If I had 5 minutes to talk in church

Our church is currently going through an interregnum. To fill the gap different things are happening. The other week we had 5 church people talking for 5 minutes each. It was so interesting.

At the Monday night prayer group, this guy who has only just joined the church and doesn’t know me said to me, ‘Hazel, you’re a philosopher, why don’t you speak in church?’ He doesn’t understand church politics and the hierarchy yet, but my immediate reaction was, ‘I am not an evangelist!’

I am not an evangelist, but what would I say if I had five minutes?

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Hazel. I work as a community development worker, but I started my working life as a History teacher. I am an introvert. I am not very good at polite conversation, I rarely watch television, but I read a lot and I care a great deal about trying to be the best you can be in this life.

I am going to share with you some significant reads. They are not all overtly religious. If you want details on the books and links for further reading I have photocopied my notes for you.

I am going to start with an edited quote from Michael Heppell who is a motivational speaker.

Being a leader is not a position. It is an action. I am the most important person in the world followed by my family, colleagues and customers. You cannot be better for others unless you are better for yourself.

Success is what you do. To avoid being a one hit wonder you need to keep doing it. Positive thinking is a nice place to be, but it doesn’t change much.

https://hazeldurbridge.com/the-peabody-employee-conference-2015/

I asked my eldest son who spent some time doing dangerous stuff in the military about why some people can survive and deal with terrible things. He said that often the crux is whether in that time of danger they felt they were the best possible version of themselves.

Where do we start being the best possible version of ourselves? I didn’t consciously start with God. I started with ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen Covey. I haven’t time here to go into depth about the book, but it got me in my mid 20s to think through and really focus on what was important in my life. My principles for living that I wrote then are the same now. It gave me a framework.

https://hazeldurbridge.com/my-principles-for-living/

At this time I also brought 3 children in to the world and fostered adolescent young people in double figures. The poem on Children by Kahlil Gibron has been my yardstick for parenting.

On Children

by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Hard and difficult as it is sometimes – you don’t bring children in to the world for what you can get out of them.

https://hazeldurbridge.com/thoughts-on-being-a-mother/

After I left teaching on the cusp of my 30s and moved in to community development I began to have supervision that focused on how my behaviour may influence those around me and what I was capable of achieving.

I read two books around this time that I have come back and re read again on the cusp of my 60s.

The first was ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by W Scott Peck. He was an American psychiatrist and best- selling author who died in 2005

who ‘talks about all sorts of things from pain, forgiveness, death, mystery, self-esteem, mythology, addiction, spiritual growth, sexuality and God. His work has popularized the four stages of spiritual growth’.

http://www.nathancolquhoun.com/2013/02/10/book-review-further-along-the-road-less-traveled

What I took from my second reading was that he

talks about our journey through life as being one we have to make alone. There is no guide because what works for one person may not work for another.
makes the point that we are in this life to learn, but most of us are too lazy to put in the work.
made me think a lot about what is love and the ‘effortful’ nature of it.
made me think about where God may exist in the deep recesses of my sub conscious

The second book was ‘Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort & Joy’ by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It is a bit cheesy and it is more directed at women over 20 with families, but the great thing about his book is that it encourages you to see the value of and be happy with what you have.

At the moment, I continue to embrace the ageing/ dying stuff. ‘Half Time – Changing your Game Plan from Success to Significance’, by Bob Buford is a book about reassessing what is important in your life mid-stream. I am a bit past the mid-stream to be honest and I have been reassessing for some years, but this is how it made me think.

I liked this quote:

‘The demands of life and the nature of youth together make it very difficult to understand the biblical truth that in order to appreciate the magnitude of your individual significance, you must also understand and accept how small you are. While the first half is all about gaining, which sometimes results in loss, the second half is more about releasing and relinquishing, which usually results in strength. You do not see that clearly when you are 26 years old.’

The book gets you to ask yourself questions. Some are standard and obvious. Others have a little twist.

You are invited to put one priority in a box which is to become your life focus.

What is my one thing?

What have I been given and what have I done with it?

If your life were absolutely perfect how would it look for you?

Am I missing anything in my life that’s important to me?

What am I passionate about?

Who am I?

What do I value?

What do I want to be doing in 10 years?

What gifts has God given me that have been perfected over time?

Gifts I am unable to use?

What would I be willing to die for?

What is it about my job that makes me feel trapped?

Most recently I read ‘The Shack’ by Wm Paul Young. It is a religious book that has sold 18 million copies. It was recommended to me on a World Horizons weekend I attended.

https://hazeldurbridge.com/world-horizons/

World Horizons exists on behalf of places and people not yet prayed for, churches not yet planted and cross-cultural workers not yet sent. We are a praying, prophetic, pioneering, pastoral mission movement.

It is a story about a family man, Mack, whose daughter is abducted and murdered. Several years later he receives a letter in the post purporting to be from God inviting Mack to visit him in the ‘shack’ where his daughter was murdered. The book is about his conversation with God there.

What did I learn from it? Remember this is my interpretation and not necessarily what the author intended.

First of all I want to say that for me the author totally answers the question of why bad things happen to good people, not that I have ever felt that humans are entitled to having it easy on the planet. I don’t see faith as praying for all the nice things I want in my life.

There is a lot in the book about submission to God.

‘You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms and know God enough to trust him and rest in his inherent goodness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself’.

‘Rights are where survivors go so they won’t have to work out relationships’.

It made me review my concept about ‘relationship’ and hierarchy in our relationships. ‘When you choose independence over relationship, you become a danger to each other. Others become objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness’.

‘Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself – to serve’.

The book says It is not about changing them or convincing them, but being free to love without an agenda. Not having an agenda obviously requires a great deal of maturity, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have choice. It just means you can’t make choices for other people. I think I was getting there, but it consolidated things.

There is also a great bit about forgiveness which I had heard before, and find immensely healing. Although we need to forgive people who have hurt or wronged us, it does not mean we have to have a relationship with them. They have to do things which make them worthy again of our trust in them.

Other quotes I liked which don’t particularly fit into a theme or general comment include

Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again’.

Humans were designed to live in the present. When I dwell with you, I do so in the present – I live in the present.

I am with you and I’m not lost.

https://hazeldurbridge.com/the-shack/

… and finally … whenever you need on-going encouragement listen to UCB (United Christian Broadcasting) on DAB radio. Some days my commute takes me up to four hours. The music and the encouragement uplift me every time. They are a beneficiary of my will and will hopefully keep going for future generations.

Thank you.

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