E NEWS 11 AUGUST 2023
You can only go on so long until the doctor tells you to stay home on bed rest for 3 days. That’s what happened to me on Sunday after sitting in the Emergency waiting room for 6 hours at Hutt Hospital. I think I’ve mentioned this before, patients belonging to Hutt City Medical Centre are no longer welcome at the Lower Hutt After Hours Clinic due to our doctors not joining their roster, so we are not welcome there. Anyway I had a viral chest infection which gave me a nasty cough and caused my back to spasm in acute pain each time I coughed. Getting much better now with pain killers etc.
So my week has been spent mainly at home in bed. On Sunday we celebrated 40 years as a Peace Church and also the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Paul Barber led us well and his reflection was very informative.
This Sunday the lectionary readings are about Joseph the Dreamer and how his brothers sold him to merchants on their way to Egypt. That whole story reminds me of the times in my own life where there has been disappointment and times where I have failed to see where God is in anything of what was happening in my life. I used to feel guilty that I could even contemplate a God who had abandoned me. I began to put my thoughts into poetry to describe these times. Today, when I look back I can see very clearly the trajectory of my life having full meaning and purpose in every facet and that God had not abandoned me but was accompanying me through my life’s journey.
Joseph’s journey I believe was similar, there were many times when he was put into difficult situations and yet in every situation there was a purpose and meaning. God had intended for greatness to evolve out of what began as a dysfunctional family of brothers who did not know how to express their disappointment and jealousy of their father’s “favorite child” and so instead of killing him they sold him to merchants on the road to Egypt. I suppose it was like “out of sight, out of mind”. Instead of confronting our problems we choose to get rid of it in someways like sweeping things under the mat/carpet where we can’t see them. Eventually, however, things do have a way of coming back to bite us when we least expect it.
I wonder if you see your purpose in life having been mapped out for you over your lifetime? That where doors were closed there was actually a good reason and purpose for that happening. I haven’t shared this with anyone to date but it’s probably the right time to do so now. In 2016 when I was Pacific Regional Secretary for the Council for World Mission I was being reviewed for my second 4 year term at the Annual General Meeting of CWM held on Jesu Island in South Korea. All the Pacific churches were present and had to vote first on whether they approved of me being extended for another term. The vote was unanimous that my contract be extended for another 4 years. So, when I went into my face to face meeting with the General Secretary for confirmation his eyes were to floor and he couldn’t look at me. His first words were “I’m sorry we are not renewing your contract!”. I nearly fell off my chair, I was absolutely dumbfounded knowing that the Pacific Churches had unanimously voted for me to continue in my role. Who, was he representing? Was he not listening to my constituency? What right did he have to overrule a region’s decision? He then proceeded to suggest to me that it would be good for me to try and complete my Ph.D. Having not been prepared for this encounter I left the room and went up to my hotel room to pack my bags. I couldn’t stop crying because I felt that I had let down the people of the Pacific. I understand when they heard the news at the Annual General Meeting they too were dumbfounded. I could only surmise that the reason I was not renewed was due to some personal issue with either the General Secretary or those who were part of the review panel. I was an outspoken person particularly on issues of injustice and I did challenge the General Secretary from time to time on issues of injustice and obviously he used this opportunity to usurp the decision of the Pacific churches with his own personal agenda.
I returned to NZ to attend my aunt’s funeral and straight after I packed up the Auckland office of CWM and I returned to my doctoral studies full-time forthwith. This was 2016, I finally submitted my Ph. D thesis in November 2018 and in retrospect hand on heart, I knew I would not have completed it if I had stayed on at CWM for another 4 years. My Ph.D. was far more important to me than another 4 years of jetlag and globetrotting, I just could not see it at the time. I still remain baffled as well as the Pacific region churches as to why the decision to not renew my contract was made. It may have been a man-made speed bump that I have yet to understand. But at the end of the day “yes” God’s trajectory was different to mine and I continue to be steered and guided along the way then and now and sometimes I have no idea where I am going.
I wonder if you have had similar let-downs in your life which in retrospect have turned into opportunities unforeseen at the time?
Here’s one of my poems published in “Seeing Christ in Others” by Geoffrey Duncan called “On the Wings of an Eagle”
I want to be lifted up and carried away
on the wings of an eagle.
I want to be able to look down and see the futility of life
from the heights of freedom and endless space.
Just to know that life doesn’t have to be that way.
That in life there are choices,
The choice to conform or
the choice to move beyond conformity.
To be able to continue to walk
to soar through life chopping
and hacking away at virgin bush…
making and discovering the roads
that have yet to be trodden.
Risking the darkness and danger of wild terrain.
To move beyond the desire to Retreat,
to return to old ways and boring routine.
To be happy to discover whatever there is to discover.
To keep moving forward,
hoping, praying for a new sense of Peace,
a newer easier pathway…yet not complaining,
continuing to accept God’s sense of direction,
even down the deepest of ravines,
trusting and knowing that life can only be lived when one
learns to risk everything, including their life,
in order to discover the beauty that comes,
the honesty that comes from being totally vulnerable.
It’s fine, these pathways are so risky,
God would never leave us on our own,
all alone.
This is Godspace, Godzone
Just let go, allow yourself to be…
to become…
Enjoy your weekend. Fei
You can read the full E-news here: https://mailchi.mp/5f3873bf7d6f/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-9392199
