GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you. (Matthew 7:12) Forgive, if you have anything against anyone. (Mark 11:25) Love your neighbour as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbour. (Romans 13:9,10)

We urge you... to admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. (Philippians 1:1-2) Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:4-5)

Be angry but do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your anger. (Ephesians 4:26)

No one should wrong or exploit a brother or sister... For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. (1 Thessalonians 4:6,7,9)

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness. (Micah 6:8)

And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples. (John 13:34,35)

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called - that you might inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:8-9)



We were created by God to enjoy him, appreciate our own and others' uniqueness, and to grow in community, or fellowship with others.

In the brilliant film Kramer vs. Kramer the divorced father has to explain to his five-year-old son that he's just lost the custody battle between himself and the boy's mother. Soon the child will be going to live with her. The little boy sobs out what for him are questions of ultimate concern: 'Where will I sleep? Where will I put my toys? Why can't I stay with you too?'

The movie is about three people. Two grown-ups - a man and a woman - have needs that aren't being met by the other. Their little boy, therefore, has to have his life messed up too. Where does such a vicious circle begin? Why is it not possible for humans to live together without conflict? What can we do to stop the chain reaction of grief being handed on to another generation?

Oscar Wilde believed that 'other people are quite dreadful; the only possible society is oneself.' Wrong, Oscar, and sad. (There is more wisdom in something else he said: 'In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.') How can we get along with those we live with?

You begin by knowing who the real 'me' is. If you don't like yourself you won't enjoy living with others either. When I ask people in counseling 'What do you like about yourself?' I often get a 'nothing' response. Some of us avoid responsibility for our behaviour with the excuse 'Well, nobody's perfect.' True, but you don't have to opt out of growing; nor do you have to live with the negative self-fulfilling prophecies you or others have heaped on yourself. At the deepest level your identity, your perception of who you are, has derived from what others have communicated to you about you. It's on the esteem of others that you base your own self-esteem. With the help of a caring friend, learn to accept yourself. You are an unrepeatable miracle of God's creation. If you want to get along with others, you had better start with the person inside your own skin!

Then, affirm the uniqueness of others. They, too, are who they are as a result of the mix of verbal inputs into their lives by significant others, plus the accidents of life they have experienced, plus their own success or otherwise in determining to become a whole person. The Christian approach here is simple, and it works: pray to your and their Creator God for a gift of love: to view the other as one precious to God and made in his image. You can't pray this prayer sincerely for too long without beginning to appreciate the other!

Then, let's be lovingly honest with one another. One of the great middle-class sicknesses of our time is affability. We are so nice to each other it's sickening. We play games to cover our true feelings. Rather than 'walking in the light' we leave one another to stumble in the darkness about who we are and they are. But then, if we cannot 'speak the truth in love' without the risk of creating greater hurt rather than healing, we might have to (a) learn 'win-win' conflict resolution skills, and/or (b) follow the advice on my desk calendar the other day: 'Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone to do it.' (Marcel Proust once said, 'The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not imposing it on others').

We exist in homes, families, communities, to 'care' for each other, as well as being cared for by others. However, 'care' has ambiguous connotations, as Henri Nouwen has pointed out. For example, when a Mafia boss tells his henchmen to 'go take care of somebody' that somebody had better watch out. He is about to be made an offer he can't refuse! Actually, our English word 'care' goes back to a Gothic root, kara, meaning to 'lament, weep with, grieve'. So caring should mean we become aware of the other in ways that stir deep feelings, and out of these feelings resolve is born to care for them in appropriate ways. This means breaking out of the circle of selfishness and making our lives a resource to others.

This is the meaning of the Good Samaritan story. Every 'good Samaritan' says to the other: 'What happens to you makes a difference to me.' Just as God makes an unconditional covenant to commit himself to us no matter what happens, so we forgive 'seventy times seven' and serve the other, even if we are not thanked, or such labours are not returned. This is authentic caring.

Again, let us take a journey back to the first few chapters of Genesis. There's a wonderful story about God's desiring communion with the creature man/woman he had made. When Adam sinned, that fellowship was broken. God arrived in the garden for their usual fellowship-time, but Adam was hiding. The 'Fall' was a fall from fellowship, not only between us and God, but between humans themselves. Cain killed his brother Abel, and we've had to work very hard to maintain fellowship, particularly where our fallenness has led us to create barriers between persons and groups. And yet, though God in the Old Testament is characteristically sovereign, and holy, in his 'apartness' from sinners, his statement to Moses - 'I will be with you' (Exodus 3:12) - indicates his desire to commune with his covenant people. The Divine Presence within Israel was symbolized in the ark, the cloud, the guiding angel, and later in the Jerusalem Temple. But, as Psalm 23 tells us, he feeds us, cares for us, protects us, guides us and encourages us.

In the New Testament the Greek noun koinonia simply means 'sharing', and is translated variously as 'communion', 'communication', 'community', 'fellowship', 'partaking', 'contribution', etc. An ancient inscription put up by a husband in memory of his wife said: 'I shared all life with you, alone'. Thus 'fellowship' in New Testament usage is the sharing of something with others in a community, not merely the act of associating with them. The outpoured Spirit had created a community that broke through the barriers of language, culture, race, sex - even possessions (see Acts 2:42, 4:32, 35, Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11).

This new joy, and mutual love, emanated not from a Divine mandate, but from their high conception of being 'in fellowship'. It was nothing short of a miracle! These early Christians experienced a sense of oneness, unity, togetherness, unlike anything they had known before. People didn't just associate with a few 'cronies': Jesus said tax-collectors and other disreputable people did that. The foundation of koinonia is nothing less than the Incarnation: Jesus sharing his life with us.

Again, we repeat: the Christian good news is about God's acceptance of us even before we change. He loves us unconditionally. This was essentially the difference between Jesus and the pharisees. Jesus 'accepted', loved people before they had changed, he loved them into change; the pharisees rejected people who were alien, sinners, until they had changed and mended their ways. With Jesus, acceptance preceded repentance, with the pharisees it was the other way around. So we are to accept one another, as God accepts us - as people who are made in his image, who are like him! (Romans 5:6-8, 15:7). This does not mean we ignore or gloss over others' mistakes or sins: it does mean we will recognize their Godlikeness before we barge in to 'fix' things. Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery 'I do not condemn you' before he said 'Go and sin no more' (John 8:11). Jesus understood others. Two proverbs express it well: To understand all is to forgive all; if you can understand the other person you can stand them.

We'll all meet difficult people from time to time. Jesus did. He didn't get along with everybody. He condemned injustice and godlessness and if you're going to do that you're going to get crucified by the unjust and the godless. If we are 'change agents', then we'll suffer at the hands of those who benefit by things staying the way they are. (But then, some of us want to change things because we ourselves are not at ease with ourselves.)

Many interpersonal conflicts result from our idealised picture of who the other should be. Others' incompleteness reminds us of our own. It's sometimes called 'transference' - transferring emotions to a person or situation which belong somewhere else. He married to escape a dominant mother, so when his wife 'nags' and reminds him of a bitter past, he over-reacts. She's trying to make him like her father, who was so helpful around the house, and he does nothing.

Acceptance is helped by empathy. Empathy is 'the imaginative projection of one's personality into that of another person' - putting yourself into the other's shoes, listening deeply with mind, heart and soul. It's not sympathy, which can sometimes be a selfish emotion, where you're hooked because of some unresolved emotional conflict in your own life. And it's the opposite of antipathy, where you judge the other for not measuring up to what you want them to be.

And after all, what do we mean by a 'difficult person'? Who of us is not abnormal in some sense? Who decides what is normal, who is difficult? Maybe schizophrenics are sometimes the sane ones! Perhaps we have to work harder at dealing with the log in our own eye, before we take splinters out of others' eyes!

The church is meant to be a therapeutic or 'salvific' community, a community of people-helpers. But to be a people-helper, one must be committed to one's own growth - physical, intellectual, social- emotional, and spiritual. It is a community of people who practise faith, hope and love: faith that people are loved already in spite of their crabbiness; hope that with patience and acceptance we and others can grow and change; love which covers a multitude of faults and we desire only the good of others. The challenge is to see Jesus in others, and practise 'being Christ' to others. And that's tough work: overcoming prejudices is the hardest work of all!

Mary Claerout, in her book Friday She Gave Him Flowers, tells the story of Willings, a confirmed bachelor. Every Friday his maid would put flowers on his breakfast table. The white roses on the table must have cost her a fortune, so he imagined 'she must simply adore me,' As he sat back and contemplated the flowers, a warm feeling swept through him. He thought, 'The woman is a blessing; if only she weren't so ugly.'

He thought about himself. He was a lady's man. He had himself. As a boy he loathed looking at his peer group with pimples and acne and blackheads. He abhorred their wrinkles and warts. His stomach turned over when he saw hair growing out of noses and ears. He could hardly bear to look at others' mouths. All his life he had seen only one flawless mouth, his own. He enjoyed himself, being alone... He decided to thank Emily for the flowers and called her in.

She said, 'Oh, it's nothing to speak of really Mr Willings. It's just that I feel so sorry for the flowers. Hardly used they are, when the undertaker puts them out for Friday's rubbish collection. So I always pick a few out when I go by. I wouldn't want them at home, you know, seeing where they come from. That's why I put them in your vase. I mean, it's not your own choosing that you are all alone and don't have any friends. At least you should have a few flowers.'



From what I have learned in my own marriage, and seen in others, there are not many questions more important than this: 'Am I willing to train myself away from selfishness toward the point where I honestly care how the other person feels?'

Charlie W. Shedd, Letters to Philip on how to treat a Woman, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1968, p. 19 [43]

If you share your bread in fear, mistrustfully, undaringly, in a trice your bread will fail. Try sharing it without looking ahead, not thinking of the cost, unstintingly, like a child of the Lord of all the harvests in the world.

Dom Helder Camara, A Thousand Reasons for Living, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984, p.98 [41]

A famous English preacher named Alexander Whyte was very disturbed one night because his closest friend was at the point of death. Whyte was praying earnestly to God that this man might be spared when suddenly a Voice said to him, 'How serious are you about this one's survival? Would you be willing to divide with him the number of years you have left to live upon this earth?' With that, Whyte reports getting up off his knees in a cold sweat for suddenly intercession had become more than a matter of words. Now it was the precious substance of his own life that was at stake. He pondered this question very deliberately for a while and dropped back to his knees and said, 'Yes! I hereby relinquish half of the time I have left, if this will enable my friend to survive.' He got up with no idea what the ultimate outcome of this agreement would be... Here I am with a given pool of physical and emotional and psychic vitality. How will I spend it? How much of it will I keep for myself and how much of it will I make available to others?

John Claypool, from an unpublished sermon, 'How Much of Yourself Will You Give?' [197]

Carl Sandburg talks about the 'zoo' inside each of us - there's a pig, and a lion, and a tiger, and a gentle deer. We have all kinds of feelings within us: we are responsible for some of them and not others. But although there is a zoo in me, I am keeper of that zoo!

For example, it is not wrong to be angry, but what you do with your anger could be very harmful. Jesus got angry sometimes. And if you want to get mad at me, that's O.K. I should pray for the maturity to handle our conflicts constructively. Just as friction between certain types of rocks produces sparks of light, so it is the friction of our individualities rubbing against each other that illuminates who we really are. There is a sense in which I do not really know you nor you me until we get to a point where we differ...

So the words 'ought' or 'should' mustn't generally be used in relation to feelings. Our feelings are like toothache - they're there - and no amount of exhorting will make a toothache or the feelings go away...

When you are more in touch with your own feelings, you'll be more compassionate with others. Here's Frederick Buechner's definition of compassion: 'The sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.'

True community is born from love that risks the sorrow of rejection for the love of acceptance. Community implies participation; participation implies action. True community means walking in the light, being open, and perhaps vulnerable with one another. Perfect love casts out fear. The root of war, Thomas Merton has taught us, is fear.

Rowland Croucher, from an unpublished sermon, 'Getting along with the people you live with.'

To Victor, who agrees with me in nothing and is my friend in everything.

Carlyle Marney's dedication at the beginning of his book Faith in Conflict. [14]

Some families readily express hostility and anger, but fail to express tenderness, love and appreciation. Other families appear to have unwritten rules that allow the expression of kindness, concern and positive feelings, but then suppress irritation and exasperation, shame, self-doubt and expressions of disagreement, dislike and requests for what one wants for oneself. Healthier families [are] able to express a wide range of feelings...

'Letting it all hang out' [is not recommended]. It is the range of feelings that can be expressed without attacking other members that seems to create human development and intimacy. It may be because the family members can modulate the intensity of their negative feelings that they are able to express whatever they wish. In fact, the modulation of intense feeling is one of the prerequisites of effective conflict management.

Moira Eastman, Family: The Vital Factor, Blackburn: Collins Dove, 1989, pp. 65-67 [132]

A generous mind does not consider itself as belonging to itself alone, but to the whole human race (Ulrich Zwingli). A friend adds to your joy, divides your burdens, multiplies your happiness (Anon). If two people doing a job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless (Darryl F. Zanuck). We are invited to be thermostats, not thermometers - affecting our environment, not merely reflecting it (Charles Hembree). We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives (Robert T. Pirsig). I am part of all that I have met (Ulysses). If you wish to please people, you must begin by understanding them (Charles Reade). People must help one another: it is nature's law (Jean de la Fontaine). If you are gracious and courteous to strangers, you are a citizen of the world (Francis Bacon). If your Christianity is not contagious, it may be contaminated (Chester Johnson). I am as close to God as I am from the person from whom I am most divided (Anon.) The nobler your heart is, the more you will be inclined to make allowance for others (F W Robertson). Kindness is one thing you can't give away: it always comes back (Anon).

Desk calendar quotes

Christianity is a community event. As Christians we have always believed that the life of faith is not a private enterprise but a communal venture. Over the past several decades in the Church we have come to renewed awareness of this fact. One of the most significant efforts within the Church today is the movement of Christians to understand themselves as the people of God and to experience their relations with one another as a life together in community. We rejoice in this vision of Christian life, taking hope in its challenge to the formality and bureaucracy that can find their way into church structures. But, gradually, many of us have come to sense that this goal of life together as Christians is both a gift and a most difficult ambition.

The language of ministry today is filled with the vocabulary of mutuality: mutual support, shared decision-making, collegiality, and collaboration.

Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and James D. Whitehead, Community of Faith: Models and Strategies for Developing Christian Communities, New York: Seabury Press, 1982, p.xi. [151]

Christian community is... a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as [Christians] should not be constantly feeling [their] spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.

Christian [community] is not an ideal we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1954, p. 30. [122]

The gospel tells of the triumph of the personal in the silence of a technological world. The Word became flesh. The Word dwells among us. The metaphor of the personal is carried in the stories of Jesus again and again. The shepherd seeks for a lost sheep, a father looks for a lost son. Here is a parent who gives not a stone but a loaf of bread, not a serpent but a fish. Here five thousand sit down together to share a simple meal. Two men travel on a road and are joined by a third. In deep conversation they end their journey with the breaking of bread and what is hidden is revealed, what is a mystery penetrated with the joy and wonder of communion.

Denham Grierson, A People on the Way: Congregational Mission & Australian Culture, Melbourne: David Lovell Publishing, 1991, pp. 89-90. [127]

An Irish tenant farmer who died last century left a widow and three little children. This was before the days of social security. The man who owned the farm needed the house to get another field hand, and so this poor widow was literally turned out into the road with no resource whatsoever for herself and her family. She went to the nearest town and began to go from door to door explaining her plight and offering to do any work to provide for her children. However, person after person turned her away, saying, 'I have problems of my own. What happens to you is of no concern to me.' After four days of no food and sleeping out of doors in the park, the youngest child's body was weakened and she woke up with a burning fever. By noon all three of the children were sick, and before the sun went down this little neglected family was the centre of an epidemic of diphtheria that spread to the whole town. Only at that point did it become clear that this woman's plight was the concern of the larger community. Their failure to deal with the problem at one point in time meant they had to deal with it later in a worse form.

Source unknown

'Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad...'

One important rule for being happy and successful is - don't let things agitate you. This is vital... People get sick largely because they cannot control and discipline their minds...

Imagine that Jesus Christ is actually by your side. When you start worrying, stop and say: 'Lord, you are with me; everything is all right.' At night, before you turn out the light have a word with him and say, 'Lord, I'll not worry, for I know you are watching over me and will give me peace.'

Practise taking a detached attitude towards irritating things. Practise lifting your mind above the confusion and irritation around you. One way to do that is to hang pictures [of nature] on the walls of your mind and think about them habitually...

Robert Louis Stevenson made a wise statement: 'Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or in misfortune at their own private pace like the ticking of a clock during a thunderstorm.'

One of the surest methods for overcoming agitation is to put yourself in contact with the re-creative process of nature.

Norman Vincent Peale, 'How to Avoid Getting Upset' in A Guide to Confident Living, Kingswood, Surrey: The World's Work, 1955, pp. 128-142. [193]

An apology,

Is a friendship preserver, Is often a debt of honour, Is never a sign of weakness, Is an antidote for hatred, Costs nothing but one's pride, Always saves more than it costs, Is a device needed in every home.

Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because the one who forgives you - out of love - takes upon themselves the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails sacrifice.

The price you must pay for your own liberation through another's sacrifice, is that you in turn must be willing to liberate in the same way, irrespective of the consequences to yourself.

Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, Faber, 1964, in Michael Hollings, Hearts Not Garments, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, p.82. [103]

When you stand praying, forgive.

If you are not getting answers to your prayers, check yourself very thoroughly and honestly as to whether you have resentments on your mind.

Spiritual power cannot pass through a personality where resentment exists. Hate is a non-conductor of spiritual energy.

I suggest that every time you pray you add this phrase, `Lord take from my thought all ill will, grudges, hates, jealousies'. Then practise casting these things from your thoughts.

Norman Vincent Peale, Thought Conditioners, New York: Foundation for Christian Living, p.24. [77]

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back - in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, London, Collins, 1973, p.2. [86]

According to the Bible, we are to love others as ourselves (Luke 10:27), and as God loves us (John 4:11). In other words, there is an intimate connection between our love for ourselves and our love and esteem for God and others. When we fail to love ourselves, all of our relationships suffer. We fail to love our mates, our children, or our neighbors properly. Think of your own life . Remember the last time you were feeling miserable and were angry with yourself, discouraged, or depressed? How did you relate to your mate, children, and friends at that time? Were you loving, sensitive, and kind? I doubt it. When we are uptight about ourselves, we are usually uptight with others. We take our frustrations out on them.

Bruce Narramore, You're Someone Special, Michigan: Zondervan, 1978, p.119. [125]

The past is, perhaps, not totally lost, but it is no longer ours; it is in the hands of God and is his business. It will be retrieved in the tota simul possessio of eternity, but should not be stored away on earth. As far as we are concerned, we must realize that we are like children, at the beginning, not the end, of a road. Whatever past achievements might bring us honour, whatever past disgraces might make us blush, all of these have been crucified with Christ; they exist no more except in the deep recesses of God's eternity, where good is enhanced into glory and evil miraculously established as part of the greater good.

John Garvey (Ed), Modern Spirituality, an Anthology, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985, p.65. [116]

I was amused to read of the adjustments Paul and Nellie Tournier worked through in their first years of marriage. 'I'm an optimist and she's a pessimist,' Paul Tournier reported in Faith at Work magazine (April, 1972). 'She thinks of every difficulty, misfortune, and catastrophe that might happen, and I cannot promise her that such things will not happen. But God is neither optimist nor pessimist. The search for him leads one beyond his own personality and temperament to a path that is neither optimism nor pessimism.

'Little by little I have learned that God speaks to everybody - men and women, adults and children, blacks and whites, the rich and the poor. To discover the will of God, you must listen to him in everyone. Of course, I prefer to have God speak directly to me, rather than through my wife, and yet in truly seeking his will I must be persuaded that he speaks as much through her as through me; to her as much as to me.'

Quoted in Philip Yancey, 'Marriage: Minefields on the Way to Paradise', Chrisianity Today, February 18, 1977, p. 27. [168]

Abba Theodotus said, `Do not judge a fornicator if you are chaste, otherwise you will be transgressing the law too. For he who said, "Do not fornicate", also said, "Do not judge".'

We are all, equally, privileged but not unentitled beggars before the door of God's mercy.

John Garvey (Ed), Modern Spirituality, an Anthology, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985, p. 67. [47]



In the Ravensbruck Nazi concentration camp - where an estimated 92,000 men, women and children were murdered - a piece of wrapping paper was found near the body of a dead child. On the paper was written this prayer:

O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not only remember the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits we bought, thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this. And when they come to judgement, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.

Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, Kent: Hodder and Stoughton, 1992. p.238 [113]

Why do we look a the speck in someone else's eye but ignore the log in our own? The measure we use for others, God will use for us.

If we do not judge others, God will not judge us; if we do not condemn others, God will not condemn us; if we forgive, God forgives us even more; so let us give, and God will give to us a full measure, a generous helping, poured into our hands, more than we can hold.

The measure we use for others, God will use for us.

Jesus, you are the giver and the gift.

A New Zealand Prayer Book, Auckland: Collins, 1989, p.131. [103]

Accompany me to-day, O Spirit invisible, in all my goings, but stay with me also when I am in my own home and among my kindred. Forbid that I should fail to show to those nearest to me the sympathy and consideration which thy grace enables me to show to others with whom I have to do. Forbid that I should refuse to my own household the courtesy and politeness which I think proper to show to strangers. Let charity to-day begin at home.

John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, London: OUP, 1936, p.89. [86]

Jesus, friend of sinners, you call us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and pray for those who treat us badly.

Jesus, reconciler, when someone slaps us on the cheek, you call us to offer the other; when someone takes our coat, you bid us give our shirt as well; when someone takes what is ours, we may not demand it back.

Jesus, Son of God, our friend and brother, when we love our enemies and do good we are children of God, who is kind to the wicked and ungrateful.

Jesus, teacher without peer, you have turned the world upside down.

A New Zealand Prayer Book, Auckland: Collins, 1989, pp.121-122. [114]

Lord, we come before you, not alone, but in the company of one another.
We share our happiness with each other - and it becomes greater.
We share our troubles with each other - and they become smaller.
We share one another's griefs and burdens - and their weight becomes possible to heal.
May we never be too mean to give, nor too proud to receive.
For in giving and receiving we learn to love and be loved; We encounter the meaning of life, the mystery of existence -
and discover you.

Terry C. Falla, Be Our Freedom Lord, Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1981, p.158. [88]

Lord Jesus, we hold our families before you; we are ashamed because so many of them are broken or are about to break. How foolish we must look in your sight as we express ourselves so harshly to one another! Lord, forgive us, and help us to make the necessary repairs on our families. We know that we cannot do much by ourselves, we need the help of your Holy Spirit. So please bring his power into our hearts. And, O Holy Spirit of Christ, work mightily among those who have heard the gospel again, and bring many of them to faith.

God the Father, look with your compassion and pity upon those who are living within families in which there is much tension and suffering. Use the message of your grace to help those who are discouraged, and enable them to see that through your power there is hope that their families can become good places to live.

We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

'A Good Place to Live', The Radio Pulpit (publisher and date unknown). [167]

O God the Father, good beyond all that is good, fair beyond all that is fair, in whom is calmness, peace and harmony; make up the divisions which keep us apart and bring us back into a unity of love which may bear some likeness to your divine nature. And as you are above all things make us one by the unity of a good mind, that through charity and affection we may be spiritually one, through that peace of yours which makes all things peaceful, and through the grace, mercy and tenderness of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Dionysius, cited in Praying with the Saints, Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1989, p.37. [98]

Lord, speak to me, that I may speak in living echoes of your tone; as you have sought, so let me seek your erring children... Freely I have received, may I freely give.

Help me to remember that a cancerous cell expects the rest of the body to nourish it: may I nourish others, and contribute to their well-being, without being concerned too much about any reciprocity.

In relating to others, help me to adjust to them sometimes, to be flexible when I ought to adapt to them; to be courageous when I am called upon to do or say something difficult to help another; to live in hope, that little by little I can have a part in the ongoing process of the divine redemption of the human race.

Reveal your gifts to me, and the limits of my abilities. I can't do everything to help everyone, but I can do something to help someone. Give me, please, wisdom to know how to help without getting all messed up; and how to help without messing others up.

Thank you Lord. Amen.

A Benediction

May God grant you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Rowland Croucher

STEALING IN THE LORD'S NAME

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need. But you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren. You then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing do you steal?

They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but, my own vineyard I have not kept!

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

A righteous man walks in his integrity -- blessed are his sons after him!

You husbands must conduct your married life with understanding.

If... any of you does not know how to meet any particular problem he has only to ask God -- who gives generously to all men without making them feel foolish or guilty -- and he may be quite sure that the necessary wisdom will be given him.

In Christ, you were... set free from the sins of the flesh... and in him are sharing the miracle of rising again to new life -- and all this because you have faith in the tremendous power of God, who raised Christ from the dead .... God has now made [you] to share in the very life of Christ.

(Ephesians 4:28, RSV; 1 Corinthians 6:8, RSV; Romans 2:21, RSV; The Song of Solomon 1:6, RSV; Proverbs 13:22, RSV; Proverbs 20:7, RSV; James 1:5, Phillips; Colossians 2:11-13, Phillips)



God got my attention in an unexpected way while on a three-day retreat with a small group of fellow clergy.

We participated together in a relational Bible study based on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and, drawing from the data of the biblical record, background studies and our own imagination, we explored together many aspects of the characters in the story. The priest, Levite, injured traveller and the Samaritan were all carefully analysed with the purpose of enabling us to identify fully or partially with one or more of them and relate the parable to our own lives.

However, although as a group we had overlooked considering the robbers, I found myself identifying with these who had selfishly and ruthlessly hurt and stolen from the innocent traveller. I came under deep conviction concerning the many people whom I had robbed of my time and love over the years.

After that group meeting I spent three hours in solitude in the retreat chapel letting God address me. I listed the names of those from whom I had stolen my quality time and my care and concern. Heading the list was my wife and then my family. My notes of the ways I had taken from them what was their right included: quality time to listen, to talk, to commune, to pray, to enjoy each other, to do those things they wanted to do. So often I have offered them the fag-end of my energy instead of my freshness, alertness, enthusiasm and joy.

My reflection led me to the disturbing awareness that all this failure to make significant space for those dearest to me brought into serious question my motives for my ministry. Was this neglect due to living in obedience to God's will or was I acting out of motives to satisfy my own needs for self-actualisation or selfish egocentric drives?

In that chapel I had a solemn encounter with God which led to confession, acceptance of forgiveness and a renewal of my covenant with God.

That evening I wrote a long letter to my wife listing the hurts I had caused her and asking forgiveness. Later that letter made a profound impression on her. She said, 'Only the Holy Spirit could have revealed these things to you.' There was forgiveness and the beginning of healing and enrichment of our love. Later I wrote to my eldest son -- and there was a similar work of grace.



If you really want to gauge the quality of your spiritual life, check your love dimensions. Not how often you read the Bible, or how much scripture you have memorised... but whether the people with whom you are living regard you as a lover -- a person reflecting the love of Christ which he sheds into our heart.

Howard Hendricks, in The Work of An Evangelist

When the family of the Christian leader, especially if he has to be away from home a lot, knows that they matter enormously to him, then the Gospel he talks about begins to become good news at home. Children need to be loved, and loved, and loved. Loved without strings attached. Loved if they don't go to church. Loved when they are a pain in the neck. Only in that way can they understand at gut level about the love of the Father which pursues them undiminished whether they hear or whether they forbear (Ezekiel 2:5)... Each of us will have our own different ways of expressing love and care for the family. But unless that is a high priority, we will find that we may gain the whole world and lose our own children.

Michael Green, in The Work of an Evangelist

I opened Thomas Kelly's Testament of Devotion... He caught my attention by describing perfectly my condition and the condition of many I knew: 'We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfil them all. And we are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed and fearful we shall be shallow... We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Centre!... We have seen and known some people who seem to have found this deep Centre of living, where the fretful calls of life are integrated, where No as well as Yes can be said with confidence. This ability to say Yes and No out of the divine Centre was foreign to me... To say Yes to pleas for help or opportunities to serve usually carried an aura of spirituality and sacrifice. I could say Yes easily, but I did not have the ability to say No. What would people think of me if I refused?... As we yield to the Centre everything about us becomes focused, synoptic. This yielding is nothing more than the experience of the great commandment to love God with all our being. A French Christian, Marie of the Incarnation, wrote in 1628, 'My spirit was more and more being simplified... In the depths of my soul... these words were continual: "Ah! My Love, my Well-Beloved! Be blessed 0 my God!"... And since that time my soul has remained in its centre which is God.'

Richard Foster, Freedom of Simplicity

Faulty values and choices in the past have closed many options in the present and the future... The central reason for reappraising your lifestyle and values is not the fear of having a heart attack or suffering some other disaster. Rather it is to make sure that you are on the road you really want to travel -- the road that will allow you to use the years ahead creatively, productively, and joyfully, whatever life brings. A better future is more likely to occur by choice than by chance.

Howard Clinebell, Growth Counseling for Mid-Years Couples

One day I was working at a boring job and a friend came to join me. He loitered about for nearly an hour, perched on the edge of the table, smoking a cigarette and talking occasionally of nothing in particular. When he had gone I was filled with a special joy because I realised that he had deliberately wasted an hour with me; it was not that we were discussing something of importance or that I needed consoling: it was a pure and unsolicited gift of time. If we think about it, for busy people time is often the most precious thing they have to give. Doctors, priests, those who counsel, will always 'spend' time with those in need. They may sit up all night with someone who is distressed; they may pass long hours in listening to problems, or in giving advice; but this is all time deliberately spent. We only deliberately waste time with those we love -it is the purest sign that we love someone if we choose to spend time idly in their presence when we could be doing something more 'constructive'.

Sheila Cassidy, Prayer for Pilgrims

In a world full of strangers, estranged from their past culture and country, from their neighbours, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found... The term hospitality... should not be limited to its literal sense of receiving a stranger in our house... but as a fundamental attitude towards our fellow human being, which can be expressed in a great variety of ways. Hospitality... means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place.

Empty space tends to create fear. As long as our minds, hearts and hands are occupied we can avoid confronting the painful questions to which we never give much attention and which we do not want to surface. Occupation and not empty space is what most of us are looking for... Being busy, active and on the move has nearly become part of our constitution... Preoccupation is in fact a greater stumbling block than occupation... We indeed have become very preoccupied people, afraid of unnameable emptiness and silent solitude... Preoccupations are our fearful ways of keeping things the same, and it often seems that we prefer a bad certainty to a good uncertainty. Our preoccupations help us to maintain the personal world we have created over the years and block the way to revolutionary change.

So we can see that creating space is far from easy in our occupied and preoccupied society. And still, if we expect any salvation, redemption, healing and new life, the first thing we need is an open receptive place where something can happen to us. Hospitality, therefore, is such an important attitude. We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, to lay aside their occupations and preoccupations and to listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own centre.

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee:
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.

George Matheson, The Australian Hymn Book



My God, you are immortal, invisible, incomprehensible in your greatness, and mysterious in your almighty power. But because you are my Father, I am not afraid. I bow in awe before you but I speak with confidence and familiarity as child to parent.

I confess I have, somehow, not yet brought into balance all the elements clamouring to be ordered in my complicated existence. My life has become an unlikely plot, a conspiracy I helped begin but do not, any longer, hardly control at all.

Give me grace to find the space to allow you to get my undivided attention, then to listen unhurriedly and follow your guidance willingly.

Fill me anew with your Spirit so that I may experience an intimate connection between my spiritual life and my temporal needs.

Enable me to keep adequate space for all who enter my life this day, especially those who walk closest with me.

Take this day into your own keeping. Control, direct, instruct and sustain me. Totally transform me by your Spirit of love. May each life I touch be blessed because you are the secret centre of my life. Amen.



A Benediction

May your spiritual experience become richer as you see more and more fully God's great secret, Christ himself! Now to him who is able to keep you from failing and to present you before his glory without fault and with unspeakable joy, to the only God, our saviour, be glory and majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord... Amen (Colossians 2:2,; Jude 24,25, Phillips).

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 191-196

LOST AND FOUND

Luke 15:1-10, 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Losing something can be trivial – mildly frustrating – or deadly serious, even life-threatening. It all depends on the value of what you’ve lost.

Lost people are in the news headlines all the time. This week? Adventurer Steve Fossett, lost somewhere in the Nevada Desert, Madelaine McCann, a little girl lost – probably abducted – in Portugal (and now her parents – parents! – are suspects). A while back, three men in a boat somewhere off the Queensland coast, who have never been found.

We write songs, tell stories and make movies of people lost: David Livingstone, apparently lost in the middle of ‘darkest Africa’; an ‘ancient mariner’ lost at sea; aviator Amelia Erhart; explorers Burke and Wills; Little Boy Lost; the Chamberlain’s baby lost in the Northern Territory desert, ‘Lost in Space’…

We joke about being lost: men aren’t lost, they’re trusting their navigational instincts (women ask for directions). As a young taxi-driver in Sydney while at University, I was lost at least once every shift.

We lose objects all the time (more so, I can tell you, as you approach ‘threescore years and ten’). I’ve lost a car three times: once when it was towed away because I was slow with hire purchase payments; another time in the Disneyland carpark (is it the largest in the world?) until with two little girls 7 and 9 we found it at 2 am!; and at the airport: I’d found a free spot out there, but one weekend they changed the parking rules and had towed my car away…

Losing things isn’t funny: a surgeon discovering after an operation that an instrument’s gone missing; if I lost my diary I think I’d lose my mind (it’s in there!); losing an important email (PTL for Google Desktop!); a loved one losing their memory; a parishioner I knew whose mother was lost, found with another identity in Adelaide. We’ve ‘lost the plot’ in Iraq…

Jesus’ parents lost him when he was 12. (One of our Sunday School hypotheticals: ‘Did Jesus ever lose anything?’ Silly question, like our other one: ‘Did Jesus the healer ever sneeze?’).

Psychologists tell us there are two kinds of lostness: ‘developmental’ and ‘situational’. We grow through various stages in life, and all of us experience a constant cycle of attachments/detachments, closeness/distance, togetherness/ separateness, loss of innocence when we collide with reality… It happens when a baby is born: they lose the security of intrauterine life; and it happens when we get older and various bodily functions don’t work as well any more.

But there’s also ‘situational’ lostness: which can happen to any of us at any time. I have clients whose grief is frozen: they’ve never gotten over the loss of a loved one. We must learn to ‘bury the dead’ twice: physically, and in terms of the grieving process. (We also must get over the grief of what our parents ‘were not’ for us…).

Jesus told three ‘lost and found’ stories in Luke 15: about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and two lost sons. This morning I want to make a couple of comments about the first story, and particularly about Luke’s setting for it.

Kenneth Bailey tells us that a single shepherd probably would not have owned 100 sheep – maybe 15 or 20. Here we have a clan or extended family and the ‘chief shepherd’ would have had ‘hirelings’ to help him look after this number of sheep. But it’s the shepherd-in-charge who goes looking for the lost sheep: note that!

Bailey says that when a sheep is lost in this part of the world it often lies down and refuses to budge. So the shepherd has to place it on his shoulders: he starts rejoicing even in prospect of a long and exhausting trip home. A wandering sheep was lucky it wasn’t attacked by wild beasts. In the meantime the other sheep have been moved from the ‘wilderness’ to the village, and the clan has a party to celebrate the whole event.

But did you notice the setting? Luke says Jesus was eating and drinking with ‘tax collectors and sinners’ – disreputables! – and the religious folks didn’t approve. These three lost and found stories are book-ended with not-so-subtle ‘digs’ at the Pharisees’ awful theology and attitudes: the elder brother in the third story is your prototypical Pharisee.

Now Jesus wasn’t merely consorting with sinners: he was acting as host, ‘welcoming’ these people. So he asks ‘Which one of you…?’ which was a naughty question for these people: they despised shepherds as well.

I was preaching once to a small very conservative congregation. They had big black Bibles and severe expressions. That night I involved them in a dialogue. I asked them to list all the good qualities of the Pharisees: they knew about Pharisees, but obviously hadn’t thought too much about Pharisees being ‘good’: after all, they were Jesus’ main antagonists.

They offered a brilliant list, which I wrote with chalk on a blackboard: most Pharisees knew their Bibles off by heart (our Old Testament); they were prayerful; they tithed (often up to a third of their income); fasted twice a week; were martyrs for their faith in Yahweh and their allegiance to the Torah; they attended ‘church’ regularly; were moral people: many could not remember breaking any of the commandments; they were ‘evangelical’ – they believed all the right doctrines (like resurrection); and Jesus said they were evangelistic missionaries – even crossing oceans to win converts.

There was a hushed silence in that little church. ‘Anything wrong?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ replied the extrovert in the front row. ‘What is it?’ ‘That’s us!’ he said. ‘Is it?’ I responded. ‘If so, we’re in trouble, because Jesus said these Pharisees were “children of the Devil”.’

So what’s wrong with these Bible-believers? Well, look at the two diatribes against the Pharisees in the Gospels, and note particularly Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42. Their list didn’t include the ‘most important’ thing of all: justice/love. They didn’t understand the heart of God, who loves lost people, sinners, especially the little people on the margins of society…

They also don’t understand the varieties of ‘lostness’. One can be lost through no fault of one’s own: like the lost coin. Many sinners were actually ‘sinned-against’: my wife who visits women in prison each week says the vast majority are victims of sexual/physical/emotional abuse. Or you can be lost because you’re dumb/stupid – like the lost sheep. Or, as with younger prodigal, you can get lost through deliberate willful choice.

But there’s another category of lostness: the Pharisees, like the elder brother, were lost and didn’t know it. They arrogantly categorized everyone else as lost. I meet these people all the time: they assume they’re ‘saved’ because they believe all the right doctrines: the ‘heterodox’ are lost and going to hell…

You see, the ministry-description of Jesus (and it’s ours too) is to help folks ‘name’ their ‘lostness’ and to bring good news that God is searching for them in their wilderness.

And lostness is something we all experience all the time. The spiritual masters tell us that ‘conversion’ is more an ongoing process of repentance and change and spiritual growth, rather than a ‘one-off’ experience. Now those liminal or peak experiences do happen sometimes, but it’s the little ‘lost and found’ episodes which count most.

Let me finish with two examples, one from a story about Jesus, and another from my own experience as a not-yet-fully-converted Pharisee.

When they brought the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8) what did Jesus say to her? After ‘Where are your accusers?’ he said something no Pharisee can say: ‘I do not condemn you’ – Pharisees have a ‘ministry’ of condemning others - followed by the Pharisee’s common mantra: ‘Go and sin no more!’ With Jesus, as John Claypool often said, ‘acceptance preceded repentance; with the Pharisees it was the other way around.’ The acid test of the Pharisee, ancient or modern, is this: when someone comes to mind who has committed, say, a sexual sin, do we always associate the person with their sinning, or view them as a loved child of God?

I don’t know about you, but the Pharisee in me rank-orders people according to their sinfulness or heterodoxy or some other ‘not-like-me’ criterion. I’m passionately committed to social justice, but not to violence: so I tend to despise the scruffy protesters police toss into paddy-wagons. I have several homosexual friends, but I’m uncomfortable when they greet one another in church with a passionate kiss. When I hear about Taliban fighters in Afghanistan getting killed, I tend to categorize them as human vermin who should be destroyed, instead of people loved by God…

Jesus welcomed sinners, he hosted a party for them, they were his friends… How many lost publicans and sinners are numbered amongst our friends?

Rowland Croucher
September 2007.

THE MOVING FINGER WRITES...

The moving finger writes...(Edward Fitzgerald)

Enoch walked with God.

Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua.

Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!

Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. Before him (Josiah) there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might... nor did any like him arise after him. Johoram... departed with no one's regret.

Abraham, my friend.

Abraham... was called the friend of God.

Antipas my witness, my faithful one.

(Genesis 5:24; Deuteronomy 34:10; Joshua 24:31; 2 Samuel 1:23; 1 Kings 22:52; 2 Kings 23:25; 2 Chronicles 21:16,20; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23; Revelation 2:13 -- all RSV)

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Browsing through cemeteries and studying the epitaphs on tombstones might be considered a rather morbid pursuit, although occasionally one might discover a delightful example of unconscious humour, such as this inscription in an English churchyard:

Erected to the memory of Adam Abrahams, drowned in the Severn by a few affectionate friends.

Here the bad grammar occasions the humour, whereas the head-board of a grave in the Sparta Diggings, California, compounds bad spelling and grammar with extraneous detail:

In memory OV

JOHN SMITH, who met

wierlent death neer this spot,

18 hundred and 40 too. He was shot

by his own pistill;

It was not one of the new kind,

but a old-fashioned

brass barrel, and of such is the

Kingdom of heaven.

More often than not there is a genuine appreciation of the person who has died, sometimes shading out into extravagance, although, even here, a bitterness developed through long experience sometimes emerges, as in this epitaph at Grey Friars, Edinburgh, Scotland:

Here snug in grave my wife doth lie; Now she's at rest and so am I.

Very rarely there may be found an objective thought which

rises above fulsome praise or barbed criticism. In Caermathern Churchyard, in Wales, for instance, there is an inscription:

Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent.

A man's good name is his best monument.

It is the duty of man so to live that he leaves behind a pleasant memory of himself.

Thomas Carlyle

This is important. What is said of us when we depart this life reflects the overall impression for good or evil which we make upon others by our multiplied words and actions during our lifetime. But the title of this meditation hints at a higher, more comprehensive and final judgment:

The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on; not all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Edward Fitzgerald, Omar Khayyam

Scripture underlines and personalises this weightier responsibility: Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

Man's judgment is necessarily imperfect, subjective and prone to change, but God's verdict on our lives is absolute and unchangeable. Hence the challenge which comes to us as we meditate upon the many 'epitaphs' in the Bible. Granted that the foundation of our acceptance by God is our faith in the completed work of his Son, Jesus Christ, what are we building, day by day, on that foundation?.

For no other foundation can one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay stubble -- each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done.

1. Corinthians 3:11-13

The divine testimony is that Enoch, Moses and Abraham had the closest possible relationship with God; that Joshua's influence was so decisive that it influenced the succeeding generation, as well as his own; that Josiah was unique amongst the kings of Judah for his unswerving commitment and loyalty to God. David's reference to Saul might seem gratuitous but there was no doubt about the loveliness and pleasantness in Jonathan's life.

In stark contrast, who would welcome a verdict like that on Jeroboam, the first king of the northern tribes after the disruption which followed the death of Solomon,/. Almost every subsequent reference concerning him highlights the fact that he was largely responsible for leading Israel into sin. Perhaps even sadder is the verdict on King Jehoram, who 'departed with no one's regret', which is paralleled in an inscription on a tombstone at Painswick, in Gloucestershire, England:

My wife is dead, and here she lies;

Nobody laughs and nobody cries;

Where she is gone to, or how she fares,

Nobody knows, and nobody cares.

Jehoram lived unloved and died unlamented; there was nothing in his life which invited respect or remembrance.

What will others think and say of me? What will God's all-comprehending and absolutely just verdict be? I am reminded that the unit is not the life but the moment; that the ultimate judgment will be based upon the multitude of impulses, thoughts, words and actions that make up each day; that there is a now when I can resolutely set my will to honour God by my filial love, loyalty and total obedience; a now when I can serve my fellows with a sacrificial love and commitment which mirrors Christ's own self-giving. The children's hymn expresses these truths simply, yet meaningfully:

Growing every day in awe,

For thy Name is holy;

Learning every day to love

With a love more lowly.

Walking every day more close

To our Elder Brother;

Growing every day more true

Unto one another.

Leaving every day behind

Something which might hinder;

Running swifter every day,

Growing purer, kinder.

Lord, so pray we every day

Hear us in thy pity;

That we enter in at last

To the Holy City.

Mary Butler

God's 'Well done, good and faithful servant' will be given not for isolated flashes of brilliance or occasional successes, however stupendous, but for that daily constancy of life which results in steadily increasing Christ-likeness. This is possible for the humble, one-talented believer as well as for the multi-talented. At Ataikola, in what is now Bangladesh, there is a monument erected to the memory of a pioneer Baptist missionary, Miss Ellen Arnold, with an inscription which sums up this attitude:

Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life'.

Miss Arnold walked that Way, taught that Truth and lived

that Life.

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Father, help me to realise that this day brings with it priceless opportunities of fellowship with yourself of growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Son and of coming alongside other people to help, encourage and strengthen them.

Grant me the grace to open myself completely to your Holy Spirit, that he may lead me into all truth; the truth of your Word and the truth of a daily life which glorifies you. May no one be caused to stumble by any word or action of mine; may no-one be the poorer because of my neglect or thoughtlessness. Touch my mind so that I may think for you; touch my eyes that I may see my fellows as you see them; touch my lips so that my words might comfort, encourage or rebuke as necessary; touch my hands so that all tasks might be performed well; touch my heart, my innermost being, so that your love might control me.

Help me, dear Lord, so to live this day that with truth I may be able to say, with the One whom I seek to follow, '1 have finished the work you gave me to do'. And guard me from the spiritual pride which can so easily follow work done successfully in your name and strength, for to you I owe everything, including the will to desire and the strength to achieve.

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A Benediction

Lord, go with us into this day and grant us, moment by moment, the enjoyment of your presence, a sensitivity to the promptings of your Holy Spirit and an awareness of the rich provision you have made for us to live victoriously, this and every day. Amen.

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 251-256

A FAITH THAT DOES JUSTICE

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and the calling of assemblies -- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.

(Isaiah 1:11-17; Romans 3:21-26 -- both RSV)

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Many Christians are puzzled about the implications of the gospel of Christ for their society. Where the Old Testament speaks so clearly about social justice, and denounces oppression and alienation, the New Testament seems to be not so outspoken.

Yet increasingly, Christians are becoming active in social and political concerns, especially in democratic nations where they have the freedom to do so. This freedom is in stark contrast to the Christians in many countries under totalitarian or Marxist regimes who suffer not only personal hardship but also great restriction in living out the gospel. Out of this contrast comes a desire for many Christians in free countries to engage in authentic social action. But how to do

In Isaiah's time it is perfectly clear that God was not willing to accept the sacrifices of his people, or listen to their prayers, unless they brought their community life into line with God's laws of righteousness. They had to turn away from evil, create justice in the community, and support the weak.

Behind this of course is the assumption that God was in touch with his people, and that they were in a relationship with him. In fact, to know the Lord is to do justice and show compassion, because we automatically reflect his character in our behaviour. So the Lord says to Jeremiah: 'Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him. He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me' declares the Lord (Jeremiah 22:15-16).

To know the Lord Jesus is likewise to reflect his character in our world. For God the Father justifies the person who has faith in Jesus, and this demonstrates his own character of justice and righteousness. The New Testament compulsion to social action and social justice is no less than the Old Testament obligation.

The Old Testament reveals a God who has a passion for justice, while Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail. For the Christian, a passion for justice cannot therefore be dismissed as 'the politics of envy' if it is seeking to establish what is right, fair and good.

Brian Wren, Education for Justice

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Old Testament justice topples over on behalf of those in direct need. This justice is not the same as fairness, as though everyone started from the same line. It is not portrayed by the blind-eyed goddess of justice. We owe that picture of justice to the Greeks. The blind goddess properly stands over the law courts. She does not look to see if the plaintiff or the defendant has the greatest needs; she is blind. She dispenses even-handed justice. She assumes that she is settling a dispute between equals. In the Bible the righteous God is not blind; his eyes are wide open. Because he is against sin, which distorts relationships between his children, he pushes away the oppressor and is active on behalf of those in special need. He sees the need of widows, orphans, foreigners, the oppressed and he acts for them.

David Sheppard, Bias to the Poor

The Christian pursuit of justice will be action rooted in solidarity with all persons, especially the poor. It will be action conformed to the demands of mutuality and reciprocal interdependence expressed in the norms of social justice. It will be action which acknowledges the claim of every unique individual to those material and social goods necessary for the satisfaction of basic human needs: food, clothing, housing, health care, social security, decent working conditions, etc.

David Hollenbach SJ, The Faith that does Justice

In the life, death' and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the world experienced a new redemptive action by God. It was a free act of God, an act of grace offered to all, the perfect sacrifice to overcome sin. It is a new and perfect demonstration of the justice of God which triumphs over the powers of evil. We are invited to respond with faith in Christ as Lord and with just relationships with our neighbours.

Changing Australia

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Lord, we sit in the comfort of our homes where we have space, and warmth and peace, and often we don't want to know about the problems of others.

We put down the newspaper and turn off the television when we see uncomfortable facts we'd rather not know. Forgive us our lack of care and help us to understand the real problems of those who have no proper home of their own... or no family to belong to... or no friend to turn to.

Help us to move through understanding to action so that we shall continually look for ways by which we can help to bring about your kingdom on earth. Help us to use our time, our minds, our energies, our money, through work, through friendship and through community action, to help those in this nation and elsewhere who are without food or shelter or clothes and therefore without hope.

And as we go about caring may they find the God who is the source of all caring. Amen.

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A Benediction

Eternal God and Father, by whose power we are created and by whose love we are redeemed: guide and strengthen us by your Spirit, that we may give ourselves to your service, and live this day in love to one another and to you; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Australian Prayer Book

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 242-245

ENTERING THE QUIET

The effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness,
quietness and trust forever.
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. Isaiah 32:17-18;

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and evermore. Psalm 131;

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy
One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 30:15,18;

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all they had done and taught. He said to them, 'Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.' For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Mark 6:30-32;

But those who wait for the LORD
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31;

Teach me, and I will be silent;
make me understand how I have
gone wrong. Job 6:24;

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters; Psalm 23:2;

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he inclined to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1;

But Jesus was silent. Matthew 26:63;

I commune with my heart in the night;
I meditate and search my spirit:
Will the Lord spurn forever,
and never again be favorable.
I will meditate on all your work,
and muse on your mighty deeds. Psalm 77:6,7,12;

Let the arrogant be put to shame,
because they have subverted me with guile;
as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. Psalm 119:78;

On the glorious spendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works,
I will meditate. Psalm 145:5;

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1



The bishop of Belley, Jean Pierre Camus, wanted to know if Francis de Sales was really as holy as he seemed to be. So he drilled a hole in the wall of his bedroom in the episcopal residence to spy on him.

What did Camus discover? Only that Francis was the same in secret as he was in company. He saw the saint creep out of bed early and quietly in themornings so as not to wake his servant. He saw him pray, write in his journal, read the office, answer some letters, then pray again. The beautiful manners, the unruffled compassion, the courtesy and humility were all on display through the peephole as they had been in the pulpit or at the dinner-table.

Francis de Sales lived a life of congruence: he was what he seemed to be. His life with God, his personal serenity, his love for others: they were all in harmony.

How does anyone get to be that way? The answer is simple, but the process is life-long: develop a wholesome spirituality!

Spirituality is mainly about how I relate to God. 'Spirit' in the Bible = breath, life. The opposite of spirit is not matter, but death. 'Spiritual' worship is the offering of all we are to God (Romans 12:1). As we noted in the last chapter, it's about my 'desire', how I pray (the very best index of who I really am).

The spiritual life cannot be nurtured without discipline. In this chapter we'll look at four disciplines - solitude, silence, study and journaling. Next chapter we'll look at four more: fasting, simplicity, confession, and service.

1. Solitude is being alone with yourself, and with God. It is not the same as loneliness. Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfilment.

Our fear of being alone drives us to noise and crowds. But loneliness and clatter are not our only alternatives. We can enjoy solitude in cities; it is possible to be a desert hermit and never experience solitude.

In his Life Together Bonhoeffer wrote: 'Let [the one] who cannot be alone beware of community ... [and whoever] is not in community [should] beware of being alone.' So we need both community and solitude: each is necessary for the enrichment of the other.

If we take seriously the discipline of solitude we will at some stage pass through what John of the Cross calls 'the dark night of the soul'. It is a time of apparent desolation, but in reality God is at work in divine surgery, bringing us to a profound stillness, so that he may work an inner transformation upon the soul.

Thomas Merton observed: 'It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them.'

Solitary time with God can be in a retreat (say, for two days or eight days etc.) but above all it ought to be daily. Daily solitude is not a luxury; it is a necessity for spiritual survival. If we do not have that within us, from beyond us, we yield too much to that around us.

Find time each day to meet with God. Make a chapel or oratory somewhere, perhaps a corner of your bedroom, away from interruptions (put the telephone answering machine on), where you do your prayer and Bible/spiritual reading, not sermon preparation).

Begin your 'quiet time' with a Bible word, phrase or prayer (Be still....', 'Maranatha', 'Lord, have mercy on me a sinner'). 'Occupy yourself in it without going further. Do like the bees, who never quit a flower so long as they can extract any honey from it' (Francis de Sales).

'Lectio divina' is the slow, reflective reading of the Bible. Scripture is God's personal word to me - for my 'formation' not just information. I read it reverently, ready to be 'converted' again and again, willing to be led where I may be reluctant to go, believing that God has yet more light and truth to reveal to me. I try to learn to 'meditate on the Word day and night' (Psalm 1:2).

The Daily Office is an excellent structure for daily devotions. Try the daily office in any modern Anglican prayerbook. The Daily Office, says (Baptist) Stephen Winward is absolutely scriptural, God-centred, depends on an ordered use of Scripture (including difficult and challenging passages), is corporate, educative (we're in touch with prayer traditions centuries old) and 'obligatory' (even though the discipline is sometimes hard). Of course, as the Protestant Reformers emphasised, it can be mechanical and formal, but it doesn't have to be.

2. Silence. St. John of the Cross, the great teacher about mystical prayer, wrote: 'The Father spoke one Word, which was his Son, and this word he always speaks in silence, and in silence it must be heard by the soul.' Silence is 'the royal road to spiritual formation' (Nouwen). It is not just the absence of noise, but an opportunity to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit.

An exercise practised by all the spiritual masters is that of attending to the sounds around you. Why not stop now: what do you hear? Thank God for whatever those sounds represent.

3. Study. In meditation we attempt to let a word or phrase of Scripture speak to us. When we do 'Bible study' we bring our minds to bear on the text, to get into its meaning. Meditation is devotional, study is analytical. Bible study is the disciplined reading of Scripture to try to understand it. Meditation will relish a word; study will 'unpack' its meaning.

This process demands humility, as we can easily impose our own meanings on the biblical text, or organize doctrines within the narrow structure of our own biases. The central purpose of study is not doctrinal purity (though that is no doubt involved) but inner transformation. Bible study is far more likely to produce a Pharisee than meditation on Scripture. In Bible study we are 'over the word' organizing it, criticising it; in meditation and contemplation we are 'under the word': it becomes a critic of us. The Pharisee is a 'proof-texter' - fitting biblical texts into predetermined doctrinal frameworks.

4. Journaling is a useful way to record the promptings of the Spirit in your life. A spiritual journal is a written response to reality: a record of one's inner and outer life (including dreams), a way to inner growth, reflection and healing. In your journal you write down, in your own way, anything of importance to you - your feelings about life, and your relationships with others and God. Through the centuries men and women have 'journaled' in times of loneliness, crisis, ecstasy, transition and conflict. Your journal will help you with one of life's great adventures - the discovery of who you really are. You can then befriend the self you discover, and later re-traverse the journey again with thankfulness.

Only you should read your journal, unless you permit extracts to be seen by others, especially your spiritual director.

These four disciplines, regularly practised, will help you `Let go, let be, and let God'; you will experience a peace that passes understand- ing, not because you sought that peace directly, but in the process of discovering who you are in the quiet presence of God, you will be better able to negotiate a truce in those areas within where there was war before.



Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence...

T.S.Eliot, 'Ash Wednesday 1930', in Selected Poems, London: Faber, 1944, p.90.

Christian spirituality is a 'spirituality for combat' that goes deep within in order to venture beyond where others dare to go. It is a life of harmony that is caught up in a rhythm between the outer and the inner, between solitude and compassion, between the desert and the city. It is open to those who in the midst of activity are able to see possibilities for ministry in response to the 'still small voice' of God. 'To be a Christian and to pray are one and the same thing,' writes Karl Barth. 'It is a matter that cannot be left to caprice. It is a need, a kind of breathing necessary to life.'

James C. Fenhagen, Ministry and Solitude, New York: Seabury Press, 1981, p.70.

Do not give up; do not despair; do not be tempted to think it is all a waste of time. Humanly speaking it may be a waste of time, but then how much time have you wasted on waiting for someone you think you love? And there is no one better to waste time on than God. You may think you will have all eternity to love him, and could here and now be better employed doing a good work. But again, the simple message which God speaks is the paradox that if you give him more time, you will have more for other work.

Michael Hollings, Hearts Not Garments, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, p.16.

St Benedict said Oratio sit brevis et pura: `Let the prayer be brief and pure.' Though the time of meditation may be long, anything we say to God arising out of it will have a quality of simplicity. We prefer to listen to God than to make God listen to us. Throughout the Bible God is reproaching people for not listening to him; he does not complain that they do not speak to him.

Margaret Hebblethwaite, Finding God in All Things, London: Fountain Paperbacks, 1987, p.94-95.

When we rest we acknowledge that all our striving will, of itself, do nothing. It means letting the world pass us by for a time. Genuine rest requires acknowledgment that God, and our brothers and sisters, can survive without us. It requires a recognition of our own insufficiency and a handing over of responsibility. It is a real surrender to the ways of God. It is a moment of celebration when we acknolwedge that blessing comes only from the hand of God. This is why rest requires faith. It is also why salvation can be pictured as rest. When we rest we accept God's grace: we do not seek to earn, we receive; we do not justify, we are justified.

Paul Marshall, 'Work and Rest', Reformed Journal, June 1988, p.13.

[The attitude of the desert] is a going out of oneself to encounter the absolute and true reality of things... Authentic Christian contemplation, passing through the desert, transforms contemplatives into prophets and militants into mystics.

Segundo Galilea, 'Politics and Contemplation', in Geffre and Gutierrez eds., The Mystical and Political Dimensions of the Christian Faith, New York: Herder and Herder, 1974, p.28.

There is considerable value in corporate silence... The quantity of verbal interaction is not the only, or necessarily the best, indicator of fellowship. We know well the experience of words failing us when we try to communicate heights or depths of emotion or thought. There is a peculiar and beautiful eloquence in a person's wordless presence in community... Time and again retreatants told me that the most significant and helpful feature of their retreat was the silence. Often they wish there had been more silence...

Ross Kingham, Surprises of the Spirit, Canberra: Barnabas Ministries, 1990, p.32.

In one way or another, verbally, imaginatively, physically, intellectually, with whatever faculties are operating at the time, we say to Christ, `I want to be with you. Let me follow you and spend this time with you, and then perhaps I will begin to understand what it is that I really want'

The whole purpose of the [Ignatian] Spiritual Exercises can be summed up in terms of id quod volo: the Exercises are a way through which we find out for ourselves what it is that we want most deeply.

For everyone, ultimately, the answer is the same. We want God, because that is the way we have been made. `You have made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you'.

Margaret Hebblethwaite, Finding God in All Things, London: Fountain Paperbacks, 1987, p.76-77.

A man who had been unable to pray for years began a retreat by imagining himself at Bethlehem but found he could not enter the cave. Feelings of unworthiness, and of simply not being welcome, blocked his fantasy at that point. He and his director interpreted this, not as an inability to `make the contemplation', but as a sign that he was praying; and he continued to imagine himself barred at the entrance to the cave in his repetitions of the contemplation. After two days of this, during which the resentments and hopes of his whole past life welled up within him, he reported that he was invited to go in. The fantasy, with the block and its resolution, was so much the man himself that it became the carrier for a real encounter and meant the turning point of his spiritual life.

Robert Ochs, God is more present than you think, New York: Paulist Press, New York, 1970, p.62.

In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in `muchness' and `manyness', he will rest satisfied. Psychiatrist C.G.Jung once remarked, `Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the Devil'.

If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture - including our religious culture - we must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation. In their writings, all of the masters of meditation strive to awaken us to the fact that the universe is much larger than we know, that there are vast unexplored inner regions that are just as real as the physical world we know so well. They tell us of exciting possibilities for new life and freedom. They call us to the adventure, to be pioneers in this frontier of the Spirit.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980, p.13.

Some of my most profitable experiences of study have come through structuring a private retreat for myself. Usually it involves two to three days. No doubt you will object that given your schedule you could not possibly find that kind of time. I want you to know that it is no easier for me to secure that time than for anyone else. I fight and struggle for every retreat, scheduling it into my datebook many weeks in advance. I have suggested this idea to groups and found that professional people with busy schedules, labourers with rigid schedules, housewives with large families, and others can, in fact, find time for a private study retreat. I have discovered that the most difficult problem is not finding time but convincing myself that this is important enough to find the time.

Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980, p.60-61

The main part of the exercise: I make a note of the most important steps in my growing relationship with God (about eight is a good number). These steps, or stepping stones, may be single events, or they may be periods of growth. They may be explicitly religious, or they may be connected to the human process of maturing that I did not think of in terms of God at the time. I make a brief note of each as it occurs to me. Afterwards I can order them chronologically, so I have an idea of the overall shape of my life. There may also be steps backward, or anyway sideways.

When I have done this I am in a position to see what in my life I want to thank God for. I take time over this, being grateful for all that now seems positive in my history.

Only after I have done that do I look at the ways in which I have fallen short. Remembering the events that I am now grateful for, how could I have given more room in my life for the things that really matter?

Margaret Hebblethwaite, Finding God in All Things, London: Fount Paperbacks, 1990, p.165-6.

`In the world to come', says the Rabbi Zusya, `I shall not be asked: "Why were you not Moses?" I shall be asked: "Why were you not Zusya?" `Know yourself' has long been a spiritual directive. `Be yourself' is an additional emphasis of today...

John Garvey (Ed), Modern Spirituality, an Anthology, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985, pp. vii.

When I first started practising the spiritual disciplines I read the works of great leaders - St. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Francis Asbury, St. Teresa - and I tried to imitate them. It was a miserable failure until I learned that God wants to work with me as an individual. Now I can read these spiritual giants and be helped by them, but I must not try to do everything the way they did.

Richard Foster, 'Doing It God's Way' in La Vonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988, p. 296

Five ways to make spiritual disciplines a part of life:

1. Dave a daily devotional time.

2. Consider having some kind of personal retreat at regular intervals. For the past year I've been taking one day a month... I get away to a retreat place and spend time praying, meditating, reflecting, and making entries in my journal.

3. Get involved in some kind of cell group.

4. Use family time to develop spiritual disciplines. The way you do this will obviously depend on your situation...

5. Join with other church members in regular corporate worship.

Howard Snyder, 'Make the Spiritual Disciplines a Part of Life' in La Vonne Neff et al (eds), Practical Christianity, Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1988, pp. 296-297.

The Christian life is lived out in the tension between self-discipline and the free gift of grace. Yet slavishly giving ourselves over to a discipline of prayer doesn't mean we will automatically experience joyous intimacy with God. A discipline of prayer may easily become a routine of life-killing legalism, all form and no substance. When piety becomes rigidly legalistic, many negative things may happen... One of the mysterious paradoxes of the Christian life is that it is in the practice of spiritual disciplines that we enter into the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Again I repeat, there is nothing mechanistic about prayer. We can't manipulate or control God with it, but it places us before him so that when he wills, he will come to us.

Kenneth Swanson, Uncommon Prayer, New York: Ballantine, 1987, p. 54



Lord, while I am searching for you, you have been seeking me. I pray for silence and stillness to apprehend you, for you are not to be found in noise and restlessness. Your beautiful creation - trees, flowers, grass - grow in silence. The stars, the moon, the sun move in silence. As we receive strength in silent prayer so we shall give to others in our active life. Teach me, Lord, that what I say or what I do is less important than what you say to me and what you do in me. Words and deeds which do not share the light and life of Christ increase the darkness and death.

O gracious and holy Father, give us
wisdom to perceive you,
intelligence to understand you,
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate on you,
and a life to proclaim you
through the power of the spirit
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Benedict, cited in Praying with the Saints, Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1989, p.26.
.....

A Benediction:
Go into the desert and there find your God in the silence; go into the depths of your being, and find your real self; in disciplined self-examination allow God and yourself to come together. Make your confession to him and receive his forgiveness. Then go into the world in peace to love and serve the Lord. Amen.



Now: Make a serious, personal covenant with the Lord, writing down in your journal a commitment to meet with him regularly, and outlining a way of approaching that 'quiet time' that is suited to you.

Buy Kenneth Swanson, Uncommon Prayer, and read it through fairly quickly, then spend several months slowly reading Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline.

Contact a local retreat centre, and ask for their program. Book yourself into a retreat or course each year.

Some Spiritual Exercises: In your journal, write responses to these:

1. Imagine you are the woman healed in Mark 5:21-34 or Peter at the feeding of the five thousand (Mark 6:30-52): how do you feel?

2. Make a list of the main events of your life. Why are they important?

3. Answer the question: 'What is my desire'?

4. 'The second greatest tragedy is to have never been loved. But the greatest tragedy is to be loved and never know it.' Write a love-letter to the Lord.

5. What would you do on the last day of your life?

6. Write - honestly - your own funeral oration. What will the pastor say about you, do you think?

Rowland Croucher