharted spaces and places with 'others'.

Creating - Art Space

Today was spent juggling several things. The main thing was setting in place our art space in Roslyn facility. There is an intimacy in this building that lends itself. We have Leanne's art and are running with "WAITING' as a place for quiet, following her Quiet Space exhibition as it fits advent well. We're open through Saturday afternoon/evenings. Maybe no-one will come, no-one respond, but then again....
Among the projected images/icons I came across this somewhat haunting image of Mary. On a large screening those eyes draw you.(is it just me?)


Oil and gold leaf on zinc panel. Museum of Russian Art, Kiev. (follow the link Vrubel)
Apparently her face, in Vrubel's eyes, was an epitome of the ideal, spiritual beauty; not only are her eyes large and almond-shaped, like the eyes of the Virgin on many icons, but they show a similar anxiety and sadness. The brows are regular, the nose straight but wider than the traditional thin and long noses on icons, and the slightly puckered lips seem to be a prelude to tears of a mother who will eventually give up her son for the sins of the world. Even though strict Orthodoxy would reject this image for its "earthly" character, from the aesthetic point of view Vrubel's icon is a powerful and haunting image. [S.H.]

Anyway, I also have a funeral of the husband of a christian couple of some 63 years marriage. I sat with them yesterday and called again today. I listened to their stoies of days gone bye as well as recent days and what yesterday was and felt like. Waiting has been a hard task in life the past 2 weeks and I don't like how it all is, yet... today setting up and then this visit and waiting alongside them in their grief ( and even some laughter), pointed me to consider again this image we will use. It points me to the earthy-ness of life for Mary and yet God... it points me to the earthy-ness of mourning, and yet God...

Hear the Lord say 'Faith'

Hear the Lord say 'Hope'

Hear the Lord say 'Love'

and hear the Lord say this - to you. Amen

Newness- Highgate Particularity

It was the big weekend as we became officially the Highgate Mission. Quite a weekend was had. Hence lack of blogging in recent week. Saturday was a buffet around lots of yummy food! A good place to start we reckon.


food (lots of... as well as some improptu singing by kids, lots of chat and laughter together)


Sunday morning was all 'in house' leadership stuff, and in the evening a worship experience signaling God's work of 'newness' in a PCANZ that like many other churches is in the image of Andrew Bell who was guest preacher like the old Irish man dying and smelling the cheese scones he loved so much, scrambled and crawled with every bit of energy he could sum up, grasping the bannister and nearly at the table, reaches in a stretch to get a scone when he gets whacked on the hand by his wife who says " leave them alone! They're for the funeral!' Cruel perhaps, but he pointed us to this as an image of Pressie church.
Don't misread our delight at the newness we sense. There are huge issues to grapple with and some challenges mission-wise which will take many to dimensions of faith and witness they have not gone before - it will at times be painful, but we will also experience joy together!
celebrations music

ONe dynamic that is actually becoming quite fun in a way is the manner in which people around beyond us are very curious about us. They may even be more than curious. We've had all the 'modernity' stuff asked of us and challenge us, but I think we've managed to run the fine line to get us to the juncture now when we can begin to risk newness beyond old paradigms.What's so different? Unlike other tacks on 'mergers', this one has so many unresolved matters of facilities, money... etc. Why? no being blind and nutty, but actually grasping a dream living with it and sharing it and in the oddness beginning to capture and word a vision of mission. Mission is the thrust if this into unknown territory but it happens in our particularity.

It also now means that we create spaces for the new.

Particularity - worship

Forgive my indulgance. But I do believe that praxis means thinking deeply and working hard. Hence some longer delays in blogging as I wrestle for now in this new context of working out our particularity,history and space/place. So......
in thinking further about particularity, we must not neglect the universal intention of God’s Kingdom and coming. To do so would lead to parochial navel gazing. Bauckham says that the New Testament‘ puts all its readers where its first readers stood – between the church’s commissioning by Jesus and the future coming of Jesus. (25) Further, ‘The New Testament gives the church in every age its missionary identity by plunging it into the midst of the biblical story where the words of the great commission still ring in its ears’ (25)
I think that what we are therefore directed to here is to look for the rhythms ‘of grace’ (?) More technically I wonder if there is a vital eschatological aspect we are neglecting.
The other day a few of us chatted around such matters in a way. It was really about contextual issues and we focused upon the implications for worship as one aspect of our identity – our particularity.
Reflecting since, I am reminded that Brueggemann in Cadences of home Chpt 7 ‘Rethinking Church Models through Scripture’, points to how the late community goes back to learn from the early community to find the resources needed to sustain.
In our own worship, while at Cove and latterly here I have begun to apply something developed from Marva Dawn’s book on Sabbath. In it I hope that it resources us and teaches us a rhythm for our weekly daily living. I admit we’ve got some work to do, but mere experience of it will in time change us.
:: Key elements for Worship based upon a Sabbath Rhythm ::

GATHERING
How we make use of the space we have for fellowship-ing (koinonia). Create a user friendly environment for all ages. Time to relax, chat together.
Welcome

CEASING – from work, anxiety, worry, tensions, trying to be God
Image for the day
Personal story/ a thought/reflection/ listen to a song/collect/response prayer
Object lesson for children

RESTING – spiritual, emotional, physical, intellectual, social
Songs
Prayer – various forms
Quiet – poem, reflective music/song/[offering as Thanksgiving]
[Offering]
Bible
[sacrament]
EMBRACING – Intentional/deliberate in practices/actions, value of one another, one’s call to serve/shalom/ healing wholeness world
Overhearing the Good News
Response activity- song, Alt W liturgy, healing /anoint with oil, lay hands on; [sacrament]
Intercession prayer

CELEBRATION – celebration/joy of new, anticipation of Kingdom, new reality in midst
[Offering]
Song(s)
Blessing & Amen

Perhaps it could be simplified, but it offers some form around which much can flexibly be set. Any suggestions, alternatives?