A Metaphorical Hair Cut

For the last few years I have been in the process of simplifying my life - discarding anything that I do not need and/or which does not enhance my life in some way.  I struggled with some items, putting them first in one pile, then the other before I could finally decide one way or the other.

Now I am moving.  I am clearing out my church office and preparing to move into a new one.  Like many before me, I have saved print copies of every sermon I ever preached in 3 ring binders, not one of which has been re-opened once the last sermon for the year has been snapped in place.

All of those words, all of those hours of study and prayer and research, all of that struggle with the Gospel as it was presented to me in light of whatever was going on in the world, in the community, in the congregation and in myself - each and every one of those messages was intended to be spoken just once.  Each was intended to address a specific audience on a specific day.  There were times when I tried to make one over, or re-use it in a different place later in the same day.  That sort of worked, sometimes.  But not well.

Discarding the paper copies of all those sermons feels a little like discarding pieces of myself.  It feels  like those times when my hair was really long and I decided to cut it short.  It felt strange at first to see all those years of growth laying on the floor at my feet, but the freedom I felt with the first toss of my head was exhilarating.  I knew my hair would grow again, but for that moment everything felt new.

I know that the same Spirit who helped me find the words contained in that row of binders filled with messages from some 600 Sundays will give me new words for my new congregation.   And those old words, even though they may have been the right words at the time they were spoken, will be left behind like my long hair on the floor of the beauty shop, leaving me free to grow in a new place.

Of sheep and cattle . . .

I’ve been reflecting lately on what it means to be a pastor.  The word pastor means “shepherd,” so first and foremost, a pastor is a shepherd.  According to dictionary.com a shepherd is “a person who herds, tends, and guards sheep.”  That seems simple enough.    

The Bible says:  

The Lord is my shepherd.

    I lack nothing.

He lets me rest in grassy meadows;

    he leads me to restful waters;

he keeps me alive.

He guides me in proper paths

    for the sake of his good name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley,

    I fear no danger because you are with me.

Your rod and your staff—

    they protect me.

Simple.  

Jesus tells us that a really good shepherd will leave his flock of ninety-nine sheep to go off in search of one who has become lost.  I always hope he’s leaving them inside a pen or enclosure, or at least with a well trained dog to keep them safe while he’s gone, although it is a fact that each flock has a lead sheep they are accustomed to following.

I’ve been reflecting on this because I heard someone wonder recently, “What if that pastor we’re thinking about calling is too liberal for us?”  They’re a bit nervous, and I understand that.  What if they get a shepherd who wants to take them in some weird, unknown direction?  What if the new shepherd is going to force them to go someplace they really do not want to go?  

I’ve had sheep.  I know that there is no way in the known universe I’m going to get a bunch of sheep to head off in a direction that they know isn’t the right way, and I don’t care how great my dog is.  They might be convinced to take a slight detour in their usual routine of pasture to field and back again, especially if there is something especially tasty within smelling range.  But if they don’t want to be someplace, there is nothing that shepherd can do to change their mind.  And don’t ever let anyone tell you that sheep are stupid, because that’s simply not true.  At least, not in my experience of sheep.

Case in point.  Baby and Flower were used to being in the same field together.  One day my father thought it would be better to have Baby grazing on one side of the pond and Flower on the other.  So he attached each one to a tire by a chain around their necks and set the tires where he wanted them to stay.  They could easily move around - the tire was only intended to slow them down a bit.  A little while after he set them out we looked over toward the pond and discovered that Baby was swimming across the pond, dragging her tire behind her!  We did’t even know sheep could swim!  She refused to be separated from her friend.  She was going to go where she wanted, no matter what the shepherd wanted.  My father never tried to separate them again, and we all learned an important lesson about sheep and shepherds.

A shepherd is not like a cowboy driving cattle to market.  The cowboy’s primary objective is to get the cattle to the market by the road he chooses.  He wants to get them there as quickly and safely as possible.  And he wants them to be as heavy and strong as they can possibly be so as many as possible survive the trip.  He will look out for them, make sure they are fed, protect them from predators.  But his primary goal is to get as many of them to their destination as he reasonably can, as quickly and as profitably as possible.

The shepherd is in no hurry.  The sheep will get where they are going at their own pace.  All the shepherd is concerned with is making certain they are nourished and refreshed with good food and water, so that they will all be as healthy as possible all the time.  If one is ailing, he’ll spend extra time with that one.  If one is lost, he’ll worry and search until that one is returned.  He will always guard them from danger and share their every circumstance, enjoying the sun and enduring the storm right along with them. He will give them what they need, what they are accustomed to, and only slowly will he introduce them to a new field or take them in a new direction.  

A pastor is a shepherd, not a cattle driver.  A pastor is in no rush to bring the congregation to a particular destination.  Rather, a pastor is there to guide them along the path that Jesus has already set out for us all to follow.  A pastor has one concern only - to see that the flock thrives and grows, nourished by the Word and Living Water.  

Both sides now . . . or . . . stuck in the middle again

Yes, I know it sounds like an Oldies’ radio station up in here right now, but that’s the reality of my life today.  Let me give you some examples:

The other day I was browsing Facebook and I noticed that a clergy colleague was looking for suggestions on how she could update her 100+ year old sanctuary with more screens and better sound system for worship and events.  Her ideas are, to my certain knowledge, very expensive to carry out.  While I’m glad that her congregation has the funds to do these kinds of remodels to their building, I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t some other use - some “missional” use - for the money.  I happen to know that this particular congregation is in an urban location that has undergone gentrification in recent years . . .

A couple of hours later I answered the door to an elderly, homeless, blind woman.  She was concerned that she was too late to receive food, because it was after the hours that we usually give out food.  She was actually a whole day late, but that wouldn’t have kept me from helping her, if we’d had any food to give.  But we don’t.  I had to apologize because we had no food to give her - none at all.  For some months now no one has brought food to our pantry - not church members, not the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, not any of the groups who meet in our church hall - no one.  The cupboards are bare.  It seems like there simply is no money in our community right now for people to buy food beyond what they need for their own families to eat . . . 

Seeing both sides now.  Church needs to reach out with great tech to bring people in.  Church needs to forget about the tech and out out with food to care for the people.  

Meanwhile . . . a woman and her daughter have been attending faithfully for a couple of months now. They’ve been working hard at our church work days.  They’ve brought the fellowship meal once or twice.  They participate in everything we do.  And then one Sunday they weren’t there.  I remembered the mom had said the daughter would be with her dad that week, so I wasn’t too worried until they didn’t show up again the second Sunday. I emailed, and got a response.  They were with family, and she wanted to call later in the week with a question for me.  The third Sunday they weren’t in worship I called.  Mom is concerned that we are Open and Affirming, that I perform Gay Marriages and how that conflicts with what she learned growing up in a Fundamentalist congregation.  She said she loves all the people in our church but is worried that her daughter will be exposed to things that are against God’s law.  She was, however, willing to accept some reading materials and will come talk to me about her concerns after reading them . . .

A few days later, a lesbian who started attending the same 12 Step meeting that I also attend came to see me.  She had missed the meeting last week after learning that I am the pastor of a Christian church.  She thought maybe she wouldn’t be welcome where I was.  That maybe I was judging her.  She let what she believes to be true about what Christians believe get in the way of getting to know who I am as a person (and as a Christian).  But she looked at my Facebook posts and prayed about it and talked to friends about it and decided to give me a chance, and return to the meeting I attend. . .

Stuck in the middle again. I’m a Christian so how can I accept “those people” over against I’m a Christian so I can’t possible accept “those people.” 

This is my life today.  What’s your’s like?

Meanwhile, back at the office . . .

In April I started sorting out my life.  I went through my home looking for just those things that I truly love and don’t want to live without, discarding everything else.  Some was thrown away, but most was given to people who needed whatever.  When I moved into a much smaller place I was surrounded by those things that bring me joy.  I have since discovered that even some of those things aren’t really necessary.  I kept clothes that I wear but don’t love.  I don’t think I need clothes I don’t love.  And books . . .I have to admit it’s really, really hard to give up books, but I think I kept more than I really need.  Of course, most of those I kept are books that I haven’t read yet . . . but then there are the Harry Potter books and the Narnia books and the Douglas Adams books.  Do I need them?  Will I re-read them again?  (YES! OK, I’m keeping those.  ☺)

Meanwhile, back at the office . . . 

Last month a homeless woman accidentally had access to all the rooms in the church buildings for a number of days.  She is a hoarder, I guess, because she started taking things outside and piling them up in out of the way places on the property.  We noticed some things were missing - like the big coffee pot and the Spanish congregation’s  projector.  She insisted she didn’t take anything that she wasn’t freely given by someone.  I didn’t quite believe that.  After a few weeks we were able to convince her to leave the property (without having to have her arrested) and secure the buildings by changing locks.  Two weeks or so later we started discovering her caches and found so much stuff!  She had stashed things in the electrical closet and in the little emergency exit area behind the preschool building and in the bushes next to the church.  We couldn’t believe what all she took - and kept!  I understood taking coffee mugs but why take the giant, very old dictionary?  There were so many things she could have pawned but didn’t.  The Spanish congregation even found their projector in perfect condition.  

As we went through the stashes I kept finding items that had come from my office.  There were a few things that I had missed but way too many that I didn’t even notice were gone. I could understand not noticing a few books missing from a shelf, but some of the art objects that I thought I loved were in her stash and in the weeks that they were missing I never realized they were gone.  When I looked around I realized that I have a lot of stuff - a lot of stuff that just sits there, serves no  purpose and that I don’t even love.  Stuff that I keep because it is a souvenir of someplace I went or was a gift from someone (not necessarily someone I even like, just a gift.)  

I guess it’s time to start that sorting process in my office.  It’s time to get rid of books I haven’t taken off the shelf in 10 years or more, and decorations that I might use again sometime (but probably won’t) and items that are lovely but that would serve someone else much better.  

I feel a need to simplify, to somehow ignore my desire to own stuff, to make my life so simple that if I want to pick up and go somewhere else it won’t have to be a huge production.  

Her name was Geggie.

She wasn't Aunt Geggie or Miss Geggie or Geggie plus whatever her last name was.  She was just Geggie and she was always part of our family.  Not in the same way that Dorothy and Webby were, who came over from Ireland on same boat as my father's mother.  And not in the same way that Aunt Jo was, who was actually my mother's best friend in high school.   Mother treated her like a role model, maybe an older sister or a beloved aunt, but she wasn't either of those things either.

In the early 1920s Geggie (short for Gertrude) came to Philadelphia from a small town to find work and somehow ended up renting a room from my mother's parents.  She became much more than just a boarder.  She ate her meals with the family, listened to the radio with them in the evenings and went to church with them on Sunday morning.  She helped my grandmother with the children - including my mother - and used the family sewing machine to make her clothes. Eventually she  truly became part of the family.

I probably haven't thought about Geggie in decades but lately I find myself sort of in her position.  I separated from my husband at the same time that my church had to cut my salary by 30%, so I had to move from my spacious apartment.  I was hoping to find a little studio somewhere and I actually did, but then the man who was living in it needed to stay so the family asked if I'd like to move into their spare room.

I had to think about that. I've never lived with strangers (unless husbands count as strangers). I'd never lived with any family except my own.  I haven't shared a kitchen or even a bathroom in decades.  And I really, really wanted to live all by myself.  But I decided maybe God was trying to get my attention and that maybe I needed to live with this family for a while.

I've been here for a month now.  It's different from what I am used to, that's for sure.  This is a close family and all the siblings and cousins and in-laws and nieces and nephews and such wander in and out whenever - even when the couple who live here aren't home.  I am free to cook for myself if I choose, but I am always welcome to join them for meals.  Mostly I feel good being in the middle of a family, but on those occasions when I feel a little outside my comfort zone I can always retreat to my room, my sanctuary, where I keep everything I love.  And when I do retreat to my room, no one thinks badly of me.  

I don't know whether this is how it felt to Geggie when she first moved in with my mother's family. I'm just glad she did move in and stuck around for so long because now, close to a century  later, she gets to teach me, too.

Please Don't Walk on the SNR

There’s been an awful lot of conversation about the Spiritual Not Religious phenomenon in the last few years, which seems mostly to revolve around how to get them to show up for religious services somewhere.  I just received yet another invitation to a seminar on the topic of Spiritual Not Religious to be led by a panel of religious experts.  It feels to me an awful lot like a panel of men gathering to discuss women’s issues with no women in the room - and THAT would surely never happen.  Oh wait . . .

Not that I’m saying religious experts shouldn’t discuss the category of persons who identify as Spiritual Not Religious any more than I think men shouldn’t discuss women’s issues.  What I am saying is that someone who actually identifies as Spiritual Not Religious should be part of those panel discussions and seminars.  

For the past 24 years I have been a member of an organization that specifically identifies itself in its literature as a “spiritual - not religious - program.”   When I joined I hated God, I hated church, I really hated church people.  I knew I was going to hell because I was a woman, because I couldn’t believe what I was taught in the church I grew up in, because I did bad things from the time I was a very little girl . . .  That program, that spiritual not religious program, taught me about a God who loves and forgives and cares about me.  That program, that spiritual not religious program, taught me how to form a relationship with a God of my understanding - not the one I learned about in church.  That program, that spiritual not religious program taught me how to be non-judgmental, how to forgive, how to love others, how to love myself, and how to trust.  None of those things were on the educational agenda in the church where I grew up.

I eventually found my way back to church, although I returned to a very different Christian tradition than the one I left.  Since then I’ve met a large number of clergy and other devout persons in many different faith traditions who have a story similar to mine.

But a lot of people never return.  Their ability to trust has been so severely damaged that they may never heal.  Those people, those Spiritual Not Religious people, are not going to be convinced by arguments or panel discussions or carefully crafted advertising campaigns specifically aimed toward them.  Those people will only be convinced by seeing a difference in those persons and institutions that hurt them.  I am often rejected as soon as they learn what I do for a living but eventually I am able to show that I am not trying to drag them kicking and screaming into my church - that I really do respect their belief system.

Mind you, not everyone who identifies as Spiritual Not Religious comes from that program or others like it.  That is just where my personal experience as part of the SNR phenomenon comes from.   

And . .  there is a very good chance that some of the religious experts on some of those panels have  personal knowledge and/or experience with what it means to be Spiritual Not Religious.  But if you are not one of them,  those Spiritual Not Religious folks, please, don’t judge.  Don’t make assumptions.  Instead, listen.  Ask questions.  Be willing and open to learning a new thing.

And trust that God knows what She is doing better than we do.

Purple Day is Coming!

March 26 is Purple Day - World Day for Epilepsy Awareness.

Fifteen years ago this month I was in the hospital recovering from surgery.  While I was there a couple who were (and still are) very important in my life came to visit.  We were talking about everything that was happening on campus and in other areas of mutual interest when suddenly the wife began to have a seizure.  Her husband caught her before she hit the floor and carefully laid her down.  I immediately hit the button for a nurse, who arrived very quickly and then . . . did nothing.  It seems that if one has a seizure while visiting someone else in the hospital, the medical staff are prohibited by law from touching the seizure victim.  Using some pillows from my bed, the husband made his wife as comfortable as possible until she was well enough to go home.  

I didn’t understand what had happened.  I didn’t understand was how my friend could be standing next to me laughing one minute and having a grand mal seizure the next when nothing I could see had changed in the intervening seconds. I had always thought that if an epileptic takes her medication regularly she won’t have seizures. I realized I didn’t know enough about epilepsy became determined to learn more.  

I was amazed at how many things that I consider part of daily life can trigger an epileptic seizure, like strobing patterns of light and shadow, and the electromagnetic frequency of certain light sources.  It turned out that something about the lighting in my hospital room triggered that particular episode.  

I’m not an expert on epilepsy by any means. But I’ve learned some important things since that day in my hospital room.  Today, when a friend says, “I couldn’t get to the event because the shadows the trees were casting on the road were dangerous,” I know she really couldn’t safely continue driving.  

I learned that the best thing I can do if someone near me has a seizure is to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself on anything nearby - not by holding her down but by moving things away from her.  I should not put anything inside her mouth - that can cause injury.  I should loosen her collar and remove her glasses.  I can ask people not to crowd around.  And then I should wait until the seizure ends, help her move onto her side and stay with her until she is sure she’s ok.  If the seizure lasts a long time - like 5 minutes - or if a second one begins right away I should call 911, but in most cases I won’t have to.

Fifteen years later my friend is still embarrassed that she had a seizure in my hospital room. I wish she didn’t feel that way.  The seizure that has caused her so much distress was the trigger I needed to learn more, and to share what I have learned.  

Please - go learn more about epilepsy.  And wear Purple on Wednesday, March 26.