A time to be shaped by joy...

The writer, M. Craig Barnes, has observed: "As poets, pastors aren't afforded the luxury of skimming over the top of their own losses, thinking, 'that was no big deal.' The big deal is learning how to dig through loss to find the hints of hope - not a cheery optimism, but deep, from the bottom-of-the-soul hope.  After years of excavation through their own losses, pastor learn how to find this sacred subtext in others... When the sheep of our flock are in the midst of their frightening losses, they need to lean up our faith and our trust that they are not abandoned to this destruction. They need to believe that at least we believe." (Pastor as Minor Poet)

That's my experience, too - they need to believe that at least we believe - is a place I bump up against over and again.  When we're talking about budgets in the light of staggering building repairs, when we're talking about engaging mean-spirited and even cruel critics within the congregation, when we're facing unimaginable physical pain or numbing psychic loss and more:  people in our churches need to believe that at least we believe.  Not merely play acting or putting on a happy face that denies reality; but living and speaking and acting in ways the points to God's presence beyond the obvious.

Fr. Richard Rohr speaks of this as a commitment to joy.

I have committed myself to JOY.  I have come to realize that those who make space for JOY, those who prefer nothing to JOY, those who desire the utter reality of JOY, will most assuredly have it.  We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets:  now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. For in the prison of now - in this cynical and sophisticated are - someone must believe in JOY.

Someone must let their heart, soul and mind be shaped by joy - someone in the faith community must trust that despite the evidence the Christ Child is being born in the most unlikely place within and among us - someone must speak of how both Good Friday and Easter Sunday are connected and real beyond all rationality.  And one of those people had better be the pastor who knows that you can't give what you don't have.  When grief comes to a community, when people live out their deepest demons in ugly, public ways, when trust in our fear is greater than our experience of God's grace, the pastor better be able to speak from deep within about being embraced by God's abiding presence.  In the later days of my ministry I have found that means I must be shaped and reshaped by joy lest the cynicism of this age overwhelm me, too.

We leave this morning for a few days away from church - one of our periodic retreats - to reconnect with one another as well as Christ's joy.  More to come on the flip-side...