Southland Christian Ministry Training
|
By Ian, on January 25th, 2012
 As I pondered what Australia Day means to me, I went back to basics and read the speech of Arthur Phillip, when he was officially named as Governor of New South Wales on 7th February 1788. As the Commander of the First Fleet he had spent nine and a half months at sea and finally landed in Sydney Cove on 26th January 1788.
After a few days of basic organisation, he got down to clarifying the real reason of why they were there. They were a motley bunch, about a thousand people all up, half of them convicts and the rest government officials, soldiers and sailors, (some of the latter being allowed to bring wives) though you get the impression that NONE of them wanted to be there!
Pamela Robson in writing about this speech describes the scene:
“Uncertain and rather forlorn, they sat or stood in a small arena cleared from the scrub for the occasion, precariously clinging to the edge of the known world. They were penned in by the menacing and mysterious wilderness behind them and the vast expanse of blue ocean that stretched to the horizon in front.” (Great Australian Speeches p5).
Yet, for all that, it was a gala affair, with the colours flying and a band playing, a ceremony in recognition of the fact that they were creating history! The language of the speech is fairly stilted and the spelling odd, but the sense of his message for me was encapsulated in just one sentence – a personal commitment from Arthur Phillip that he
“…should ever be ready to show approbation and encouragement [to] people of the most abandoned principles.”
Seems to me that he recognised how difficult it was going to be to grow a nation out of a penal colony, with both prisoners and conscripts feeling beaten and despondent. Yet, their very survival depended on their ability to overcome their differences and work together. They did, and so formed the foundation of what we celebrate on Australia Day. Many of them lacked the right principles (both convicts and supervisors) as our checkered early history records, but it evolved under God’s grace, and I think we turned out OK!
The challenge of the future is to continue to show “approbation and encouragement” which loosely means “approval and active support” in short, offering a fair go to all, who, like those in the First Fleet, had been cast off from their mother country. There are plenty today who feel the same, who want a better life for their children, who see Australia as their only hope for the future. May we, with Arthur Phillip, recognise the need to work together, overcoming our origins, our past mistakes, our ethical and cultural backgrounds and celebrate being Australians!
Chaplain Ian S Whitley
By Ian, on December 8th, 2011
 There are times when I wonder what I am really doing as a chaplain in the Royal Australian Air Force. It is all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the needs of the people who come to me for help, and frustrated by the fact that I do not have the power to “fix” their problems. Sometimes that results in me questioning whether God made a mistake in calling me to this ministry! Yet, when I get to that point, God sometimes sends me a message. No, I did not hear a voice or see a vision, but God spoke to me through a prayer that crossed my desk. Prayers of the saints are not part of my tradition, but the following from St Francis of Assisi got me pondering:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much to seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
If you are struggling with life then maybe this is worth pondering for you as well, and if you are touched by it, I challenge you to pray it!
Chaplain Ian S Whitley
By Ian, on December 5th, 2011
Sometimes people ask me what I do as a chaplain. I have a long list of answers but I have recently decided on a new one, “Life Coaching”. Sounds impressive, but it is really very simple, I help people get their lives sorted out and clarify where they are going. Well, it sounded simple till I tried to work out HOW I did that! I suppose it comes down to helping people talk about who they are and what they want out of life. Here are some of the basic life coaching questions I have asked myself under the following headings:
1. Character! Who am I? What are my core values? If you can’t answer that then you are unsure of what you actually believe, and have no standard to assess your progress.
2. Clear direction! Do I know where I am going? Have I clear goals? You need to have both short term and long term goals, and they need to be written down with an expected completion date.
3. Commitment! Have I calculated the cost of achieving those goals? Am, I prepared to see it through to the conclusion even when it gets hard? To achieve those goals you need total commitment not just wishful thinking.
4. Capability! Do I have the skills I need to achieve my goals or are there some skills I need  to learn? Am I teachable? We all need to keep learning, growing and developing if we are going to reach our full potential.
5. Creativity! Have I got too close to the obstacles that I cannot see beyond them? Maybe you need some time out, to get away and grasp the big picture again. Often in the process you will see some new answers to old problems.
6. Compassion! Have I become too inward looking and think that I am the only person with problems? Take some time to be thankful for all that you do have and see what you can do to help other strugglers on the road.
7. Courage! Do I have the physical, mental and spiritual courage to take risks and do what I know is right? To go forward you need to move beyond your comfort zone, but you need to be sure that you are not betraying your values in the process.
8. Care! Am I following through on the self-care that I need in physical, mental and spiritual terms? The fact is you cannot be your best and achieve your dreams if you are not realistic about your own needs. You cannot care for others if you are not also caring for yourself.
9. Cooperation! Have I adopted a scarcity mentality or an abundance mentality? There are many others on the journey, they are not competitors for just one prize, if we cooperate we can achieve win/win situations.
10. Communication! Am I sharing my hopes and dreams with those close to me? Effective communication is the way to get help and support. Share your passion for where you are going because there will be days when you need a word of encouragement to keep going.
Are you prepared to honestly ask yourself some of those? This is your life, it is not a dress rehearsal, so if you need some coaching I hope these questions are a helpful beginning, but often the key to success is accountability! Find somebody you trust who will keep you on track.
Chaplain Ian S Whitley
By Ian, on December 4th, 2011
 If you come to visit me in my office you will notice that I have a lot of books.
They used to be neatly organised and arranged… but after so many defence moves they are now much more random.
In many respects my understanding of God is like that too, so that over time there is much more flexibility, replacing some of the rigid structures and divisions I used to have.
One of the implications of this is that I now read more widely and try to think more deeply, and sometimes God surprises me. Recently while reading about prayer I came across the following one written by an Arab Sufi woman:
Lord, if I worship You from fear of hell – then cast me into hell.
And if I worship You for hope of heaven – then deny me heaven.
And if I worship You in hope of gaining anything – deny me everything.
But grant that I may worship You for Your own eternal beauty and matchless grace.
That stopped me in my tracks, and this woman did not even come from a Christian background! Why do I pray? Do I worship out of fear or for what I can get? Or is it because I have begun to grasp who God is, his eternal beauty and matchless grace?
The amazing thing is that is what Christmas is all about. When Jesus came as a human, he moved the focus of God’s presence from a building or temple to a most unlikely place – a person! Philip Yancey puts it like this:
“…God who knows no before or after entered time and space.
One who knows no boundaries at all took them on:
the shocking confines of a baby’s skin, the ominous restraints of morality.”
That is the mystery of Christmas, so how and where does worship fit in for you? Look out, you may be surprised to find it when and where you least expect it!
Chaplain Ian S Whitley
By Ian, on December 3rd, 2011
 Over the last couple of weeks while my colleague has been on leave I have been feeling lonely and at times overwhelmed by all that should be done. Sadly, I have had to accept the fact that one person cannot do the same amount of work as two! Yes, I know that should be obvious but I am a slow learner! So, I have been forced to re-prioritise and choose to allow some things to fall through the cracks. Been there? Out of that confusion and frustration I found myself telling a story that I usually tell for others (like trainees and recruits) but this time it was for me…
Do you know how pearls are formed? They are the result of pain! An irritant, a grain of sand or other alien particle finds it way into the mussel or oyster’s outer shell. Professional producers like Paspaley Pearls in Darwin harvest wild Pinctada Maxima oysters and then surgically insert the seeding material which comes from a freshwater Mississippi clam shell. This material has a particularly unpleasant taste for the mussel! The organism responds by releasing a range of healing fluids which coats the foreign irritant, smoothing out its surface and after a couple of years producing a beautiful pearl. In one sense the pearl is a healed wound, a beautiful result of a very unpleasant experience.
 Life is like that… we too can take and use the irritating things that happen to us, the unpleasant things that leave a bad taste in our mouths to grow in us the character and values we need. Without that pain there would be no growth and no priceless jewel at the end. So don’t just put up with the pain, do something with it! Walter will not be back for a couple more weeks, but I will continue to do the best I can with what I have got, and hopefully grow some more pearls of wisdom as a result. Part of that is a recognition that God is in charge of my day, and I can leave both what I did AND what I didn’t do in His hands and expect a beautiful result… in His time not mine.
Chaplain Ian S Whitley
|
|
