It's a love-hate thing

As my friend told me once, 'Hate is a very strong word.' Recently I listened as two young women discussed the things they hate. Including creamed corn and corned beef - not necessarily eaten together! I was surprised that there was no mention of Brussels sprouts which seem to to be universally hated despite being a staple of Thanksgiving Dinners in the US. Mind you, my kids still talk about my corned beef and used to refer to it as pink meat.

The discussion went on to mention people talking on their phones in public with speaker phone on - more of that anon - and people who don't tidy up their house before having you come over. They did concede that it might be a mark of friendship that they didn't feel obliged to do so.
I know I was looked upon with dismay when our singing group sang at a local nursing home and I said I don't like dogs when the resident dog walked in. Well, I don't. I have walked neighbours' dogs for them and I have looked after my son in law's dogs when they are away, but I don't really like dogs.
The thing is I don't hate dogs. Hate is a very strong word. Maybe the two women were really talking about their pet peeves or the things that rub them up the wrong way, but it's very easy to slip into the 'hate' language.
SO I was thinking about hate. Maybe we should hate injustice. Maybe we should inequality? Or should we hate the fact that many of the world's people starve while others are overweight ? Should we hate what we are doing to our world?
Is it okay to hate those who open fire on innocent people at prayer? And yet I read that one man who lost members of his family in the Christchurch killings refused to hate the perpetrator. Can I hate the hate language? Some famous quotes give me food for thought.

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. 
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Remind yourself to be kind to others and always choose love over hate.

Any ordinary day

'It could happen to anyone,' declared the bystander at a  car crash. 'Accidents happen.' And she was right. I recently read the fabulous book Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales. One reviewer describes it:


The day that turns a life upside down usually starts like any other, but what happens the day after? Dual Walkley Award winner Leigh Sales investigates how ordinary people endure the unthinkable.
In the book Sales describes how the day may start as usual with getting up, breakfast, cleaning teeth and out the door. Then Boom! The massacre at Port Arthur or the death by drowning of a partner or ?? Life (and death) happens. 

So how do we deal with that? Do we live in fear? Is this why so many of us are anxious? What does it mean when people say, 'Stay safe'? Should we try to wrap ourselves and those we love in cotton wool? As if it were possible...

The book is fascinating as it details the varying responses to adversity of people you may have read about in the news.  As I pondered these thoughts in the night I found the words of an old hymn strangely comforting.

I heard the voice of Jesus say: 
Come unit me and rest.
Lay down, oh weary one, lay down
Your head upon my breast.
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and warn and sad
I found in him a resting place
And he has made me glad.





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Out of the Depths

Sometimes when a passage from the Bible hits me I commit to learning it by heart. Not by memory. Yep, there is a difference. Usually I write it out by hand having perused a number of different versions. I then feel free to use the Glenys Badger version! I leave it near me where I will see it frequently. And yes, because I am a modern person, I even have it on my phone to refer to. And so I begin to read and reread and to have it so I can speak it, sometimes in public and sometimes just in my heart in the dead of night.

Recently Psalm 130 grabbed me. It is one of the psalms that God’s people used to say on their way to Jerusalem (A song of ascents, so presumably uphill. I know the feeling.)

It starts with the line ‘Out of the depths I cry to you, Oh Lord.’ Someone was having an uphill battle. Do you ever feel like that? It goes on to admit that if God kept a record of our wrongs none of us would stand a chance. And then comes one of my favourite words in the Psalms - BUT. ‘But’ often comes as a contrast to what has gone before. And so it is here. ‘But with God there is forgiveness.’ As a result the writer waits in hope as those who watch for the morning. Yes, in times when it would be so easy to despair, whether for ourselves or for the state of the church, or the world, there is hope. The writer urges us to hope in God for there we will find steadfast, unfailing, passionate, extravagant love.

Psalm 130 is in my heart. Check it out. And may it fill you heart with hope and the assurance of the love of God.

Soup

PS True confession. This pic is not of soup. It is last week's dinner but I thought it was pretty...

No fancy title for this musing. Just soup.
My mother made soup every weekend except for the very hottest summer weekends.
The process started on Friday night when she put beef bones and perhaps a bacon bone in the pressure cooker along with some dried peas and barley.
The vegetables (onion, carrots, celery and ???but never potato) went in the vitamiser. Ours was an old fashioned version called a Blend or Mix, commonly called the Blendor.
The fat came off the cooled stock in the pressure cooker and in went the veg. Thus we were ready for the weekend. Anyone coming home from tennis or netball and rushing off to youth group was accommodated. Likewise Sunday when the day was full with church in the morning, Sunday School in the afternoon and church again at night. Hearty soup with some toast did the trick at tea time.
So it was the same soup every time - varied only by whether there were tomatoes to make it look a good colour and what vegetables Dad was growing.
Mum never made pumpkin soup or zucchini soup or minestrone or mulligatawny or anything else exotic. (Heaven forbid chilled avocado!) Tomato soup came out of a can and chicken noodle from a packet but 'weekend soup,' that was special. Try as I might I never got it quite right.
But on returning from a week away I was keen and ready to go - soup. Chicken and chickpea this time, then sweet potato for a friend with a toothache. Who cares about the weather. As long as there is soup.

Impostor syndrome

I recently read about impostor syndrome and how even a highly skilled surgeon doubted her own abilities and would need to quieten her negative self talk before operating.
When I began a new job years ago I remember one of the managers asking me how it was going on about the third day there. I confessed I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing and she wisely told me 'fake it till you make it'. When I left nine years later, I wondered if I was still doing that as I faced each challenge the job brought.
The biggest feeling of being an impostor comes when I stand up in front of the people at church and speak. I have always been an upfront person. When I was in year 7 and the teacher said he would ask someone to thank the politician who had shown us around parliament house, I knew it would be me and so it was. Off the cuff I made the necessary speech. I have been a teacher and trainer, a tutor, a lecturer and in several roles done a heap of public speaking.
But somehow preaching seems different. (My reluctance to say that I preach probably stems from the past where I was taught that only men preach. I have wrestled with that and the place of women in ministry, and so came to the point where I could stand up in church and talk a bit!)
But when I first had this opportunity I surely felt like an impostor. Who am I to speak for God, to share insights from the teaching of the Bible? Surely faking it isn't the deal here. Then I came to the conclusion that it's really an awesome thing but on the other hand it's a matter of sharing what I know of the One I speak of. Telling friends about my understandings, but also my doubts and the days when I feel I am an impostor even to claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ.
Last Sunday again I was the impostor preaching before the masses (well, before a small congregation, actually)  but I was also the recipient of the message.  2 Cor 3 17-18 reminds us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom, and that we all reflect God's glory as we encounter that very glory of God. So not impostors at all.