Post Surgery

It was seven years ago today that I was having a quintuple heart by-pass performed at Saint Thomas Hospital.  To say the least, that was a memorable event.  In fact, I have come to think of it as a marker in my life.  "Now was that before or after my heart surgery?"  I recall hearing David Letterman say about his by-pass that it was the most profound experience of his life and that he recommended it to everyone!  Well, I don't think I would go that far, but I know what he meant.

The other day I said to my wife, suppose I had an audience with God while I was unconscious having the surgery and He had said to me, "Randy, I'm giving you seven years."  How well have I used them? My dear wife told me that she knew I pray more and read my Bible more post surgery.  She also thought that, taken as a whole, I'm a better preacher than I was before my surgery.  I think most importantly she thought I am more appreciative of her these days.

Well, if I had such an audience with God, I don't recall it.  I was told by my cousin, who works with anesthesia, that it is impossible for people to go into a dream state during surgery.  I will take his word for it.  I just know that I'm profoundly grateful to God for His watch care over me seven years ago and every day sense.  I suppose the best way to show that is to live for Him.

Being A Good Pastor

I have to admit that my thinking about what makes a good pastor has changed with time.  As a younger man I suppose I saw the pulpit as the paramount thing a pastor was to be concerned with.  I know that I have tried to spend the lion's share of my time preparing for my messages, especially my Sunday morning message.  And yet I was struck by something this past Saturday.  I went with a group from my church to the Ocoee River to do some whitewater rafting.  It was a lot of fun, and I have to say that I throughly enjoyed myself.  On the way back home though as we were just making small talk I suddenly realized again that I was old enough to be the father of any of the folks on that van!

Ok, I knew that already, but then I began to think about these younger folks.  What do they really need from me?  What can I do for them that would minister to their need that they are not likely to get from someone else?  Now, you might think I would say they could get good sermons from me, and that would be partly right.  Truth is though, there are other guys just as good (and some better) preaching in the pulpits a sensible driving distance from their homes.  I think the one thing that I can do is care for their souls.  I'm not saying that no one else, in time, would care for their spiritual well being, what I am saying is I care about it right now.

That leads me to one of the folks on that van.  I really like this person, but I know there is some real spiritual need there.  This brings me full circle to how my perception of the pastoral life has changed over time.  If I really am going to be a pastor to that person I need to be burdened by their problem.  That leads to praying in private and hopefully some personal counseling.

The older I get the more I realize that the pastoral life is about caring for others souls.  It isn't an easy thing, it isn't a public thing, I don't even think it is often an appreciated thing, but that being said it is what I see as the essence of being a good pastor.  I just pray the Lord will grant me opportunity to do more of it in the years ahead.

Alone

Have you ever felt alone? I suppose all of us would have to admit to that, every once in a while. Now, there are times when it is good to be alone. I work best in a quiet environment and that is facilitated by the absence of people! Still, most of us have a need for social interaction, for feeling like we are a part of a group. As someone observed we are born alone and we die alone and between those two bookends we are looking to connect. It is part of what makes us human.

Sad to say, there will be times when this necessary part of our humanity goes unfulfilled. If this goes on for a long period of time we feel lonely, a sort of sadness that will only be alleviated by social interaction. If we don't have that need met we can end up like Tom Hank's character in the movie, Castaway. He was driven to risk his life to escape his loneliness.

There are all sorts of reasons for loneliness. The people who my heart goes out to are the one's who want to connect and don't seem to understand how. Maybe it is because I have suffered from that a bit myself, but whatever the reason, it is the kind of hurt which should not be allowed since it is so easily remedied. My appeal is to find those that are not interacting and striving to draw them in. Sure, they are a bit on the odd side at times, since they don't have the rough edges knocked off by interaction with others, but that will come.

It may be asking too much for the "in crowd" to look for outsiders to include. What can those who are alone do about it? Well, the first thing is to not draw in tighter, acting as though refusing to interact will hurt the wider world. It won't. Find some way to interact with someone, better quite a few someones. Stepping out, looking for interaction, especially when you are emotionally vulnerable will take courage, but I believe it is worth it. Refuse to become a prisoner of your own loneliness. It is a terrible thing to do when you have the key to door in your hand.

The Light

Have you ever had a particularly down day? I suppose there might be a few people who could say no, but most of us have had our share of "blue days." Recently, we had a day long weather front move thorough and the result was that it was dark, damp, and even a bit stormy all day long. The experts tell us there is something called "Seasonal Affective Disorder" or simply "SAD." Well, the bad weather gave me a pretty good case of "SAD." Now, don't get me wrong, this is not some sort of confession of an emotional illness, it is rather a suggestion based on my experience of how to deal with down days.

I think one of the first responses I try is to stay busy. If you can focus on your work, especially something you have put off, it can give you a sense of accomplishment. There will be times though when you can't get motivated enough to tackle a task, what then? My next response is to get around people. This gets the focus off of you and your problems. On this recent blue day I went to a ministers meeting and was greeted with the news that a pastor friend had resigned his church. This led to another pastor going off on how much he would like to quit! If I was looking for cheering conversation it was clear that I was not going to get it here. That did lead very naturally to my third response, trying to lift someone else's burden. Think about it, no matter how bad you think you have it there is some poor sap who is having a far worse day. In fact, I may have been the happiest person at that meeting of ministerial malcontents.

My last coping mechanism is to remember that even though it is raining now, it won't rain forever. In fact, this morning is a real contrast to yesterday. I remember a preacher friend once saying that his favorite quote from the Bible was "it came to pass." It may be dark and damp, even depressing today, but tomorrow is coming and with it the light.

Anger

Have you ever had someone blow up at you with little or no provocation? That has been my experience from time to time and I don't think I am unique. Now, what do you do when someone "goes postal?" I suppose the first response is to fight back. After all, who are they to treat you that way! But now think about for a minute, will it really do any good to respond to fire with more fire? A less heated response (pun intended) may well be to try to reason with the individual. Of course, if their anger really is irrational, then what good will reasoning do? Finally, I suppose you might just apologize for whatever you did to set them off but there is a good possibility that will be thrown back in your teeth as well. After all, how sincere can you be when you don't have a clue why they are so mad?

Were I to stop here it would seem that there might be no resolution. It may well be that there is no immediate solution to such a problem. In other words, it will take time. When people have blown up at me I have usually gone through the steps above and predictably reached an impasse. It is only on reflection that I begin to think, "maybe there is some other issue at play here that I know nothing about. I was just the final straw."

Air Force pilots, in theaters of combat, often speak of "targets of opportunity." They are supposed to attack a given target but somewhere along the way a "target of opportunity" presents itself and they take their shot. Who knows maybe that irate person sees you as that target. Maybe that explains their over the top anger. Be understanding, give them time, and move on.

Can You Keep A Secret?

It happened years ago, when I was still in college. Our church had just gone through a pastoral transition and I, along with just about everybody else, was excited about the ministry of our new pastor. The church seemed fuller and the atmosphere more up beat.

One night someone close to that new pastor dropped by my dorm room and the conversation came around to what was going on at my home church. I sang the praises of my new pastor, but I did mention one negative. This was during the time of my life when I was beginning to understand the role of preaching and I had become convinced that expository preaching was the way to go. It was certainly what I was going to try to do whenever I got into the ministry. I said something like, "I will tell you a something, if you promise not to share it with the pastor. I wish he was more of an expositor." The conversation took a turn away from things ministerial and I would have forgotten it expect for what happened two weeks later on a Sunday morning. I was eagerly preparing to write down the outline of the Sunday morning message when the pastor said something like, "I don't know if any of you will want to write this down, since it certainly is not expository!" Since I was, to the best of my knowledge, the only person in the habit of writing down the outlines I took the pastor's remark personally. The only conclusion I could come to was that my dorm room conversation had been relayed to the pastor.

Now, what did I learn from all of this? First, I saw that even men that I looked up to could lash out at what they took as an affront. If his goal was to put me in my place, I suppose he accomplished it. I do know that I never wrote down another thing he said. I also have tried to be bigger than to scope someone in from the pulpit. Second, I learned that if you want to keep a secret, don't tell it. Maybe it was a touch of homiletical snobbery for me to wish my pastor was more of an expositor. I could have kept that to myself and no one would be the wiser. Still, I was asked very directly about it and I thought what I was saying was in confidence. Finally, if you are going to take someone into your confidence, be reasonably sure that you can trust them. It is a hurtful thing to realize that someone you thought of as a friend just can't wait to relay your remarks. I suppose all of this is just part of growing up. I know I am more cautious in what talk about and who I talk about it with as a result of this encounter.

My first thought was that I had inadvertently hurt this man's feelings. Then something else took over, how petty was it for him to shoot at me from the pulpit of my home church? What's more, our mutual acquaintance had betrayed a trust.

Bonhoeffer

I have just finished reading the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a book which really changed my thinking. Like many evangelicals I had a vague understanding of Bonhoeffer as a German theologian who wrote a couple of well received books and then died at the hand of the Nazis in the closing weeks of Word War II. This book pulled back the curtain so that I could see the historical context of this scholars life and come to better appreciate the struggles which he faced. What's more, I came to appreciate a different approach to the Christian faith than my own.

One of the phrases which Bonhoeffer was famous for was "religionless Christianity." Now some took this to mean that faith in God was entirely a personal matter, or that it was something that only had meaning in the "existential now." In fact, the "God is Dead" theologians actually championed the use of this phrase "religionless Christianity." After reading this book I am more convinced that what the martyred theologian meant was that we need a faith that is more than just tradition, that we have to understand it is not just a set of rules for conduct. I am afraid that this has been the culture that I have grown up in and typically accepted without question. It seems to me that Brother Dietrich is speaking of something far deeper, indeed the sort of faith that could lead him to be involved in a plot to kill Hitler and to do so with a clear conscience.

I suppose at the core of all of this is his emphasis on the will of God. He was utterly convinced it was God's will to do everything he could to end the reign of the Nazis. Some German Christians abhorred what the government was doing just as much but could not bring themselves to oppose it, thinking it was their Christian duty to be obedient. Seeing how a man trained in ethics could come to the conclusion that he did makes for fascinating and thought provoking reading.