When We Need A Little Help

If you’re a parent who works you most likely rely upon someone to help you with your children. It could be a relative, or it could be a paid carer. If you travel for a living you may leave your complete trust with your partner to compensate for your absence. And there can be times such as flight delays, illness, or even death, when you must have faith in people outside your typical circle to help you.

I too am grateful to so many who help me. I’ve had some frustrating challenges with my health and it's that circle of friends who tirelessly do so much to help who often keep me energised. I even receive help in my email communications at times. And to those who work so hard to decipher my scribbled thoughts for this devotional from time-to-time, I’m not only eternally grateful, but in awe over how they’re able to make any sense of my chicken-scratchings.

But there are times when you have to leave your trust in God and God alone to help.

Several years ago I boarded a night flight to Johannesburg. I was dreading the trip. I was facing a seven hour journey to Dubai, plus another eight hours on the next sector to Johannesburg. I was tired and really wasn’t looking forward to the flight. Although I had a book with me, I knew my eyes would be staring at the back of my eyelids long before the aircraft pushed back from the gate at Heathrow.

Dreading the journey so, I held back until everyone else had boarded. I was the only one remaining in the boarding lounge and the gate agent was piercing holes in my head with her eyes, as if she were frustrated that she couldn't close out the flight because of me, so I grudgingly presented my boarding pass, apologised, and sauntered down the jetway to the aircraft.

I worked my way through the cabin to my seat row and was delighted to discover the seat next to mine was unoccupied. The rest of the cabin was full. I immediately decided to nick the spare pillow and blanket, once the doors were shut, so I could prop them under my arms as I nestled in for my sleep.

But as I was doing my typical reconnaissance of my surroundings-how many rows to the nearest emergency exit, a quick glance at who was seated in my vicinity and digging out the eye mask from the amenity kit, I noticed a police officer come on board, followed by a girl, who I would guess was in her early twenties. Behind her was another officer.

I watched with curiosity as one of the officers briefly spoke with the senior flight attendant. She pointed to the girl to head down the aisle to find her seat; the officers left and the door was shut. Before the girl had moved past me my attention had already turned to making myself comfortable. But just as I picked up the pillow and blanket, she was standing beside me. She didn’t say anything. Her body language said she was to be seated beside me. I have no idea why I just assumed she’d be going into the cabins behind me. I later learned from the crew that an airline employee had been given the last seat in economy.

I apologised and mumbled that I didn’t think there would be anyone sitting beside me. As I stood up to let her move into the window seat she briefly said ‘ The hostess told me to sit here.’ I again apologised. I allowed her to get her seatbelt on and then handed her the pillow and blanket, again apologising. And at that my mind went back to my planned activity of going to sleep.

‘Are you going to Sydney?’ she asked. I replied that I wasn’t. I don’t recall saying where I was headed. I had answered her question, politely, but I didn’t wish to engage in any conversation. In fact, I closed my eyes at that, hoping to make the polite point that I was going to sleep.

‘Did you see the police come on with me?’ she asked. I had. But I thought it was more polite to say I hadn’t. ‘I was told I had to leave. I exceeded my visa. And if I stayed any longer I was going to get in a lot of trouble.’ I told her that must have been a frightening experience. And I added that I had hoped Her Majesty's Government had been, at least, polite about the whole experience.

The girl began talking. And to be honest, I don’t recall her stopping from that point. She had met a boy from England when he came to the Northern Territory in Australia two years earlier. When he returned home she had flown to England to be with him. But apparently the relationship didn’t last a month, especially when she discovered that he already had a girlfriend-something he had accidentally forgotten to share with her.

The girl, like so many who come to Britain and become part of the patina of London’s multiculturalism, didn’t want to return. The outback town she came from offered nothing but an endless open cattle range of dust and loneliness. She had found herself a job as a waitress in one of London’s many anonymous café’s.

She told me that her father was ‘mean’ and that her mother had wanted them to leave him for ‘a long time.’ She was ‘caught’ in London when two INS officers came to the café to check the paperwork of all the staff. She was very emotional about what might await her once she arrived in Australia. She had the (wrong) impression that she would be arrested for having overstayed her visa in the UK.

I asked her how she was going to get back to her town, which was about 200km north of Alice Springs. She said she didn’t know, especially as the least expensive ticket she could find only took her to Sydney. She didn’t know anyone in Sydney, but was more concerned over what might await her because she had stayed beyond the date HM Customs had stamped in her passport.

During the meal (yes, I ended up eating) and throughout the flight I reinforced the fact that nothing would happen to her for overstaying her visa. She seemed to physically calm over this and then her concerns turned to what she was going to do in Sydney. She told me that she really didn’t want to go back to where her dad was and she wistfully mentioned that perhaps her mum could come to her.

I remembered how many youth hostels there were in the areas of Kings Cross and Wooloomooloo and told her how easy it would be to get there and suggested that she stay in one for a few nights and she could check the boards for part-time jobs. This seemed to have sparked a more positive attitude from her. Her demeanour slowly changed from the frightened and nervous passenger, to one who was now clinging to a mustard seed of ideas.

As the morning sun was cresting over the Arabian Sea we prepared for landing in Dubai. Seven hours had passed and I don’t think the girl had once stopped talking. I looked at the headset, with its wires still wrapped into a neat little bow, poking out of my seatback pocket and imagined how nice it would be to get on the next flight and go to sleep!

As the plane taxied to the gate, the girl, (I never knew her name, nor she mine), said something to me that I shall never forget. ‘Thank you for talking to me all this time. I had actually said a prayer to God that it would have been nice to have a priest sit next to me to talk to, but I’m glad it was you instead.’

'Perhaps I was meant to be here too,' I replied.

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It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade. Mark 4:31-32

I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in Your word. Psalm 119:147

So What is a Good Death?

The Lessons of 9/11 and the World Trade Centre

Words of Comfort for the Dying

Excuses Excuses

Excuses are a regular part of human life. We give them and we get them, and most of them don't really mean what they say. 'The dog ate my homework,' or 'My little brother threw it out the window on the way to school' really means I didn't do my homework. 'We're terribly sorry that we won't be able to join you,' means in most cases, 'We wouldn't be caught dead at that event.'

Jesus got a full dose of that experience. He offered a personal invitation to several individuals to join His inner circle. It was the opportunity of a lifetime, by any measure or calculation. But what He got in return were frivolous excuses that revealed that His invitees were on many counts just lightweights who really had no idea of the precious and unique character of His offer.

We might want to note the frequency with which we offer ourselves and the Lord even weaker excuses as He calls us to live up to our best selves. Some effective self-monitoring would be useful for most of us in this regard. If we listen to our own inner voice as it responds to the call of the Gospels we'll find useful self-knowledge is lurking there and so is the possibility of conversion.

Hopefully we won't miss it!

Words of Comfort for Someone Dying

Remembering September 11 and Lessons Learned

The Ending of a Life

Excess Baggage

Ever broken up with a girlfriend or boy-friend under less than the best of terms, vowing never to see one another again, only to run into the ex years later and not quite know what to say and how to respond? You both may still have wounds of hurt. And if you were the sole instigator, you may have grown in wisdom but still bear more than a few seeds of guilt.

Each of us carries baggage from earlier parts of our life journeys. Not only our physical bodies, but our spirits can bear wounds, some self-inflicted, others the result of misunderstandings or just pure bad luck. And there are those who suffer from the deliberate actions of those who wish us malice. These can be heavy burdens to bear, and too often they present sizeable barriers to our ability to move forward in our journeys. How can we ever be free?

How can we be done with the hurtful parts of our past? Those are questions we all ask eventually, and intuitively we know the answer. Jesus wants to take our hands and share His healing and His strength with us. We have only to give Him our hands, but they have to be open, not shut and holding tightly onto our old baggage.

Before you ask for His healing and His freedom, first check your hands. If they’re still full and still closed, you’ve left no room for Him and your prayer will go unanswered. Because it is no prayer at all.

Forgiving Lord, create in us a clean heart and restore our joy in living. Cleanse us that we may always be living examples to those who have hurt us. Grant them the same peace that we ask for ourselves. In Your name we pray. Amen

Take heart daughter your faith has healed you. Matthew 9:22

Thank You Sarah!

Music is A Gift From God

When Traditions Become Weights

The Stigma of Middle Age

According to the Irish Humorist John D. Sheridan ‘No one is old at 39, and life begins again at 41, but at 40 a man feels as old as Methuselah.’ He lies awake at night listening to the gurgling of the water cistern and thinking of his hardening arteries.

Then clearly at 50 there's no way back. The thirties have gone forever. The forties passed you by so fast your head spun. And now you might feel like asking for a recount but there is no point, for somehow the 50th birthday is presented as a day of judgement.

Although there's nothing special about one birthday any more than another, there remains the implication that if the idealism of youth has not become a reality or at least a probability by the age of 50, then somehow or other we have failed to make much of life.

Middle age, like middle class, comes as a stigma - a sentence of 25 years or so with remissions for good behaviour, sensible diet, lots of fibre, and more ordered exercise, but a sentence none the less, and one which reminds us of the half measures of our lives, lives which are neither too good or too bad compromising vision with reality but somehow acknowledging that in the end it is an unequal struggle and that a rising generation will now have to compensate for our deficiencies, God help them!

One of the advantages of this stage of life however is the ability to look both backwards and forwards with a fair amount of sympathy and understanding. I certainly understand the challenges my own children face in today’s society and my senses are deeply damaged and enraged as I watch the carnage unfold on television. Thirty years ago I might have turned my head away and focused on other things.

Yes, being ‘middle aged’ provides the chance for one of those rare moments of total honesty when we place our values and lives in the balance, when we can choose to discard some of the excess baggage we have carried, and move on with greater freedom and a greater sense of purpose into another age.

Would I like to be able to correct the mistakes I made in my youth? I’m not certain that I would, because without having made them I would not be who I am today. Would I like to have my youth back? Well, only if I could retain all the battle scars I carry today with pride: because without the maturity of mind and soul I might only be reckless energy. Heaven knows we already have plenty of that to go around.

In other words, thank You Lord, no. Leave me with the tools I carry today, as they are the ones that are preparing me for my new life to come.

Lord, thank You for another day in our lives and for the opportunities it will bring. Help us to recognise and use each one as it comes so that it might add to the fullness of our life. In Jesus’ name. Amen

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It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It

I'm Only Dying!

Welcome Home

Elderly Nursing

Ein Kompendium der anglikanischen Gedanken und Gebete

An Endless Journey

More than a century ago a great sailing ship was stranded off the coast of South America. Week after week the ship lay there in the still waters with not a hint of a breeze. The captain was desperate; the crew was dying of thirst. And then, on the far horizon, a steamship appeared, headed directly towards them. As it drew near the captain called out ‘We need water! Give us water!’

The steamship replied, ‘Lower your buckets where you are.’

The captain was furious at this cavalier response but called out again, ‘Please, give us water!’

But the steamer gave the same reply, ‘Lower your buckets where you are!’ And with that they sailed away! The captain was beside himself with anger and despair, and he went below. But a little later when no one was looking, a yeoman lowered a bucket into the sea and then tasted what he brought up: It was perfectly sweet, fresh water! For you see, the ship was just out of sight of the mouth of the Amazon. And for all those weeks they'd been sitting right on top of all the fresh water they needed!

There is in all of us a restlessness that keeps us searching, moving, changing, looking far and wide for something - we're not sure what - but something that can satisfy us and fill us full.

We search and search, for the fanciest mobile phone, the ultimate car, the perfect best friend, the hottest new resort: We find them - more or less - and before you know it we're weary and listless again. A vague feeling of emptiness whispers, even as we find some new treasure, ‘not enough, not enough.’

Eventually we ask: Will it ever end? Will we ever find the satisfaction and peace we seek, or will we die listless and world-weary as so many have before us?

As the three kings could tell us, it all depends on where we look. What we're seeking isn't to be found out there. We can't buy it, lease it, invent it, or negotiate for it. We can't beg, borrow, or steal it. We can't move to a new place and find it. What we're really seeking is already inside us, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be embraced: The Holy Spirit of God who has lived within us from the first second of our life. The Holy Spirit who is saying to us at this very moment, ‘Lower your buckets where you are. Taste and see!’

Only the Holy Spirit of God is large enough to fill us full, to calm our restlessness and bring us the peace and contentment we crave. Nothing less will do. So there's nothing left to do but to whisper this prayer from deep in our heart:Come, Holy Spirit! Fill our hearts, and set us on fire! Amen.

Meet Me at The Plaza!

Thank You Sarah!

When We Need a Little Help