Carmelite Retreat Centre – The elusive precence of God

As part of our final year studies our class were sent on a retreat, that is where I currently am – somewhere in Benoni! Although sceptical (like most of my class mates) I have come to terms that this is how my life will be until Wednesday and I will need to make peace with that.

The themes we are using as reflection is Luke 24 the story of two disciples on their way back from Jerusalem to Emaus, secondly: our own life story and lastly the movie “Motorcycle diaries” – a story about two Argintinian friends traveling through America.

Reflectioon and putting your life on a standstill is something that doesn’t come easily, and I’m finding it very difficult, therefore I’ll be using my blog as method for meditation and reflection.

Vuzi (one of the students from the URC) and I was talking earlier about how it could be that two of the Lord’s followers (diciples) wouldn’t recognise Him, an element in our lives which I find very relevant – how we sometimes live our lives (even ministers) without experiencing God’s precence, how caught-up we sometimes get in doing stuff, even church stuff, and forgetting the One who we are doing it for. It is however good to later realise that God’s precence really hasn’t left us. We won’t see Him though if our eyes aren’t open. Not seeing something doesn’t prove that it does not exist.

Many a time when I look back on things that have happened, I see the fingerprints of God on the situation, I don’t neccesarily feel That precence at the time when things are happening, but looking back I can see the words of Rom 8:28 coming alive in my life. A God working in such miraculous and misterious ways that one can’t help looking back in awe an wonder. But once again it must be said that it is a kind of “life happening while other plans are made” type of situation. That I have come to live in a relationship with God in a very cognitive way, that I find God in the poetry of the Psalms, the sintax of Paul, between the pages of commentaries – but also in music, in movies, in my emotions.

The two companions (whether in the Bible or the movie) are you and me and how we sometimes get disappointed when we can’t find God where we want to look for Him. Only for us to have to realise how narrowminded our insight was for thinking of God in human terms (are there any other ways?)

In the movie and in our own life we find God in the smiles of the people surrounding us, the act of mercy we hand out (or sometimes are on the receiving end of), the moments of desperation and fear.

However our actions, words and intellect will never be able to capture the full extent of God’s precence, but sometimes we will see the fingerprints left behind by the One whose existance is truely to big to grasp.

DRC Synod last days.

Not much happened on the last days of the Synod, except that the day after the homosexuality decision was made, the old guys opened their news papers and realised some of the decisions they made, which caused some type of consternation

Piet Strauss opened the floor for some discussion but in the end an amendment that the decision should be seen in the light of all 8 statements made.

We’ll see in the days to come what people’s reactions will be.

DRC Synod – Day 3 & 4 ( My second try!)

Well this is very ironic, and definitely proves that nobody is perfect or invincible, I typed my whole post on my cellphone and accidentally pressed the back button – therefor loosing my whole post! Now having critisised the voting system and the deligates’ incompetence working with the voting instruments (causing the synod voting by hand for votes that requires that more than one button be pressed), I will now be less harsh on the poor guys.

The debate surrounding Homosexuality and Church Unity was very good yesterday, or so I heard! I had to take one of the “steunspan” members to the doctor so I wasn’t able to attend the Church Unity discussion, but I did however attend the one on Homosexuality and that was dealt in a genial manner by both parties. If you don’t know the background: there were two concept designs on the table, but I feel that Cobus has a better interpretation on the two options so I would recommend that you look at the discussion on his blog.

In half of the discussion an amendment was proposed by Prof. Malan Nel to get a golden midway between the two and that the moderators of the different regional synods meet and that they work on this midway together. This morning their proposal was given to the meeting and has just been accepted.

Initially when I saw their proposal I thought that it was extremely conservative, but Cobus pointed it out to me that it still leaves space open that congregations could accept a couple of the same gender. Also as was pointed out by Prof. Nelis Niemandt the proposal states that a marriage is between a man and a woman which in the proposal sates that a same gender couple would not be recognised in “marriage”, yet it still will not deny homosexuals’ rights to their civil right of being joined by the country as partners in what can’t be called marriage. Futhermore homosexual people will be able to act in congregations as ministers if they are living a selibate life.

I think that it was a very tough decision to make (or proposal to set up) and I fully support this one as it is.

I will keep you updated on what is happening, that is if I manage not to erase what I want to say

(For our Afrikaans friends to find this post; Afrikaans Keywords: NGK; Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk Sinode; Homoseksualiteit; Kerkhereniging.)

Synod of the DRC day 2

I wish I had something new to report, but I can’t because nothing new has been decided. It reminds me of some of my professors pointing out issues in class discussions and telling us that tough times are ahead and that they are glad they aren’t in our shoes – how inspiring!

I refrained from blogging last night out of fear that I might sound to negative, therefor on a possitive note: there are some people that are really inspiring to me – the other are inspiring aswell: they inspire me not to become the people (without joy, passion, compassion and work satisfaction) that they are. I strongly believe that these are the things that things that Jesus implies when He says that whe are to experience life in abundance (John 10:10).

On not making any decisions: maybe today will be different, the topics up for discussion are Church unity, Homosexuality and some stuff on work ethics for ministers. Maybe if the discussion that the “Moderamen” will have a lesser role to play, which will give more “authority” to local church leadership, then the church could get something done, otherwise this meeting could be a terrible waste of over R2mil!