Nine years.
The passage of time is a fuzzy thing. Things happen in life. Everyday something happens. Our days are marked by the accumulation of events. Like episodic television, years gone by are like seasons. And events recalled are as stories often prompted by "you remember the one when....?"
And sometimes there are events that are watersheds. Nothing going forward will ever be as it was. Everything is filtered through the reality of that moment in time.
April 17 is one of those days.
It's not like today is the gratuitous "remember Jimmy" day. There's something about him I remember every day. I look at my middle kid's facial expressions from time to time and I'm stopped in my tracks.
Today, nine years later...my awareness of loss is revisited...loss of what was, and loss of what will never be.
As traumatic as that day was for my family and me, a day like none other in our lives, what I marvel at today, nine years later, is how we are getting through it.
There were agents of grace dispatched to stand with us that day and the days that followed. You held us close and "Lifted us to the Light" when we didn't know which way was up. Some stand with us still. For that I'm thank-full.
For those who knew him...remember a story (there are plenty to choose from), raise a glass, and laugh.
And those of you who didn't....you know the phrase "force of nature?"
He's the standard by which all others are compared.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Maundy Thursday 2013 - "No Greater Love: A Life Made Sacred (Sacrum Facere)"
So....a funny thing happened on the way to "standing down."
Ahhh, so I'm not going to do it. Can't.
But I am only going to post when I have something to say, not when I think I need to say something because everybody else under the sun is posting every single thought that sparks.... Enough of that....here we go.
Below is the current iteration of my homily for Maundy Thursday. I've lived with this for many, many years.
Simple search of the blog will bring forward other versions and the contextual prefaces that will put those versions in perspective.
We who proclaim Gospel have a predilection toward certain aspects of it. Parts of the story of Jesus come from us more easily. Others cause us more struggle to find paths to proclamation.
This is not quite to the magnitude of "Here I stand, I can do no other," historically speaking, but this one strikes close, at least for me.
It's in me.
There are moments in life when the actions we take, the engagement of our lives with the world around us reveal something about us, whether we’re conscious of it or not. We can talk all day about who we are and what we believe – but there’s nothing more revealing or indicting than action or inaction.
Conscious awareness of our role, place and motivation in life, and the ebb and flow of relationships in the slipstream of our existence is “mindfulness.” Taken from wisdom of the eastern religions, it is that capacity for us to know that "wherever we go, there we are" - -and thanks to John Kabat Zinn, the western world is the beneficiary of understanding a spiritual state that belongs to people of all faiths.
Jesus put it this way, "Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today." (Mt. 6.34 CEV)
In times of greatest moment – to act or not to act - - “to be or not to be - that is the question.”
Act with haste, that is, without prayerful discernment seeking guidance from trusted voices, and action becomes an end in itself. Those who yearn to be seen as the hero sweeping in to save the day act hastily.
Ask anyone who has been caught up in the aftermath of one’s lustful, egocentric pursuit of hero worship and they will tell you that such action may look good on the surface, but there is collateral damage aplenty.
"Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette," after all.
But is there compassion or consideration in the face of collateral damage, when in your pursuit to do something you think is a major thing that someone being hurt, ignored or marginalized is a minor thing? Or, is there a willingness to put aside being the hero for the common good?
No.
Inevitably, collateral damage, in whatever form it comes, is considered an acceptable loss, and the price of doing business. The end always justifies the means.
Still others live with perpetual inaction.
Able to articulate and argue relevant points of whatever their issue is with passion – they fail to act. They feed so much on the energy generated by the problem itself so that their motivation to enact a remedy, is muted by the fear that if the problem is solved, the “stuff” that feeds their lives is gone.
They know the issue.
They know the problem.
But they are crippled to do anything about it.
A vicious cycle, that. Indeed, it is pitiful.
Those who refuse to forgive a wrong choose perpetual inaction. Even church folks who know the language of forgiveness won’t enact it. Why? Because our pain and our anger is what we know, and being liberated from it scares us to death. We love our chains more than being free.
“Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” Jesus would say.
"Repent." "Believe."
"Take" up your cross and "follow."
Action words.
It’s the difference between saying you’re a Christian and actually being a follower of Jesus wherever that leads. Action and inaction. The transcendent truth of either approach to life is self defining and a prophecy perpetually self-fulfilling.
Maundy Thursday is one of those days when the abstract and absolute, the flesh and the spirit, the universal and the particular collide. It is one of those occasions where “the rubber hits the road.” Here, at the end of Lent and the start of the Triduum, the Great Three Days, it reveals through action the character of the One who draws us into this worship space tonight. It confronts us with the real life, real time implications of what a life made sacred looks like. It makes us look at Jesus’ life and consider what we’re doing with our own.
Is life made sacred because it just is…or is life made sacred by what one does with it?
So, action, these actions give meaning to what Jesus has taught. They give meaning to what we believe. They make all this Jesus business real – incarnate.
On this night we focus on an action of Jesus found only in the 4th gospel. The Synoptics don’t have it. John, historically considered the last of the canonical gospels written, has a particular agenda – the writer has a bias, and his bias is always for Jesus (as he understands him and propagates a narrative to give that understanding credence) – his life, his teaching, and the nature of the Christ that has always been.
Only John has this text – Jesus, at Passover, after sharing table fellowship, takes upon himself an action that will be self-defining hereon, as it will be for all of us who carry his name.
He, the one called, Rabbi, Teacher, Lord, Messiah, Christ – comes now to assume the role of the menial laborer – literal dirty work is not beneath him – he embraces it...he love us in it. It defines him. He takes a towel, a basin and a pitcher – and washes his disciples feet.
And at first, it was more than they could have stomached.
"My Jesus don't do stuff like that."
Far too many of us spend way too much time "lifting his name on high," when if he's to be found it will be at our feet. Failure to honor that, to embrace that is failure to really know anything about him at all. What is it he says to an obstinate Peter? "If you refuse me this you have no part of me."
But why?
Rarely in our observance of Christian liturgy do you find something so profoundly intimate as the washing of feet. Maybe that’s why it’s not a sacrament (which it should be), there’s really no way to observe this liturgy with integrity without touching someone, literally touching someone.
It’s too close, too intimate. It’s not “churchy.” Getting on our knees and taking off shoes, using water, towels and basins, it’s beneath the dignity of our erudite gathering.
To which I say, “right.” It is. But it is supremely of Christ.
That Francis I makes this act a loving expression of service today toward juvenile detainees is no small thing. The first Pope of the Church was slow to come around, the current Rock on which the Church is built deserves our notice.
And if we are going to be “of Christ,” with integrity, then tonight, our action or inaction is, guess what? Dare I say it again? Self-Defining.
And maybe that’s what all this dramatic fuss is about this Holy Thursday night and there following into the Great Three Days. If nothing else, we observe integrity at work. That’s an awe inspiring thing. For to live with integrity is joyful, because in it we are complete. We are fully what we’ve been created to become.
Don’t forget, though, that just because we live with integrity does not mean our work is easy. The faithful pursuit of Christ takes us to places we’d never before imagine, and that joyful pursuit is an act of thank-full praise in itself.
William Sloane Coffin said, “Joy is the most important Christian emotion. Duty calls only when gratitude fails to prompt.”
To do this thing…to wash his disciples’ feet, was not a choice absent other options. Think of those options presented to Jesus in the wilderness temptations…to be relevant, spectacular, powerful (as Henri Nouwen would teach us). No, this was a matter of integrity. He did this thing, both in the upper room with his disciples, as well as walk the Via Dolorosa precisely because that's who he is.
To have done anything other than to be a servant, than to identify with the suffering of humankind by embracing the cross, would have been to have missed his moment – the moment when action defined who he was. This is what a life made sacred looks like:
12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. John 15.12-17
Another way of seeing this night might be this. Jesus did not miss his moment and he’s imploring us not to miss ours. Our lives are gifts, to be sure, but they are only made sacred when we enact self-giving love as every moment's measure.
Look. Ministry is hard.
Giving yourself away is hard. Following Jesus to where ministry leads you is hard.
It is counter intuitive to everything innately part of our being that cries out for self interest and self protection.
Placing yourself in the role of servant and not hero is tough. Doing ultimate good without desiring credit for it is extraordinarily difficult.
If it were easy, wouldn’t more folks be doing it?
Instead, too many of us play at Church, play at following Jesus, use our religious pursuits as a contrivance of convenience rather than a covenantal commitment.
Listen, people. To live with integrity or not is far more in our control that we'd care to admit.
It’s in your grasp, sisters and brothers – right here, right now. And that thought burdens us because we are so used to claiming it is our weakness of character, or faith, of prophetic passion that prevents us from being what we’re made to be. We've become accustomed to being able to saying "no," "can't," "that's not my gift."
Bill Coffin again, “We want God to be strong, so that we can be weak. But He wants to be weak so that we can be strong. We want God to prove herself. But she answers, “Do you want proof or freedom?”
Or consider the words of David Whyte:
Jesus gathers with us in this room, as he has done with his companions for millennia and says, “Here’s who I am, here’s what I’m prepared to do, here are the depths I’m prepared to plunge – for you.”
How far are you willing to go? Could it be that tonight it is at least to declare that “no greater love have I” than to give myself away, even sacrificially, because of love?
What we do tonight, through bread and cup, is a liturgy you have repeated many, many times. May it be, however, that tonight you see beyond your own action of getting up and coming down here and partaking Eucharist, or sitting in this chair to have your feet washed or washing another's.
Consider and embrace the life made sacred because of what he did…made his life sacred, for you, so that your life is sacred in the love you make carried out in His name. Amen.
Below is the current iteration of my homily for Maundy Thursday. I've lived with this for many, many years.
Simple search of the blog will bring forward other versions and the contextual prefaces that will put those versions in perspective.
We who proclaim Gospel have a predilection toward certain aspects of it. Parts of the story of Jesus come from us more easily. Others cause us more struggle to find paths to proclamation.
This is not quite to the magnitude of "Here I stand, I can do no other," historically speaking, but this one strikes close, at least for me.
It's in me.
There are moments in life when the actions we take, the engagement of our lives with the world around us reveal something about us, whether we’re conscious of it or not. We can talk all day about who we are and what we believe – but there’s nothing more revealing or indicting than action or inaction.
Conscious awareness of our role, place and motivation in life, and the ebb and flow of relationships in the slipstream of our existence is “mindfulness.” Taken from wisdom of the eastern religions, it is that capacity for us to know that "wherever we go, there we are" - -and thanks to John Kabat Zinn, the western world is the beneficiary of understanding a spiritual state that belongs to people of all faiths.
Jesus put it this way, "Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today." (Mt. 6.34 CEV)
In times of greatest moment – to act or not to act - - “to be or not to be - that is the question.”
Act with haste, that is, without prayerful discernment seeking guidance from trusted voices, and action becomes an end in itself. Those who yearn to be seen as the hero sweeping in to save the day act hastily.
Ask anyone who has been caught up in the aftermath of one’s lustful, egocentric pursuit of hero worship and they will tell you that such action may look good on the surface, but there is collateral damage aplenty.
"Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette," after all.
But is there compassion or consideration in the face of collateral damage, when in your pursuit to do something you think is a major thing that someone being hurt, ignored or marginalized is a minor thing? Or, is there a willingness to put aside being the hero for the common good?
No.
Inevitably, collateral damage, in whatever form it comes, is considered an acceptable loss, and the price of doing business. The end always justifies the means.
Still others live with perpetual inaction.
Able to articulate and argue relevant points of whatever their issue is with passion – they fail to act. They feed so much on the energy generated by the problem itself so that their motivation to enact a remedy, is muted by the fear that if the problem is solved, the “stuff” that feeds their lives is gone.
They know the issue.
They know the problem.
But they are crippled to do anything about it.
A vicious cycle, that. Indeed, it is pitiful.
Those who refuse to forgive a wrong choose perpetual inaction. Even church folks who know the language of forgiveness won’t enact it. Why? Because our pain and our anger is what we know, and being liberated from it scares us to death. We love our chains more than being free.
“Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” Jesus would say.
"Repent." "Believe."
"Take" up your cross and "follow."
Action words.
It’s the difference between saying you’re a Christian and actually being a follower of Jesus wherever that leads. Action and inaction. The transcendent truth of either approach to life is self defining and a prophecy perpetually self-fulfilling.
Maundy Thursday is one of those days when the abstract and absolute, the flesh and the spirit, the universal and the particular collide. It is one of those occasions where “the rubber hits the road.” Here, at the end of Lent and the start of the Triduum, the Great Three Days, it reveals through action the character of the One who draws us into this worship space tonight. It confronts us with the real life, real time implications of what a life made sacred looks like. It makes us look at Jesus’ life and consider what we’re doing with our own.
Is life made sacred because it just is…or is life made sacred by what one does with it?
So, action, these actions give meaning to what Jesus has taught. They give meaning to what we believe. They make all this Jesus business real – incarnate.
On this night we focus on an action of Jesus found only in the 4th gospel. The Synoptics don’t have it. John, historically considered the last of the canonical gospels written, has a particular agenda – the writer has a bias, and his bias is always for Jesus (as he understands him and propagates a narrative to give that understanding credence) – his life, his teaching, and the nature of the Christ that has always been.
Only John has this text – Jesus, at Passover, after sharing table fellowship, takes upon himself an action that will be self-defining hereon, as it will be for all of us who carry his name.
He, the one called, Rabbi, Teacher, Lord, Messiah, Christ – comes now to assume the role of the menial laborer – literal dirty work is not beneath him – he embraces it...he love us in it. It defines him. He takes a towel, a basin and a pitcher – and washes his disciples feet.
And at first, it was more than they could have stomached.
"My Jesus don't do stuff like that."
Far too many of us spend way too much time "lifting his name on high," when if he's to be found it will be at our feet. Failure to honor that, to embrace that is failure to really know anything about him at all. What is it he says to an obstinate Peter? "If you refuse me this you have no part of me."
But why?
Rarely in our observance of Christian liturgy do you find something so profoundly intimate as the washing of feet. Maybe that’s why it’s not a sacrament (which it should be), there’s really no way to observe this liturgy with integrity without touching someone, literally touching someone.
It’s too close, too intimate. It’s not “churchy.” Getting on our knees and taking off shoes, using water, towels and basins, it’s beneath the dignity of our erudite gathering.
To which I say, “right.” It is. But it is supremely of Christ.
That Francis I makes this act a loving expression of service today toward juvenile detainees is no small thing. The first Pope of the Church was slow to come around, the current Rock on which the Church is built deserves our notice.
And if we are going to be “of Christ,” with integrity, then tonight, our action or inaction is, guess what? Dare I say it again? Self-Defining.
And maybe that’s what all this dramatic fuss is about this Holy Thursday night and there following into the Great Three Days. If nothing else, we observe integrity at work. That’s an awe inspiring thing. For to live with integrity is joyful, because in it we are complete. We are fully what we’ve been created to become.
Don’t forget, though, that just because we live with integrity does not mean our work is easy. The faithful pursuit of Christ takes us to places we’d never before imagine, and that joyful pursuit is an act of thank-full praise in itself.
William Sloane Coffin said, “Joy is the most important Christian emotion. Duty calls only when gratitude fails to prompt.”
To do this thing…to wash his disciples’ feet, was not a choice absent other options. Think of those options presented to Jesus in the wilderness temptations…to be relevant, spectacular, powerful (as Henri Nouwen would teach us). No, this was a matter of integrity. He did this thing, both in the upper room with his disciples, as well as walk the Via Dolorosa precisely because that's who he is.
To have done anything other than to be a servant, than to identify with the suffering of humankind by embracing the cross, would have been to have missed his moment – the moment when action defined who he was. This is what a life made sacred looks like:
12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. John 15.12-17
Another way of seeing this night might be this. Jesus did not miss his moment and he’s imploring us not to miss ours. Our lives are gifts, to be sure, but they are only made sacred when we enact self-giving love as every moment's measure.
Look. Ministry is hard.
Giving yourself away is hard. Following Jesus to where ministry leads you is hard.
It is counter intuitive to everything innately part of our being that cries out for self interest and self protection.
Placing yourself in the role of servant and not hero is tough. Doing ultimate good without desiring credit for it is extraordinarily difficult.
If it were easy, wouldn’t more folks be doing it?
Instead, too many of us play at Church, play at following Jesus, use our religious pursuits as a contrivance of convenience rather than a covenantal commitment.
Listen, people. To live with integrity or not is far more in our control that we'd care to admit.
It’s in your grasp, sisters and brothers – right here, right now. And that thought burdens us because we are so used to claiming it is our weakness of character, or faith, of prophetic passion that prevents us from being what we’re made to be. We've become accustomed to being able to saying "no," "can't," "that's not my gift."
Bill Coffin again, “We want God to be strong, so that we can be weak. But He wants to be weak so that we can be strong. We want God to prove herself. But she answers, “Do you want proof or freedom?”
Or consider the words of David Whyte:
The Opening of Eyes
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
-- David Whyte
from Songs for Coming Home
©1984 Many Rivers Press
Jesus gathers with us in this room, as he has done with his companions for millennia and says, “Here’s who I am, here’s what I’m prepared to do, here are the depths I’m prepared to plunge – for you.”
How far are you willing to go? Could it be that tonight it is at least to declare that “no greater love have I” than to give myself away, even sacrificially, because of love?
What we do tonight, through bread and cup, is a liturgy you have repeated many, many times. May it be, however, that tonight you see beyond your own action of getting up and coming down here and partaking Eucharist, or sitting in this chair to have your feet washed or washing another's.
Consider and embrace the life made sacred because of what he did…made his life sacred, for you, so that your life is sacred in the love you make carried out in His name. Amen.
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Standing Down
After 8 years and 374 posts, I feel like it's time to put the blog thing to rest.
This will be my last post on this blog. It's not like I have nothing else to say, but there are other avenues to do that. Shoot, I may learn to be so poignant and concise that I'll master the art of doing it in 140 characters or less (don't count on it)! And then there's always "the" Facebook.
The factors prompting me to launch this in the first place are not what they were...a lot of things can change in 8 years, and that's been the case with me. Bottom line...I just don't want to do this, like this, anymore.
Over the years I've revealed a lot about a few things that matter very much to me, and a little bit about a lot of stuff going on in the world. I've revealed my story...my journey. I've written much about me. Arguably too much. But I've tried to be true.
Upon reflection some of what I've shared would have been better for a journal. Living in the stream of consciousness that I do, some of what I have written is just me sharing where I am at a given moment. Most folks get that. Others want to dissect it and parse hidden meanings, and that fatigues me.
When I write wondering what the reader will think, and if I edit myself for fear of how it will be received, it's time to stand down.
I never started this to get denominational notice, although I surely say a lot about my denomination. If you're looking for that kind of blog...there's ton of 'em out there each begging for your notice and acknowledgement of how relevant their words are for issues confronting the church. And a few of them really are that relevant. A very few.
It's not that I'm writing less. I'm probably writing more than ever, but my writing is staying with me for now as I process the next phases of my life in ministry. In my journal I'm free to write for me, what I think, what I feel, and I don't have to interpret it. That's my "zone" right now.
I'm not planning on deleting the blog. The day may come when I take it back up, but I do not see it on the horizon. Ultimately I may grab some posts that meant much and migrate some other place...but that's not a worry for me right now.
For those who've hung in there with me across the years, I appreciate it. A few of you were there from the very start, and I know you'll stick with me still.
Peace, y'all.
Johnny
This will be my last post on this blog. It's not like I have nothing else to say, but there are other avenues to do that. Shoot, I may learn to be so poignant and concise that I'll master the art of doing it in 140 characters or less (don't count on it)! And then there's always "the" Facebook.
The factors prompting me to launch this in the first place are not what they were...a lot of things can change in 8 years, and that's been the case with me. Bottom line...I just don't want to do this, like this, anymore.
Over the years I've revealed a lot about a few things that matter very much to me, and a little bit about a lot of stuff going on in the world. I've revealed my story...my journey. I've written much about me. Arguably too much. But I've tried to be true.
Upon reflection some of what I've shared would have been better for a journal. Living in the stream of consciousness that I do, some of what I have written is just me sharing where I am at a given moment. Most folks get that. Others want to dissect it and parse hidden meanings, and that fatigues me.
When I write wondering what the reader will think, and if I edit myself for fear of how it will be received, it's time to stand down.
I never started this to get denominational notice, although I surely say a lot about my denomination. If you're looking for that kind of blog...there's ton of 'em out there each begging for your notice and acknowledgement of how relevant their words are for issues confronting the church. And a few of them really are that relevant. A very few.
It's not that I'm writing less. I'm probably writing more than ever, but my writing is staying with me for now as I process the next phases of my life in ministry. In my journal I'm free to write for me, what I think, what I feel, and I don't have to interpret it. That's my "zone" right now.
I'm not planning on deleting the blog. The day may come when I take it back up, but I do not see it on the horizon. Ultimately I may grab some posts that meant much and migrate some other place...but that's not a worry for me right now.
For those who've hung in there with me across the years, I appreciate it. A few of you were there from the very start, and I know you'll stick with me still.
Peace, y'all.
Johnny
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
On the first day of Christmas ....
Time for my annual rant.
"Christmas is over," so says the marketplace, media types and others. The work of putting away all the exterior fixtures showing we had "Christmas spirit" will be gone by the weekend. Presumably, so will any of the interior work we will have done.
As long as we can put Christmas in a box to open when we want and put it away when we say, then there is no true transformation.
The Church observed Christmas as a season. The impact of Incarnation requires meaningful time be observed. The newborn Jesus deserves our attention more than just seeing him lay away in a manger. We who have had newborn children know that there's only one thing better than the first time you see the baby---it's the next time you do.
The days of Christmas (yes, there are 12), allow the reality of Jesus to "breathe" in us. It gives room for us to take in the implications of his life in the midst if ours.
Maybe one of the reasons we put all evidence of Christmas away so quickly is that while we're happy to observe the season, we're not convinced we can be transformed by it....and that goes for institutions as well as people (can you hear me talking, UMC?)
So let this season "be." And "be" in this season. It may just be that the changes in life we most seek are being packed away in storage boxes with tinsel and lights.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Don't Feed the Bear
We are creatures of calendar.
In recent conversation with a colleague in which we were conferring on a date for a possible meeting, I reached for my iPhone to touch the icon that opens my calendar app. He, on the other hand reached inside his blazer and there found his little black "Cokesbury" calendar.
Doesn't matter the medium, we are bound by what we mark inside our calendars. Appointments, events, meetings--ah, yes, the many, many meetings...these things written in a calendar become the official record of our lives. We do what it says and when it says to do it.
Standing there with my clergy friend with calendars open offered a moment of clarity glimpsed only for a second by any with awareness to notice, as we both did. Almost instantly a memory sparked of life growing up in a parsonage, as we both did, when the "preacher's pocket calendar" would arrive in mid-December just ahead of the new year.
I watched that calendar referred to, checked and studied with a frequency and intent one normally reserves for sacred texts. Many were the times I recall several preachers being together when someone would mention the date for an upcoming event, it was as if a liturgical cue had been uttered on a par with "The Lord be with you." The hands reaching inside suit coat pockets to bring forth the appropriate response was an automatic as is now a congregation's "And also with you." (By the way, interesting thing, that...how a response comes so freely and automatically that, only 25 years ago in the Church, was a strange and foreign tongue).
For me, that little black book, which I've not used in years, was among a handful of talismen verifying and validating who I was as a Methodist preacher. Long before I was credentialed by my Conference to be an Elder in the Church...I knew I was a Methodist preacher when I received my black robe (which I haven't worn in 20 years), possessed my very own bonded leather hymnal, and when that little black calendar came in the mail addressed to me.
When I wore or brandished these things in public, more than me knowing who I was, I wanted to be sure you knew who I was.
These things all mattered more than they should. But as we all try to figure out who we are, there's a tendency to place more value on the exterior than those things of ultimate meaning found within.
As I've journeyed, and as I still seek to know who I am, I lean on those exterior things too much.
The complexity of life right now is such that dependency on a calendar is required. I'm not sure I know where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing without it.
Hmmm, maybe the comparison to calendars and sacred texts is more prescient than it is a cute observation?
The exteriors, those things I allow you to see, are not what they once were, but they're always there. I'm not alone and hardly unique in this regard. We clergy all have them. For some of us it's the toys...I mean, tools we use to "do our work." Maybe it's what we drive, or where we're appointed, or what committee we're on....if not grounded well in things of ultimate meaning, how we think we appear to the world (and especially to our peers) holds way more power than it should.
I written many times about clergy and our relentless pursuit for relevance. Given the personality types of many of we who are clergy, you can't really blame us. Each week we are charged with the task of saying something of meaning framed from the text of the day to help guide the lives of those under our charge. Sometimes we're able to do that and we know we've done it. Often it's the case that we get through a sermon fairly certain we've completely screwed it up only to hear in the gratuitous "enjoyed it preacher" line someone with teary eyes and open heart look at us and say "you said exactly what I needed to hear, thank you," and you've no earthly idea how that happened (no earthly idea, indeed).
I learned several things long ago from Michael Williams, who's now at West End, Nashville. I don't really know him, but I remember him preaching at Benton Chapel, VDS, when I was there. Rather than stand in that venerated pulpit he stood there, in the nave, with us and proclaimed Gospel. I was transfixed. And I remember saying to myself, "I've got to do that." The other thing he said when asked about the task of preaching was seeking to be very clear about getting out of the way. He said that the prayer he prays before he preaches, every time he preaches is something like this, "Lord, if I screw this up, please use it anyway."
Ever since then, I've prayed it, too. Oh sure, my mouth may say "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation....," but my heart is praying "Lord, if I screw this up (and being from where I'm from and given what my mood may be at a given time, the language may be more colorful than that), please use this anyway."
We like to feel like we've made a difference. When that's acknowledged, it feels good. I don't care how much we feign modesty, it feels good. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we depend on that and conspire by what we say or write to receive it, we become little more than actors on a stage begging for applause.
Preachers, did I just break the code? Ooops, sorry.
And now we've more ways to feed that narcissistic beast than ever...Facebook, Twitter, sermons streamed across "the internets," and blogs, blogs, blogs. We've multiple avenues to say something, be seen as important, insightful, a mover and shaker. Exterior stuff, that.
Nothing wrong with the exterior...so long as there's something of value inside and our intent is clear as it comes through what we say.
As one of my clergy parents (and I have a few) is want to say, and speaking at a time when none of the above existed, "Some people have something to say, and some people just need to say something."
No longer driven by the calendar that says we've got to find something to say because Sunday comes every week, we now have the opportunity to proffer a "relevant" comment about everything, everyday in real time. We've gone from week to week to minute by minute.
Some of my colleagues are really good at this. Their sense of awareness of life, the world and the challenge of the Gospel provide real guidance along the way. Some of my brothers and sisters (mostly brothers) need to learn the wisdom found in that great hit by the Tremolos, "Silence is Golden."
There's a lesson to be learned by clergy from the greatest sportscasters. In the moments of highest drama, of greatest impact...they fall silent to let the moment be, to let it breathe among all the witnesses. There will be ample time to speak to the moment, to reflect upon it and offer perspective. But in the moment to fill the space with words is to get in the way.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to wrap this up and push "publish."
I've not posted anything on my blog since September.
Like I said, we're creatures of calendar, and I'm oh, so late in writing something for people to read.
In recent conversation with a colleague in which we were conferring on a date for a possible meeting, I reached for my iPhone to touch the icon that opens my calendar app. He, on the other hand reached inside his blazer and there found his little black "Cokesbury" calendar.
Doesn't matter the medium, we are bound by what we mark inside our calendars. Appointments, events, meetings--ah, yes, the many, many meetings...these things written in a calendar become the official record of our lives. We do what it says and when it says to do it.
Standing there with my clergy friend with calendars open offered a moment of clarity glimpsed only for a second by any with awareness to notice, as we both did. Almost instantly a memory sparked of life growing up in a parsonage, as we both did, when the "preacher's pocket calendar" would arrive in mid-December just ahead of the new year.
I watched that calendar referred to, checked and studied with a frequency and intent one normally reserves for sacred texts. Many were the times I recall several preachers being together when someone would mention the date for an upcoming event, it was as if a liturgical cue had been uttered on a par with "The Lord be with you." The hands reaching inside suit coat pockets to bring forth the appropriate response was an automatic as is now a congregation's "And also with you." (By the way, interesting thing, that...how a response comes so freely and automatically that, only 25 years ago in the Church, was a strange and foreign tongue).
For me, that little black book, which I've not used in years, was among a handful of talismen verifying and validating who I was as a Methodist preacher. Long before I was credentialed by my Conference to be an Elder in the Church...I knew I was a Methodist preacher when I received my black robe (which I haven't worn in 20 years), possessed my very own bonded leather hymnal, and when that little black calendar came in the mail addressed to me.
When I wore or brandished these things in public, more than me knowing who I was, I wanted to be sure you knew who I was.
These things all mattered more than they should. But as we all try to figure out who we are, there's a tendency to place more value on the exterior than those things of ultimate meaning found within.
As I've journeyed, and as I still seek to know who I am, I lean on those exterior things too much.
The complexity of life right now is such that dependency on a calendar is required. I'm not sure I know where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing without it.
Hmmm, maybe the comparison to calendars and sacred texts is more prescient than it is a cute observation?
The exteriors, those things I allow you to see, are not what they once were, but they're always there. I'm not alone and hardly unique in this regard. We clergy all have them. For some of us it's the toys...I mean, tools we use to "do our work." Maybe it's what we drive, or where we're appointed, or what committee we're on....if not grounded well in things of ultimate meaning, how we think we appear to the world (and especially to our peers) holds way more power than it should.
I written many times about clergy and our relentless pursuit for relevance. Given the personality types of many of we who are clergy, you can't really blame us. Each week we are charged with the task of saying something of meaning framed from the text of the day to help guide the lives of those under our charge. Sometimes we're able to do that and we know we've done it. Often it's the case that we get through a sermon fairly certain we've completely screwed it up only to hear in the gratuitous "enjoyed it preacher" line someone with teary eyes and open heart look at us and say "you said exactly what I needed to hear, thank you," and you've no earthly idea how that happened (no earthly idea, indeed).
I learned several things long ago from Michael Williams, who's now at West End, Nashville. I don't really know him, but I remember him preaching at Benton Chapel, VDS, when I was there. Rather than stand in that venerated pulpit he stood there, in the nave, with us and proclaimed Gospel. I was transfixed. And I remember saying to myself, "I've got to do that." The other thing he said when asked about the task of preaching was seeking to be very clear about getting out of the way. He said that the prayer he prays before he preaches, every time he preaches is something like this, "Lord, if I screw this up, please use it anyway."
Ever since then, I've prayed it, too. Oh sure, my mouth may say "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation....," but my heart is praying "Lord, if I screw this up (and being from where I'm from and given what my mood may be at a given time, the language may be more colorful than that), please use this anyway."
We like to feel like we've made a difference. When that's acknowledged, it feels good. I don't care how much we feign modesty, it feels good. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we depend on that and conspire by what we say or write to receive it, we become little more than actors on a stage begging for applause.
Preachers, did I just break the code? Ooops, sorry.
And now we've more ways to feed that narcissistic beast than ever...Facebook, Twitter, sermons streamed across "the internets," and blogs, blogs, blogs. We've multiple avenues to say something, be seen as important, insightful, a mover and shaker. Exterior stuff, that.
Nothing wrong with the exterior...so long as there's something of value inside and our intent is clear as it comes through what we say.
As one of my clergy parents (and I have a few) is want to say, and speaking at a time when none of the above existed, "Some people have something to say, and some people just need to say something."
No longer driven by the calendar that says we've got to find something to say because Sunday comes every week, we now have the opportunity to proffer a "relevant" comment about everything, everyday in real time. We've gone from week to week to minute by minute.
Some of my colleagues are really good at this. Their sense of awareness of life, the world and the challenge of the Gospel provide real guidance along the way. Some of my brothers and sisters (mostly brothers) need to learn the wisdom found in that great hit by the Tremolos, "Silence is Golden."
There's a lesson to be learned by clergy from the greatest sportscasters. In the moments of highest drama, of greatest impact...they fall silent to let the moment be, to let it breathe among all the witnesses. There will be ample time to speak to the moment, to reflect upon it and offer perspective. But in the moment to fill the space with words is to get in the way.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to wrap this up and push "publish."
I've not posted anything on my blog since September.
Like I said, we're creatures of calendar, and I'm oh, so late in writing something for people to read.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
The Voice
The music library on my iTunes is a mess. So while trying to clean it up the other day I came across a few files I didn't expect to find....didn't even remember they were there.
They were of me.
Not of me singing, although with the advent of various iPad/iPhone apps, there does exist recording projects not for general distribution. When coupled with those projects I have done for public consumption, I've amassed a decent body of work.
No, these files were of me preaching.
They were of sermons preached between 2004-2008. There's about a half dozen or so. I don't recall loading them up. I've wondered if they got caught up in my library when I changed the location of my music from the onboard hard drive to an external one.
My first impulse was to clean them out, delete them. Why bother? No one is more critical of the preacher than the one who preached it. There was a time when that self criticism would devolve into self loathing, but that ain't me no more!
Thought it might be fun to see if I could remember preaching them.
I didn't.
But there was something I heard that sparked remembrance. Something I'd not heard in some time.
It was the voice.
There were flashes of the prophetic. I guess it could have been there since, but messages carefully calibrated for context lose there, uh, "umph" (that's a homiletics term). And I've been deep in the wilderness of my own spirit since, so I'm not sure I could have heard it anyway.
But I've "Come out the wilderness," in the last year, so ears that can hear, do.
"Hey! There he is! I know that guy!"
It's not they were extraordinary, in fact I'm quite sure they weren't, but they were proclaimed with conviction. To be sure ("to be sure" was a favorite clarifier of my Hebrew Bible professor at Vandy, Walter Harrelson, may he rest in peace), if you can't preach prophetically from the pulpit I stood in back those days, you may as well hang it up and go home.
Within any vocation there is a moment when one in pursuit of it finds their voice. It happens when confidence is imbued from the solidarity and faith found in those who believe in you and claimed internally as being true. It's that moment when all you've done before, all you've studied and practiced flows freely. The product of that acceptance is "the voice."
I've witnessed it happen. It is a glorious thing to behold.
We clergy live into many roles in our work--pastor, priest, prophet. Because the need of the moment may require more energy from one nature of work than the other, some parts of our voice stand back to make room for what is more necessary.
I know this is so. I've done it.
Sometimes we don't utter the prophetic not because we need to be more pastoral or priestly, but because we're afraid of the consequences that come from having done so. Scripture is pretty clear about what happens to prophets.
This whole "follower of Jesus" thing is not for the faint of heart.
This whole "follower of Jesus" thing is not for the faint of heart.
Because if the gospel we preach is only a warm tub of cheap grace goo, it's not real. If it's not making us squirm as it confronts us then we're not speaking it.
If it's only about "them" and not at all about "us" then we are deluding ourselves, and are just playing at being church...which is really the best definition of a hypocrite I've found..."play acting."
The Gospel that needs to be spoken must be with a voice that even if silenced "the very stones would cry out."
Well, I haven't been playing at it, but I have been careful, and I think necessarily so for context.
But having heard something I'd missed, it reminded me of a part of my call that cannot be denied...it must be spoken.
And it will be.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Home Is...
Robert Frost said, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." It's Maya Angelou's take on Frost that resonates more with who I am..."Home is that place that when you go there, can't nobody put you out."
My weekend in Mayfield far and away validates Frost via Angelou.
Despite what I've thought and preached about "home," as it relates to me in my own story, I've lived too long with the thought that it's Thomas Wolfe who was correct..."you can't go home again."
I'm here to tell you that in this instance, Wolfe's wrong, and so was I.
The sequence of events that brought me to Mayfield on the occasion of the Class of '82's 30 year reunion is not nearly as significant as the keen sense of knowing that I was welcomed and remembered.
In that one openly wounded chapter of my life for which there seemingly could never be closure I found grace--grace in the celebration of memory. Now some memories are those I'd just soon forget, but to have them recalled in the company of those who knew, who were there, it was a remarkable thing.
While many of the people with whom I reconnected I had seen around my senior year (thus, the aforementioned utterly unforgettable episode), most I had not seen in 37 years.
"Hey, I remember you!" I heard that quite a bit...which was wonderful because with the exception of a few folks whom I knew were interested, I was expecting "And you are?
What are you doing here?"
I also heard, "I thought that was you!" Wonderful!
On seeing people I thought I'd never see again - Yes, we're all older. And yet through the signs of age, of life lived and sometimes lived hard, I could see the spark of people as I remembered them. The curiosity of what ever became of someone was present but the gladness of just being together was stronger.
A number of people live in Memphis. Who knew? One in particular lives not too far from my Church. So knowing who I am and what I do, he had no qualms about asking me to pray for the gathered bunch before the party really got started.
"Really Arthur? They don't know me like that, I'm just Johnny."
Well, actually for a number of them I was JJ. It was the early 70s. "Good Times" was a hit TV show...you do the math. If "Dyno-mite" means anything to ya, there you go.
So I prayed, and it felt right because the emergence of the "me" I've long sought has found joyful passion in reclaiming that what I do is who I am. And to be who I know I'm called means that I'm bringing the fullness of who I am, without fear or worry, into what I do.
I was taken aback by the table on which many candles burned reflecting the memory of those no longer with us. It was so many. I remembered most and some very well. Car wrecks, drugs, violence...all of it was sobering reminder of life's fragility and the consequences of choices made that yield results never expected.
While there I had occasion to walk the old neighborhood, to see the places I used to live in Mayfield. Surprisingly, the walk didn't take me nearly as long as my memory would have me believe. The place is small, and as a community Mayfield struggles to find a viable way through amidst the exodus of industry across the years.
My old school isn't a school anymore. It's the County Health Department. That was an odd thing. But the new elementary school is a sign of progress, right?
I saw my first grade teacher whose name I had never forgotten (you always remember your first grade teacher's name, right?), but that was a long time ago, would I even recognize her?
Answer? Yes. Not even a question. And even more surprising was that she seemed to remember me. Evidently, I was quiet and sweet in the first grade (what happened there, I wonder?) "Yes, ma'am" came out of my mouth automatically when she spoke to me.
My weekend in Mayfield far and away validates Frost via Angelou.
Despite what I've thought and preached about "home," as it relates to me in my own story, I've lived too long with the thought that it's Thomas Wolfe who was correct..."you can't go home again."
I'm here to tell you that in this instance, Wolfe's wrong, and so was I.
The sequence of events that brought me to Mayfield on the occasion of the Class of '82's 30 year reunion is not nearly as significant as the keen sense of knowing that I was welcomed and remembered.
In that one openly wounded chapter of my life for which there seemingly could never be closure I found grace--grace in the celebration of memory. Now some memories are those I'd just soon forget, but to have them recalled in the company of those who knew, who were there, it was a remarkable thing.
While many of the people with whom I reconnected I had seen around my senior year (thus, the aforementioned utterly unforgettable episode), most I had not seen in 37 years.
"Hey, I remember you!" I heard that quite a bit...which was wonderful because with the exception of a few folks whom I knew were interested, I was expecting "And you are?
What are you doing here?"
I also heard, "I thought that was you!" Wonderful!
On seeing people I thought I'd never see again - Yes, we're all older. And yet through the signs of age, of life lived and sometimes lived hard, I could see the spark of people as I remembered them. The curiosity of what ever became of someone was present but the gladness of just being together was stronger.
A number of people live in Memphis. Who knew? One in particular lives not too far from my Church. So knowing who I am and what I do, he had no qualms about asking me to pray for the gathered bunch before the party really got started.
"Really Arthur? They don't know me like that, I'm just Johnny."
Well, actually for a number of them I was JJ. It was the early 70s. "Good Times" was a hit TV show...you do the math. If "Dyno-mite" means anything to ya, there you go.
So I prayed, and it felt right because the emergence of the "me" I've long sought has found joyful passion in reclaiming that what I do is who I am. And to be who I know I'm called means that I'm bringing the fullness of who I am, without fear or worry, into what I do.
I was taken aback by the table on which many candles burned reflecting the memory of those no longer with us. It was so many. I remembered most and some very well. Car wrecks, drugs, violence...all of it was sobering reminder of life's fragility and the consequences of choices made that yield results never expected.
While there I had occasion to walk the old neighborhood, to see the places I used to live in Mayfield. Surprisingly, the walk didn't take me nearly as long as my memory would have me believe. The place is small, and as a community Mayfield struggles to find a viable way through amidst the exodus of industry across the years.
My old school isn't a school anymore. It's the County Health Department. That was an odd thing. But the new elementary school is a sign of progress, right?
I saw my first grade teacher whose name I had never forgotten (you always remember your first grade teacher's name, right?), but that was a long time ago, would I even recognize her?
Answer? Yes. Not even a question. And even more surprising was that she seemed to remember me. Evidently, I was quiet and sweet in the first grade (what happened there, I wonder?) "Yes, ma'am" came out of my mouth automatically when she spoke to me.
I saw and spoke to the first girl I ever called on the phone. Age 6. Thank you.
She gave me about as much time as she did back then, too. Seemed about right.
I owe much to my friends who really wanted me to come back. Kenny, Liz, Elaine and so many others. It is a good thing to be wanted, no?
Because I have a gig on Sundays I didn't stay as late Saturday night as I would have preferred. But as I drove away I had this strange feeling. What I expected to be closure wasn't. The journey isn't complete, it's ongoing. No more than my leaving in 1976 left relationships undone only to realize closure in 2012, for a number of these people, my friends, who know me only as Johnny (ok, or JJ), it's just the next thing in relationships that last a lifetime.
As I was saying my goodbyes, my friend Michael (apparently he's Mike, now), says, "See you in December?"
"For?" I ask.
"For when Mayfield goes back to State. See you there?"
"Would not miss it."
And why wouldn't I? It's my hometown team.
I owe much to my friends who really wanted me to come back. Kenny, Liz, Elaine and so many others. It is a good thing to be wanted, no?
Because I have a gig on Sundays I didn't stay as late Saturday night as I would have preferred. But as I drove away I had this strange feeling. What I expected to be closure wasn't. The journey isn't complete, it's ongoing. No more than my leaving in 1976 left relationships undone only to realize closure in 2012, for a number of these people, my friends, who know me only as Johnny (ok, or JJ), it's just the next thing in relationships that last a lifetime.
As I was saying my goodbyes, my friend Michael (apparently he's Mike, now), says, "See you in December?"
"For?" I ask.
"For when Mayfield goes back to State. See you there?"
"Would not miss it."
And why wouldn't I? It's my hometown team.
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