This past weekend was another opportunity to invest time in the relationships with family and friends that seem to inevitably get compromised by the shape of ministry life.
Bright and early on Saturday morning I made my way to Gloucester to meet up with my middle child who then drove us on the motorway (their first time and they did rather well!) down to Weston-super-mare so we could do a Rage Room together, and as an added bonus go crazy golfing as well!
Unlike Go Ape, which I did with my youngest a few weeks back (Canopy challenges), I've never tried a Rage Room before, but having given each of my children free rein to choose what we do together this is what had been requested.
If you don't know (and I didn't until I'd looked it up), a rage room is an opportunity to release pent-up frustration or anger by smashing and destroying various objects in a safe and supervised setting and are designed to provide an outlet for emotional release in a controlled and legal manner or alternatively basically allow people to have a fun time smashing things to smithereens. And I think that, rather than arriving furious with current emotions to express, we ended up having a go at processing some of the historical situations that had made us mad, though mainly had a bit of a laugh smashing old unwanted donated charity items, empty bottles and a defunct TV!
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| Smashing plates with a sledge hammer! |
We reflected after that, even though we hadn't been particularly cross, as an activity it was quite cathartic, especially as you don't often get permission to do this kind of thing and don't have to tidy up afterwards either! And also we found some of it quite funny. Especially when we tried to smash some of the bottles we were provided with. Despite hitting some of them quite hard - they ended up bouncing intact off the walls rather than breaking up which made us laugh a lot! It's so good to have the opportunity to do something and to laugh together - so good for the soul!!
After the rage room on day 1, we then did crazy golf on day 2 which gave us further opportunity to share. We had varying degrees of success with the different holes, though I will confess to doing a little impromptu victory lap when I got a hole-in-one!
This past weekend together will be added to my treasury of experiences from this sabbatical - times that will enrich our relationship going forward! And I'm so grateful to have had the time to connect deeply with my now grown-up children in a way that hasn't been possible since stepping into ministerial life around 10 years ago.
You see I believe that connecting with others is what God designed us to do.
In the current book I'm now reading - Metamorph by Rev. Kate Coleman - she explores the story of Moses when God 'burns' with anger when Moses asks Him to send someone else to Pharaoh rather than Him (Exodus 4:14). I have to say this felt kind of appropriate to read having just done a rage room - though I'm not suggesting in any way that God needs to go and do a rage room!
Kate writes that God's anger serves a purpose beyond frustration and suggests this: "Is it possible that God who exists in community and who creates community for us becomes exasperated when we forget this?" (p.57)
In community we all have our individual unique purposes to bring to our shared life together, but this also brings opportunity to support one another within that same community. And that should be the case in our personal family lives, just as it should be in our church family life. My hope is that my personal familial relationships will be strengthened by the times we have shared together whilst I've been on sabbatical.
Then, as I return to YBC, the times we've connected in the past as a church family, and as we go on to share, will strengthen us individually, and also as a community.
My hope is that we seek to work together with God to bring about His kingdom purposes and continue to find more and more ways to connect together, 'do life' together, and live, laugh and love together - just as God intended!
