The emotional roller coaster continues...

Today was yet another emotional roller-coaster... all tender and holy but some very, very hard. The day began with conversations about spiritual practices and balance.  Later there were phone calls with people who are hurting in sad and tragic ways but who seem unable/unwilling to do anything to help themselves.  They don't even seem willing to let God be God...

In these encounters I think of Fr. Martin and his work with alcoholics.  After years of making himself available, he started to tell people who wanted to meet with him:  Look, I want to be useful and loving for you; I want to open my heart and share some of the hard lessons I've learned about addiction so that you might find peace.  But unless you commit to follow my advice, I am not going to meet with you more than once!  In some circumstances, I am about there, too!

As the afternoon unfolded I spent time in prayer and tears with one of my heroes - a person who has overcome more physical hardship and handicaps than almost anyone I know - and continues to tell me: Pastor, you know I am blessed and give thanks for the life I have.  There are some new complications and a whole lot of uncertainty now.  And as I left I was told, "You know, I've done a mountain of crying this past week..."  So we held hands again and prayed for peace and strength and healing and my tears flowed without ceasing.

Then it was home to pick up my special four-legged teacher and friend, Lucie, who returned to church with me.  (She is asleep on the rug in my study now. Dianne says it was providence that we would find an introverted dog who gets as exhausted being social as we do!) At 4 pm some of the LGBTQ kids and counselors joined me to check out our massive Fellowship Hall.  We're going to host their post-Halloween dance and they wanted to scope out what was necessary for decorations.  Nervous Lucie took some time to warm up - and she did in her own timid way - and when they left I wept tears of joy:  What a blessing to be an ally with these young people and their mentors at this time in their lives.

When I was a teen, some of you know, the church saved my life.  I broke INTO the church as a teen, slept there sometimes when I needed a safe place and found myself surrounded by people who were compassionate and deep. When I told that story in church a few weeks ago, my stewardship chair told me someone was so moved that they are going to give an additional $10K this year to make sure we live as a safe place for our kids. My hope and prayer is that what was true for me might become true for one of them, too.

And as the day came to a close, I sent out my weekly email reflection (along with some words about prayers and programs for the coming week.) I share it with you below:

Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I can't help but worry.  Most of the time, I compartmentalize my concerns reasonably well, but sometimes my anxieties slip out and get muddled with all the other facts of life.  Mostly I worry about the church - the local church, the national church and the church universal - and most of the time my worries don't really matter.  After all, God continues to be in charge of the church after all these years and God really doesn't want to know that I worry about fundamentalism - or how busy young families are today - of the age old rift between Protestants and Catholics - or that most people don't read the emails I send out.  With Christ Jesus as the true head of the church, no matter what I worry about, Christ is more than sufficient, yes? 

Still I find myself worrying - so I have found great solace in Psalm 37 - and have prayed it regularly over the past 25 years:

Fret not yourself because of the wicked, be not envious of wrong-doers.  For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Rather, trust in the Lord and do good so that you will live in the land and enjoy deep security. Take delight in the Lord...trust God and know that God will act. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Fret not yourself...

Another psalm that brings me rest is 131:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things too great for me or too marvelous to understand. No, I have calmed and quieted my soul, And like a child resting at its mother's breast, my soul is at peace. Hope in the Lord always, O Israel,

From this time forth and for evermore.

Both prayers remind me that fretting is like praying for things I don't want to happen TO happen.  My challenge is to rest in the Lord, trust that God knows more than I do and will attend to my concerns - and all our concerns - when the time is right.  And if I am impatient, that is more about me than the Lord.  One of my spiritual mentors. M. Craig Barnes (new president of Princeton Theological Seminary) put it like this in what I consider his finest book:  The Pastor as Minor Poet.

I have a sign over my door at the seminary that simply says:  It's just a church!  I am not trying to make a cynical statement but to offer an invitation to freedom. A pastor's ability to enjoy church is directly related to knowing its limits.  The church is NOT Jesus.  It may be the Body of Christ - but only sort of... (Knowing this) frees the pastor not to take the church more seriously than God does.

As we enter into our season of stewardship and fund-raising, I find I have to spend more and more time with ALL of these words.  I want to worry - it is an old friend - and I still sometimes find it hard to trust in the Lord.  But God really doesn't care too much about my worries and has never really listened to them so far as I can tell.  But I have known God's tender reassurance when I am "still before the Lord...and when I don't take the church more seriously than God does." This Sunday I will share a message about how God's love is so vast that the Lord can take our pain and sin and use it for our healing.  I hope you will join us.

It was a blessed, complex, full and precious day.