Relationships in the Wind...

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 9 May 2013

How does that saying go? Be careful what you wish for. Here was me last week talking about building relationships and trying to keep them in good shape and WHAM out of nowhere from my point of view a few that I am involved in blow up and out of proportion to anything I could have imagined. I’m not sure if I got all the ‘vines’ sorted yet and if the ‘trees’ (see last week’s for a bit of explanation) will be back and healthy or nae but I’ll keep working on it and hopefully get it sorted.

It just keeps me reminded of two simple principles I know I have shared before and will again: 1) If you have a belly button you have a problem. 2) The problem is not the problem.

The points as should be obvious is that if you are alive there is some kind of challenge or problem you are dealing with in your life. I know even in my perfect world it is not perfect and I face daily things that leave me troubled, some that I have no control over, others that are of my own making. And the second is that often the thing that I say is the problem is only the latest problem, it is really about three problems back that I have to fix before the latest one can get sorted.

So what seems to be the biggest problem in relationships? Well more often than not it seems to me to come back to basic communication. The way we say something and it is misunderstood.  In my case too often I just don’t seem to listen, I try to listen but then I hear what I hear and sadly it is not always what was said. Alan Greenspan put it this way: ” I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” Sadly since you have the same problem I do, the problem just gets worse and worse and we find we just don’t get what the other person said.

This affects all kinds of relationships, work, educational, shopping, trades folk, family, marriages, best friends. And perhaps shouldn’t say all kinds but ‘all’ relationships. It is communication, that ability to talk and write and say something beyond a grunt that makes it work.

I am reminded that Jesus came into the world yet he created the world in the first place. John 1 starts by saying: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made... And the Word became flesh and lived among us...” God Himself put a focus on the idea of word, in this case The Word, who as we read through John we realize very quickly was Jesus, the incarnation of God. As I read the OT I realize very quickly that folk there were often very much in direct contact with God, yet somehow they misunderstood what God’s plan was, so much so that one book ends with the words “and every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” A bit of a problem.

More to come,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Those Vines That Choke the Life Out...

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 02 May 2013

Well a slightly less crazy week in the news. Not by much but still a bit easier to understand. So what of relevance is going on in our world? What thing just stands and cries out pay attention to this?

Not sure really. So will address relationships at some level. Why? you ask, because it seems that is what is breaking down in our world. Friends that don’t talk, families that don’t get along, neighbours that haven’t spoken in years, communities that hate each other and even nations that want to go to war over stuff that really doesn’t seem that important or that the leaders feel bad because the rest of the world isn’t taking them seriously enough. Or some such excuse.

Well most of those international situations I don’t have answers for, and neither it appears do our beloved politicians as they jet around from place to place trying to make up ground. So guess I will go to trying to help families at some level. And if I can manage, will try to address this from a few angles over the coming weeks... 

I was in conversation with my brother and he was telling me about having to pull vines from some trees in his garden. How over the years they had grown up and just taken over. So much so that now they were choking the very life out of some of his biggest trees.  It was a bit of a picture of how we live our lives and build our relationships. We put a lot into them in the early days, we work hard to dig the soil right to plant the tree, we water, fertilize, sometimes staking the trees in the early years to keep the wind from blowing them over. We wrap the trunks so the rabbits won’t come and chew the bark off and kill them before they get a chance to get started. Then out of virtually nowhere a wee vine starts to grow up, and as it grows it attaches itself to the tree and we see it there but don’t do anything about it till suddenly we realise the years have come and gone and the vine has gotten really big and is choking the life out of that tree that we had once spent a lot of time and effort to get started.

And so it is in our relationships. We spend time together, we say nice things to each other, we buy gifts small and sometimes not so small just to show we care. Dinner out with friends are times to bridge gaps and encourage each other. We go to events together and one day wake up to say: Man that is my best friend in the whole wide world. Then like those vines growing up from almost nothing to kill the tree, little things jump in and get to niggling at our relationship. But you know it is such a little thing and they are my best friend so it gets ignored, and sadly it continues to happen over and over till it gets to be a big deal and suddenly the relationship is not as healthy as it was...

Think about that for now and I’ll pick up with this next week,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Trying Week...

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 25 April 2013

Sorry to have missed last week and had thought to fit a nice sweet thought about how good it was to hold grand-babies and such then it turned into an insane week with all the goings on in our world. There have been bombings, explosions, earthquakes and other natural and not so natural disasters affecting people around our world. I, along with many, keep asking why these things happen and how a loving God can allow such insanity? I know the theological answer, but have to admit along with many others that that answer is not very emotionally satisfying in the face of these events.

Evil things happen and evil people commit these acts that baffle the best of us. Yet the scripture tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?” So in reality rather than ask how someone can do these kinds of things, the real question is; what keeps everyone from losing the plot and doing worse than we do? So I have to thank God for his grace that makes it so all the world is not completely wicked all the time.

The other question that gets asked often is; where was God in all of this. Well, there are days I almost laugh at that one. We, our overall society, are trying to do everything we can to get God out of every public place, out of the public square, out of schools, hospitals, work places and from what I hear in some places, even out of the Church. I hear and read of Christians more concerned with being ‘PC’ than sensitive truth tellers. So we kick Him out then wonder where He is...? Really-- OK How is that working in our world, how has that worked in the past? The question to ask really is: How dare we question where God is when we have pushed Him out? Morality and standards on the decline the further we get from God and then we are shocked at wicked acts by wicked people. Well at least I am, even if I do know the answer—sort of.

But, I say there is still hope, there is still a future that can be greater and better then we can imagine in Christ. Titus 2 has a verse that I love to quote, that I’m sure I have shared even here before, that says: “Looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” But the text doesn't end there because it finishes with the solution to the problem. Verse 14 says (Jesus Christ) “who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

The solution to evil is not to get rid of religion and God but rather to get Jesus Christ principles into lives of people so they can be redeemed from iniquity, evil and wickedness and instead be zealous of good works or excited to do good things in place of evil.

Shocked, hurt but not surprised at evil, mourning with those that mourn. Weeping with those that weep in times of trouble and great loss. But still wanting to share the answer to the problem and to even those that say they don’t want the ‘Jesus answer’ He is still there. And until those without a Jesus answer can come up with a better one, I’m sticking to this one.

Sad, but hopeful,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Family and Children

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 11 April 2013

We talk a lot about children and how they are our future. They are to be protected and on and on. Then we turn around and slam everything they do. OK a big paint roller kind of characterization perhaps. But it is a start to this train of thought.

I have the blessing of having all my children and grand-kids at home for the first time in 5 years. (Yeah I know, Ruth and I don’t look near old enough to have grand-kids... That is where you are supposed to laugh with me not at me.) It has been nice and I am enjoying the time, so if you don’t see me out and about much that is why—family time.

Anyway it reminds me of the verses that say “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward. 4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them…” [Psalm 127:3-5] I am blessed in many ways, I have good children, not perfect or always act like I want them to, but basically good. Granted they are not all raised yet but we are well on the journey.

Sadly too often it seems we don’t appreciate the gift from God that our children are. There is that wee bit that compares our children to arrows. Arrows are useless if they are not pointed to a target. Yet we are to do our part to do the aiming, the directing and raising of these gifts from God.

I watch and see so many abused kids it scares me at times. I read the papers and news reports and see two extremes of abuse. There are those that act in neglect, as if their children have no value and therefore can be treated with contempt and distain or worse. We treat them like evolution is true and they are little apes. The other abuse I see is those that give in to every whim and desire of the children. Neither approach can be good for aiming as both allow the children to aim themselves with no wisdom.

My hope is that we have not gone too far as a society and wake very soon to realize that the process is just repeating itself over and over. Just a bit of a thought that perhaps we can interact about in the coming weeks. Family is in meltdown and the basic bedrock of society is crumbling and yet we are not talking about how we are to raise children or the basis of marriage in our world and how this holds it all together. We talk about education and that is good but raising good kids is more than mere head knowledge and goes to learning how to use that knowledge properly.

Just thankful for my family,

Rev. Jon Bergen

Easter Monday Rumbling in the Brain

Published in the Brechin Advertiser on 04 April 2013

So Easter is past and we move through the year. Where have these first 3 months flown to. The daylight is staying in the sky longer now and it might actually get spring like now that the weatherman predicted more snow and ice through the end of April. I’m hoping he says we will have snow and ice all summer, it might get nice since every summer they say BBQ summer is wet and cold...

Well the Lord is risen, he is out and about interacting with His disciples and others. So a last thought for this year on Easter: Not sure who did this originally so if it was you and you happen to be reading this let me know--I'll be sure to give credit where credit is due. Just the thought adapted below made me think on an Easter Monday, hope it does for you too:

‘What if you had to describe Easter using only punctuation marks?

Maybe this Easter was a comma for you. It made you stop, pause, think and maybe even listen; but that's about it. Perhaps the day was a downer—a big bold full stop. You thought you'd feel excited, but instead it seemed to be more of an empty ritual. You felt as if you were not on the inside, but on the outside… just an onlooker. It was this day that life became a full stop for Jesus' disciples. He was dead. He was buried. The end to any and all expectations of hope and kingdom.

But wait—news of an empty tomb…the full stop is no longer a full stop, it became a question mark. That was worse than a full stop. Now there is doubt. Where was He? They were perplexed. The guards were gone; the stone was rolled away. He was not there. If not there, where had He gone? An angel spoke, 'Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was in Galilee, saying the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and how He must be crucified, and the third day He must rise again?’

Of course they remembered! The full stop is gone. The question mark is removed. There is only room for one massive exclamation point! That's what Easter is all about…an exclamation of gratitude and of praise for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and for the salvation His victory over death brought to us.’

So what do we do with this risen Jesus?

Will be an interesting journey this year,

Rev. Jon Bergen