A life changing hour
'Spoken by David Small at Pilgrim Uniting
Church, Doncaster, Vic during services at 9.00 am and 10.30 am on Sunday 5
August 2000 during the act of Reaffirmation of Baptism.'
There has been much in the media
recently about abandoned babies.
The case close to home at Box
Hill Hospital a few days ago, and publicity regarding The Hole of Hope. It's
reminding me of the time, 22 years ago in 1979 when I abandoned a newborn
church
the fledgling Uniting Church that was just 2 years old.
Locking myself out of the church
was not an isolated incident. It was all part of a costly, painful,
indescribably confusing and complex breakdown in my life.
It was triggered by a painful
awareness that the reins were slipping from my hands in the company of which I
was manager. It was a big company. A lot of dollars.
Fortunately, I took the step of
resigning on the basis that I would rather walk out than be kicked out or
carried out.
I lived in a thick, thick fog of
guilt and despair. I am not aware of and good coming into my life at the time.
Everything was dark. EVERYTHING showed only its black aspect. The most minute of
negatives was magnified a million times. The end of the world was nigh.
The doctors were not slow to point
out that I was a casualty of The Peter Principal that scourge of the
unambitious, uneducated breadwinners.
The Peter Principle
was first introduced by a Dr L. Peter in a somewhat humorous book that described
the pitfalls of bureaucratic organisation. The original principle stated that
in a hierarchically
structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of
incompetence".
The principle is based on the
observation that in such an organisation employees typically start in the lower
ranks, but when they prove to be competent in their tasks, they get promoted to
a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on
indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer
competent.
(I suppose this explains why many
companies have boardrooms and management suites full of incompetent people. In
my case, I simply was not coping with the largely autonomous management task.
Burnout probably contributed, too.
IF what happened to me then were
to happen now I would probably be diagnosed as indeed many of us might - a
victim of The Red Queen Principle which was proposed by an evolutionary
biologist, and based on the observation to Alice by the Red Queen in Lewis
Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" that -
"in this place it takes all
the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
Lacking a secondary education I
had plunged in the deep end of many pools one of them quite literally.
Like Don Quixote I attacked each
challenge with conviction and energy like you wouldn't believe. And when things
didn't quite work out I would shrug it off
"Well, I would rather have tackled
that and lost, than not to have tackled at all"
and then, leaving my stock of
accumulated wisdom behind, ride on to the next windmill. But now it was all
too much.
The catalogue of guilts grew
longer by the minute. I had given my all to the company and the church twixt
1968 and 1979. I dwelt on how my three daughters were on the cusp of their teens
and twenties, I had had so little to do with their upbringing and education. []
Joan was unwell around this time. In fact she had an operation
and I barely
noticed.
I became less and less reliable,
and my normal low self-esteem reached an all-time low. I felt totally worthless
and inhuman.
The Church had no appeal. I had
become disillusioned with too many empty platitudes and too much hypocrisy.
After 41 years on this earth, my
catalogue of what I thought were wise and significant decisions added up to just
two. I was never in doubt that I had the right wife and the right hobby.
But even they were not really my doing. They were chosen for me
and given to
me.
We all found it too difficult to
discuss. In fact I am saying things now that have never passed my lips before
today.
At no stage was I aware of any
divine intervention. I received no pastoral visits, and although later there
were feeble attempts made to draw me back into the congregation
it was too
late.
I did receive psychiatric support,
but didn't take kindly to discover that my GP's referral was part of what I
perceived as a conspiracy.
The psychiatrist, it seemed, was
the choice of the clergy. The Uniting Church apparently engaged him to counsel
those whom he described as their "clergy in crisis". I had little time for his
incense and brushed velvet and muzak, although I must credit him with helping
restore a degree of self-confidence and self-respect
enough to plunge back
into the theatre with a vengence.
I have been under other
psychiatrists since, but felt I could only trust them just so far. I could trust
them to see that my cheque was promptly banked.
For many years I could not go
anywhere near a church without suffering terrible anxiety. I found obligatory
attendance at funerals stifling and claustrophobic.
I mean no offence in saying these
things. It is part of the catharsis that you are allowing me today.
So much for the past!
Now, many of you know of my
interest in theatre and radio.
A few years ago I agreed to host
the Sunday Breakfast program on our local community radio station for a few
weeks. The regular presenter was ill and in need of an operation.
He was later advised by his doctor
to take it easy. No early Sunday mornings.
This morning I presented my 287th
Sunday Breakfast program ... a program that is followed at 8 am by a program
that I thought to be somewhat optimistically titled THE LIFE CHANGING HOUR.
For over ten years it has been the
exclusive domain of a local minister who is now in his 80s and has for the past
couple of months been in the Austin Hospital in critically ill health.
Due to our weekly studio
encounters we have become good friends. So, whenever Tom has been off colour,
his wife, Jean, has called to ask me to fill-in.
Well, my filling-in was nothing
like Tom's program. Unable to pray or speak my own mind, I read other people's
thoughts (very professionally, of course) along with lashings of Christian
music.
But preparing for the recent
Trinity Sunday broadcast I read something that made the hair bristle on the back
of my neck. I can't even tell you what it was I read. But it leapt from the page
to tell me it was TIME
that the slate was clean
that with His grace and my
faith we could still go a long way together.
In further preparing for that day
and each Sunday since I have experienced blessings like never before. This
was indeed a "life changing hour"
My experience is best illustrated
in the words of C. S. Lewis in his book A GRIEF OBSERVED writing of his wife:
Long ago, before we were
married (Joy) was haunted all one morning, as she went about her work with the
obscure sense of God (so to speak) "at her elbow," demanding her attention. And
of course, not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a
question as it usually is of some unrepented sin or tedious duty.
At last she gave in
and
faced Him. But the message was "I want to GIVE you something" and instantly she
entered into joy.
So sure was I that the Holy Spirit
was on the job, I couldn't wait to tell Mark.
Mark and I frequently and
facetiously enjoy a
GAME; I suppose
a game of "hard to get". I would play at
being way outside the "flock".
He would take every opportunity to
offer gems of hope. Say I was searching for something I'd dropped on the floor,
Mark would feign delight on entering the office to find me on my knees
searching.
So - I sent Mark an e-mail
"and
verbatim I shall quote it" -
Don't get too excited, but I
feel the need to talk with someone (
like, you?) about my 22 years in the
wilderness and a "still, small voice" suggesting that I make a move of
reconciliation.
This is by no means a "road to
Damascus" thing. There are too many obstacles in mind for that.
Ironically, this almost
certainly sparks from my preparations and presentations of material for Tom's
time slot, but no doubt a few volts came from knowing some very good and
friendly people at a church near Shoppingtown.
I was wrong about one thing. By
the time Mark and I sat down for a deep and meaningful there were no obstacles.
Those obstacles had been in my imagination and were all related to my own image
and vanity.
I simply thanked God that a new
life had begun. I had a mildly burning sensation of peace and confidence and was
almost levitating with
a difficult when you weigh almost 100 kg.
Throughout my wilderness days I
still took delight in remembering the words of my favourite hymns, and right
then I was thinking of Charles Wesley ---
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night:
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray
I woke; the dungeon flamed with light!
My chains fell off; my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
The next day the day
after I had e-mailed Mark I received a call from another radio colleague.
I have counted Alan and Muriel as close personal friends for several years. Like
Tom Douglas, Alan is also an octogenarian. He and his wife are committed
Christians
Alan a Baptist lay preacher.
He had called to say that Muriel
and he had heard the Trinity Sunday broadcast. (This was no surprise. They are
loyal listeners to most of my programs, and never miss Sunday mornings). And
then he said he wanted me to know that he and Muriel both prayed for me every
day and that the Trinity broadcast had been most inspiring.
To me, that was icing on the cake
a kind of seal set on the event especially as it came AFTER I had
e-mailed Mark.
My lovely, supportive family has
shed tears of joy. And the hugs and positive messages from the Pilgrims of
Westfield Drive have meant a great deal.
Mark has been very supportive and
encouraging, of course. The ALPHA course - that Lynda "just happened to
be starting"(?) is proving to be the sort of crash course in Christian living
that a chap needs when he gets out of prison.
During the recent run of MY FAIR
LADY in May, I was in conversation with my good friend Peter Byrne a seriously
practicing catholic Prof. Higgins revealed that he kept a Prayer List on his
computer, and that people were variously listed in his own concoction of
categories. In jest I suggested that he might place me under the category of
"serious but not life threatening" or perhaps "beyond redemption". To my
surprise, he told me that my entire family were already there and were
remembered every day, and we talked at length about our relationships with God.
When I called him in June with the
good news, again in jest I said I thought he could now take my name off the
list. He disagreed and said "perhaps just a move into another category?"
Other little miracles have
happened since Trinity Sunday.
I am not sure exactly what God has
lined up for me ...
prepare the Order of Service and Notices with fewer
misprints perhaps?
I was going to tell you how I made
so many mistakes one week that someone asked how on earth I got the job in the
first place. So I said, "I lied about my age". I was going to tell you that
story, but it's not true.
As far as I can tell, the
challenge will be in the work I do best
radio and theatre.
We are
discussing about it.
I still have chronic depression,
but now have it medically under control
and I'm quite sane.
Of course, some things in the
church have changed since 1979.
When I abandoned that baby in
1979, the body of people at Bulleen would have been a congregation or
in the narrower sense a church. The people there would have been
regarded as living a life of faith. But in today's vernacular I belong to
a community of faith, and am on a journey ... and making offerings
by direct debit.
I have no doubt whatsoever the
Spirit has been at work during my two years employment here. It is the only job
I have ever had that I look forward to. I enjoy doing what I do at the desk. The
Pilgrim people I encounter here make the atmosphere extremely agreeable. Even
the boss is easy to get on with.
This place is alive with real,
caring, participating, souls who I can't help but like and love.
Revelation 3:20 says:
Behold, I stand at the door and
knock. If anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will come in
I rather like the line from the
amazing Samuel Johnson whom we often forget, was a theologian in his own
right. Samuel Johnson said
He can walk into your heart
without knocking
I would not wish despair on
anyone. Avoid it if you can. But in a way it was worth the exile to experience
the breath of the Holy Spirit that brought me back to God and to you.
There is a
story about a woman who rode the same bus to work every morning. One day an old
man got on the bus. He was shabbily dressed, obviously down and out. She thought
about what she could do to express Christian love to this poor man. How could
she reach out and help him? She got up, took a dollar out of her purse, went
over to the man, pressed the dollar into the palm of his hand, and said, "Never
despair. Just remember, never despair."
The next day
the woman was on the bus again. The man got on at the same stop, and came back
to where the woman was sitting. He took eight dollars out of his pocket and
pressed into her hand. She said, "What's the meaning of this?" He said, "Never
Despair won the 2.30 at Moonee Valley."
In a small churchyard in Olney,
England, stands a granite tombstone with the following inscription:
"John Newton, clerk, once an
infidel and Libertine, a servant of slavers in
Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the
Faith "
Since 1947, and interesting
ancient tradition has been revived at the Olney Church. It is the annual pancake
race that is held on Shrove Tuesday. The ladies of the parish race from the
centre of town to the church flipping their pancakes. At a service the winner is
announced followed by the congregation singing "AMAZING GRACE" which that same
John Newton wrote.
I know how he must have felt. And
I am thrilled to have the opportunity to stand here to bear witness to the
Amazing Grace of the Holy Spirit.
Spoken by David Small at Pilgrim
Uniting Church, Doncaster, Vic during services at 9.00 am and 10.30 am on
Sunday 5 August 2000
during the act of Reaffirmation of Baptism.
FOOTNOTE:
Rev Tom Douglas died three days later. David and Alan have been asked to take
over the aforementioned weekly broadcast. They are planning a change of format
to include contributions and news from local churches, but will continue to air
morning devotions based on the lectionary.
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