Welcome to the Jungle of Ministry

By means of youtube, I’ve been listening to Guns N’ Roses annihilate the stunning classic tune ‘Finlandia’ by the Finnish composer Sibelius. I know the tune set with the lyrics, ‘Be Still My Soul’, which is a far cry from the band’s famous ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. In an attempt to please the crowd, the band closes their Helsinki concert with this tune now the Finnish national anthem. On the youtube comment board hundreds of concert goers write their twenty letter indecipherable Finnish words followed by American expletives. The closing song has not been well received.

Finding this song was serendipitous. The discord between band and ballad exemplify my own dissonance. Noisy pastor trying to please the crowd. Be Still My Soul meets Welcome to the Jungle. The antithesis between the two is the spiritual truth I have been living in this last season of ministry. Elijah confesses, “I’ve been very zealous for the Lord.” And so goes Elijah looking for God in the whirlwind, the storm and the fire. Tugged by outward forces, Elijah’s zealous leadership has reached a place of dissonance. So has mine. So have Guns N’ Roses.

Axl Rose has headlined tabloids for decades with news of his damaging addictions. Mine are more subtle: voracious appetite, constant need for affirmation, an appalling need to please, avoid anxiety at all cost. All result in an internal noisiness. In those moments when my center is lost, I feel like a spinning top careening out of its centered orbit and jumping and jolting until its momentum is fully lost.

The search for “Finlandia” online came in advance of a trip to Helsinki this summer. Helsinki is home to Jean Sibelius, haven of my mother’s ancestry and a harbinger for the church with a resurgence in worshipers since the beginning of the St. Thomas Mass at a Lutheran Church here in 1988. I am hoping this will be a place where my spiritual center will be recalibrated.

The website for the Michael Agricola Lutheran Church encourages, “The St. Thomas Mass invites doubters and seekers to celebrate, worship God, serve their neighbor and grow together.” And then continues, “Those who feel sinful and weak in faith are especially welcome.” Does this include the byline, ‘and for those who feel internally noisy, dissonant, out of sorts, lost, vocationally confused, exceptionally exhausted and off center?’

Before leaving for Helsinki I google directions to the church address: Tehtaankatu 23. The map points an arrow to the National Hunting Museum. I’m looking for stillness. I am destined for guns: Guns N’ Roses, that is. That night, we rely on the church website directions. Thankfully we arrive at the church not the hunting museum.

The service is translated into English by Mati who with a calming centeredness and clear, simple words ministers to his listeners. While it is the liturgist who has crafted the intent and phrasing of the prayer, Mati is the one who provides the English expression. His words are quiet, clear and disarmingly straight to the heart. As the opening prayer unfolds, my internal dissonance dissolves with the prayer’s opening petition:

Prayer helps you listen to yourself and to God

who speaks in silence in the noise of everyday.

This quiet moment will give you rest. Only with

the heart can you see well and it helps you to see

what is valuable in life. Just bowing down is not

enough, where words end God knows your heart.

Out of cold and dead hearts, God creates anew.

Let God love you.

Charles Morgan writes that we need “the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.” Who needs Axl Rose when maybe this is the ‘axle’ I have been looking for all this time. I had always thought the internal image of the shaking spinning top was about being tugged in different directions, I didn’t realize it was about the stillness at the center being missing. For a moment in that prayer, I heard that stillness clear and loud.

Upon return home, I continue to research the history of ‘Finlandia’ and discover an incredible setting of the tune to lyrics by Gloria Gaither:

I then shall live as one who’s been forgiven

I’ll walk with joy to know my debts are paid

I know my name is clear before my father

I am his child and I am not afraid

So, greatly pardoned I’ll forgive my brother

The law of love I gladly will obey.

Elijah felt fruitless in ministry. I felt internal dissonance. Instead of a pastor offering a concerted witness to the rock of salvation, I was a rock concert gone bad trying to please the crowd. We both had been zealous, but ended up exhausted.

These lyrics offer a new way of living into ministry, let alone life. The title to this setting of lyrics and tune is called, “Then Shall I Live”. I can’t think of a better starting place than this. While the lyrics do not tell of the events that necessitated the ‘then’ in the life of the lyricist, I know mine and I am so glad to have the ‘then’ behind me and for the chapter ahead, a new axle of stillness.

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^[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uIBvKtyy9I

^[2] http://www.tuomasmessu.fi/?sid=72

^[3] http://www.superlyrics.com/lyrics/kGRUvuNUj9@H@Hj/I_Then_Shall_Live_lyrics_by_Gaither_Vocal_Band.html

CHILDHOOD PATTERNS

"Jesus is our childhood's pattern, day by day like us he grew..."

The third verse of the traditional carol "Once In Royal David's City" offers a moment into the life of Christ that the Bible does not. The childhood of Jesus is never mentioned in the four gospels, just once, in Luke do we see a glimpse of Jesus the teenager.

This verse offers an invitation for prayer. What was the pattern of Jesus' childhood?

Certainly his father Joseph's carpentry shop was a part of that pattern. The resounding sound of the hammer upon the nail, the sandy scrape of wood being softened and pearled, the measurements of perfect proportions and the visionary blueprints of the perfect design must have been sounds and sights Jesus experienced each day.

Yesterday I offered the devotion at the local Habitat home being built. As I walked in the door the sounds of hammers, drills and saws echoed through the bare walls of the home. This is it. This is the pattern by which Jesus was raised.

At the end of chapter 11 in Matthew comes those wonderful words, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is fitting and my burden is light."

Knowing that Jesus grew up in the home of a carpenter lends weight to these words. The yoke was carved out of wood and fitted for two oxen to be bound together to work. When Christ says, "my yoke is fitting" we might just wonder if Jesus was talking a little smack. His carpentry skills produced fitting yokes, unlike those of his competitors.

This season, I am trusting that Christ is carving out that yoke, that space, that apparatus which will bind him to me and me to him. As much as I want to make it perfectly fitting, I can trust that Jesus has just the right pattern, just the right blueprint, to draw me alongside him to continue the journey from here.

Gravy and Grace

My grandparents moved to Lima, Peru in the late sixties. Shortly after their arrival, a neighbor showed up with a gift to welcome them to the country: a turkey. Yes, a live turkey.

Since it was mid-day, my grandmother was the only one at home. When the neighbor with the turkey arrived, she tried to wave them away. ‘No gracias,’ she tried. The neighbor insisted. ‘No gracias,’ my grandmother tried again. The neighbor shoved the turkey’s neck into my grandmother’s hands.

After the neighbor left, my grandmother was left standing with the turkey dangling from her grasp. Knowing no better alternative, she shoved the turkey into the trunk of the car and drove to the closest restaurant. There, she took the turkey out and brought it in for the cook.

The cook did not think this was the greatest gift either. Fear of killing the turkey forced him to offer the turkey some Pisco and then, the cook took a sip himself. Then, with knife in hand he took the turkey to the outside yard of the restaurant. A strange Peruvian thanksgiving of sorts was served at the restaurant that night.

Sometimes, life provides ‘gifts’ that are not always welcome.
Circumstances. Changes. People. Problems. Strange things. Surprises.
Sometimes, within a few days – unwelcome gifts reveal strange grace.
Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years.
Sometimes, well, those unwelcome moments are just turkeys with no gravy to be found.

Recently I spoke with someone who lost a job within the past six months, now, forty pounds thinner this person has found new energy. A whole lot of ‘turkey’, with just a little gravy.

When we found out that Caitlyn would be born with Down Syndrome, a friend said “Maybe she will be just the grace your family needs.” At the time, her words were pure turkey. In retrospect, now I can see they were gravy and grace.

As you sit down for Thanksgiving this year, I’m not sure what’s on your plate. The beauty of Christian community as the portraits of the early church in Acts depict is that we sit down together, side by side, turkey and all – to say grace and give thanks.

At the table the early church broke bread, prayed, shared resources and sang songs of praise. Though we’ve made it a lot more complicated, it doesn’t need to be.

Prayers for gravy and grace this Thanksgiving

Wordle - Writing In the Margins

Wordle - Writing In the Margins

From "Faith and Leadership"

November 8, 2010 | When a nurse is exhausted by the ills on his hospital floor, we might diagnose the problem as compassion fatigue. A form of traumatic stress disorder affecting overwhelmed caregivers, compassion fatigue takes a physical, financial, vocational, emotional and spiritual toll.

It was first diagnosed among nurses, and some people argue that it has become widespread because of pervasive news media coverage of crises around the world.

But if compassion fatigue is exhaustion from caring, perhaps a new, related diagnosis is needed for life in the 21st century: How do you describe someone who is exhausted, not from caring, but simply from living?

As the speed of living increases, the amount of sleep decreases, the connection to technological devices expands exponentially, the news unfolds 24 hours a day and the financial world spins chaotically, we are faced, not with a loss of compassion, but with utter exhaustion.

In those moments when we are asked to care, an “exhaustion ethic” is at play. What decision do I make when weary?

The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel aches with exhaustion. Poet e.e. cummings tells the story in the poem “a man who had fallen among thieves”:

a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
wearing a round jeer for a hat

The third stanza names the source of the exhaustion:

whereon a dozen staunch and leal
citizens did graze at pause
then fired by hypercivic zeal
sought newer pastures or because

Three times in one line it points to the pulse of the people surrounding the man in need: “fired by hypercivic zeal.” Fired up. Hyper. Zealous. Though the citizens pause, they resume their frenetic pace to seek “newer pastures.” As our very pulses change from the invading impulse of a world fired by hyperconnectivity, our heart for care will be affected.

In the famous experiment at Princeton Theological Seminary, John M. Darley and C. Daniel Batson tested groups of seminarians to see how they reacted to a coughing man slumped in a doorway. One group was told they were late; other students were told to take their time. Overall, 40 percent of the seminarians stopped to help. But of the group urged to hurry, only 10 percent offered aid. Of those who had a few moments to spare, more than 60 percent paused to help.

Certainly this is a story of hypocrisy: seminarians who are not “Samaritans.” But it also is a witness to the conditioned mindset of hurry. The psychologists realized that as the speed of life increases, the possibility for ethical choice becomes a rarity: a too-full life limits the capacity to care.

In the tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Christ commissions the disciples to go out two by two to cure the sick and proclaim the gospel (Luke 10:1-12). This text is paired with the telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the second half of the chapter (Luke 10:30-37). The lesson in exhaustion is a lesson for those who are sent.

Certainly Luke, a doctor, understood the possibility of both compassion fatigue and exhaustion ethics. Tiredness from the traumas of first-century Galilee would be plausible for a doctor of the day. Jesus himself got so overwhelmed from the necessary healings that he retreated upon numerous occasions to a quiet place for prayer.

Any doctor would hurry from patient to patient, so pressed that an ethic of exhaustion might help him rationalize passing by on the other side. But a priest and a Levite? These are two people in society who are expected to care. They are expected to be protected from compassion fatigue and exhaustion ethics. Yet they pass by on the other side.

It’s the Samaritan who stops. He shows mercy. Verbs dominate his response: moved, bandaged, poured, put, brought, took care, gave, came back, [promised to] give more. This Samaritan passes the test. He becomes the model for each of the 70, for the legal and the clerical worlds. He becomes the model for this life and for the next. He combats an ethic of exhaustion with the law of love.

Cummings describes it this way:

Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars

This story that began on an ordinary highway now encompasses the universe. The citizens on the highways and byways, full of fired-up, hypercivic zeal, unable to see the one in need, are counterbalanced by the one who understands that little bit of heaven in the human before him. From a highway to those million billion trillion stars encompassing the heavens, the speaker gathers up the one in need “all” into his arms. Seeing both the human and the heavens is possible only for the one who operates out of expansive gospel love.

In Christ we find a gospel that trumps law, a service that goes beyond conscience and a heart that transcends compassion. What is the greatest commandment (Luke 10:27)? To love God and to love neighbor. In other words, Think about heaven; remember all humanity. Heaven, human. The Good Samaritan is the visual parable of this vision: Scripture with an eye to heaven on earth; service with an eye to human need.

A hospice care chaplain in our area recently told a story of a nurse in a local hospital. The nurse realized an elderly gentleman on her floor did not have friends or family visiting. He was lonely. Even more, she knew he was nearing the end of his life.

She went in to visit him whenever possible, amid all the stress of a decreasing hospital staff and increased patient load. At first they talked about the day’s news and the weather outside. Over time, they talked about their faith and their fears. The patient admitted to the nurse how afraid he was of dying alone.

Knowing that her time, as much as she didn’t want it to be, was limited, she encouraged other nurses to pay visits around the clock as well. When she realized this was not enough, she dragged in a chair from a waiting room and set it next to his bed.

“I know you are afraid of dying alone. I am making every effort to be here as much as I can. If you are ever afraid or feeling lonely, I want you to know that I envision Christ himself sitting in this chair beside you.”

Weeks later, the nurse came into the hospital to learn that her patient had passed away during the night. The staff seemed to be scratching their heads as they said, “He wasn’t in his bed when he died. Why was he halfway on the chair?”

The nurse knew: He was reaching out to the embodiment of eternal life. Christ was the one who met him and said:

i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars

The loving nurse, the caring Samaritan, the unhurried seminarians -- all muddle through the complicated roadways of this life and even when “banged with terror” strive for those stars by placing the one in their care tenderly into the arms of Christ through compassion that transcends fatigue.

The Geography of Bliss

...reading 'The Geography of Bliss' by Eric Weiner. A must read to learn why Icelanders are happier than Americans.

BABE by Leah Kristine Hickman, age 8

My sister has Down Syndrome.

Sometimes I wonder what sets her apart.

My mom says, “Her weak muscles affect her mind, strength and heart.”

Then I wonder, what if she were born a different way….

Would she still end every sentence with, “I love you, Babe” ?

Would she still watch the same movies, again and again?

Would she still have Bethany as her very best friend?

Would she still repeat every single word I say?

Would those heart surgeries have required that four month hospital stay?

Would she still cry when we wash her hair?

And would she find it just as difficult to share?

Would she answer “NO” to every single question?

Would she still burp and think its sooo fun?

If you asked, “What did you learn at school today?”

Would she have the same answer, “Words…the, like, little” always?

Would she play without whining even though we include her?

Would she still have therapy, lessons and a special education teacher?

You know, if someone is feeling down, Caitlyn never misses…

She is always there for you with a helping hand and hugs and kisses.

I’d miss that about her if she were a different girl.

Caitlyn, I’m pretty sure you are the best sister in the world.

As much as I get frustrated almost every day,

I’m not sure I would want you any other way….

Because, “I love you, Babe.”