Monthly Archives: February 2008

Head Down Bum Up

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Its been a busy week between the SUWA staff retreat, several reticulation jobs, getting ready for Forge next weekend as well as preparing for preaching at a local youth pastor’s induction this weekend.

In times like these the blog just drops off the radar. I have been enjoying the conversation regarding hospitality and mission, but haven’t had the headspace to respond.

It has also been ridiculously hot and humid for the first 3 days of the week, followed by a heap of rain. Humidity sux, but it seems we are in for more of it. On Monday it was 36 degrees, humid and blowing warm easterlies all day. I did a retic installation that took 10 hours and by the end I was pretty wiped out. I think I have been playing catch up ever since.

Today I was met with a request from a person on a disability pension who asked what my hourly rate was, because she was worried she couldn’t afford to have work done. I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I’m happy to give a discount for people who are doing it tough, but haven’t got a set rate for pensioners. As I was driving to her home I thought maybe it would be fair to let her tell me what she felt was a reasonable price. So I put the ball in her court and she suggested a rate that was well below what I normally charge, but wasn’t at all silly.

She had been saving up for 3 months to have the work done and had a fairly small amount of money, so it was nice that at the end of the day she still had almost half the money left for other needs. Everyone was happy and the job got done. I think I’ll stick with that approach as very few people will ever feel ripped off if they can set the price.

Over the 3 months since I started ‘Brighton Reticulation’ I have learnt a heap and actually feel like I know what I’m doing now. If I meet a question that is beyond me then its a phone call to Total Eden who always seem to have an answer. I’ve also learnt that many people in this type of work avoid fault finding and problem solving, but I’ve been finding that one of the more energising aspects of it. Installations pay better, but the challenge of figuring out ‘what’s gone wrong’ here is always a bit of fun.

Some older houses are complete nightmares when it comes to tracing wires and pipes, so I typically try to avoid them, but as I only work north of Joondalup, most of what I do is fairly new.

Oh crap, I’m in ramble mode… Anyway, that’s my Friday afternoon ramble finished…

Radical Hospitality & Incarnational Mission in Suburbia

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I have been reflecting on a conversation in a recent post…

In response to this post, Matt, Harry & I had a short conversation regarding the nature of incarnational mission and the place of ‘radical hospitality’ within it. I would like to spend a bit more time on it because I believe it an important issue and I’d like to hear how others would approach things.

To give some context, in regard to how we interact locally, part of my post said:

I must admit I am wary of having my neighbours so much a part of my life that they feel free to drop in at any time and stay for as long as they like. There is a part of me that warms to the thought of such connected lives, but then a part of me that also values the privacy of my home and the ability to confidently retreat.

Having seen the way some neighbours can come and never leave I have probably swayed to a safer position. In some ways this is out of kilter with what I hope to see develop and yet if I am to survive in this setting for the long term then it is just common sense.

I should be careful to add that we are not reclusive and have quite an open home, but I do like to have space to retreat within my home.

Matt responded:

I’m not sure this is, as you say, “common sense”, well not in a vulnerable, reciprocal, welcoming the stranger, kind of way.

And went on to describe his own position as “mi casa et su casa” or my house is your house, certainly a bold and radical way to live in a community.

He asked:

“I wonder if there has to be some sort of reckless abandonment, a “letting go” of those safe perimeters, if we are to truly connect with our neighbours on an equal, reciprocal level, rather than us occupying the position of “saviour” and them the position of “lost” – not words we would necessarily use, but i wonder if self-protection reveals we still hold to a “we will save the world mentality”.”

Great question!

We had some discussion about our different approaches and Harry chipped in as well by suggesting that ‘radical hospitality’ may be beyond the capacity of the average nuclear family and that the local church maybe ought to be function as this kind of community.

For the purpose of the conversation let’s define ‘radical hospitality’ as “mi casa et su casa” because that is certainly a stretch for most of us. It means people are welcome any time and we are always open to having guests in our home, whether they be the ‘good friend’ kind or the ‘homeless recently out of prison’ kind (with obvious precautions taken to cater for kids).

Part of my own reticence to adopt Matt’s position comes simply from my natural introversion. While I like people and function well in groups, I do find that I tire when I am around large groups for a long period of time. For that matter I get tired around small groups too and just need ‘space’. It took me a while to realise this about myself and I would sometimes go home tired and grumpy from a party and not know why. Now I just leave early! On the DISC profile I am a ‘DIC’ (no surprises hey?…) The reasonably high ‘I’ is my people orientation. And it stays high so long as I am not stressed or overloaded. Part of my own learning has been how to avoid putting myself in places where I get overloaded with work or people because in those situations I get short, terse and task oriented. Not pretty.

Danelle is quite the opposite. She loves people, enjoys parties and would rather have endless drop ins all day. She gets tired after a while, but its a looong while. So in our house we have had to strike a balance, and I think we’ve done ok.

The question that I am chewing on is how does the openness of our home affect the way we do mission here in Brighton. There’s no question that our work is relational and long term, so knowing how to approach that in a healthy way is vital to our sustainability and effectiveness.

I have moved a long way in my own ‘hospitableness’, but I will never be Danelle. I wonder if stretching myself in this area is good discipline, or if it actually being untrue to the person I am? Is it more genuine to just let my friends know that I am introvert who enjoys their company, but needs to get away, or should I look at pushing thru this and learning how to live in a different way, while still being who I am?

I imagine all of us in similar missionary ventures are faced with the same issue in some shape or form, so I’d really value your reflections and interactions on this one.

God Next Door III – The Shape of Suburban Communities

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Chapter 2 is entitled ‘A suburban state of mind – suburbia and the private life’

Simon begins by reminding us that suburbia used to be the domain of the privileged few who could move out and escape the city, but more recently suburban living has become synonomous with “dull monotony, political conformity and cultural inferiority”. I must admit it is easy to speak disparagingly of suburbia with its blandness and often shallow approach to life. And yet, part of the reason I find myself so intrigued by this subject, is that this is where the vast majority of us live.

For better or worse we have chosen to live in the suburbs when we could make other choices… Which makes me wonder, do those who lament suburbia, really do so, or does it just make us sound cool if we complain?…

Having said that, there is ‘suburbia and suburbia’. The 3 different suburbs I have spent most of my life in are vastly different. Scarborough has almost an urban feel with the redevelopment that has taken place, the crowded unit developments along the beachfront and the diverse kinds of people living there. By contrast Lesmurdie is the last suburb before you hit bush and for that reason feels semi rural in places. Ironically it is much closer to the city than where we are now in Brighton, but the landscape says ‘country’. Lesmurdie has something of a village feel but it is extremely homogenous in population as well as having a vibe of superiority at times. That might be the wrong word (and I’m sure some Lesmurdieites reading this won’t like it described that way), but I think there is an air about the place that stands apart from the rest of the city. Then there’s Brighton (actual suburb name is Butler) that is a new estate and brings with it all the energy and dramas of that scenario. Each has its beauties and challenges.

Simon writes about how privacy has become a primary concern for suburbanites. He says ‘the critics argue that we’ve gradually moved from a collective privacy to an individual privacy or what’s been dubbed privatopia’. In our own estate we see some attempts to reverse this with much land given to common areas and community events being provided by the developer. Streets are zoned in older grid like fashion and footpaths are everywhere. This is by contrast with the older suburbs next door where a maze of convoluted cul de sacs mean that you are only ever going to see your immediate neighbours and any passing traffic is likely accidental or unwanted. These suburbs have been acknowledged as ‘design errors’ and it seems unlikely we will be going ack there again!

As mentioned before, the front porch has been replaced by the alfresco area and now entertaining is done out back. ‘Privatopia’ is a good word for how we live. Given you can get home from work open the remote garage door and enter the house by the garage entry door you really can avoid ever having to mix with neighbours.

On the issue of privatopia Simon writes: “Indeed there has been a definite shift from the house in community to the house as private territory. According to the critics, the result is a suburban culture that values the defining of personal boundaries over the nurturing of relationships.”

What’s also interesting is the size and type of houses being built. Clive Hamilton in Affluenza writes that the average Oz home has increased 30% in the last 20 years. It just seems foolish to build a home under 200sqm now! I mean if you go to sell it, who would but it?!! This was a real consideration for us as we built up here. We wanted to make sure we built something that someone would want at a later date. (This economic / resale issue makes the idea of ‘out front’ living areas problematic.)

The various covenants that accompany new estates have the effect of limiting people’s creativity and innovation. Houses all must look alike to some degree and part of that is driven by economic factors. But it does make for a rather drab streetscape. One of the suburbs near us is ‘Quinns Rock’ an area that used to be a holiday village but with development catching up it has been swallowed up into suburbia. There is now ‘old Quinns’ and ‘new Quinns’, with the ‘old’ being a wonderfully diverse collection of houses from the 60’s onwards usually on big blocks of land.

house.jpg

I noticed this house the other day and really liked its vibe, but there’s no way we could build it in Butler…

I wonder what it does to a community when people are compelled to live by certain covenants and required to conform to various standards? I wonder if it actually drains some of the creativity out of the people? Then again most are too busy to be creative anyway.

I’d like to move across to Old Quinns with its eclectic assortment of houses, winding streets and rural vibe, but then that’d mean leaving our own backyard…

Goals

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By nature I am a goal setter and achievement oriented, but I have become aware that sometimes we set goals over which we think we have control, but in reality have no control or very limited control.

So this year as I was doing some planning I began to put my goals in two columns – those I can control and those I can’t.

Can you believe how small the list was of ‘things I control’?!

Quite seriously – if you think you are in control then complete that same exercise and observe how much of life is dependent on others / the divine. I am wearying a little of the goal setting process, partly for this reason and partly because there is so much that is not measurable, specific etc that matters. I also find that the stuff I achieve that I didn‘t set out to achieve sometimes is more valuable than the stuff I focus on…

Having said that, i still found this post from Mike Bullard helpful in understanding the value of having some sense of direction and focus on the things we are seeking to achieve.