Lama's log

Some time ago I went to the dentist. I have a love hate relationship with my dentist. He loves the amount of cash I give him and I hate the pain he provides me with. Still, I keep going back. On the particular visit I have in mind he was prodding about my mouth when he came across the tooth I told him was giving me a load of jip. I said 'Aughwww' in the way you do when your mouth is full of someone else's hand.

He then sat back and shook his head for a bit. 'I know you are telling me it hurts,' he said, 'but I think you're wrong.'

You can imagine what was going through my head at this point. I would have said some of it too but there were still bits of threatening metal instruments in my mouth.

'I think,' he said, 'you have some "transferred pain" going on'

This was a new one on me. The concept that my brain was throwing pain off to another place like some mad ventriloquist act. The result though was that he gave me a filling in a different tooth and the pain stopped.

I reckon there's a bit of transferred pain going on at church. We're talking a lot about mission. The more we talk about mission the more people talk about how crap church is. This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. I could have a conversation which goes a bit like this:

Me: Let's do some mision
Bod: Church is rubbish, make it better.
Me: Errr, OK then

and then try and address a list of percieved needs. Or I could have a conversation which goes like this

Me: Let's do some mision
Bod: Church is rubbish, make it better.
Me: Yep lets start by doing some mission.
Bod: But it's rubbish here, fix things.
Me: agreed, I reckon mission might help.

The second conversation might work or it might be analagous to two people covering their ears whilst shouting la, la la la very loudly.

The first conversation allows people to carry on talking about church as if it is something other than them and which needs fixing before anything meaningful can be attempted.

I don't have as much control as a dentist in all this. No ones going to sit back in a chair and do as they're told for me whether I have drills in my hand or not. There is something about keeping your head down and walking forward even when things are not so easy. There is also the slight worry though that by doing that you fail to see the pain that is not transferred but a gaping wound that might need some attention.