the chance to love and be loved...

My heart was filled with joy last Friday upon seeing a few old friends from my days of ministry at our house concert. After six months, there was still a feeling of deep affection for them all - and it was wonderfully reciprocated. It was also a blessing to have a few of the old timers sing together with me and the band after an extended hiatus. Their voices rang clear and pure as a bell.

One of the peculiar problems facing both retired clergy and former congregants has to do with respecting appropriate boundaries. Much has been written and discussed about this dilemma born of mutual affection and compassion; and as is often the case, while the intention of the various solutions are generated in love, time and again they wind up enforcing either/or binary rules. Namely, thou shalt have NO contact with one another for a least a year. I know there are countless horror stories from both camps (retired clergy and congregations) where one party or the other violates the agreed upon limitations. Like the former clergy person returning to their old church to sing in the choir - literally looking over the new minister's shoulder during worship - continuing to visit people in the hospital and offering congregational solutions in a variety of other meddlesome ways. (True story from Tucson.) Or the church member who doesn't think it necessary to consult with the new clergy before inviting a former pastor back to town to conduct a wedding, baptism or funeral. Without clear and effective guidelines, and a solid commitment to honor the fact that one era has both come and gone, both professional boundaries and personal feelings are too easily violated. The result is always lose/lose.

I get that. I clearly grasp why judicatories have developed explicit rules and regulations re: navigating the waters of retirement for both pastor and people. What is sad, however, is how calcified the application of these guidelines can become when creativity and compassion to the cause of Christ are lost in favor of mere institutional stability. It did my heart good when the current interim minister of my former parish invited me to an afternoon conversation at a local coffeehouse. Besides getting to know one another and talking about our mutual love of the Beatles, he made it clear that he is not threatened - nor would the church collapse - should there be times when a contact is made. "The legacy of your love for the people," he told me, "continues to reverberate." My assurance was that I would always keep him in the loop - and honor his office and ministry - should some request for participation occur. It hasn't and I don't expect it to take place. But it was good to know that he approached our different roles with wisdom and trust rather than fear or rigidity. Singing together with a few old friends on a beautiful night in the Berkshires truly became holy ground.  

I share this prelude because as I was unpacking yet another layer of papers, pastoral letters, and liturgies from my basement, I became full to overflowing with unexpected gratitude. Yesterday, after attacking the far back room in our basement with two hours of cleaning, I came upon three more boxes filled to the brim with notes, reports, and epistles going back to the early 1980s. After a shower washed away layers of dust and muck, I took another two hours to read and reread the contents of a box. It warmed my heart and I found myself crying tears of thanksgiving for all the love that we have shared over the course of nearly 40 years.

What was equally satisfying was realizing that even while honoring the ever-changing rules of disengagement, we have found ways to remain friends with a few key people in each of the four congregations (and two pastoral internships) I served between 1979 and 2018. Whether on Facebook, Instagram, snail mail or period phone calls, the ties that bind have remained blessed beyond a host of barriers and miles.

Somehow I wasn't startled when later that night I got an email from a colleague in Tucson letting me know that a past moderator, friend and member of my search committee had just gone home to the Lord. More tears. It was then that it hit me these connections of love may be the enduring blessing of my time in ministry: we shared and sometimes realized what it means to love and be loved through joy and sorrow as well as faithfulness and failure. Thanks be to God and to the people of God who opened their hearts to me and my family. Now I have two more boxes to go through: wonder what will arise within from those treasures?