Columnist Kevin Robertson, or 'Kev the Rev' as some people call him, is a gumboot-wearing-chainsaw-wielding-farm-hack and pastor-of-people at Te Awamutu Baptist Church in the beautiful Waikato region. Salt of the earth: it's what Jesus says we are. Paul the Apostle encourages us to season our conversations with salt. This column is about that: telling stories of salty people, inspiring us to imagine something we haven't thought of before, or helping us taste something differently. Porridge is better with salt!
There were four of them: Two young sisters staying in the sun porch and their pregnant mother staying overnight in one of the bedrooms. She would arrive at the end of her working day, eat dinner, spend time with her girls, and once they were in bed, would spend the evening being counselled by the parents of the household. This was all in an attempt to hold together a relationship that was many rocky years in the making. The other half of this relationship would arrive during the day for his 'sessions'. He was a commercial fisherman by trade, so a bit rugged. His language was colourful, and he was a bit rough around the gills. Thus, others took over our household yet again. This was a regular occurrence in our house as my parents had an 'open home policy' whereby waifs and strays could arrive for help at any time. Thankfully for me, by this stage, I'd made myself a bedroom in the woodshed so I could escape the nightly ritual!
I honour my parents for their 'open home' dedication, even though there was a cost to the family. They took what they read in the scriptures practically! In some ways, they remind me of Mark Twain's quote: "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." Mum n Dad just understood that when the scriptures say that we should open our homes to strangers…well they just started doing it.
This scenario played out for over a couple of months. Two little girls and a mother every evening. The 'fisherman' arrived when not on the boat. He didn't like it rough, even though he was. Calm seas are what he preferred. Dad managed to wangle me in to 'help' with his goodwill project. He offered me to go fishing and be a crew member with the fisherman – under the strictest instructions that I was not to come home and start using the same sort of language! The funny thing was that Dad hated boating, fishing, or any manly aquatic adventurous pursuits. I, on the other hand, loved being on the sea and in the sea, so longlining was great fun! We ate fish for dinner every time I went and crewed for the fisherman. Fisherman talked a lot, and it was descriptively punctuated, but he was also a lot munted when it came to relationships. It was complicated, and I didn't even pretend to understand at that young age the complexities of having his kids, her kids, their kid, let alone the complications of living with a bloke who used profanity and loved the brown bottle. But…
There was one day that I recall well. I walked into the packing shed at home. It was about lunchtime, and I was overdue for a feed. Dad and a fisherman were in deep discussion. I was invited to join in. They were talking about the internal stress fisherman was under and he said that he'd never ever been at peace in his whole life – his whole life was conflicted! Every relationship was 'bleep' or heading in that direction. Dad shared about Jesus and said that He was the Prince of Peace. Fisherman felt cornered, trapped like a cray in a pot, but he also couldn't comprehend what being at peace would feel like. He was intrigued. A moment. An offer. Would you like us to pray that you will experience the presence of the Prince of Peace for the afternoon? "What 'bleep' could go wrong?" So here is father and son, laying hands on an uncouth-unbelieving-sceptical-munted fisherman praying, praying a simple prayer. "Jesus, as Prince of Peace, would you presence yourself in and around fisherman for the rest of this day so that he knows who You are and knows You are real". Insert religious 'amen', and we were done. The fisherman left to go do fishing stuff. We headed in for kai.
Disturbance at the woodshed door. Dad poking his head into my enclave. Report from the fisherman. He'd phoned in tears. (Without the bleeps) "he'd driven from our place at about just after midday – wasn't even up the top of the road when he had this rushing feeling come over him – he had started to cry – then after 5 minutes crying, he started to laugh – the feeling stopped all internal conflict – he felt calm – at peace – restful - unruffled – tranquil – unfighting – overwhelmed with peace for the first time in his life … he felt…". The fisherman had run out of words. He had been completely overcome by peace.
Then 'bleep' bang! At exactly 6:00 pm, as the news on the box kicked into life, peace departed, and the prayer was honoured! The day was officially over, and so was the peace offered to the fisherman. As miraculously as it started, it abruptly left him, and he was alone, in pain, and filled with the squirming unrest he'd lived with all his life. He wanted it back but made it very clear he didn't want to become a 'bleeping' follower. So eventually, the relationship with the fisherman ended, and the family was torn apart to cause more pain, and the turmoil was multiplied. There is an invitation in Psalm 34:8: Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fisherman 'tasted' and knew that the Lord was good, but he rejected the offer to take refuge in Him.
