I’m feeling quite emotional, because I’m at a bit of a loose end.
Our holiday, instead of being a recovery before settling into the year, was quite chaotic, leaving me car-less, affecting my shifts, making money issues worse, temporarily. It should all work out. And Daisy has lent me her car for the week!
It is unsettling for my identity not being the main earner, for the time being, and not being able to drive. Rennie is at a sensitive time, transitioning to post- school, Lewes is unwell and depressed, probably about the start of another year in his own struggle. Kelly found the holiday similarly unsatisfying. And the weather is awful. Hot, humid, grey, uninspiring.
For all that I had quite a useful day yesterday. Lots of active loving. I walked Kelly to the bus to soften the blow of work, I took Lewes to the doctor – he needed antibiotics. I made dinner for daisy and Daniel who visited.
I did my tax, late but done. A necessary pre-condition to applying for Centrelink, which even if they don’t pay anything, is a good precaution if we’re in a period of being working poor. Centrelink can support weeks where you don’t get enough shifts, and the uncertainty of Omicron is playing havoc with my bookings. It also may help reduce the cost of TAFE for Ren.
And I’m thinking of changing career yet again. At least possibly, back to communications, maybe part time, not sure. Unfortunately I’m not very good at straightforward communication, I’m more into complex, dense, eccentric and weird communication. But not many job descriptions want that. I’m hoping to slip in under the radar and grab a bit of cash before they find out and fire me again. Anyway, Centrelink may help support that transition.
Last chapter of Colossians is largely greetings.
The substance is about Paul’s prayer life. It’s strong.
It’s hard how much of Christianity is thinking and concepts. Prayer is thinking really, it requires concentration. It’s a bit like meditation I suppose. You have to find ways for it or (for me at least) it constantly falls off the table. Paul contends in prayer, his helpers do too, and he asks for earnest, ongoing prayer in return.
Also he drops his classic about conversation, being full of grace and seasoned with salt. This is in the context of using opportunities to interact with non-believers to stand out, be different, and create openings for the message of Christ.
Today the church is despairing that younger generations are turning from it in droves. But they have the same human needs as those first century people who lapped up the gospel in droves. The church has lost trust, it’s seen as cynical.
We need to fix ourselves, not our message. We can complain about being misunderstood, but authenticity wins out in the end. Better to be honest and real and actually good than work out how to curate your image, in my opinion.
Grace, seasoned with salt, is a groove we can only get back by being sincere. Paul spends most of his letters guiding Christians to live according to what they know to be right. Get that right, and the message will start to be attractive. Asking how to make the message attractive is the wrong question. It’s arrogant.
He mentions a church run by a woman, Nympha, and another letter, to the Laodicean church that some have speculated might be Ephesians.
These wealthy women who opened their houses to become churches are prominent among the 16 women Paul mentions in these parts of these letters. They were often apparently the best educated in the congregation, and would have read the letters. They were also key to distributing wealth to poorer members. Nympha only got her gender back in recent years, she spent centuries being translated as a man, because her gender didn’t fit her role to some of the early scholars.
Paul finishes with “remember my chains” The commentator observed that he’s more about looking for authority here than sympathy. Acts makes it clear he was in chains because he appealed to Caesar to avoid a local trial in Jerusalem that was an assassination plot by the Jews. The chains were evidence of the risk he took bringing the gospel to the gentiles. The commentator speculated that they may have clanked as he wrote his traditional last sentence himself.
Today is one of the messy days where I’m doing lots of processing, my mind is unsettled. No neat message, and I don’t know what to pray.
I pray that I will use my time wisely. And for family.