Yesterday, after church, Brian asked me if I had any books on Job that he could borrow to help with his current course assignment. As I rooted through my bookshelves last night I found Ward B. Ewing's "Job: a vision of God" which I had forgotten that I owned.
Little wonder I had forgotten the book as inside the front cover I had written "purchased 29 June 1983, SPCK, London". I remember that the SPCK shop was in an old church and I used to pass it as I walked from the station to Portland Place where I attended institute meetings. Now that is a long time ago! They say the past is a foreign country and that was certainly another life!
As I flicked through the pages I found the following quotation on page 50 which I had marked with a felt tipped pen "back in the day":
"All of us who seek to minister to others need constantly to evaluate our own lives and our own responses to despair and failure. Any true ministry to the outcast, the poor, or the ill is not advice from outside but empathy from alongside. It is not judgement from above, but quiet acceptance. It is not analysis of the situation, but presence within the situation beside the one in need."
Timeless.
Ward B. Ewing, "Job: a vision of God",The Seabury Press, New York, 1976.
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