Posted by: The Learning Pastor | May 3, 2012

“Wouldn’t It Be Neat If They Made It?”

This is the first of a series of posts related to my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary coming up June 5th.  There are so many things that I wish to share as I approach our anniversary.  This post is the first.

 

Do you remember the first time that you identified the dynamic of genuine hope in your life?  Not the first time you hoped for something, but the first time you identified hope in your life?  Sure, I remember as a child having hope for a certain Christmas present or hoping that I could go to the mall or the movies as a pre-teen… but back then that unique sensation I now call hope went unidentified in my life.  I felt it but I didn’t call it by name.  While I had hope for certain things in my childhood, I did so unaware of its power, or even its name.

I remember the first time I identified hope in my life, and once I recognized it I realized that I couldn’t live happily without it.  It was June 1987.  I had just married my teenage love Stephanie.  We married young… crazy young.  I was 17 and Steph was 15.  Even as teenagers we spoke of marriage and life together often, but neither of us anticipated during those youthful conversations getting married so soon.  We married on Friday, June 5, 1987.  Pastor Mike Murray, then pastor of non-denominational church in Colonial Heights, Virginia performed the ceremony.  We went to Virginia Beach for our honeymoon weekend, and we stayed at the Kona Kai Hotel.  At the time this was an elegant hotel at the Oceanfront here in Virginia Beach.

I had a bright orange 1972 Volkswagen Beetle –with stock air conditioning!  One of the few models that had that feature!  It worked very poorly, but that didn’t matter at the time because it was a bragging point for a young person proud of his car.  In the back seat was a “boom box” that I had purchased with saved grass cutting money from when I was 15.  Cassettes were the thing.  I had two Huey Lewis and the News cassettes –Sports and Working for a Living—along with a Stray Cats tape that I loved.  We listened to those tapes as we cruised to the beach down Route 460 late that Friday evening.  At the risk of sounding corny, the day we married and our honeymoon weekend were magical.

The following Monday was anything but!  I was either naïve or just plain ignorant about people, for I thought many would be better and more understanding than they actually were.   I got my feelings hurt for a good week by a bunch of people.  Some were supposed friends, some were teachers (that was the most painful) while others were just people who took shots at me and said mean things.  The thing that got me the most at that time was how many people kept saying that my marriage was going to be a statistic –another marriage that ended in divorce.  Taking other people’s words more personally and more seriously than I should, I was deeply hurt by this.  I felt like they didn’t believe in me.

Now, hindsight being 20/20, I think I understand some of it.  I was crazy young to be getting married.  Steph was crazy younger!  What would we know of love and marriage?  How can anybody that young make it in the modern age?  This wasn’t the 1800’s, you know?  This was the 80’s!  Not to mention the fact that many of those same sharp and critical people were children of divorced parents.  I get some of it now, and I’m learning to remember and interpret these times more graciously.

No such thing at that time however!  I was devastated!  By 6th period that following Monday I felt like I was the joke of the high school.  I was too sensitive, and probably sensitive to a fault.  I learned some emotional toughness at that time though.  I took the licks and held on to my personal happiness and joy as best as I could.  Some days were better than others.  Some days I think I did remarkably well, and I say that based on how I felt as I went through difficult things.  Other days however were horrible.  I was hurting, and more importantly at certain times and in certain moments, I felt hopeless.

I told my mother some of the things that happened to me along with how I felt about it, and she told me something that week that totally surprised me.  She said “Well Steven, don’t lose hope.  Your dad and I were talking, and he looked at me and said ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if they made it?’”

“Wouldn’t it be neat if they made it?”  Coming from my father, this meant everything.  Many months before we were married, my mother found a love note from Stephanie in my jeans pocket before she washed them.  She showed it to my father, he read it and said “Steven you don’t know what love is.  What you feel right now is infatuation.”  Again, now I understand why he thought that at the time.  I was 16, and the desire of most parents is to slow their children down if they are growing up too fast.  When he told me what he thought, I didn’t argue with him.  I just remember thinking that he was wrong and that he didn’t know me or how I felt.  (Either I was a typical rebellious youth or I was right.  Honestly, both might have been true.)

Now just after I was married he was saying “Wouldn’t it be neat if they made it?”  At that time, my father having hope in me, for me, meant everything.  He has never turned his back on his children.  Some today might say about him that he enabled at least some of us, his children.  I interpreted his actions as a loving father giving his children every possible chance to make it in life.  In our youth and young adulthood my dad would have done anything to make sure that we made it.

The odds of teenagers from the ‘80s marrying and making it long term I think were slim.  Don’t get me wrong, others have made it and have created healthy, vibrant marriages, and have done so against even more difficult circumstances than I faced.  It’s just the odds teenage marriages making it are slim. 

For a number of reasons, I have always felt like a longshot in life.  I stuttered until the fourth grade or so.  I would get so excited that I couldn’t get the words out.  I remember trying to talk to my dad, standing beside him as he sat in the recliner in our den, and him telling me to calm down, slow down, that he’s not going anywhere, just slow down… and talk.  I also couldn’t pronounce my R’s or L’s as a child.  I went to speech therapy while in primary school through the third grade, practicing my words.  My anxieties that contributed to my stuttering as a child have affected me over the years.  While in seminary I would get particularly nervous in one class.  Once I couldn’t get my words out, the teacher said “Try giving me a noun and a verb so we can have a sentence.”  People laughed. 

I sweat a lot.  I always have.  When I was a child, I sweat when I slept.  I still do today.  I have attributed this to anxiety.  When meeting with someone one on one, it’s nothing for me to sweat the whole meeting, and it’s a nervous sweat.  I’ve always been like this.  When I calm down, I can make myself stop sweating, but it takes all of my focus to do this.  I also have never slept well.  I walked in my sleep often as a child.  I had bad dreams that affected me terribly.  I attributed this too to anxiety and an overactive mind. 

My gifts and skills have never been particularly cherished in most professions.  I am an audible learner.  I remember conversations and lectures… most everything that I hear.  I remember what I read too, its just that I read so terribly slow.  Upon acceptance to seminary I had to take a reading test.  At the time (if my memory is correct) we needed to be able to read 150 words a minute for graduate level work.  When tested I read 60, and I was rushing.  My vocabulary has always been weak, and my sentence structure can be atrocious.  No, I have never been regarded as the brightest academic student, but I got by with one or two gifts and skills.  I can recall within a reasonable time frame most of what I hear, and can recall words that are meaningful to me from my childhood on.  I got through college by listening, and I got through seminary by listening and recalling the few things that I read.

Yet today, I am a pastor, and am approaching twenty years of doing this.  A sweaty, anxious, oversensitive, not-very-eloquent speaking, married at a crazy young age, boy feeling called to lead, serve and share a word from the Lord with Christian congregations.  After writing this sentence I have to laugh, because it continues to sound like a joke.  Somehow I have made it this far in my life, and am semi-successful based on my standards of success.  A few of these standards are:  good, long-term, healthy relationships; making a difference in people’s lives through love and trust, divine grace and human faith; and being there to serve and care when wanted or needed.  Even still, since I was a teenager I’ve always felt like a long-shot.  Marrying as young as I did contributed to this self-perception.  Even long-shots however, need hope.

“Wouldn’t it be neat if they made it?”  The sensation of hope flowed from my heart and affected my mind –my thinking and my attitude.  I distinctly remember saying to myself “This is what hope is.”  Since then I have gravitated to those things that inspire hope in my life.  From Journey’s song “Don’t Stop Believin’” to the Rocky movies to the poem “The Race” by D. H. Groberg, I’m a sucker for hope.  I also invest in long-shots in my ministry.  There are people who are broken by despair, and I believe that an ounce of hope might be the one thing that can help turn them around.  When I came to Virginia Beach, I found an outreach binder from the former pastor in my office.  The binder had three sections:  visitors and prospects, inactive members, and long-shots.  I’m good for sharing hope with and to the long-shots, from the homeless guy to the wrecked and sinful soul to the dying congregation.  We all need hope, you know?  I’m good for sharing hope.  I had someone do that for me.

The first sentence of the Wikipedia article on hope is this:  Hope is the emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life.  http://bit.ly/KwS5Qd   We all need hope.  We need to believe that things in life will work out for good.  We Christians believe that God is at work, continually trying to do something wonderful in our lives.  I don’t know what I would do without hope.  Some of my most miserable days have been those when I was without this dynamic.  That sentence “Wouldn’t it be neat if they made it?” spoken almost twenty-five years ago rekindled my hope and has continued to inspire me over the years.  That’s when I identified genuine hope in my life.

 

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Posted in Encouragement, Hope, Marriage, Spirituality | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | April 12, 2012

Pastor, Have You Considered a Career In Modeling?

I’ve been following an interesting story about a teacher at a private Christian school who was fired because she was pregnant out of wedlock.  http://yhoo.it/IDAO6M  The article says that Cathy Samford had been at the Heritage Christian Academy in Rockwall, TX for going on three years, was a volleyball coach and had begun to teach science classes.  The article speaks of Samford filing charges against the school concerning what she feels is her illegal firing.  I by no stretch am a person that can speak to the legality of what was done.  I’m just a minister.  I do however find the specific reason for her firing interesting.  Here is a quote from the article by school headmaster:

“It’s not that she’s pregnant. The issue here is being an unmarried mother,” Taylor said. “Everything that we stand for says that we want our teachers, who we consider to be in the ministry, to model what a Christian man or woman should be.”  http://yhoo.it/IDAO6M

A minister modeling what a Christian man or woman should be?  Hmmmmm……..

How about modeling grace and forgiveness?  Isn’t that what Christ would have done?  I think there is something wrong in the human spirit when the Christian prioritizes a certain set of Christian morals higher than genuine grace and forgiveness.  The shame of it is that this teacher is going to struggle to even make it.  The articles continues by saying that she’s using her tax refund in order to pay bills and that she’s just trying to make it until the end of the month.  What about compassion?  I think there is something wrong when grace, forgiveness and compassion are sidelined by an emphasis on a certain view of sexual purity.  It’s a strange thing when Christian ministers model a traditional set of morals without grace, forgiveness and compassion.

I’m thinking we Christian ministers ought to take up careers in modeling.  Modeling grace and all of its manifestations.  Who’s with me?

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Posted in Bible, Christian ethics, Christian ministry, Grace, News | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | April 9, 2012

Being Naked on Easter

I have been preaching full-time for almost nineteen years now and yesterday was a first for me.  I didn’t have a sermon.  Seriously.  I had always said that if I didn’t have a sermon I wouldn’t attempt to preach that day.  I had worked on the sermon for about a month.  I had a message that I felt was inspired, had stories that magnified the message, had my transition sentences between the sermon points… the only struggle I had during preparation was debating what would be the first words out of my mouth.  Yesterday morning however, none of it felt right.

For most of my preaching ministry I’ve developed sermons ala Fred Craddock style.  I start with a message, one that I feel is inspired, usually one that I’ve “discovered” and then I work my way back.  Craddock talks about knowing where you want to land the plane.  Once you know that then the rest develops from there. I had a message, but the structure the morning of the preaching event didn’t feel right.

I love my stories, and yesterday I had two stories that would have been great!  The temptation for the preacher is to speak those things that maybe sound great (and they are great!) and are heart stirring but sharing them at the wrong time.  Again Fred Craddock says a good preacher is one who hears a great story Friday night and does NOT tell it during the sermon Sunday morning.  Divine inspiration is as much timing as it is anything else.  One can have good materials that are inspired, but when to share them is the key.  I had good materials (I think) but it just didn’t feel right when I woke up yesterday morning.

So I debated running with what I had –text, stories, message, all of it– or doing something different.  Running with what I had was unconscienable.  Doing something different on Easter morning was preaching suicide.  “It’s Easter morning Lord, isn’t this the time for miracles?  Give me… give your children what they need!” was my plea.

As our music team sang the music that isn’t supposed to be called special music –for all music in worship is special, thank you Deb Loftis– …you know, the song before the sermon, the thought occurred to me “Tell them the truth.”  This too was scary as hell.  It could also be preaching suicide, only it would be by a different poison.  However, it felt right.

By the way, for those who might think I run by what I “feel” more than I should, let me communicate that in a different way.  I need to feel right in my core with whatever I share in the pulpit.  My core is my mind and heart, my conscience and emotions, my soul and spirit.  I don’t mean fickle feelings, but for sake of writing this morning, I simply speak of how the preaching event feels, particularly how it felt yesterday.

Tell them the truth.  Today this is your confession.

Okay.  Scary as hell, but okay.  Walk them through what you’ve been through and where you are this morning.  Tell the message.  Trust.

I did it.  I followed that Voice that I sense as God in my life.  As a confession to you this Monday morning, the thought/vision came to me that this could be the beginning of the end.  This is how I will get fired and lose it all.  This is also the kind of thing that happens before one chooses another career path.  I could see myself losing credibility, getting canned, and before you know it I’m working as a short order cook somewhere making burgers, subs and sandwiches.  I could see myself wearing a filthy apron, smoking a cigar, making sandwiches and cooking french fries… still telling stories… this story would be one of them.

I have never felt more naked in my life.  Through instrospection and reflection I have learned alot about myself over the last thirteen years or so.  I’ve figured things out about myself that I really needed to know in order to function better.  One huge thing I haven’t figured out yet is why as I get older is it harder to make myself vulnerable?  It gets more difficult as I age.  I say as I age.  It might be with the accumulation of additional experiences the difficulty is increased.  It might be because my children are now young adults.  It might be something else, I don’t know.  I need Bagby to fix me.  He’s always been good at this stuff before, and he’s helped me put handles on things that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.  I just know that as I get older it gets harder to make myself vulnerable, and I don’t know why.

In the year 2000 (block out the Conan O’brien skit by the same name please!) while I was the Pastor of Purdy Baptist I was interviewing with Ivor Baptist Church.  My neighbor, deacon and good friend Moses Clements shared with a member of Ivor’s search committee that I had written a book, a booklet really.  It was a collection of stories about my ministry in Purdy while pastor there.  These stories were deeply personal, revealing, and solely intended for that congregation.  While eating dinner with the Ivor search committee, then committee member Jane Maddrey said to me ”Moses Clements says to know Steve Gupton you need to read his book.”  I was floored!  I felt shocked and exposed at that moment!  Something I intended as a gift for one group was learned about by another.  Honestly that book of stories wasn’t anything super private or anything, it just made me vulnerable, and I was learning how to do this and keep my nerves in check.

After worship the following Sunday, I asked Moses why he told them about my book.  He said “Preacher, that book is a good book, it’s a good set of stories and it tells who you are.”  I shook my head and said to him “I felt naked in front of them!”  Moses said “Don’t worry ’bout it.  You look good naked!”

For the record, I will never, EVER, look good naked!  However, there is something very human, very divine, that happens when I make myself vulnerable, when I tell the truth.  It happened again yesterday.  Dropping the sermon structure on Easter Sunday, doing it right before I uttered my first words that I spoke.  My first words were these:

I have been preaching for almost nineteen years now, and it has finally happened.  I don’t have a sermon for you this morning.  Seriously.  No gimmicks, no tricks… I don’t have one.  Do not mistaken this for me not having a message however.  This morning, it is in the form of a confession rather than a sermon.  The message is simple really, it’s the sermon title “New Life for the Sinful.”  It’s simple to get but we still might miss it.

My sermon prep was still useful.  The Mark 16:1-8 text begins with Mary Magdalene going to the tomb and ends with the young man dressed in white telling the women to go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus has risen.  The Risen Lord was back not for the righteous, but for sinners. We talked about Mary getting a bad wrap in church history as a woman of ill repute, nevertheless she had seven demons cast out of her according to Luke.  The sick in first century Palestine were percieved as persons plagued with sin.  Peter –the Rock– denying Jesus… sin!  Yet the first one at the tomb was a once sinful woman and the message of the Risen Lord was for a sinful man.  The Easter message is that there is new life for the sinful.

I didn’t use the stories I had planned to use.  Instead I talked about how something had been amiss for me every year at Easter.  I shared that I thought it was the misperception of we the church as the righteous that Christ died, when Jesus came, lived, died and rose again for sinners.  I’ve never been comfortable among the righteous, for I am sinful myself.  I shared with the congregation my experience of church, worship and righteousness as a sinner, and that I was grateful this Jesus rose again and gave new life to sinners like me.  Not wishing to offend, I then congratulated the congregation on their receiving this gift of new life as well, for they too were sinners.  They should rejoice with me, for today we celebrate new life for the sinful.

If nothing else it was bold.  I hadn’t planned any of this.  I was exposed in front of my group.  Naked.  Even now, it feels crazy and somehow right at the same time.  I don’t know how I can continue to do this as I get older.  My nerves get shot, I keep the smallest measure of confidence that comes from trusting my experience of God.  That small measure of confidence allows me to take huge risks such as this.  Somehow I know that this is right yet it wreaks havoc on my mind and heart.

The truly remarkable thing is that the people responded.  My preaching professors would have a field day on my head for this kind of thing!  The discipline that precedes the art of the sermon is the training.  What was never talked in preaching class (if it was, I missed that day) was how God might move minutes before the sermon.  The training is that if you spend the appropriate time in sermon preparation and writing then God will move in that time and you the preacher can be confident in the final outcome.  What do you do when you practice the discipline, do the work, sense God working in that time, yet also sense God changing something just before the event?  I have done this long enough now that I trust my sense of the hand of God in my spirit, yet it defies conventional thinking sometimes.

Somehow the people were responsive through the whole preaching event.  Based on their expressions, they listened, and they heard the message.

Following my Easter confession we had two amazing things happen.  One was a visting from out of town woman who prayed to God for the right church to visit yesterday morning.  She and her husband and child found our congregation by an online search on her cell phone, they set their GPS to our address and came right to us.  She came forward during the invitation and prayed on the platform stairs in the sanctuary.  Following the service she told me that she was listening to the song “Come Just As You Are” –which was our invitation hymn– on the radio as they drove to church yesterday.  Crying following the service, she said that the message was for her yesterday morning.

The second thing that happened was a congregant who had been worshiping with us for some time stepped foward during the invitation and professed faith for the first time in the family of God.  She –a grown woman– had never been a member of a church before but based on previous conversations with me I think she had believed in God and trusted Jesus Christ for some time.  Her stepping forward and professing faith for the first time in a congregation took a lot of courage.

I imagine both of these women felt vulnerable as they stepped forward yesterday, acting on an impulse within them that began with God.  For these two worshipers to come to the worship event, be moved and then act on that inner movement, to confess that which is moving in their soul… this is a bold thing!

Being naked in front of a congregation is not an easy thing, let alone on Easter morning!  Yet God is there.  God is there!

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Posted in Church Leadership, Encouragement, Grace, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Worship

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | February 14, 2012

Some Valentine History

I have always –always— loved Valentine’s Day!  Even when I was a child, before young “crushes,” before I had a girlfriend, before I experienced love in a deeper way, and before I grew into an unfinished definition of love, I thought it was neat to have a day to celebrate romantic love.  Some think this day to be one to celebrate the special love one has for someone else, and I think they would be mistaken.  Today is simply a day to celebrate love –romantic love in particular.

I love love.  The feeling of love, the expressions that love seeks to reveal itself, the history of love, the heat and warmth of love, the memory of love…  It doesn’t take much to get me to that place where romantic love wells up within me.  Each day I go to that place with Stephanie, that place where I am nervous, excited, relaxed and safe… all at once!  Last week I was at a Narrative Leadership Conference in Washington DC and I shared a group of ministers a routine that Stephanie and I have.  No matter where we have been or what we have done that day, somewhere between ten and eleven o’clock at night we lay beside each other and watch American Dad.  The routine usually begins with me making a happy sound, similar to the sound I make when I enter the steam room at the gym “Ahhhhhhhh….” is the sound with “I’m so glad I’m here right now” as the thought, sometimes spoken.  We laugh, we relax, feeling the closeness and warmth of the other, usually in a silence that is never noticed.  It’s odd, the little things that we can do that connect with each other.  Sometimes one lays one foot over the leg of the other.  Other times she lays on her side, snuggling up to my arm.  We lay beside each other, enjoying the moment, getting our hearts nourished just being beside each other.

Up until about a week ago, I had these end of the day moments with Steph along with five to ten minutes with her as I picked her up from work each day.  Those minutes are now gone because she has a vehicle to drive to and from work (1.1 miles away from our home.)  It was in those five to ten minutes that we shared through talking and listening.  We’d sit in the driveway after getting to the house, and talk.  Nothing earth shattering, no long drawn out speeches, just sharing.

We have somewhere between ten minutes to an hour (on a good day) of connecting with each other (while we are awake) each day.  I say this neither to brag or complain, but just to confess to you this is where we are.  I think we both are deeply nurtured during those moments each day.  This short time together each day is everything for us.

I ran out of creativity on Valentine’s Day a long time ago.  In 1990 I paid four of my friends –all of them singers in a quartet—to partially dress up in tuxedos and go to Stephanie’s workplace Stone and Thomas Department Store at Mecklenberg Mall in Princeton, WV and sing Billy Joel’s For the Longest Time.  They dressed in tuxes from the waist up, and wore shorts and tennis shoes from the waist down.  The presented her with a single rose and said “This is a gift from Steve.  He’s been wanting to tell you something… for the longest time.”  The quartet then sang acapella the love song.  I stood a little ways outside of Stephanie’s view, watching my love without her knowing that I was there.  I wanted Steph to know how much I loved her, and I hoped to see some sign of this in her reaction.  Shoppers all around came and watched this take place.  Her reaction did not disappoint, Steph’s expression said it all.

I get great joy going to that place in my heart where the springs of romantic love are flowing.  I love expressing love.  It makes me feel good all the way through.  Even at this point in life together with Steph, when I feel I have no real creativity left, I still love going to that place.  So I pour my heart into the small things, those moments that I think we both live for every day.  For me Valentine’s Day is an excuse to express this.  I won’t be perceived as corny or worse yet, a silly middle-aged man looking for something.  I have something, and I love to express it.

I can’t say that Steph and I have a song, but if we did it would be I Love You (for Sentimental Reasons) by Nat King Cole.  The beauty, simplicity and message of that song plays on our heartstrings.  Some of the lyrics go

I love you for sentimental reasons
I hope you do believe me
I’ve given you my heart
I think of you every morning
Dream of you every night
Darling I’m never lonely
Whenever you’re in sight
I love you for sentimental reasons
I hope you do believe me
I’ve given you my heart

We have a history together, a history of growing up and growing close together, learning about each other and ourselves, a history filled with passion, commitment, sacrificial love and forgiveness.  Our past inspires us.  It produces a sentimentality that is inspiring.  I think that’s what good friendships do.  We made commitments to each other when we were young that we still live by.

Our first song was Kiss by Prince.  I met her at Walnut Mall in Petersburg for a date.  She wore a cool, blue striped Oxford shirt, a white sweat shirt over the Oxford (yes, it was the 80’s,) neat jeans and flats.  I remember what she looked like as she approached me.  My heart stirred!  Cute and beautiful, sweet and tender… that was Steph.  Still is.  We connected instantly over dinner at Italian Villa.  We were kids learning about affection and love.  My heart still stirs.

There’s a scene in an old-for-my generation movie that speaks to how I feel.  In the movie Don Juan DeMarco, Marlon Brando plays a soon to be retiring psychologist who has the task of treating a patient (played by Johnny Depp) who thinks he’s the legendary romantic Don Juan.  During the treatment sessions, the doctor has a “romantic awakening” and he begins to see his life and marriage in a new light.  Near the end of the movie the doctor confesses to his wife (played by Faye Dunaway) that he wants the fires of passion to burn once again, fires that burn in the mind of Don Juan.  HIs loving wife listens and says “But we’re burning embers darling.  We’re burning embers.”  The doctor states emphatically that he wants the fires to burn once again, to which his wife snuggles up to him and says again “We’re burning embers darling.  Burning embers aren’t a bad thing.”

I get both the doctor and his wife there.  The flames of love that stir and inspire… I love it!  The love that once expressed itself in passion and romance and now quietly warms both the lover and the beloved.  I get that too.  The reason why I really like that scene is because of Faye Dunaway.  When I first saw the movie (the only time I saw it, so if I butchered the scene or quote, forgive me) I felt for the doctor, longing for something that in all likelihood cannot be.  My heart went out to him. His wife saw clearly where the two were at in their life together, and she comforted her restless husband with that truth.  There is incredible beauty in this romantic partnership, when one is beside the other listening, and reminding them of where they have been and where they are.

Today is the twenty-fifth Valentine’s Day Steph and I have had together.  The days of convincing her of my love have passed.  There’s no need.  I think she knows.  However, I still love finding expression for my love for her, and while creativity seems short, depth and profoundness are not.  I still remember her face as the quartet sang the love song to her.  I feel both the fires and embers of love from an old movie.

I still love sitting and sharing, talking and listening to my love Stephanie.

 

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Posted in Friendship, Holidays, Learning and growing | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | December 7, 2011

All That’s Needed Is Silence

The Saturday night before Advent I was at church with a friend who was sprucing up our Advent wreath.  This friend is a most special friend.  She has a purity of heart and a deep desire for good to happen in life.  She gives of herself to make good things happen.  Unfortunately she also has seen many bad examples of Christianity –usually from self-proclaimed “good Christians” who act and behave in ways less than the model of love and trust provided by Jesus Christ.  Who am I kidding?  She’s seen some terrible and stupid examples of Christianity!  (I should have just said that initially.)

Conversations with her are always stimulating.  Her thoughts and feelings are unique in my experiences with people.  I thoroughly enjoy both the eye opening aspects of our talks as well as the challenging nature of these conversations.

As we were jazzing up the Advent wreath with live greenery, she asked “Did you hear about the Kentucky church that banned interracial couples from coming to the church house?”  “No” I replied, ”but it doesn’t surprise me.”  “Really?  Why not?”  she replied.  I just shook my head, not wanting to talk about it, being ashamed of what some fellow Christians along with sister congregations are doing in the name of the Lord.

I went home and looked it up.  I’m sure you are well familiar with this story by now.  In Pike County, Kentucky a young woman, the daughter of the church secretary brought her fiance –a young African man– to church.  The young couple did a song together in worship.  The woman’s father was approached by one in the church afterwards and told they were no longer welcome there.  The father resigned his secretary position at the church, but did not let the issue go.  http://yhoo.it/uVzGvO

The badness continues:  The congregation had a special called business meeting to ban interracial couples from the church.  Many (enough who could have made the majority to deny the ban, look at the vote count of both news articles listed in this post [9-6 to ban compared to 30-0 to repeal]) of congregants went home –instead of attending the meeting– because they didn’t want to have anything to do with this terrible thing. http://yhoo.it/uVzGvO

I wasn’t shocked by this news initially told to me by my friend.  I have seen prejudice and racism in congregations the majority of my life.  I am ashamed of this, and I like to think that I live and lead in such a way that combats this.  However, sometimes I miss something –I miss doing something– in this fight.

Two days ago I learned that this congregation repealed the interracial couple ban.  It seems they were prompted by the fact that their by-laws cannot be contrary to local, state and federal laws. http://yhoo.it/tBo3pE  They didn’t repeal it because the consciences of the fleeing members were sore, or that the architects of such a ban had a change of heart, or even that they began to read the gospels with clear vision and common sense.  No, they repealed it because it was contrary to the law in their community.

Since talking with my friend ten days ago now, I have been extremely bothered by the reaction of those congregants who left church the day of the meeting to ban interracial couples.  They left not wanting to be a part of what was taking place.  How could they do such a thing?  Rather than stand and speak, making themselves heard in the congregation they call their church family, they left.  They just left.

A few quotes come to mind.  One is this oft-quoted remark:  “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  I’ve tried to imagine the reasons those congregants left that day.  They may have been so ashamed and embarrassed by the happenings that they wished to distance themselves from this thing.  They may have felt powerless to change it.  They may have felt like they didn’t want to rock the boat and speak contrary to those behind the ban.  Who knows?  Maybe they thought those behind the ban were the “good givers,” you know?  The “backbone” of the church.  It could have been that they agreed with the position opposing interracial relationships, they just felt guilty about actually voting on it.  They may have known they were wrong, they just didn’t want to go on record.  In any event, those congregants chose to leave, thereby offering silence as their response.

I have seen the response of silence in every congregation that I have served, and surprisingly there is a lot more of silent passivity in each congregation that I have served than prejudice and racism.  In a meeting, someone will say something so off-base, so terrible, so distasteful that others in the group are embarrassed, even ashamed because of what was said in their midst.  The odd thing is, the ashamed listeners remain silent.  They think that everyone in the group feels the terrible nature of the spoken words, and that they don’t need to say anything.  The problem with this is that when something terrible is said, and silence follows, it can give the impression that the terrible thing not only has validity but may be the majority opinion, because it’s left on the floor of the meeting unaddressed, without a response.

Sometimes the silent don’t wish to respond because if they do speak, they are responding to a foolish person that they don’t wish to stir up.  “Never argue with a fool, ’cause passers by won’t know the difference” is what my old sales manager at Circuit City used to say.  There is wisdom in that statement.  The problem with it is that given time the foolish become the face of your group, your congregation and your church, all because everybody else sat back and watched, silently.

I have silently abided by this more than I wish to admit, mostly in recent years.  It might be that as I get older, I get more cautious in my moves in group leadership.  Some think this is natural, and even wise, for as we age we make “better” decisions to preserve ourselves.  I offer this to you as a confession, not as a reason or excuse, for growing older and even getting old are poor excuses for not standing up for what needs to be addressed.  There are things that need to be fought, and there are positions that others take that need to be countered, but because of so called conventional wisdom, the allure of safety and etiquette rules of my community, I chill out, biding time.

I’m tired of doing this.  I don’t like myself when I see that I am doing this.  I feel like I’ve betrayed my faith and my better judgement.  One of my strengths as a leader has always been that have the boldness to address conflict and what’s wrong, no matter how difficult the problem might be.  I’ve gotten away from this recently.  I need to return to my strengths.  I’d rather run the risk of looking like a fighter, argumentative even, than look definitively like I agree with the one speaking because I am silent.

In essence, this is a form of neutrality.  Dante once said “The fieriest places of hell are reserved for those, who in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.”  My silence at bare minimum makes me look like I’m taking a neutral position to that which needs to be opposed.  My silence can even speak of agreement with what is being said.  After all, what else can one think, if I just sit there and keep my mouth shut?

Unfortunately, I may have done this when my friend asked me about the news of this Kentucky congregation that night in the sanctuary.  I can justify my lack of response (rationalizing, maybe?) with the shame I felt about such a thing, along with my desire to try to talk about more positive, constructive news items.  Simply put, I was wrong that night.  My friend needed to hear my response to that terrible news.

The influence I have with my congregation is effective when I use it.  Sometimes I need to be loud.  Sometimes, I need to shout something from the roof of the building.  One of those things is this:  any congregation that bans interracial couples is opposing the love, work and person of Christ.  How can they call themselves a church?  I know that God alone defines the true identitity of congregations that make up the church, and I don’t mean to say that they definitively are not.  However it’s now time to ask the question: How can they call themselves a church?  It is shameful.  I’m ashamed that we have the same word on our sign outside as they have on theirs:  Church.  If we the Church looked more like Christ, we’d have the affect that Jesus said we would have when he said something like “You are the salt of the earth.  Without your saltiness the earth loses its flavor.  What good are you then?” (paraphrase of Matthew 5:13)

You know what?  Maybe we’re silent because when we speak out, it then puts us on the line to actually do something, to be something.  After all, it’s a lot easier being small, humble church goers than dynamic followers of Christ.  Asking the question “How can they call themselves a church?” actually makes me look hard at myself and my congregation.  For all the talk we the church engage in concerning how bad off the world is, we can be awfully quiet in our own group when something stupid is happening in our own midst.

Our silence.  That’s all that’s needed for everything from stupidity to evil to rule.

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Posted in Bible, Christian ethics, Church Leadership, Learning and growing, News | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | December 5, 2011

Remembering a Pretty Girl

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of eating a late lunch at the food court of Lynnhaven Mall with my wife Stephanie and 16-year-old daughter Victoria Hope.  Hope is one of the most beautiful people I know.  Her beauty is from the inside and touches everything she does, including her style.

She was wearing a pink winter stocking cap like beret.  (Yes, you’ve picked up on my fashion savvy by now!)  A little bit of her hair was hanging on the sides of her face and she had on a really neat jacket.

A young family –mom, dad, and two little girls— walked up and sat a couple of tables down from us.  One of the little girls was mesmerized by Hope.  She stared.  And she stared.  And she stared.  And she stared some more.  And she kept on staring!  Her parents were oblivious to her.  It seemed like they never even looked down to see what she might be focusing on.  Their focus was on her little sister, who seemed to require all of their attention.

We did the usual thing.  Hope waived at her and gently said “Hi.”  The little girl smiled and shyly twisted her head and body back when Hope acknowledged her.

We ate and we talked.  Every now and again Hope checked on the little girl.  Each time Hope checked, she was staring!  Finally Hope said “She has been staring at me the WHOLE time!”  I thought about it and remembered when I was little and I saw a pretty girl for the first time.  I may have seen a pretty girl before then, but I didn’t recognize her as pretty.  No, I remembered the first time I saw a pretty girl and I was entranced.  Mesmerized even.  My first pretty girl was a teenager who was fair skinned, and she had long brown hair, feathered back and held with hair clips.  She had beautiful, beautiful eyes.

I was so captivated.  I remember feeling that I just wanted to be near her.  Around her.  She looked at me and I froze!  She smiled, then I was mush!  I’m sure I was staring.  Just like this little girl was staring at Hope.

“Hope, do you remember the first pretty girl you ever saw?”

Hope looked at me funny, wondering what I meant.

“You know, the first girl you thought was so pretty that you wanted to be like her, to be around her.  Do you remember the first pretty girl you ever saw?”

“Ann.”

I immediately knew who she was speaking of, but I had to confirm it just the same.

“Ann Louise Poarch?”

“Yeah.  She was the first person I liked other than you guys.”

Ann was a child who grew into a teenager in my first pastorate.  She was a twin.  When we moved to Purdy, VA in 1993, Ann’s parents quickly became the best of friends.  We enjoyed their whole family.  Four children.  All of them card players.  Even the ones that weren’t crazy about playing cards, they played cards too.  Ann’s father Robert was a deacon of the church, and a farmer.  Ann’s mother Sarah was a school teacher and the church pianist.  The Poarch family accepted us and took us in as family almost instantly.  We meshed well, and have ever since.  Sarah is one of those friends that now –after being gone from Purdy for over ten years— I can call up with a cooking question and talk to her like we never missed a beat.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that much –so much— has transpired since I left there, but our emotional connection, our camaraderie, our friendship is that strong.

Ann was eight years old or so when Hope was born (if my memory is correct.)  So, three or four years after that, Ann was eleven or twelve when Hope was in her formative years.

It’s easy to see why Ann was the first person Hope liked other than us.  Ann was a fighter.  She was born with mis-formed feet, and had numerous surgeries before she was even five years old.  Her condition though, did not seem to slow her.  She ran with her sisters and brother, and she could do whatever they could do.  Ann was competitive and fiery!

Even with the fire Ann possessed, she was sensitive and tender.  When Hope was born, she LOVED to hold Hope.  Ann loved little, newborn Hope, even before Hope knew who Ann was.

Ann was also a huge underdog fighter!  She pulled for the kid being picked on, or the one that nobody thought anything of, and she would get behind them and support them, she would defend them, she would fight for them!  Ann would defend herself if she was picked on.  Once Ann Louise was kicked out of school for stabbing a boy in the leg with her pencil.  I think she was actually kicked out for five days or so.  I stopped by their home for a visit and heard this when I entered the house.  When I saw Ann I asked her, “What are you doing stabbing somebody with your pencil?”  She responded “He was picking on me.  And I’d do it again, if I had to!”

Ann was killed in a car accident at age 16.  That was the most heart wrenching loss  I’ve ever experienced as a pastor.  Ann had a double dose of the spice of life and her loss was and still is unthinkable.  Ann’s person, her spirit, her beauty left a hole that cannot be filled.  To even attempt to do so seems like it would be a disloyalty to Ann.  Life however, continues around the holes that exist in our hearts.  If we live long enough and we love with our whole hearts along the way, there will be many holes.

Once Ann’s mother Sarah and I were talking about choices, living with the choices we make, living with the ones that we don’t make, and actually debating the consequences of both, second guessing each of them.  Sarah asked me how I could live with a certain choice that I had made, which wasn’t a bad choice, but it left another un-chosen path that created some heartache and if left unattended, it could wreak some havoc in my mind.  I told her that there’s more to me than the heartache of the paths I haven’t chosen.  There’s a strength from my life that is greater than individual sufferings and losses that I experienced.  I said something like “The whole of my life is stronger than the totality of the individual parts of it.”  She asked “Have you ever read Stephen Covey?”  I said “No.”  She said “He says that.  The strength of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”  Truthfully, I had not (nor have I) ever read anything by him.  I just knew that the strength, love, and joy of the whole of my life is greater than the individual hurts, sufferings, and losses.

All of this was years before Ann died.  It has now been over eight years since she has passed.  Truthfully, I don’t know if my “theory” holds up under the most trying of circumstances.  I haven’t experienced the loss of a child.  There are losses in life that can mess us up for the remainder of our lives.  Yet, I still believe in the power of Grace incarnate.  That the Divine can heal even the deepest of wounds, and maybe in ways that we never would have imagined.  I believe this.  I trust this.  Even as I face with my friends their unspeakable losses.

Is there a place in the grieving process (a process that can be life-long, appropriately even) where one can say gently, maybe even whisper it, “You know, there is more strength to your life than your worst heartaches?”  I confess to you, I don’t know when and if I should ever say that to another.  I do believe it though.  I also feel compelled to write it now.  I do so because it has been years since her passing and I’ve just gotten a glimpse of remembering Ann in a way other than loss.  This glimpse came through my 16-year-old pretty girl Victoria Hope.  Hope remembered Ann’s heart, her spirit, her beauty –for Ann was the first person Hope genuinely liked other than us!

As Hope, Steph and I talked over lunch that day, I had the strongest memory come to mind during our conversation.  Once I pulled into Robert and Sarah’s driveway for a visit, and I saw Ann Louise sitting in a huge pothole-turned-mud-puddle, splashing, kicking, and singing –all by herself, no one around but her!  She saw me and began to laugh even harder, celebrating the moment she was in!  Laughing and singing while sitting in that mud puddle!

I will never forget that moment.  It was Ann being Ann.  I’m so glad Ann was there for my children, with my children in Purdy.  I’m thankful to God for her whole life.  I’m thankful for my daughter’s sake, for Ann was the first pretty girl Hope ever saw.

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Posted in Friendship, Grace, Learning and growing, Spirituality, Thanksgiving | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | November 28, 2011

Christmas Fool

Last week a cashier asked me if I was ready for Christmas.  I responded “Absolutely!”  She then said “You’ve bought presents for everybody?  Already?”  “Well, no” I replied.  “But you asked if I’m ready for Christmas, and I’m always ready for the spirit and message of this season.”  The look on her face was that I was missing out on the importance of what she was saying.  I’m also quite sure she missed out on the importance of what I said.

I’ve been ready for Christmas for some time now.  No, the decorations aren’t up yet.  No, I haven’t even bought the first present.  But still, yes I am ready for Christmas!  You see, I’m a Christmas fool.  I crazy love celebrating Grace incarnate!  Don’t you?  Advent is that time that we prepare for the God who dwells among us.  Is it ever too early to tell a friend “Emmanuel” (God is with us)?

Complain all you want about Wal-Mart having Christmas stuff out in September, but I am perpetually ready for this season.  I hear Christmas music (even the cheesy “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” and Bruno the Bassett Hound singing “Jingle Bells”) and I go to that place in my mind and heart that Grace resides.  All things Christmas related make me smile, because I stay centered on Grace incarnate.  I can name so many gaudy Christmas expressions it’s not even funny.  Yet, even the gaudiest of them still reminds me of Grace incarnate, Love in the flesh who dwells among us.

One of my favorite images of Christmas in recent years is from the movie Elf, starring Will Ferrell.  The image is so powerful it’s part of the thirty second spot for advertising the movie on USA network.  It’s the clip of a children’s department manager telling customers that Santa will be in the store tomorrow, to which Buddy the Human Elf (Will Ferrell) goes nuts screaming “Santa!!!!!!  Santa is coming!!!!!!”  It’s the emotion, the excitement, and the expectation of that clip that touches joy in me.

Yep, I’m a Christmas fool.  Think and say what you will, but I will remain the same.  There is however, another kind of Christmas fool.  It’s the one that thinks your preparedness for Christmas is the amount of time and money you spend on presents and decorations.  The stress and strain of buying gifts builds for this person as he or she gets closer to the big day.  Decorations are a burdensome necessity, rather than Clark Griswold’s creation of his house as a beacon of Christmas light!  Still there are others who are so foolish, they don’t even stress or strain, they just get depressed because they can’t give others the presents they wish to give them.  This Christmas fool is broke, and isn’t strained and stressed, just sad and depressed.  How foolish is it when someone misses Christmas because of focusing on the stuff that really doesn’t last?

For the record, I count the paychecks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and –concerning presents–  I do whatever I can do between those two days.  For me and my family, Christmas has never been about the presents.  Nor has it been about money or decorations even.  It’s about Grace, pure love that has our best interests at heart, a love that gives itself because we are the beloved.

Tony Campolo tells the story of a guy walking a boardwalk wearing a sandwich board that reads on the front “I’m a fool for Christ.”  People snicker as they see him, and after he passes, they see the back which reads “Who’s fool are you?”

What kind of Christmas fool are you?

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Posted by: The Learning Pastor | November 16, 2011

Sweet 16

Recently my family celebrated the birthday of my youngest daughter Victoria Hope.  It was her “sweet 16” birthday!  This birthday was special to both her and I for a number of reasons.  At 16 she’s now counting down the days when she can take the driver’s license test (after this school semester sometime.)  At 16 Victoria is now a beautiful young lady, and while I still call her my sweet child, she’s no longer a child really.  She behaves and carries herself like a very young woman.

Victoria’s birthday list this year was so easy, I’m almost ashamed to print it.  She wanted me to make chicken and dumplings (which I did) and she wanted us to watch a movie that we both love –The Long Kiss Goodnight, starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson.  It’s a great spy-assassin-government espionage type movie that we saw together a good while ago.  The first time she saw this flick she and I were laying on our bed watching it late one Saturday morning.  There’s a scene where the heroine and her child are trapped on a bridge, with bad guys on both ends.  She gets on a CB and cries out for help “Help!  Somebody out there, help me!  I have my daughter with me, somebody please help!”  You the first time viewer don’t know how she’s going to get out of it, you just know how you hope she will get out of it.  I watched Hope as she experienced this scene for the first time.  She was laying there, with her arms raised above her head taking it in.  The next frame you see darkness, you here the first three chords of “Bad to the Bone” and you see a beat up and bloodied Samuel L. Jackson come alive, then race to try and save the two!  Hope laughed with a gut busting laugh that I will never forget.  That laugh, that picture in my mind of her watching this –it’s one of the memories I’ll have when I am old and gray.

It’s funny that her and I both get each other.  I get her in that she is a spitting image of me when I was young, and she has the traits that are from the Gupton side of the family.  Her looks, her intensity, her active mind, her deep emotion, her incredible sensitivity that can sometimes make her feel insecure, her empathy, her genuineness, the fact that she wears her feelings on her sleeve, are all characteristics that have developed from traits on my father’s side of the family.  She’s way more disciplined and focused than I ever was as a child and youth.  In short, Victoria is utterly amazing.

She gets me too.  Victoria knows the things in life that I appreciate.  Last Christmas she gave me a framed bedtime quote that I’ve told my children over the years before they go to bed:  “Say your prayers, think happy thoughts, know that God loves you, I love you, if you need me holler.”  She regularly purposefully shows me that she values experiences that I’ve had with her.  Part of the reason for writing this blog post is that it’s been two weeks since her sweet 16 birthday, and I’m still thinking about the only two requests she had: homemade chicken and dumplings (which I love to cook) and a movie her and I shared together some time ago (something I’d do every time she asks if I could.)  We did do more than these two things for her, by the way.  We upgraded her cell phone from an old Blackberry to an awesome Android phone.  She was due for the upgrade, and it made for a very nice gift

I’m at a weird time in my life.  My children are now all past their childhood years.  Soon to be 23 year old Jeffrey, 18 year old Christina and 16 year old Victoria Hope… that sounds so strange as I say it.  I know.  I’m not experiencing anything that other parents haven’t had to do.  Children grow up.  That’s what they’re supposed to do.  When Hope and Christina were really young, I’d tell them that I was going to stop feeding them so they wouldn’t grow up.  They laughed.  I’d then say “Do you think that would work?”  Christina would say “No!”  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve been very aware through the years of the wonderful moments with my children.  Their ages, the places they were in as children.  I’ve been aware, I’ve reflected much, and I have been so appreciative of my children, my blessings, and the gift of my life.  It’s just strange in that I am 41, I’ve been married for almost 25 years, my children are no longer children any more, and I’m still really aware.  I’m really aware that my longtime friends all have small children right now and they are just beginning these things.  Their lives are filled today with those same moments that I have as memories and that I cherish.  The strange thing is is that when mine were small, my friends were unmarried and had no clue of what family life was with them as the parents.  I connected well with my friends I think, even when our lives were very different from each other.

Today, my life looks more like the life of a someone ten years older.  I’m in an aging congregation that I think I identify well with in spite of our age differences.  I think my congregation and I get each other too.  I think my congregation and I both get the brevity of life, and how fast our days go by.  While we are at different stages in our life paths (many in my core group are twice my age –literally) we have some common points together, I think.  The strangeness for me is that I really don’t have any true peers.  Other people my age (that I know) either have children who are significantly younger or they are professional people who are so steeped in their careers that they can’t see outside of those career choices.  Neither have time for a relationship other than those two choices.

I have some young parents that I love and adore!  They are just getting going in the raising of their children and I as their pastor and friend am in a neat role to help and to serve!  I love watching young parents faces as they care for their young and each other.  I remember those feelings that they now wear so vulnerably.  I am amazed at how young parents stretch to grow as people and as parents.  I love my role as pastor with these young parents.

I also have  a few twenty-something young adults that work hard, play harder, and run still even harder!  Occasionally I can keep up with them.  It’s funny what I can do until the wee hours of the morning.  I can play poker, I can wait in a hospital room with someone in need, and I can talk and listen to a friend.  These are about the only things I can do after the midnight hour these days.  My twenty-something friends are growing and learning as well.  They are discovering things in the lives that will be building blocks for the rest of their lives.  I love being their pastor and friend, talking and listening.

It’s a strange time, because none of these are my peers.  I love them all and I thoroughly enjoy my relationships and work with them, but I don’t have a peer relationship/friendship out of the bunch.  It’s strange because I feel like an odd duck in life these days.  I don’t truly fit in nicely anywhere, but seem to have a role and be present just the same.  Sometimes, I just wish I had one friend who was like me and got me.

It’s what makes Hope’s “sweet 16” so sweet.  In the path of life that I have traveled, I have a wife whom I love and adore, and three children who are rare gems of gifts.  Hope is the youngest of this group.  Even with the oddities of life, with it’s disjointed times, it’s dark and alone moments, there are times of joy, celebration and gratitude.  I love what I have, even when I hurt.  I’m now learning that living graciously is also about handling these odd times of life, when things don’t feel right, and I seem out of place.  How well I handle them speaks of how deeply an inroad grace has made in me.  Anybody can be gracious and faithful when they have a great support group, their ambitious careers and endeavors are all business-like successful and things in life for them all seem to fit and work out.  No, sometimes being gracious and faithful is about what you do when the oddities, the strangeness, the dark and difficult times are upon you.   How will one think, feel and behave then?

I’m learning.  As I learn, I’ll enjoy these young adults I have in my life –my children.  I’ll do as best as I can when I feel alone.  I am so grateful for what I have.

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Posted in Encouragement, Friendship, Grace, Learning and growing, Psychology, Thanksgiving | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | November 9, 2011

I miss Cecil

We all miss somebody.  A loved one.  A dear friend.  Maybe someone who was both.  Maybe someone who was neither of these, but someone far greater than either of them.

I miss Cecil.  For those of you who don’t know to who I am referring, I’m talking about Cecil Sherman.

For many Cecil was the Baptist statesman.  For some he was a moderate warhorse, who rallied the troops to fight the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.

For some of us, he was as close to a sage as we will ever know.  He knew stuff that I needed for ministry of which I didn’t even have to ask of him.  In class at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, that was scary wise!  There are other professors who were wise in this way as well.  If I named them, then it would seem like I’m trying to get into some “good graces” with them or it would be some other breach of etiquette that I don’t understand but in which I still abide.  For now, it’s a good thing for me to say that Cecil was one of a handful of modern sages who shaped both my ministry, my faith and my life.

These however, are not the deepest reasons why I miss him.  I miss him because he gave me confidence that I don’t see how I would have had if I were simply on my own, if left to my own devices doing the “Lone Ranger” thing in ministry.  Cecil instilled confidence in me in some mysterious way that wish I still had access to sometimes.  Instead, I just have memories and wishes that he were still here.

Once I belonged to some subcommittee of a group that is so distant from my ministry now that it’s not even funny.  After a committee meeting we all decided to have lunch together.  We all agreed on a specific location and divided into two groups.  Oddly, everyone was in one group while Cecil and I formed our own other group.

Cecil and I went to the restaurant to learn that they were closed that day, and neither Cecil nor I had cell numbers for anybody in the other group.  Cecil, lifting his hand and extending his long index finger said “I know somewhere we can have a delightful lunch and it won’t break the bank.  You game?”  “Yes sir!” I said.  Cecil commanded my attention, much like I imagine a drill sergeant commands the attention of the trainees.  I always felt like Cecil was my sergeant and I was a foot soldier.  Interestingly enough, when I met him over fifteen years ago now, he saw himself as a foot soldier for the cause of BTSR.

We went to Westminster Canterbury, the retirement community where Cecil and Dot lived.  Dot was in the Alzheimer’s unit, while Cecil lived in his apartment there on campus.  We went to a small café there and ate fried pimento cheese sandwiches!  That was something of an unexpected delight!  The café was empty and we just talked.

Sitting and talking with Cecil was a big deal to me, for there was an intimidation factor on my part that I never really shook with him.  He was so wise and good in my eyes, and I have always been a “plugger.”  Pluggers… well, if you don’t know what a plugger is than do a search for it on Google!  I plug along and somehow make it, in spite of my best efforts to do myself in before I get to my goal.  I usually make it because of wise counsel, friendship and inspiration from certain people in my life who simply have that effect on me.  Cecil was one of those people.

We sat and talked.  Actually he did most of the talking.  I listened.  I asked questions from time to time, but he provided the substance of our conversation.  My questions were never questions that highlighted my inquisitive mind, nor were they questions that somehow made me look good.  I just cared about him.  So I asked questions that came from care.  Care even, can be used to manipulate.  My care for him, about him, was purer than that.  Cecil was a hero, a sage, a mentor to me, without ever realizing his effect.  I was never the brightest star in his class, nor was I some gem in the rough.  I was a foot soldier, and Cecil was a great sergeant.  I cared about him, and I know he cared for me.

We got to talking about Dot.  “Sometimes she knows me.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  Sometimes she can utter a word that I can make out.  Most of the time she’s just there.  Day in and day out, she’s just there.” Cecil shared.

“Cecil, I don’t know how you do it.”  I said.  I said this because as he said this my imagination went to how that might feel if I was in his shoes.  I couldn’t imagine it.  I was amazed at how he did it.  However I did not realize the implications of my words when I blurted them out.

Cecil looked at me with raised eyes, thought a hundred thoughts I’ll bet, but only took a moment and said “Steve, you just don’t use a wife for forty or fifty years, and then when she’s no good anymore, you throw her out.  Don’t worry.  You’ll do the same thing.”

I was frozen the whole time he said this, but at the end I remember feeling all the way to my core “I’ll do what Cecil’s doing when I get to that place.  I’ll do it because he said I would.  He said it, so it has to be true.  Yep, I’ll do it.”

I run into things that I don’t know what to make of.  Before I started writing this post, I was thinking about several relationships in my ministry that challenge me, and truthfully I am tempted to either let them go or quit.  I was washing my face in my office bathroom, thinking about such things, and I looked in the mirror and thought “I miss Cecil.”

There is a story in the book Tales of the Hasidim that speaks of a wise rabbi who tells his student “You’ll know you you are maturing when you are no longer needing the stories of your heroes, for you become the hero of your story.”  (Interpreted meaning, that’s what I took from that story.)

Some moments, on some days, I’m there.  Doing what I envisioned was the right, the noble, even the wise thing that needed to be done, even when it was difficult.  It seems like so many more moments of my life, I’m clinging to the stories of my heroes.  I’m drawing all the good that I can draw from them to lead, to minister, to live.  I still need my stories, my heroes.

I miss Cecil.

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Posted in Christian ministry, Church Leadership, Learning and growing, Spirituality | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: The Learning Pastor | September 17, 2011

Body and Soul

I’ve seen it more than a few times now.  VH1 premiered the video of Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse singing Body and Soul this past Wednesday.  Each day when I check in at the gym via foursquare I usually attach jokes to my check-in about knowing popular songs and singing them while on the treadmill.  They’re all jokes, as many –if not most– of my friends know.

Body and Soul is different.  As the video played, I knew every word and I sang the whole song as I moved on the treadmill.  My daughters know every word too.  We’ve listened to Frank Sinatra sing this song on his CD Nothing But the Best so many times.  It’s the last track of that CD, a performance by Frank that was previously unreleased.  An average Sinatra listener can tell that he was an aged man when he recorded it.  About half-way into the song the lyrics go

…Are you pretending? Because it looks like the ending, unless I could have one more chance to prove dear?  My life a wreck you’re making, you know I’m yours just for the taking.  I would gladly surrender, surrender myself to you body and soul.

Frank’s voice in this song has a rasp to it, is quite a bit deeper than in his younger years, and is very vulnerable.  All of this comes out when he sings the line “My life a wreck you’re making.”  Knowing something of his life makes this Body and Soul rendition particularly meaningful.

I also have the mp3 of Billie Holiday singing this song.  Like Frank, she sings it with a vulnerability and broken-heartedness that is haunting.  Billie’s long time bout with drug addiction took a toll on her voice, and when she was released from prison her music changed.  What was once a sweet and sultry sound became one of brokenness and vulnerability.

Both of these singer’s performances are truly haunting to me.  I imagine them singing the songs.  I can hear them singing in my head, in my heart, even when I’m not listening to the music.  I feel them.

Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse’s version is haunting and meaningful in a totally different way.  Much has been made about this rendition being released following Winehouse’s death.  I guess I understand the attention that receives.  Many people take a particular interest in someone’s art following the artist’s death.  Heath Ledger’s work in the movie Dark Knight is an example of this.

This is not why I find this duet meaningful.  It’s moving to me because of what Tony Bennett said in an interview with Chris Cuomo of the television show 20/20.  Tony said

…and then I just regretted that I wasn’t able to tell her to slow down… I would tell her “You gotta stop.  ‘Cause If you don’t you’re gonna die.”  And then she died.  Twenty seven years old, and she died!  http://abcn.ws/nmPjWI

When Tony said this, he said it with true regret, remorse, even grief.  That caught me.

Have you ever had a friend who killed himself or herself?  They may have killed themselves through one terrible act, a self inflicted wound.  Or, they may have killed themselves while on a terrible self-destructive path.  Too much time on that path will kill you.  And you chose that path.  You may not have known it was going to kill you.  Nevertheless it did.

You may have tried to warn them, slow them down, even stop them.  Or, you might not have done any of those things.  Either way, when they are gone, you question if you could have done more to help them.  You might feel like you didn’t do enough.  You may even feel responsible.

When a self destructive person dies, I have observed that there are two polar opposite reactions that survivors have.  One is indifference.  This reaction comes from a person who refuses to care or has stopped caring about the life and now loss of the self destructive.  The reaction comes with a justification “It’s the deceased person’s fault.”  The survivor may have cared once, but with the loss comes a cut-off.  That cut-off can be a self-preserving move for the survivor.

The other, opposite reaction is one of total responsibility.  This person rolls around in his or her head all the things that he or she could have said or done.  The living takes on more than he or she should and somehow feels they could have prevented it.  This survivor assumes power and influence in places that friends, loved ones, and caregivers simply don’t have.  Some boundaries are missing in this reacting person.  Love takes on more than it should and it wreaks havoc on the mind and heart of the living friend.

If you’re a pastor, and you have a friend, one whom you love very much who has died due to his or her own self-destructiveness, this can do a mind job on you.  You’ve done what you thought was right, wise and good.  Yet, the self-destructive friend not only stays on the terrible path, but dies.  You grieve.  You wrestle with your own thoughts and feelings, never quite able to pin down the deepest unrest.  You question yourself about your actions and your responsibility in this loss.  You can’t get out of it.  It’s a wrestling match you lose every day.

A temporary distraction for me is what I’ve seen some other ministers do.  Some of them do a hybrid of the two reactions I’ve described, but it’s a hybrid in the worst kind of way.  Sure, they “help.”  I say this cautiously because I’ve seen too many ministers who help within boundaries that don’t extend far enough.  They take the teachings of pastoral care and try to “introduce” the self-destructive to resources that can aid, but the personal involvement of the minister is little to nil.  The broken are just as destitute in spirit as they were before they ever spoke to the pastor.

So, this minister introduces the addict to the resources that can help them, the addict leaves, and the pastor continues doing “the work of the Lord.”  Sometimes, I think a minister’s “help” is a tool for his or her indifference.  The pastor’s heart is never at all involved in the interaction.  His or her boundaries are set based on their comfort zone or even the preservation of the lifestyle of that minister.  The truly needy never get the time or energy of the pastor.  They never get the care of the pastor.

I’m trying to find my place here.  I’ve had a friend who died that at one time I thought I gave my best to.  I looked for his recovery only to learn of his self-destruction.  I did have some boundaries, and they were extended deep, because if I could have helped him in any way, I would have.  I haven’t been able to cut off how I feel yet, because if I did that then I feel like I’m no longer caring for my friend, even though he’s gone.

Since I was a kid, my heart has always went out to the self-destructive.  I feel like if I help them, then I’m helping myself.  I could just as well be in their place, you know?  You could too.  There has to be help for us.  I’m both faithful and naïve enough to believe that something miraculous can happen in the human interactions of divine grace.  I have to believe this.  My hope and salvation are wrapped up in this life and work.  I’m a lost sheep who believes.

Today I’m trying to learn from my experiences, and it hurts like hell.  It’s a slow burn.  I want to reach as far as I can in helping someone, and since I won’t know how far I can reach until I try, I learn my boundaries when I try as hard as I can.  I also have to have a cut-off point, because I am human, frail and limited.  This is harder for me to learn.  Sometimes, I feel like I’ve given everything I have, and it just doesn’t work.  And when it fails, I feel like I’ve failed.  In some way, I have, because of what I believe about love.  Even still, sometimes I have to just stop putting myself through the grinder.  I just have to stop.  Just stop.

Right now I realize that there are some tensions that I must live with if I continue to believe this way and choose to feel the way that I do.  Right now I’m unwilling to change either one.  That kind of tension in the mind and heart is what the song Body and Soul is about.  The emptiness and heartache of loss, and the naïve yet life changing belief that love can conquer all. and the yearning for salvation and redemption.  That’s a God thing.  That’s a human thing.  I interpret the lyrics to be about the human interactions of divine grace.  Billie Holiday’s rendition of the song ends like this

My heart is sad and lonely
For you I cry
For you, dear, only
I tell you I mean it
I’m all for you
Body and soul

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Posted in Christian ministry, Friendship, Grace, Learning and growing, Pop culture, Spirituality | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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