Deep Dive Conversation Dinner: Money and economic type things

I know that I am cared for by an abundant Provider

I choose to be grateful and trusting,

I believe I have enough and that what I need will always be provided.

I choose to be content and generous.

I know that my choices matter for myself, for others and for future generations.

Help me to live consciously and creatively,

celebrating signs of your new creation that is present and coming.

Creator, who made me to seek the greater good of Your kingdom,

Guide me to use my time, talents and resources to pursue what matters most.

Teach me to be free,

to live without worry, fear or greed in the freedom of Your abundance.

Give me my daily bread, as I share with those in need.

Thank You for the precious gift of life.

[From ‘Free’ by Mark Scandrette]

With this prayer of abundance, we [tbV and 11 friends, some who were girlfriends, fiances and wives we had not met before] launched into the dinner time on Friday, a most excellent meal of Butternut soup and Beer bread that Val and i had whipped up.

Last time a group of us met intentionally in this way it was with a focus on Race and more specifically Location in terms of where you choose [if you do] to live in Cape Town, already a challenging topic. But gather some people you don’t necessarily know all that well and invite them to speak about Money [you know, that thing we talk about in depth ALL the time] and things can get interesting.

We read through that prayer at the top again after the meal which took place in the middle of a four hour conversation of different aspects of money and things and how we spend and what generosity looks like… and this time invited our guests to share which line impacted them the most – either in terms of resonating or being a difficult one to embrace.

First up, as people arrived, we depossessed them of their phones by asking them to switch them on to silent and stick them in our phone basket. A most fantastic way of inviting people to engage more deeply and without distraction for an evening.

Val began the whole evening by reading a section of Mark Scandrette’s book ‘Free’ which we are going to be starting a book study on with a small group of people in a couple of weeks and which has deeply impacted us – the tagline ‘Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most’ sums up the book:

We live in one of the wealthiest economies on earth. Yet many of us feel crunched for time, stressed in our finances or perplexed about what makes life meaningful. Our culture is driven by a sense of scarcity, fear and an unquenchable quest for more. If we don’t make conscious choices to resist these impulses, the force of a materialistic and consumeristic society will make most of our decisions for us. The scripts we’ve inherited about material prosperity are wearing us out, robbing our joy and destroying our planet.

Wow, that would probably be enough for you to invite a bunch of friends round for a meal, read out and then invite them to discuss, yeah? but there’s more:

Our challenge is to pursue a standard of living that can be shared by all. to love our neighbour as ourselves we have to consider how our individual actions affect our sister across the street and our brother on another continent. We might not be able to fully grasp the scope of the problem or offer a complete solution but we can wrestle with the weight of our relative privilege and disproportionate consumption. For the sake of our global neighbours, the planet and future generations we’ve got to find a way to be less wasteful and consumptive, discovering a more sustainable version of the American Dream.

We are encouraged by the growing awareness among people of faith that the gospel of Jesus is holistic and touches every aspect of our lives. We see Christians of every variety desiring a life of faith that includes being a good neighbour. valuing relationships, cultivating an inner life, caring about people affected by poverty and consciously becoming better stewards of creation. However, this good vision for the church will remain largely unrealised unless practical realities and competencies are addressed. Many of us are too busy or too distracted to sustain a life of compassionate engagement. We live lives of hurry, worry and striving, finding little satisfaction in our manic work and recreational activities. Instead of being free to create beauty, nurture relationships and seek the greater good, many of us feel stuck in lives dictated by the need to pay bills or maintain a certain (often consumptive) standard of living. We can’t have it all – the prevailing level of consumption, a life of deeper meaning and relationships and global equality and sustainability. To realise these good dreams we must adjust our values and practices and seek creative solutions. 

Few things shape us more than our choices about how we earn, spend, save and invest. Most of us will spend a third of our time at income-producing jobs. How we choose to manage those earnings largely determines whether we are free to serve the greater good. Yet, rarely have religious communities, in particular, done well at addressing money and work as areas for discipleship – other than the occasional sermon about giving. Perhaps we unconsciously tend to seperate money and work from the centre of our religious lives, making an artificial and unhelpful distinction between what is spiritual and what is temporal, and thereby less important. In a holistic understanding of the gospel every part of life is sacred and integral to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This means we must learn to talk more honestly and openly about the details of our financial lives as an essential aspect of Christian discipleship.

And that was literally just the introduction. Wow.

Take a moment to digest the prayer at the top – go and read it again, line by line. One of the things someone pointed out when we read it the second time, was how interesting it was how many times it prefaced big statements with the words ‘I choose…’

And this passage i just shared. What jumps out at you? Is it strange that money that plays such an integral part in most of our lives is something we don’t talk about much? Why do you think that is? Why does it feel so hard to share with someone else [even someone you know well] how much you earn and say how much you spend on entertainment every month, or holidays, or coffee? 

SHARING STORIES

The rest of the first half of the dinner was us going around the circle and each person pulled a random unfinished statement from a bowl [also from Mark’s book] and were invited to share their answer with the group:

# In my family, money was a source of…

# I got the impression that we were…

# For my dad, money was…

# For my mom, money was…

# Something I learned from my parents about money that I now appreciate is…

# One thing I wished I’d learned about money earlier in life is…

# The messages I received about money, success and happiness from my culture were…

# A sense of abundance challenges or subverts the messages I received about money by…

# I believe that money…

# I would like to teach my children, grandchildren or younger people that I know in my life that money and provision…

Why don’t you take a few minutes and randomly pick one of those statements and answer it for yourself. If there is someone nearby why not invite them to do it with you and each take one and share it with each other. What came up for you?

FOOD AND LAUGHTER AND DESSERT AND MORE

After finishing those statements, we had the meal in the middle of the evening and later shared in the dessert and drinks and treats people had brought with them. One of the biggest aspects of these Deep Dive Conversation Dinners is the dinner part. We want to wrestle with important things with people we know and some we don’t, but we want to do it around a meal, breaking bread together, looking each other in the eyes, not necessarily going easy on each other, but working in a relatively safe place so that hopefully everyone leaves with something to think about, except us of course. [i mean we don’t leave, cos where would we go? But we definitely have a lot to think about.]

So we went through the prayer again and people shared aspects that stood out for them which generated some more conversation and then we decided to go a step deeper. Slash a dive deeper. Up to that point it had been really great and helpful and health conversation but it had felt somewhat reserved or safe or contained to both Val and myself. So i asked a question of the idea of money being something we often view in the context of myself or me and my wife or our family or maybe even our extended family. What does ‘How we view and deal with our money’ look like when we broaden the picture and see ourselves as one person in South Africa? We looked at the story of Jesus taking quite a subvertive stance when redefining His family as those who do the will of God, of Him redefining neighbour as everyone around us [including and maybe especially our enemy]. How does/should that change the way we view money?

And that is when things started to get really real.

Conversation firelighters such as ‘my response to beggars on the street’ and ‘this is what i want to do with my money’ and suddenly we are on a whole different level of conversation where some remarks got pointed, there was some strong [although gentle] push-back, but there was a sense that we were talking about real and important and bigger picture significant things.

Is it possible to attend a Deep Dive Conversation Dinner and not have your metaphorical toes stepped on at least once? i hope not. It’s often in our rush to defend something, or our rise to challenge someone else’s idea or comment, that what we believe is really brought to the fore, for us. To hopefully reflect on and consider. Is this belief i hold, right? Is it helpful? Does it work for everyone? Is there something i need to change? Is there something in the way i live that doesn’t back up what i say i believe? Can i learn something from that person’s story? And more.

Just KNOW that this blog piece [which i am specifically keeping general so as to protect and honour the safety of the conversations we had on Friday and the stories that were shared and the amount of themselves that people gave simply by coming and being a part of the conversation] does NO REAL SENSE OF JUSTICE to what happened on Friday. You REALLY had to be there. And we will likely be doing another one soon, probably sometime in August. And in all likelihood it is going to be around the topic of food. What we eat, how we eat, how what we eat is treated, what impact our personal diet has on the world and more. i know that this excellent series where a number of my friends shared about their journey to and from Vegetarianism and Veganism challenged a lot of people who read it, including me and Val, and so that is more than likely where we will go next. If you’re interested in being a part of it, let us know…

i AM HOPING that some of our guests from Friday night might write some words to share their experiences – good or bad – with us this next week… so keep an eye out for that…

The question that remains is, When are you going to host your first Deep Dive Conversation Dinner? i hope you’ll let us know how it goes…

Tandem Post: That nagging feeling…

And we’re back – just three bloggerists this time, but two amazing story-tellers joining me for another season of Tandem Blog posting. Join myself, Megan and Dave as we take the same title and give it our own personal and unique flavour…

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THAT NAGGING FEELING

‘Gently does it. Keep your speed average. Not too fast. Not too slow. We don’t want anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary.’ Nick was talking to himself in his inside head voice again.

But everything was out of the ordinary. Nick Jenkins had been planning this moment for two years and as he tried to remain calm as he drove down the main road and made a right on to the highway, his mind was in absolute panic mode.

‘You did it. Everything happened absolutely according to plan. You have gone over this a thousand times and today, this day, everything has gone according to plan. Stop worrying. You are only going to cause yourself to make a mistake.’

Nick glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He had synced it with the satellite time and checked it three times today already. 23 minutes. Twenty three minutes until the bomb goes off. More precisely his bomb. The one that he had made. From plans he found on the internet. ON THE INTERNET! That fact still drove him a little mental. That he was able to find a way to craft a bomb in one tab while playing a ‘Words with Friends’ move against his mom on another. He still felt a little embarrassed at making the word ‘COCK’ in a Scrabble game against his mom. But she would know he meant the bird and it had allowed him to put his ‘K’ on a triple letter!

‘Are you sure you kept to the plan? You’re very nervous now and nervous people make mistakes.’ Nick systematically went through the plan in his head as he indicated right and then made to turn off the highway, now just a few streets away from his home, where he would be far enough away to be as shocked and surprised as the general public when the announcement flashed across their tv screens.

It was the perfect bomb. No mistakes there. He had checked and rechecked and made sure that he had kept to the plan. The miniature version he had put together and tested in the local quarry had gone off perfectly and so there was absolutely no reason to assume this more powerful model would be any different.

‘I will show THEM. They will be sorry that they treated me so absolutely disgustingly. As if losing my job was not bad enough, for them to embarrass me so disdainfully in front of the whole office…’ Nick realised this was really extreme, but he reconciled it with the fact that nobody was going to get hurt. He was going to hurt the company. And it was going to cost them a lot of money. More money than if they’d just kept him on and allowed him to try a little harder. He had made absolutely meticulously sure that everyone would be out of the building. Cleaners and everything. The building would be as empty as his impending bank account.

Right turn. Two streets to go until the safety of home. Nick replayed his movements as if watching them on a camera. ‘Gloves on. Security cameras disabled the night before. Each piece of the bomb bought at a different location over a 6 month period so there was no way even two of them could be placed together. Bomb checked and countdown started before leaving his house, giving him plenty of time to make it there, place the bomb and return home just before it goes off.

‘Why is it something doesn’t seem right? Surely i’m just psyching myself out here? I know this. I’ve gone over it and over it until it is so deeply engrained in my mind that there is no way i could…’

Nick turned into his driveway, mind suddenly racing. ‘Wake up. Get dressed. Check bomb. Set bomb.’

With a foreboding feeling now surging through his entire body, Nick is starting to visibly sweat as he grabs the car keys and walks nervously to his car boot.

‘Put bomb in car. Cover bomb. Drive at average speed on practiced back roads route to office so that car would not be seen. Arrive at office.’

As he shakingly tried to turn the key in the boot, the realisation hit him like a waft of hot air completely knocking the breath out of his body. In his hurry to ensure that he was in and out of the office with no one noticing, with no-one in a neighbouring office perhaps remembering that his rust blue mazda had been the last car seen parking on the edge of the car park, he may have forgotten one tiny detail.

 Nick Jenkins finally managed to get the unwieldy key to turn and flipped open his car boot to catch sight of a digital display, attached to a bomb, still sitting in the back of his car, displaying the numbers, ‘7…6…5…’

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Be sure to check out the other amazing posts with this same title with:

Megan: http://www.meganshead.co.za

Dave: http://bloggsymalone.wordpress.com

Of Bacon and Vegetarians and looking after our little planet…

i saw this picture of a giant stack of bacon on Facebook the other day:

And fortunately someone hadn’t yet shared this particular piece on my wall [although give it time] but it still made me a little angry. It had the message “Tag someone you know who would eat this” and fortunately no one had yet, because you know what? i would not eat that much bacon.

Gasp! Shock! Horror! WHAT? Surely you jest? No, no i don’t jest.

You see, i do enjoy the taste of bacon, but i am not as obsessed with it as you think i am. When it comes to raiSINs, yes then i am as obsessed as you think i am – KEEP THEM AWAY FROM ME, evil little creatures [why do you think they have the word ‘SIN’ firmly entrenched in the name, and don’t get me on to the ICK of Pickles!] but even then, every single time someone finds a meme, a joke or a picture with raiSINs in and posts it on my wall, it loses it’s funny after about three. i started the ‘I Hate raiSINs’ group on Facebook for a reason, people. Stick your pics there.

But back to bacon. i have allowed the impression to be had that i am this absolute bacon fiend, but i never intentionally set out to do so, and it’s getting a little bit old. So politely please quit it! Thank you.

THE INFLUENCE OF VEGETARIANS

i have a fairly large group of friends who are vegetarians and i have come to understand what a dick i was when i met someone who was vegetarian years ago and then thought how funny it might be if i tried to convince them to eat meat or why their reasons for vegetarianism didn’t measure up to how good meat is or something. The answer is not very much at all and now i cringe when i see other people do it for fun or even sometimes for realsies cos of not being able to comprehend a world where people choose not to eat meat.

i was hugely inspired and challenged by the number of stories that were shared in my Taboo Topic series piece on Vegetarianism and if you haven’t read them yet, then seriously go do so now. i have been well humbled by how gracious and patient and polite vegetarians seem to be, especially when meat eaters can be a bit of a rude unthinking bunch at times. But for the most part, the vegetarians i have encountered and know are people who have made a choice or a series of choices for a number of reasons, but generally don’t feel the need to make everyone make the same choices they have [which i’m not sure i fully understand even, but i am grateful for it].

But that series made me think [and at least one other person it seems as i received a message from a friend of mine saying the series led to her doing some research and moving to a journey towards vegetarianism and even veganism] and tbV and i chatted a bit about it on our recent Americaland trip and came up with some ideas to work some change into our lives.

THE TINY LITTLE BIT WE’RE LOOKING TO DO

Two of the main reasons people tend towards vegetarianism seem to be the cruelty committed to the animals that we eat and the effect cattle have on the environment. In terms of the cruelty side of things, tbV are doing our best to source meat and eggs from places far more likely to treat their animals well [a former Improv buddy of mine lives on a farm and makes regular treks into Cape Town to sell some of the meat from the animals he is raising and i know they will be being well treated].

In terms of the environmental effect, tbV and i are trying something new with our eating. We don’t think we particularly eat a huge amount of meat as it is, tending to create a lot of meals with just vegetables, but starting last week we did a whole week of veg meals at our place and then the idea for this week is to eat the same amount of meat we would normally eat in a week so maybe two to three times. Then next week will be purely veg again. And so on. Theoretically, this should reduce our meat-eating by 50%, which, while it may not lead to huge changes in the bigger picture, feels like a great start, and if we can encourage others to give it [or something like it] a try, then pretty soon we will be starting to have an effect.

We looked back at the end of this week and both realised we hadn’t particularly felt like we had missed meat at any time during the week. Because there are so many good veg option meals out there. And maybe this is a great opportunity to ask our various vegetarian friends to put together some good recipes for us and help us to make more fun and exciting dishes. How about it, vegetarian friends?

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

So what does this all have to do with you, you ask, and i’m so glad you did. Do i want you to become a vegetarian? Absolutely not. Well, you can if you want to, but that’s not the purpose of this post.

ASK THE QUESTIONS. If you do nothing else, then at least ask the questions. Take a look at what you eat. Do some research on what effect it has on the planet or be lazy and ask one of your vegetarian friends to tell you [cos chances are they know!] Experiment with some vegetarian meals. Try a no-meat Monday as we did a couple of years ago or join us on one week of no meat, one week with meat, just for a month and then report back as to how it was and if it didn’t feel any worse then let it become a regular rhythm. 

As a follower of Jesus, i know that collectively we can get caught up in the life-after-death scenario and totally live for it at the expense of anything that happens before death. We can also get caught up in the focus-on-people focus as if the environment was not our concern. Yet, i believe that we serve a holistic God who entrusted the whole of creation to us and asked us to look after it. We have not done that one so well. And so giving time and attention to what and how we eat as well as how pro we are for all types of life feels like part of what we have been mandated to do.

What are your thoughts on this topic? If you are a meat eater, have you ever given it any kind of thought? 

67 minutes [and more] painting squares for Mandela Day

 

An empty wall, except for the occasional message graffiti tag that has drawn attention away from the desperate need for a paint job.

Mandela Day and the creation of opportunities under the 67 minutes banner for the general public to get involved in goodness.

A creative sister-in-law with a vision, a plan and template presenting the basic idea of blocked design she was going for.

 

A raggedy bunch of volunteers from churches, Improv groups, Facebook friends, children and even strangers and neighbours who happened to walk past and see what was happening and decided to get involved.

This is how a group of us chose to spend out Mandela Day. A little overspent on the 67 minutes [which means we get to take it easier next year?] as most of us were there for the entire morning but jumping in on the opportunity to be a part of painting the outside wall of the uThando leNkosi Place of Safety for children that tbV and i have been involved with since it began many years ago.

In some ways i’m not the biggest fan of the idea of Mandela Day which i wrote a bit about on a 1Africa post over here, with my hesitation being more on the side of needing a day as a reason for us to do good as opposed to just being more doing-good-naturally people. But at the same time, sometimes it can be fun to have ‘an excuse’ to get a bunch of mates together to do a project in the community that is going to help out such a good cause.

It was personally so meaningful for me that some of the members of my Improv team, Improguise, showed up [with family in tow] with carloads of resources and much enthusiasm to get the crowd going and create some of the most stunning designs and we are looking forward to Monday’s Improv show [which you should totally come and watch] as we will be donating the proceeds to uThando leNkosi as well. So we’re really hoping that will be a sold out show so that we can continue the good we were able to get involved in on Saturday.

All in all it was just a fun and vibey day and while there were definitely differing levels of skill and expertise i was pretty happy with my punching-above-the-belt-creations that i managed to produce:

First block pic taken while i was still busy on it: work in progress and second of course had to have my tag snuck in

As long as i didn’t take them in at the same moment as being reminded of the real pros at work:

 

And of course a behind-the-scenes typical pose for my dad who grabbed a job no-one else wanted to do and quietly went about it:

Excellent day. So easy really. Big thanks to everyone who came out to help and especially those who just saw what was happening and got involved [slightly less thanks to the one lady who grabbed some of our paint when no-one was looking and walked down the road and around the corner and painted ’67 minutes of service for Madeba Day’ [yes, spelling] on someone else’s outside wall]

Did you get up to anything for Mandela Day? i would love to hear the stories and i would love to see you and a bunch of friends or family coming and supporting us on Monday night so that we can sell out our Improv show and give another gift to this house that is doing some great stuff. 

 

The Zombie Cow, the Cactus Milk tattooist and the plants that go “Ni” [well, almost]

Close to 13 years of doing Improv with Megan Furniss and differing amounts of years with the rest of this crazy bunch i usually get to hang with on a Monday evening.

Making stuff up.

And to be absolutely honest, i had been getting a little tired of the same old formula, week in, week out, and so when i was about to leave for a month to go overseas again, in one sense i was looking for a break.

Not that it had always been the same – for the last three years, the players of Improguise have put on the most amazing festival in January, which, despite living overseas at the time, i just happened to be at each time. So i was able to be in a full length documentary, a South African soapie, a full length completely made-musical as well as take part in two other forms of show we have all taken to: Namely Superscene and Stuck in the Middle [which are both a little bit of mayhem]

i had mentioned it to Megan who had been feeling similar and the whole group jumped at the idea and so the last class before i left South Africa we decided to perform a different type of show every week with the traditional ‘Whose Line?’ type show being just one of the many shows]

And then i left the country. With much jealousy. Of the good kind that cheers and celebrates and is excited to hear of the different types of shows happening in my absence including a documentary and a road trip.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Tonite was my first show back.

And we played a Superscene which i describe as Survivor Improv where five directors give the premise for the next scene we will see in their movie and everyone else acts that scene out. Then each director shares what will be coming up next and by way of Clapometer [loudness of audience clap] the audience decides which story they don’t want to continue and the other 4 then play out their next scenes. And so on, until we are left with one final scene which is the Superscene.

And tonite the winner was Carolyn and i was her star lead actor Neville, an Afrikaans young man with a passion for dance and a mother who was against it.

But actually we were ALL winners. From the tiny audience of 12 who braved it out [and all wished they’d brought more friends afterwards] to each of the crazies who acted and corpsed their hearts out on the stage.

Because we really did have zombie cows [who shot guns at people and gave heartfelt speeches] and a Cactus Milk Tattooist who created white tattoos [Zabhira from India who had grown jaded with Indian culture from watching American You Tube videos growing up and moved to America where she won over her father to the lifestyle and Americanised him in a ‘Pretty Woman’ type montage] and of course the plants [poisonous banana types] who while not quite saying “Ni” [semi-obscure-Monty-Python reference] mumbled something like Randy-ni-ni-ni-ni which was close enough. There may have been an edgy and insane Mad Maxesque road chase we never got to see enough of as it was eliminated way before its time. And a cheap and grumpy ghostly ouma who had trouble speaking as all her ‘N’s were switched to ‘M’s.

Thank-you Megan and Carolyn and Ardine and Tandi and Ryan and Ashley and also Hilton for working the lights. And the rest of the crew who could not be there tonight.

You’ve helped make Improv fun again. Because it has once again become unpredictable. This coming Monday we will be performing a Stuck In The Middle [one actor stuck on stage the whole night while the rest of the team create a host of different scenes with that person] with the proceeds going to uThando leNkosi place of safety for children as a part of the Mandela Day 67 minutes celebrations. So let’s pack the house. For a good cause. And for amazing laughs.

Looking very much forward to next week when we get to make it up all over again.

For more information on our times of shows and prices and how to book and organise for us to play at your school, poker club or seniors tea, click here and if you’re on the Twitterer, make sure you add @ImproGuiseSA to follow us around.

And see you next week…

Highlight Moment from my life #93: Spur Waiter

This one will no doubt surprise and shock a few South Africans, but one of the highlights of my life was being a Spur waiter for five years, back when we didn’t know how offensive the logo potentially was:

Houseboat Church

Just over a week ago, tbV and i spent five days on two houseboats with about 20 incredible people, mostly younger than me. Here are some of the guys:

We lived together, we ate together, we read the bible and sang some worship songs together, we confessed some struggles and some sin and prayed for each other, we sat in silence for three hours and were just still and knew that He was God, we laughed together, we swam and pokered and joked and crazied together. We had one on one conversations and were challenged about money and life purpose and decision-making and following Jesus in all aspects of our life.

In short, we churched. We were church. God’s people doing God’s stuff together in love. And yet, if we came home on Saturday and then didn’t ‘go to church’ that Sunday, i know a lot of people who would be concerned because ‘we didn’t go to church’.

i personally think God would have been okay with it, though, as He certainly seemed to be smiling down on us churching for the rest of the week.

Church is important. It is crucial. But it may be a little bit bigger than your definition of it. Certainly if it is the identity contained in the images of ‘bride of Christ’ and ‘body of Christ’. Then maybe it’s that bit more important as being something we are as opposed to something we attend.

May you church well this week.

[To read the poem ‘To Church’ that i wrote on houseboats this week, click here]

[For a post looking at the first martyr Stephen as an example of being church, click here]