We had one of our Mission Year training evenings today. I didn’t go. I got slightly told off for not helping my team, but in true colours my team was absolutely find about me not going. I have to be very orthodox with my spending for the simple reason that I know myself far too well, if I start to spend more than my strict budget I can easily fall in the overspending trap. 5 pounds here and there and it instantly adds up to a hundred and more. We, as a society should become a lot more orthodox with our spending and learn to live of less than our means. I simply didn’t want to spend £2.60 on the bus fare which is out of my budget at the moment. Especially I had to come to turn with the unavoidable fact that I won`t be reimbursed for my job until all the paper work is done. In that respect I really can`t waste a penny. With my team we had a good discussion about it and came to the conclusion that until I get reimbursed I should look at my job as partly contributing as a volunteer to specific people in the community. This Mission Year is about: serving the community.
I think wherever and whenever money is involved it creates a minefield in human relationships and having the discussion this evening, putting our heads together and pray made me look at the situation from a different perspective. Blessing people in need is part of the Christian ethos. After the discussion when I came upstairs I found the Prayer of St. Francis on my bedside table. I remember picking it up at Gatwick Airport`s Chapel just before one of my travels.
`Lord, make me an instrument of
Thy 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;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as
To console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is pardoning that we are
Pardoned, and it is in dying
That we are born to eternal life.`
I should put this prayer on the fridge this could well be my reminder what this year should be about. I always been fascinated by Zeffirelli`s Brother Sun and Sister Moon, the life of Assisi St. Francis. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19G-0vlgMXA&feature=related )
I went to a wonderfully delicious dinner this evening just down the road and had a 3 course continental meal: broccoli cream soup with cave aged emmental, grilled Welsh lamb chops with boiled up lettuce and Viennese baby potatoes and shallots, cooked plums with cream. We had the most interesting conversation about Israel`s 20th century history and where does Christianity stands in terms of relationship building with the Jews. We far too often forget that Jesus was a Jew. I was like a sponge soaking up all the information I`ve heard and could have stayed and listened until 5am at least. Our very special many Michelin star chef spoke very passionately about his views and I felt like on the good old continent. I set between two English ladies, who tried to keep the conversation calm, but as I was sitting opposite to a Viennese Cohen I could just feel the touch of that well-known breeze soaking into feelings that matter and the questions that been buried and matured by history as they became wide awake and alive over the importance of everyday life.
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