what a long, strange trip its been...

One of the deep joys of the past four years has been living more deeply into a new ministry that is shaped by the "road less traveled." I thought it was going to be retirement, but it is really a ministry of presence and tenderness. Professionally this called for a narrowing of my focus: outwardly I had to (mostly) give up needing public recognition, opt out of the soul-draining struggles for institutional survival, quit the relentless internal squabbles over how to share limited resources, unplug from the official and public manifestations of being clergy and simply try to "love the folk." And by the folk I mean whoever shows up: in worship, in community, beyond community, member, stranger as well as those who are sometimes against community. 

I can see now that what I thought began four years ago was really the clarifying of a decades long conversation with God calling me into a ministry of presence. For years too often I feared that I was too insecure to fully follow this invitation. Personally, you see, I had not yet come to honor the holiness of being small. And because there are so few incentives within either the traditional local congregation or the wider church for embracing a radical spiritual solidarity, I spent 25 years questioning the authenticity of my call. Upon reading these words from Henri Nouwen, however, I realized that I am just a very slow learner and God was simply taking her time until I was ready:

I don’t think you’ll ever be able to penetrate the mystery of God’s revelation in Jesus until it strikes you that the major part of Jesus’ life was hidden and that even the “public” years remained invisible as far as most people were concerned. Whereas the way of the world is to insist on publicity, celebrity, popularity, and getting maximum exposure, God prefers to work in secret. You must let that mystery of God’s secrecy, God’s anonymity, sink deeply into your consciousness because otherwise you’re continually looking at it from the wrong point of view. In God’s sight the things that really matter seldom take place in public ... maybe, while we focus our whole attention on the VIPs and their movements, on peace conferences and protest demonstrations, it’s the totally unknown people, praying and working in silence, who make God save us yet again from destruction.

Fr. Richard Rohr often says: "Before the truth sets you free, it tends to make you miserable." That was true in spades for me. There were times of deep joy, too but also profound anxiety. So pay attention to those feelings: pay attention to your grief, your fears. your shame and your suffering. Don't self-medicate with alcohol, food, sex or drugs. Don't distract yourself with work or acts of public busyness either. Fr. Thomas Merton used to say that many of us "will spend our whole life climbing up the ladder of success only to find that when we get to the top our ladder is leaning against the wrong wall." 

Back in my Cleveland days, when I began to sense a change of direction within, I buried a beloved public school teacher, musician and athlete. He was a well known public servant with a tireless compassion for his students. His public life was exemplary - and our sanctuary was packed full with students of every race, creed and color on the day of his funeral. A few weeks after his funeral, I took a call from a woman who was unknown to me. She confessed that she had been my friend's long time on again/off again lover. After thanking me for the liturgy, the tears and the kind words, she said something I will never forget: "You know, he was never satisfied. He kept doing things for kids and the wider community, spending thousands of dollars and hours every year, and people loved him for it. But when each act was over he would come home in a rage saying, 'Nobody  truly appreciates me! They don't know half of what I am doing for them! And how much it costs me!' After fuming for a few hours, he would then resolve to try something bigger and better in the expectation that THEN others might finally give him the love and propers he duly deserved." It was a chilling confession.

Very few people knew that this beloved servant ached inside with an unquenchable private loneliness. He had no real family and few trusted friends. When an operation to reverse a previous surgery was required, there was no one to clean his wounds after he returned home. Casually I told him that, "If we can't come up with somebody from church to help, I will do it." I had no idea that I would have deliver on that promise. But I did - and every morning and evening for the next six weeks I showed up to pull out of his abdomen the bloody gauze, clean out his two inch deep wound, repack it, redressing it and then empty his commode. It was an education beyond anything I had learned in seminary. Truth be told, for the first week I fought back nausea and fear every time I visited. Over time, with lots of conversation and a mutual movement from a stifling embarrassment to something more like humility and trust, we got the job done and I kept my cookies down.

Two years later, something went drastically wrong and he was hospitalized yet again. I had no hesitation spending hours alone with him as he fought a fever or recovered from yet another surgery. And then, suddenly, he died with blood seeping out of his pores. It was just we two in a cold hospital room. Alone. Afraid. And, as I later learned, resentful as well. Talk about finding out that your ladder was up against the wrong wall! 

In the aftermath of her confession, I started to sense that God's call for my life in ministry was changing. Over the next 24 years I incrementally came to trust that God knows more about ministry than me - and I was ready to step out in faith in new ways. I still get it wrong at least as many times as I get it right, but as Richard Rohr writes in Falling Upward:

One of the great surprises is that humans come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing their own contradictions, and making friends with their own mistakes and failings. People who have had no inner struggles are invariably both superficial and uninteresting. We tend to endure them more than communicate with them, because they have little to communicate... There must be, and, if we are honest, there always will be at least one situation in our lives that we cannot fix, control, explain, change, or even understand. For Jesus and his followers, the crucifixion became the dramatic symbol of that necessary and absurd stumbling stone.

This morning, after waking up our sleepy dog, Lucie, with her morning ear rubs and time on my lap - and sitting silently for a spell with my tea - the words of Jean Vanier of L'Arche bubbled up within: "The second call comes later, when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus; it is a time of renunciation, humiliation and humility. We feel useless; we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night. We feel alone and are afraid because we are in a world of confusion." (Community and Growth) I tried to say much the same thing in different groove with a song I call, "Small is Holy," It is my attempt to clarify the core of this second call. 

Thinking big and acting strong led me into all that's wrong

Hitting bottom taught me well strategies to get through hell

Touch the wound in front of you, that's all you can really do

Hold it close don't turn away make room for what is real today.

Small is me, small is you, small is holy and rings true

Small is hard, small reveals the way our hearts can be healed.

I been bullied, I been screwed, lost a lot and won a few

Paid it forward, took it back, made good money, got the sack

Hurt those who are dear to me, broke their hearts most thoroughly

Been forgiven, don't know why, grace trumps karma every time.