sink or swim

It was great today to be going back into the local primary school. Nothing very formal, neither classes, assemblies or anything structured like that. Just in to see the staff at coffee time and have the chance to chat.

My role in being the chaplain there has changed across the years. Changed to being essentially relational, far more than any sort of up-front formal role, the way it used to be. It used to be that I was in far more and had the 'teaching' slot at each week's regular assembly. Now, it's more about my being around the place, a presence and a person, a face that children recognise, a friend to whom they can relate. And not just all the children but the staff as well.

Essentially relational. It makes life more exciting, that's for sure - I never know quite who I'll end up speaking with or what the time will bring! And so, unlike a formal talk, it's not a thing for which I can prepare at all - except by looking to the Lord and trusting that he's there himself, at work in all their lives.

I enjoy it like this, I have to say, and I see that this is simply how he calls us all to live. Working at relationships and bringing to the people that I'm with a sense of God's own presence, love and power.

One of our members died a day or two ago and so, last night, I'd called to see her husband and to share in all his grief. He told me that his wife had run, for thirty years and more, an evening class at one of the local schools: three nights a week for thirty years she'd taught a non-stop stream of children (parents, sometimes, too) to swim.

I was thinking of that when in at the school today. The chance there is, through being there in the school each week, to form and build relationships which serve across the years to help the children live (and not just swim!).

This lady, Margaret, who passed away, believed it so important that a child should learn to swim and what she did was simply teach two things, her husband said - survival and technique. The speed, she thought, could wait: the speed would come, if first they'd learned technique.

I was struck by what he'd said last night. Across those thirty years of being there in a local school three nights a week, she'd had the chance to form and build relationships and teach who knows how many different people how to swim.

I guess, in essence, it's exactly that I'm learning now to do. By being there in the school, and being there in a hundred other places where the children and community at large are found, and building on relationships that time alone can grow, it's there I have the chance myself to teach these folk to live. Survival and technique. That maybe puts it well!

An example of that today. Donna helps to clean our halls here week by week. She's grown to be a large part of the team we have and feels, I think, so very much at home. A single Mum, she's reaching the point where her older son is hitting the teenage years.

Survival is a theme, I think, to which she can relate! How on earth is she going to survive these next few years of bringing up her boys through teenage years? She doesn't want to 'sink' but really wants to learn to 'swim' instead.

We gave her today Rob Parson's new book - Teenagers! What every parent has to know. It wasn't her birthday or anything else. Just a chance to build on these relationships we're forming all the time and help the girl survive.

I suppose, as well, I actually ran an 'evening class' myself tonight! I've been seeing for a while, on a weekly sort of basis by and large, a couple who are really keen to 'live'. They want the best, at home, within their marriage and their family life, at work, across the board. And so the three of us have bit by bit been working through the booklet that we use called Coming Alive! (we don't go through it point by point 'religiously' - it's really more a starting point which triggers our discussions and then gives us sort of 'stepping stones' which keep us moving forward all the time).

These times we share are always great! Tonight was no exception - and again, as they asked all their questions and tossed around truth, it was lovely to see how the mist is beginning to lift. Each time we meet it's much the same, though I never know what to expect.

It's the 'Margaret's-evening-classes' thing again. Building those relationships each week and helping folk, who want to make the most of life, to swim and not to sink.