THE HAPPY PLACE

Many years ago, I sometimes watched a TV comedy with a cast of over the top characters whose activities provided some needed diversion during my busy and active weeks. I am pretty sure that a significant part of the attraction of this show was that although the characters all had seriously dysfunctional lives, I didn’t have any obligation or responsibility to help them deal with their dysfunction. That is a rarity for a pastor who has lived for a long time in the same rural communities.

One of the characters had a tendency to slip into dangerous rages which could be destructive. Now, since this was a comedy, the rages never resulted in people getting hurt and only produced slapstick comedy but all the other characters in the show were suitably afraid of the rages and did whatever they could to prevent them.

Somewhere along the way, some therapist or friend had taught the character to develop a safe place in his mind that he could go to when he felt the rage coming on. And so on the show, whenever he or his friends saw signs of the rage, everyone would begin repeating, “Go to your safe place, go to your safe place, go to your safe place….” until the danger had passed, unless of course the writers needed the rage to come on to complete some comedic theme.

The show, like all others has passed on. It can probably be found somewhere given all the media outlets available today but to be honest, it wasn’t on my list of shows that I need to watch again and again. But I did like the idea of a safe mental place. I am not sure the idea is an overly effective remedy for a person with the kind of rage the TV character had but as a relaxation tool for more “normal” people, it might not be a bad idea.

Whether it is a real favourite chair, a physically comfortable couch, a spot under a specific tree or a imaginary white sand beach in the tropics, we all might benefit from having a place where we can relax and de-stress and be at peace. Life tends to be hectic and demanding and busy and active and have too little time and space to unwind and relax. For most people, the default setting is move, do, rush, prepare. Our lives are dominated by active, compelling verbs that keep us moving and rushing and doing.

And maybe we all need a place where we shut off the action verbs and enjoy things like peace and quiet and relaxation and rest. Maybe we would all benefit from some static nouns in place of active verbs for a bit. But because of the reality of life, we need to specifically seek out the static restful nouns. If we don’t, the active verbs keep pounding away, driving us to keep active.

A happy place just might be what we need to get out from under the demands of the verbs. Maybe we all need a place, either a real physical place or an imagined place where we can hang a sign saying, “Static noun zone. No action verbs allowed”. We might benefit from a place where we can just be, a place where rest and relaxation and peace dominate, a place where we can undo the effects of all the action verbs that are so powerful.

I have several such places. One is the chair where I sit and write or stare out the window at the trees. The nice thing about this place is that it is also the place where I do most of my work so I can quickly and easily transition from the action verbs of writing and planning and thinking and designing to the static nouns of resting and relaxing and being at peace. Using the same place for both might now work for everyone but it does work for me.

I can be deep within the pressures of writing a difficult sermon that just won’t come together and with a glance out the window, be in a whole different place. When I get back, after 5 seconds or 2 minutes or whatever, the sermon is still there but I am in a better place because I have been to the other place.

May the peace of God be with you.

FRIDAY MORNING

Because of the nature of my work week, Friday is one of the days when I try to avoid doing any work. That is not always possible: funerals, wedding rehearsals, nursing home services and other bits and pieces of ministry end up getting scheduled for Fridays. But as much as I can, I plan on avoiding work on Fridays.

In many ways, Friday is the end of the work week for me. I see my work week as running from Saturday to the next Thursday. Saturday involves preparation (and nervousness) for Sunday. Sunday involves worship and then opens the door to the rest of the work week with its requirements for sermon preparation, Bible study preparation and attendance, pastoral visits and everything else that I need to cram into my two 40% pastoral positions.

So, when Thursday evening rolls around, I am ready for a break. Friday morning becomes a mini-vacation, a day to focus on my stuff, not work—provided, of course, it isn’t nursing home service Friday, there isn’t a funeral and no one has picked this weekend to get married. I rarely have glamorous plans for Friday.

Fridays off often involve running errands like grocery shopping and banking. It can involve mowing the lawn during the appropriate season. Sometimes, it will involve a date for a movie and supper—not often enough for that but that is the reality of our lives. Now and then, it involves getting at some repair or maintenance issue that I have put off all week because of lack of time and/or energy.

What is generally doesn’t involve is sleeping in. Somehow, it feels wrong to sleep in on Friday. I am a morning person and normally, church works gets to claim mornings as I wrestle with sermons and Bible studies and how to get all the required information in the Sunday bulletin without having to produce an insert as well. And that is fine with me—working for the church is not just my job, it is also my calling and I need to give both God and the church my best, including the time of the day when I am at my best.

But Friday mornings—well, I have the sermons and the bulletin and the Bible study done. There isn’t a meeting, a nursing home service, a funeral or wedding rehearsal on the schedule. I can wake up at my regular time and know that when I sit in my chair with my breakfast granola and banana, it is my time. I can write a blog post, stare out the window, read a book, play solitaire—anything is possible and nothing is essential. For a couple of hours on Friday morning, my time belongs to me.

I am an moderately strong introvert and times like this are important to my overall mental, physical and spiritual health. Since my work keeps me connected with people, I need these spaces where there are no people. Ministry is people intensive—even when I am not physically with people, they are present. I write sermons with church people in mind. I think and pray about church people when I am reading for work. I am aware that for most people, I am just a phone call away.

But on Friday mornings, I am not working. The phone is in the bedroom, far enough away that I can pretend not to hear it, especially since my hearing aids are there as well. Any writing I do is for me—I know that people read my blogs, something for which I am deeply grateful but I don’t have the same level of connection with blog readers that I have with the church people I work for and with all day. Writing a blog is something for me—and the fact that others read it is icing on the cake.

So, Friday mornings are mine. The first couple of hours is my time, time that I need to feed and nurture me. And so I take it, I enjoy it, I grow because of it. The benefits of early Friday morning more than make up for the fact that I don’t sleep in after a busy week. Thank God for Friday mornings.

May the peace of God be with you.

WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE

I am feeling a bit down on myself right now. For some reason, I have ended up in a couple of situations saying things that probably would have been better left unsaid. What I actually said wasn’t false, it wasn’t malicious and it didn’t cause any harm—but all the same, it was probably the wrong things to say in the context where I said it. Nobody was upset by what I said and there were no serious consequences. But I recognized that somehow, I had crossed a line I don’t normally cross.

The fact that I did it once would be unusual but I actually went too far twice—in different contexts and about different things but both times, I realized that I said too much to the wrong people. That by itself is somewhat surprising. I am an introvert with a very strong listening gift, which means that most times in a group setting, I am the one in the group who is helping everyone else talk and share. I am also often the one people look at when they are sharing something difficult or painful.

But here I was in the group talking—and talking too much, taking the group in a very different direction than our stated purpose and in the process giving people too much information that they really didn’t need and which wasn’t all that helpful in the context. I am feeling kind of something which although I can’t exactly describe is somewhat negative.

My first response was to do what I always do when something isn’t right: I analyse. I needed to know what prompted the over sharing. Interestingly enough, each infraction had a different reason. In the first case, our group was given a discussion question that I couldn’t answer for a variety of reasons. Instead of letting the group carry on, I blurted out my inability and essentially stopped the group process. I am pretty sure that that was result of being tired and therefore less able to discipline myself—my normally efficient self-censor was off taking a nap.

The second time was different. Someone asked me a question and in the process of answering, I went a bit too far. I knew a lot about the question they asked and once started on the answer, the teacher inside kicked into gear and I kept going after I had given the questioner everything they wanted to know—and then I proceeded to give them lots that they didn’t want or need to know. Sometimes, my teacher likes showing off.

So, different reasons for the same behaviour. Given that there were no negative consequences that amounted to anything, it might seem like I am making a mountain out of a mole-hill. But I like to understand what I am doing and why I am doing it. It is part of my continual growth emotionally and spiritually. Knowing why I do what I do, or knowing as much as I can about why I do what I do is important to my continued growth.

I don’t want to go with the flow and not understand myself. I want to know what rough edges still need sanding, what holes need patching, what weak spots need shoring up. I think that is all part of personal and spiritual growth. Yes, I am what I am—but my faith teaches me that I am not what I could be. God loves me as I am—but he also loves me enough to encourage and help me to become what I can be.

And it is important to me to be involved personally in the development process that God has going on in my life. I believe I went too far both times. I see something that I need to work on. I don’t think I am a failure or a hopeless case. I goofed. I messed up. What now?

Well, I figured out what went wrong. God has already forgiven me. I can and will forgive me. And together, God and I will move on, continuing to work at the project of helping me become what God knows I can become. I hope I won’t make those same mistakes again—but if I do, well, God’s grace is big enough to deal with it.

May the peace of God be with you.

BEING DIFFERENT

The other day at one of the Bible studies I pretend to lead, we touched on the topic of DNA. I happened to mention that DNA is one of the signs of God’s love and grace. He loves us enough to create us with a foolproof way to ensure that we will each one be different. Because of the seemingly infinite number of possible combinations of DNA, the chances of two people being born exactly the same are for all intents and purposes impossible, except of course for identical twins.

But a variety of studies have also shown that identical twins, who are born with the same DNA, eventually end up showing some differences. They might have the same DNA but the actual process of living causes them to diverge. One might catch an illness that the other manages to avoid; one might have an accident that changes them; one might have some trauma that the other doesn’t. Whatever the reason, although their DNA might produce nearly identical individuals, the effects of their environment are going to individualize them.

So why, given that God can and does do what he wants by definition, does he create living things including humans, based on a pretty much foolproof mechanism for ensuring diversity? That seems counter-intuitive, especially for people living in the machine/tech age that we live in. We pretty much assume things will be the same.

If I see someone with the same make and model of computer as I have, I can be pretty sure that unless they have more tech knowledge or money than I have, the computer they are working on is exactly the same as mine: same tech inside, same specs on paper; same colour; same performance. Some differences might develop—their computer may not get dropped as much as mine and I don’t spill as much wine on mine as they do on theirs. But ignoring outside influences like that, we have the same computer.

Large segments of humanity seem to prefer things be the same. Many organizations from the military to coffee shop chains require their members to dress identically. Some require the same hairstyle, the same way of talking, the same beliefs. Even the church isn’t immune from this drive to sameness. Many church groups require its members to believe the same doctrines with the same fervor, based on the same interpretation of the same translation of the Scriptures by the same gurus. Divergence, whether in military uniforms, coffee preparation processes or doctrinal stances are suspect and dangerous.

And yet, God has created us in a way that requires is to be different. In the Bible study that sparked this post, two of us are left handed. One of us is colour blind. Two prefer the KJV. One loves to bake cookies for the group. All of us love eating the cookies. Some are quite conservative in their theology. Others are willing to look at less conservative understandings. We have no real uniformity except for the fact that we all show up at the same place week after week to share and discuss and discover what God is trying to say to us.

And the most significant reason for our ability to do this is that we have learned to celebrate our diversity and use that God given diversity as one of the vital foundation stones of our study process. As we talk and share and discuss and question, we give each other glimpses of what God is showing us. The more we talk and share and discuss and question, the closer we come to understanding what God wants us to see. And we have discovered that one of the prime messages that God gives to us is that diversity is one of his gifts to humanity, a gift that we need to accept and celebrate.

We don’t all need to be left handed. We don’t all need to be colour blind. Some of us can prefer the KJV. Some of us can be Baptist and some Catholic. Some of us can have grey hair and some can have blue hair. Our diversity is important and valuable and points us to a basic theological truth: God loves our diversity. He must, since it was and is part of his plan that it is pretty much impossible for us to be the same.

May the peace of God be with you.

FEELING GUILTY

The other day, I was at the fall fundraising event for several of the churches in our area. Rather than set up competing events, the churches get together, rent a large hall and do the event together. So, in one big space, there are bake sales, jam sales, quasi-yard sales, silent auctions and a really good brunch. Since we browse the tables at different speeds, my wife and I quickly got separated but since we both knew we would end up at the brunch tables, that wasn’t a problem.

As I looked at the tables and talked to people I knew from all the various churches, I came to the table run by a neighbour who is on one of the same committees I serve on. She had volunteered to take the minutes of our last meeting, which I would then scan and send on to the rest of the committee. As soon as she saw me, she joked about feeling guilty because she didn’t have the minutes done. My joking response was that my job as a pastor was done because I had made her feel guilty. We both knew we were joking and went on to talk about other things—and in the process made a tentative plan to get the minutes done.

I have been thinking on the topic of guilt since then—well, to be honest, it is a topic that I have been thinking about on and off for a while. It seems like guilt is almost synonymous with being a person of faith. I have heard pastors (and comedians) talk about various religious groups as being the inventors of guilt. I remember one person whose faith I admired telling a visiting speaker that she really appreciated his message because it made her feel so guilty—she was giving him what was her supreme compliment.

There is a connection between faith and guilt but not the one that is popularly assumed to be there. It seems like many people both inside and outside the faith want guilt to be the supreme quality of a religious person. Such thinking almost has a valid point. Most religions begin with the idea that we human beings are imperfect and that there is a better, holier and perfect something beyond us. Our continued imperfection is a problem—and guilt seems to be the appropriate response for most people.

Interestingly enough, most people want to maintain a perfect level of guilt. They want to have enough to feel religious but not enough to change behaviour. This is a hard balance to maintain, though, and often people get caught in the swamp of uncontrolled guilt that causes them to slip into low self-esteem, despair, even hopelessness. The process isn’t helped by the vast amount of guilt producing preaching, teaching and advice given by religious leaders.

But what if guilt isn’t the purpose of faith? What if, instead of guilt being the goal and focus of faith, it is only a tool to get us to something greater, a tool that has a important but limited use? What is God uses guilt to motivate us to confess and accept his forgiveness so that we can be free of guilt? What is guilt that can’t be dealt with by God’s offer of forgiveness is false guilt and isn’t something that we need to or should deal with?

I think that this what if is actually the case. I think our Christian faith is based on the reality that God doesn’t want us to feel guilty. In actual fact, he wants us to feel forgiven—and forgiveness by definition ends the hold of guilt on our lives. God wants us to live in the freedom that comes from knowing that we are forgiven and that there is no need to hold on to the guilt that led us to accept God’s forgiveness. Sometimes, that left over guilt is really a sign of our inability to really accept and appreciate the forgiveness that God has given us in Jesus. We hold on to our guilt probably because we feel better feeling guilty that we do feeling free.

But as believers, we are free, we are forgiven and for us, guilt should only be a temporary reminder that we have more to take to God and when we take it to him, he takes care of us, relieving us of the need to feel guilty. Real faith is marked by a sense of freedom from guilt, a freedom that comes from opening ourselves to the grace of God.

May the peace of God be with you.

6:00 AM MONDAY MORNING

Yesterday was an extremely busy Sunday. It was the day we switch back from evening services to afternoon worship in one pastorate and the day we had a planning meeting after morning worship in the other pastorate. I had perhaps 30 minutes at home between the two events, just time enough to take a very brief nap and grab the afternoon worship briefcase. Fortunately, we had lunch as part of the planning meeting.

Sunday evening was basically spent trying to stay awake until bedtime, something that I accomplished but just barely. So, 6:00am Monday morning comes, as it inevitably does. It is somewhat dark; I am still tired; I don’t have to work today; it is warm and cosy in bed. But it is 6:00am, time to get up. As I reluctantly crawl out of bed and head for the exercise bike, I ask myself exactly why I am doing this. My wife is still sleeping, her dog isn’t interested in getting up, nobody else on our street is moving—so why, on my day off am I dragging my still tired self out of bed to start another day when nobody is requiring me to do that and a most other people I know would quickly suggest I was more than a bit strange for doing so?

I didn’t get an answer when I was biking. No great insights appeared in the Bible reading I was doing. Nothing that I read on the news feeds gave me reasons for getting up so early on a non-work day. I finished my hour on the bike and headed back to the kitchen. The dog was still not interested in getting up. My wife still sleeping. The neighbourhood was still silent. I opened the curtains, turned on the laptop and poured my granola over a cut up banana and sat down in my work chair by the living room window.

And as I sat down, I realized why I was doing this. This is my time, a time and space when I can do what I want with no outside demands. I have sermons to write—but they can wait until tomorrow and the next day. I have people to visit—but they can wait until I begin work tomorrow. I have a report on the meeting to get ready—but that doesn’t need to be done until next Sunday.

Right now, all I have to do is eat my granola and banana and write what I want to write—or not write, if I choose. I realize that this time is my gift to myself, a time and space when I can focus on me and my stuff. It is quiet, peaceful, comfortable. Nobody is going to bother me, unless there is some terrible catastrophe—but those tend to be rare and so basically, I have this time to myself.

I might be tired—but I can nap later. That isn’t a real issue since I would likely nap anyway, whether I got up at 6:00am or 8:00am. What I can do is enjoy the peace and solitude and freedom from demands, except for the few that I put on myself for this time, demands that are essentially what I want to do anyway. The only extraneous demand during this time comes from the dog, who often decides that he should probably wake up and make a trip outside—but that is much easier to deal with than writing sermon or preparing a funeral message or making a pastoral visit.

This short time on Monday morning seems to have become an oasis for me, a time when I put everything else on hold and minister to myself. I can write a blog post, stare out the window, read an interesting article I run across getting to somewhere else, check out some blogs that I like, eat my breakfast. I could sleep in but in truth, as much as I might appreciate the extra sleep, I think I would miss the blessings of the unstressed and undemanding time provides me. There may be Monday mornings when I choose to sleep in but mostly, I recognize that I need this time for my own personal spiritual and emotional health.

May the peace of God be with you.

YOU, ME AND JESUS

When I was starting out in the Christian faith and becoming involved in youth rallies and programs, we were introduced to a simple understanding of the way to really live life. We were taught JOY—the way of life was Jesus first, Others second, Yourself third. Some religious supply company or organization even produced a banner that was quite popular among many more conservative Christian groups—I think I had one that I carried around and posted prominently where ever my theological student wanderings took me.

The JOY idea is one of those religious catch phrases that sounds really good and is simple enough that anyone can understand it—and it has the added benefit of providing the perfect three-point outline for a sermon. It works on many levels, which is probably why it became something of a fad among some people for a time. It was also the perfect counter to the open self-centeredness that was becoming a significant part of our culture at the time.

But no matter how many levels it works on, it is a flawed statement. The theology is wrong and the approach to life it fostered was wrong. In many ways, it was a disguised version of the same old selfishness that plagued humanity from the beginning. In one of the perverse twists of apparent reality, putting ourselves last amounted to taking pride in our humility and our ability to take the last place. Following JOY, we all strove to be the least important, which ultimately meant that we are all pretty sure we were really important and therefore had to work hard to present ourselves as unimportant. Selfishness disguised as unselfishness is still selfishness.

The JOY approach did capture one basic truth—that the way to overcome selfishness is to put Jesus first. I suspect that the developers of that idea were not delving deeply into that part of the theology and psychology of the concept—they seem to have been more concerned with having us submit or defer to others.

Theologically, we human seem to have a built in need to serve something or someone. Sometimes, we serve ourselves; sometimes we serve something that benefits us; sometimes we get caught in something that ultimately harms us—but we all seem to need something beyond ourselves to follow and even serve. This gets confused and wrapped up in our selfishness and it sometimes becomes really difficult to determine where we end and the thing we serve begins.

Jesus, however, shows us a way to serve in a way that helps us deal with our selfishness without pretending we are less selfish that we really are. Mostly, he does that by example. Jesus never claimed to be the least of the least; he never developed a sense of false and sick humility. He was the son of God. He was God in human form. He had power and authority and was sinless and perfect and all that.

He was well aware of his place in the universe—all humanity depended on him and his decisions. He put humanity before himself in the sense that he gave up what was rightfully his; he accepted limits and limitations that he didn’t need to accept; he put up with stuff that he could have easily avoided—and all the while, he was aware of the fact that he was divine, powerful and didn’t have to do what he was doing.

He chose to do it as part of his commitment to the divine will. Jesus the son was serving God with his full being. He gave himself to God and for humanity, knowing exactly who and what he was and just how important he was. He was self-aware but not selfish.

That, I think, becomes the goal for us as his followers. We seek this sense of self-awareness of who and what we are and who and what we can be through Christ. Rather than trying to make ourselves unimportant, we can and should recognize the importance we have in God’s eyes. We are valuable to God; we are worth something to him; Jesus was willing to both die for us and rise to life for us.

My awareness of who I am because of God through Jesus allows me to commit to him—and gives me a way to overcome the selfishness that is at the root of all the evil in life. As believers, we are to develop self-awareness of our place with God.

May the peace of God be with you.

A SUNNY DAY

Question: What do you call a bright, warm, sunny day after two days of rain and cool weather? Obviously, the answer is Monday. Rainy, cool weekends are the ultimate indignity for most normal people, those who work Monday to Friday and count on the weekend to rest, recreate, work and play doing all the stuff that there is no time to do during the work week. Or at least, that is what I understand—I have never actually had a job where I had the weekend free.

For me, the weekend always involves work. I am aware that this is true for others as well—lots of us work on the weekends while others have the time free to do what they want. In fact, those of us who work on the weekend make it possible for many others to do their thing on the weekend. A popular weekend activity for some is weddings—and although the number of weddings is declining in our region, most still happen on Saturday. If I didn’t work on weekends, the wedding would be a lot more difficult to organize and carry out.

Of course, when I work a Saturday wedding, I don’t have the option of sleeping in on Sunday as most of the wedding goers do. I still have to get up and lead worship and preach—and since I have two services on Sunday, that doesn’t leave much time on the weekend for much more than eating and collapsing in front of the TV.

The bottom line for me is that a rainy weekend often doesn’t make a lot of difference in my plans. It does mean that the arthritis in my knees makes its presence known a bit more; the church building will likely be seriously over-heated; the congregants will be somewhat down because of the dark and dreary weather and a few may develop a phobia about getting wet and stay home from worship. But in terms of getting things done, well, most of my stuff on the weekend involves work and my work can be done rain or shine. Even outdoor weddings always have an indoor back up plan—that is one of my requirements for the couple getting married.

So, when it rains all weekend, I am not as bent out of shape as the members of my congregation since I am not really missing anything. But when a rainy weekend fades away and Monday dawns bright, sunny and warm, well, then I am all set. I generally have Mondays off—nobody ever gets married on a Monday; not much goes on in churches on Monday; my personal work schedule calls for study to begin on Tuesday. So, Mondays are mine, except for the occasional funeral or must have meeting that can’t fit anywhere else.

This Monday morning is bright and sunny and warming up—and it rained yesterday and was cool on Saturday. So, what am I going to do with this day everyone wanted yesterday and didn’t get? I don’t actually know. I am going to work on my blog—an activity that parks me in the living room with a perfect view of the sunny day illuminating the emerging leaves on the trees surrounding the neighbourhood.

I might get out and plant a few seeds—some to produce plants that the deer will probably eat and some that just might produce something that we can eat. I might go for a walk, depending on how much the drive to be out in the sun overcomes the anticipation of the pain it will cause. I might do some preliminary work on my next woodworking project. I might enjoy the sunny view as I finish that book I started last week and am enjoying. I will definitely take a nap—I may actually combine that and reading the book.

It is something of a frustration that my time off is generally at odds with the majority of people I know. But it isn’t frustrating enough that I am going to give up the time off I do have. And to be honest, while having a day off on a nice sunny day is a plus, I can and would enjoy the day off even if it is raining and dreary. For me, the bottom line is that I recognize I need to take time to relax and rest. It is nicer to do that on a sunny day but the sun isn’t a requirement.

May the peace of God be with you.

BEING FAITHFUL

This week’s posts have been more on the introspective side and could be interpreted to suggest that I am slipping into the chasm of depression—introspection, especially introspection focused on the realities of my current pastoral settings, can easily go that way. Small and decreasing numbers combined with my age and stage of life could make it easy to feel that not only am I wasting my time now but since I have spent my whole life in ministry with small churches, maybe I have wasted my whole ministry.

And I will openly confess that I am no stranger to that line of thought. When I hear of a colleague or former student who has been called to a larger congregation, I have a tinge (or more) of jealousy. When I realize that my name doesn’t come up much anymore when people are looking for someone to be a part of an important committee, I am simultaneously relieved that I don’t have to make a decision about the extra work and annoyed that I wasn’t even considered.

That being said, the times of jealousy and annoyance are not a major part of my life—they are there but on the scale of how they affect me, they are more like the bald spot I can’t see on the back of my head than the continual pain from my very old knees. I know the bald spot is there but while a full head of hair would be nice, it isn’t something I spend much energy on, except to remember a hat on sunny days—a sunburned bald spot isn’t pleasant.

A year or two after I had begun my first pastoral charge, I got a letter from a large congregation—you know this was a long time ago because it was an actual letter, not an email or text. People did that sort of thing way back then. Anyway, this church, one of the largest in the area at the time, wanted me to submit a resume for consideration as their next pastor. I was home by myself when I got the letter and it was exciting and gratifying and I was sure that this had to be God’s leading. I began packing—at least in my mind, I began packing.

But there was still a sermon to write for the church I was serving and a Bible study to get ready and a call or two to make. I also went for a walk—this was back in the days when my knees didn’t control my activity as much. The day passed and the letter sat on my desk—I was sure that when my wife got home from work, we would both be planning our move.

Except that by the time she got home, I realized that although it was really flattering to be considered for that position, it wasn’t for me. At the time, I realized it wasn’t for me at that point in time but looking back, I now realize that the call to a big congregation wasn’t ever one for me. God had a place and a purpose for me, one that kept me serving and working with small struggling congregations that needed someone to really care for them.

Since that first letter, there have been other letters, emails and phone calls from larger churches. Each one brought much the same reaction—excitement at being considered followed eventually by a clear sense that this wasn’t for me. And it wasn’t because I was avoiding the big churches—it was just that each time, there was the clear sense that I was where I was for a reason and when that reason was taken care of God would clearly show me what was next.

Being faithful has always been important to me, more important than moving up the ladder. I am not suggesting that anyone accepting a call to a larger church isn’t being faithful—I am saying that for me to have accepted any of those calls would have been unfaithful. Most of the people I know serving large congregations are good at what they do and are faithfully serving where they are clearly called.

The facts that I am sometimes jealous of them and often these days don’t really know what I am doing are realities that I am aware of. But the deeper reality is that I have tried to be faithful and that is more important to me than anything.

May the peace of God be with you.

SEARCHING FOR PERFECTION

One of the constant realities of my work as a pastor is the connections I have made with victims of childhood abuse.  As I have worked with people who have suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse during their early years, I have become deeply aware of how painful and traumatic such abuse is.  It can and does affect an individual for the rest of their lives.  It affects the ability to form healthy relationships; it affects the ability to develop healthy self-esteem; it may even affect the ability to live a long life.

Any kind of abuse at any age is wrong and evil.  And for that reason, I am hopeful about the developing trend for abuse victims to feel able to report their abuse and name names.  As long as abusers of any kind can do their evil without fear of the consequences, abuse will flourish.  Fear of being named may not change an abuser’s basic drives but it might prevent at least some of them some from abusing some people some of the time–and while that may not seem like a great victory, it is a victory for the potential victim who doesn’t get abused.

So, my hope and prayer is that our culture continues this recent trend to empower victims of all kinds of abuse to speak out.  Evil flourishes when it is hidden in the dark–shining light in the dark corners of life is a positive and powerful force that benefits everyone.   Taking away the power that fear and concealment provide to abusers and giving it to those who need protection from abuse is an essential part of changing our world.

But I have to say that I do find one part of the developing process interesting, at least from a theological point of view.  While there are some people whose outing as abusers surprises no one, there are other situations where everyone is surprised that so and so could ever do something like that.

For a variety of reasons, we assume that certain people would never do anything bad.  They are such nice people or they play such nice people in the media or that have such a great job or wonderful family or they have lots of money or are so smart.  We assume that because they are X they could never do evil–another application of the halo effect (see my post for Nov. 24/17).

And because we assume some people are incapable of such terrible things, we have one of two reactions.  Sometimes, we simply deny the reports–they accuser has to have made them up for some evil reason of their own.  But mostly, we believe the report and end up disappointed and become even more cynical–if we can’t trust so and so, who can we trust?

Theologically, we shouldn’t actually be surprised.  We can be disappointed and hurt and upset–but not surprised.  The Christian faith–and most other faiths, for that matter–is very clear on the fact that there are no perfect people.  As Paul puts it in  Romans 3.23, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (NIV).  All of humanity shares this fatal reality:  the best of us harbour dark and evil sides and the worst of us harbour light and good sides.

And that means that all of us are guilty of something.  Dig deep enough into someone’s life and you will find the darkness and the evil.  This is a reality well known to politicians seeking to ruin an opponent, investigative reporters looking for a big story and theologians seeking to understand the world.  We all have a dark and evil side and we all will either act on that darkness or fight it for our whole lives.

When people act out their dark and evil side, it really shouldn’t be a surprise.  It can be wrong; it can be criminal; it can be devastating; it will have consequences and it must be dealt with appropriately–but it really shouldn’t be a surprise.  It is a reality of the human condition, a reality that God recognizes and seeks to deal with through the live, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

May the peace of God be with you.