I don't think of myself as a nostalgic person. I usually like Today better than Yesterday and I certainly don't think "The good old days" ever existed except in hind sight. Who was it that wrote the song, "I'm going to stay right here for these are the 'good old days'...."? That sort of sums up one of philosophies of life--I've got dozens of them.
I remember going to my 10th high school reunion and Roger Rose said to me, "high school was the best years of my life." I wanted to say either: "adolescence is a nightmare" or "then I hope you don't live too long, I don't want you miserable." Instead, I inwardly wept for him. Imagine the best years of your life over at 18!
However, these old sermons and other writings I happened upon the other day have an allure to me I never imagined. For the most part, I don't have any memory of writing them so it's like reading something new. But, on the other hand, they put me back in touch in some way with the person I was then and with the circumstances I was experiencing.
I promise not to keep transcribing this stuff and to get back to pondering current things, but I do want to share one I wrote with you today.
I started my time at St. John's in Waterbury on July 1, 1989. I was 42 years old. Nine days later on July 10, some misplaced tornadoes tore across Connecticut from south to north (looking I imagine for Kansas or Oklahoma). Every tree on the campus of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven was uprooted and later in the day a stand of ancient trees in Litchfield County was leveled. In between, the storm hit two of the small spires around the central spire of St. John's. One fell onto the sidewalk and created an impressive crater. The other fell through the roof and smashed the impressive McManis organ to smithereens. (I have one of the small pipes mounted in our living room.) So a 12 foot by 12 foot hole in the roof let in a small lake of rain that ruined what the granite didn't. I drove home to New Haven (we hadn't yet moved to Cheshire) wondering why there were limbs all over the road.
As I look back, I realize it wasn't a bad way to start a ministry. Everyone's attention was instantly focused on the damage and we were, all of us, on the same page and with the same purpose. How can you get picky with your new Rector when a thousand slates blew off the roof, all the mortar fell out of the Rose Window, the organ is gone, there's a hole in the roof and three ton of granite in the balcony! (I also have one of those slates--some were found two blocks away--with a design created by Judith McManis, hanging on the wall. We made a killing selling artistic slates and organ pipes....)
Maybe I stayed so long because I didn't think I could go somewhere else and rely on a storm to pull the congregation together....
So, here's what I wrote in the newsletter on August 23, 1989--6 weeks after the tornado.
********
"Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind."
--Ecclesiastes 4.6
A friend of ours gave our children little clear glass globes to sit in the sunlight. Inside the globe are four squares of metal, black on one side, white on the other. They are attached to a central spoke in the globe. When the globe is in sunlight, the little squares react in such a way that they begin to spin. I have no idea how the thing works, it is a mystery of no small order to me. The brighter the sun, the faster the spinning. Set the globe in the shade and the spinning stops.
I have been sitting in the widow seat in my office watching the squares spin in the globe while the workers crawl around on the roof to my left, replacing slates. Work is underway to repain the damage caused by the July 10 storm. It is good to watch it. As the sun drives the squares in my son's globe, the desire for wholeness, for restoration, for healing drives our human efforts. We long to build up that which is thrown down, to make whole that which is broken, to replace slates, repair the tower, rebuild the organ...get on with life.
When the globe is sitting in bright sunlight, the squares spin so fast that they make an annoying little tinkling noise that drives me to distraction in about two minutes. So, I move the globe to the shade and enjoy the quiet.
There must be rhythm for life to be whole--movement and rest, work and play, singing and quiet, together and alone. I watch the workers sit perched like huge birds halfway up the slope of the church roof to rest and talk softly with each other. In a while they will be scampering again, defying gravity, shouting instructions to each other in gruff voices.
There is a point to this musing. It is the rhythm, the ebb and flow, the yin and yang of sunlight and shade, activity and rest, toil and quiet.
I am committed to a church that works with nobody left out. And that can only happen when we find the right pace, the right rhythm, the right way to hold our mouths....
(I love to play basketball. I would be heresy from someone who grew up in West Virginia not to love basketball! Basketball is art in West Virginia. Fred Schaus, Mark Workman, Hot Rod Hundley, Hal Greer, Jerry West, Rod Thorn, Gail Catlett, Ron Fritz...those are the names that moved me as I grew up. The names may mean nothing to you, but for me they were like gods. They were the basketball stars that lit the night sky of my childhood.)
Every day, I would shoot foul shots for an hour. And I came to believe to this day...that the secret of shooting foul shots is holding your mouth right. You dribble the same number of times for each shot. You spin the ball the same way each time. Rock three times, hold your mouth right and then shoot. And the ball goes in if you hold your mouth right.
What we need to do as a church, as a parish, is discover how it is we should hold our mouths. We need to discover the rhythm that is right for us. We need to find the balance between sunlight and shade, action and reflection, motion and quietness, dancing and standing still. We need to experiment with how we can be a church that works and...at the same time...a church that leaves nobody out.
And the way you do it is to "do it ". The only way to be a good foul shooter is to shoot foul shots. The only way to find out how to be a church that works and leaves nobody out is to practice doing and being that kind of church. How much sunshine is enough and not too much. How much shade is enough and not to much...that just depends on 'practice'.
I invite you to stand in the sun and the rain and the snow with me. I invite you to 'practice', in the months and years to come, being "a church that works and leaves nobody out". We'll be moving back and forth from sunshine to shade. We'll be scurrying around on the rooftops of our common life, patching the holes and then resting on the slope, speaking softly...or not at all.
And it will take time. Lots and lots of time. And patience too. And we'll sometimes make a dozen shots in a row and then miss five straight. It's like that. That's the way it will be. Quietness and toil will ebb and flow until it is natural and right. And still, even then, we'll occasionally miss five in a row.
That which is most NATURAL is well PRACTICED. A great dancer fools us into believing that her movement is natural, spontaneous, accomplished effortlessly. The truth is, a great dancer has practiced and practiced and practiced and, even more, practiced, and still sometimes falls, but the performance looks 'natural'.
I invite you to dance...to find the rhythm...to journey toward Go...to risk and to dream...in good weather and foul...in sunlight and shade...toil and quietness and striving after wind.
I invite you to be the Church of God, to be the Body of Christ...to see what it might mean to hold your mouth right.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Friday, January 31, 2014
Food and Hope
I went to a pot luck in one of the Cluster Churches tonight. About as many people showed up as on a good Sunday morning and the food was abundant, delicious and the conversation was positive, enlivening and hopeful.
Food and hope just go together.
Perhaps that's why the liturgy of our church always includes a ritual meal. Food and hope just go together.
I remember a story my old friend Jim Lewis from West Virginia told me. He knew a new priest was having his first ever service in a tiny church about 12 miles from Charleston. Jim did the 8 o'clock Eucharist at St. John's, the big, downtown parish, but had his assistant do the 10 o'clock so Jim could go to this first ever service in this tiny church.
Well, Jim got lost and didn't get there until 10:30 and pulled into a parking lot where there was only one other car.
He got out and met the priest coming out of the church with a bag of coffee beans and a package of Oreo's. No one, not one person, had come to his first service. So Jim makes him go back inside and makes him give Jim communion and then they drank coffee and ate Oreo's.
Eating together, in the ritual meal and in the cookies dunked in coffee, gave hope to the young priest. The next week a few people showed up. The next week a few more. And over time, that tiny parish took on a level of aliveness that fostered hope.
And their coffee hours and pot lucks gave them hope.
Food and Hope go together somehow, in the economy of God.
I always tell people I can tell how healthy a congregation is by two measures--how they do the Peace and how they do Food.
St. James' Peace lasts almost forever. Everyone greets everyone else. And tonight's pot luck went over the top for quality and quantity.
Food and Hope. That's what I believe in, whatever anyone else has to say.
Food and hope just go together.
Perhaps that's why the liturgy of our church always includes a ritual meal. Food and hope just go together.
I remember a story my old friend Jim Lewis from West Virginia told me. He knew a new priest was having his first ever service in a tiny church about 12 miles from Charleston. Jim did the 8 o'clock Eucharist at St. John's, the big, downtown parish, but had his assistant do the 10 o'clock so Jim could go to this first ever service in this tiny church.
Well, Jim got lost and didn't get there until 10:30 and pulled into a parking lot where there was only one other car.
He got out and met the priest coming out of the church with a bag of coffee beans and a package of Oreo's. No one, not one person, had come to his first service. So Jim makes him go back inside and makes him give Jim communion and then they drank coffee and ate Oreo's.
Eating together, in the ritual meal and in the cookies dunked in coffee, gave hope to the young priest. The next week a few people showed up. The next week a few more. And over time, that tiny parish took on a level of aliveness that fostered hope.
And their coffee hours and pot lucks gave them hope.
Food and Hope go together somehow, in the economy of God.
I always tell people I can tell how healthy a congregation is by two measures--how they do the Peace and how they do Food.
St. James' Peace lasts almost forever. Everyone greets everyone else. And tonight's pot luck went over the top for quality and quantity.
Food and Hope. That's what I believe in, whatever anyone else has to say.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Ring around the roses, pocket full of posies...
(I've kept reading the old 'View from above the Close' collection I found. This one is from March of 1993--over 20 years ago when we knew much less about HIV-AIDS than we know now. It is about two men who died from AIDS who would probably live today. I share it with you in their memories.)
...Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
This is a love letter. It is to Bill and to Ray.
"Ring around the Roses, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down."
That carefree children's nursery rhyme that we all remember singing came into being during one of the plagues that ravaged Europe, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. One of the plagues manifestations was dark red rings on the body. "Ring around the roses." Posies were the most common flowers at funerals and their scent could lesson the smell of death's decomposition.. "Pocket full of posies." In the end, there was death...and more death.
"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."
Bill and Ray have each enriched our lives as a parish and as individuals. Both of them, in their own way, have been 'holy examples' to us. They have lived out their deaths in our midst. They have taught us how to die. And in that, they have taught us how to live.
AIDS is a new plague. It robs us of some of the brightest and best in our midst. It takes away life too soon, too brutally.
Ray has been with us for a decade. He was sexton of St. John's and signed the service for the deaf for years. Ray--like all of us--had rough edges. His capacity for anger always showed me how angry I could be. His outrageousness often offended me and always reminded me how outrageous I could be and how I could offend.
But Ray was full of mischief and joy and wonder about life. He knows how to party. And he has, beneath his rough edges, a capacity for gentleness and insight and acceptance that is a model for us all.
Ray reveled in telling off-color jokes to people who would be shocked. He wore tee-shirts to work that always offended me with their slogans and invariably made me laugh. I often didn't like Ray--and I always loved him.
Ray gifted us by re-involving himself in the life of St. John's when he knew his life was slipping away. I will never forget how thankful I was to Ray that he gave me 'another chance' to know and love him in his vulnerability.
***
Bill just showed up here. For the life of me, I don't remember when it happened. And, for the life of me, I can't remember St. John's without him.
He became a regular at the Wednesday healing service. On good days and bad, he was there, reminding us all how fragile and how precious, life is.
His gift was even more than himself. He brought Jim and Lou with him. Jim is the Hospice volunteer who would drive Bill to church and eventually joined him in the pew. And Lou is Jim's life-partner--they've shared a life since they were both 18 and now share a hospitable home. Because Bill was accepted and loves here at St. John's, Jim and Lou felt it was safe to join us as well.
What a gift. Praise God.
I will never forget watching people hug Bill as they passed the peace to him. Lives were transformed--minds changed--hearts turned around. People who might have feared or hated Bill's sexual orientation--or certainly his disease--embraced him without fear and in a great love because he had insinuated himself into their lives.
Ray and Bill both became active in the Wednesday night Meditation Group and through their presence there gave gifts beyond imagining.
***
This is a love letter to Bill and Ray.
It is probable that before Easter both Bill and Ray will be dead. Ray is in Massachusetts, in a hospital waiting for a bed in a Hospice. Bill in in the Hospice in Branford. I see him weekly.
I don't mention their impending deaths to be sentimental. I mention it only because I love both Ray and Bill and it is important for me to mark the remaining days of their lives with thanks to God for each of them.
They have taught me how to die. And, in that, they have given me invaluable lessons in how to live. Lessons like dignity and integrity and honesty and good humor and fear and anger and confusion.
And though neither of them will ever again be physically present at the Table with us, their spirit and gifts will honor us. Their spirit and gifts will honor us each time we break the bread and share the wine.
We are better, more whole, deeper, more open, enriched, inspired, more complete for having Bill and Ray among us.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Praise God for the lives and ministries of Ray Nole and Bill Heller.
Praise God.
Praise God, indeed.
...Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
This is a love letter. It is to Bill and to Ray.
"Ring around the Roses, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down."
That carefree children's nursery rhyme that we all remember singing came into being during one of the plagues that ravaged Europe, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. One of the plagues manifestations was dark red rings on the body. "Ring around the roses." Posies were the most common flowers at funerals and their scent could lesson the smell of death's decomposition.. "Pocket full of posies." In the end, there was death...and more death.
"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."
Bill and Ray have each enriched our lives as a parish and as individuals. Both of them, in their own way, have been 'holy examples' to us. They have lived out their deaths in our midst. They have taught us how to die. And in that, they have taught us how to live.
AIDS is a new plague. It robs us of some of the brightest and best in our midst. It takes away life too soon, too brutally.
Ray has been with us for a decade. He was sexton of St. John's and signed the service for the deaf for years. Ray--like all of us--had rough edges. His capacity for anger always showed me how angry I could be. His outrageousness often offended me and always reminded me how outrageous I could be and how I could offend.
But Ray was full of mischief and joy and wonder about life. He knows how to party. And he has, beneath his rough edges, a capacity for gentleness and insight and acceptance that is a model for us all.
Ray reveled in telling off-color jokes to people who would be shocked. He wore tee-shirts to work that always offended me with their slogans and invariably made me laugh. I often didn't like Ray--and I always loved him.
Ray gifted us by re-involving himself in the life of St. John's when he knew his life was slipping away. I will never forget how thankful I was to Ray that he gave me 'another chance' to know and love him in his vulnerability.
***
Bill just showed up here. For the life of me, I don't remember when it happened. And, for the life of me, I can't remember St. John's without him.
He became a regular at the Wednesday healing service. On good days and bad, he was there, reminding us all how fragile and how precious, life is.
His gift was even more than himself. He brought Jim and Lou with him. Jim is the Hospice volunteer who would drive Bill to church and eventually joined him in the pew. And Lou is Jim's life-partner--they've shared a life since they were both 18 and now share a hospitable home. Because Bill was accepted and loves here at St. John's, Jim and Lou felt it was safe to join us as well.
What a gift. Praise God.
I will never forget watching people hug Bill as they passed the peace to him. Lives were transformed--minds changed--hearts turned around. People who might have feared or hated Bill's sexual orientation--or certainly his disease--embraced him without fear and in a great love because he had insinuated himself into their lives.
Ray and Bill both became active in the Wednesday night Meditation Group and through their presence there gave gifts beyond imagining.
***
This is a love letter to Bill and Ray.
It is probable that before Easter both Bill and Ray will be dead. Ray is in Massachusetts, in a hospital waiting for a bed in a Hospice. Bill in in the Hospice in Branford. I see him weekly.
I don't mention their impending deaths to be sentimental. I mention it only because I love both Ray and Bill and it is important for me to mark the remaining days of their lives with thanks to God for each of them.
They have taught me how to die. And, in that, they have given me invaluable lessons in how to live. Lessons like dignity and integrity and honesty and good humor and fear and anger and confusion.
And though neither of them will ever again be physically present at the Table with us, their spirit and gifts will honor us. Their spirit and gifts will honor us each time we break the bread and share the wine.
We are better, more whole, deeper, more open, enriched, inspired, more complete for having Bill and Ray among us.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Praise God for the lives and ministries of Ray Nole and Bill Heller.
Praise God.
Praise God, indeed.
OK, I'm a liberal but....
I am, in principle opposed to the death penalty. First of all, I don't think it is a deterrent to violent crime and secondly, I don't want the government which represents me to kill people.
But I realize that 'in principle' doesn't cover all cases. Eric Holder's decision to seek the death penalty for the surviving Boston Marathon bomber troubles me, but given the amount of suffering and trauma caused by that action, I can intellectually understand the Attorney General's decision. Emotionally, in this case, I can regret the decision but I won't be standing in front of the prison protesting if a jury determines the death penalty should be enforced.
There are those for whom I would both intellectually and emotionally be ok with them dying--Hitler, for example, or the Newtown shooter for killing innocent children. Luckily, most of the people in that category kill themselves before some authority can kill them....
And there are those who emotionally I would like to see strapped to a gurney and injected, or shot or hung or eaten by wild beasts.
Intellectually, I know it would be rather inconsistent to be against executing someone for a crime of passion and yet wanting people who abuse animals to die a horrible death. But that's what I feel about people who mistreat animals on purpose. It's the only case in which I would probably be willing to drop the floor, insert the needle or flip the switch.
I worked as a Social Worker in West Virginia for a few years and was a Child Protection Specialist. I saw abuse of children that made me physically ill, but I also could understand the extremes of life that could end in a person abusing a child they love. (I did believe, in almost every case, that the parent abusing the child did, in fact, love them.) I would punish those people severely, but I wouldn't kill them. (Anyone who has had children can remember a few times when if it hadn't been for economic stability, trust in love and hope, that little shake you gave them could have gotten out of control....)
But those folks who abuse, starve, mistreat, purposefully hurt innocent animals...in my heart, they don't deserve to live. I can't even watch the ASPCA TV commercials. I just switch channels and write a check....
Domesticated creatures like dogs and cats give us unconditional positive regard in a way that rivals my theological understanding of the Love of God for us. Purposefully abusing an animal is much like purposefully doing harm to God (if you could!).
When animals get involved, my well meaning Liberal principles and my Left-Wing Belief System goes out the window.
Hurt a dog or a cat and I'm suddenly turned into a judge from Texas, where they kill people, as Lear observed, seemingly, 'for their sport'.
But I realize that 'in principle' doesn't cover all cases. Eric Holder's decision to seek the death penalty for the surviving Boston Marathon bomber troubles me, but given the amount of suffering and trauma caused by that action, I can intellectually understand the Attorney General's decision. Emotionally, in this case, I can regret the decision but I won't be standing in front of the prison protesting if a jury determines the death penalty should be enforced.
There are those for whom I would both intellectually and emotionally be ok with them dying--Hitler, for example, or the Newtown shooter for killing innocent children. Luckily, most of the people in that category kill themselves before some authority can kill them....
And there are those who emotionally I would like to see strapped to a gurney and injected, or shot or hung or eaten by wild beasts.
Intellectually, I know it would be rather inconsistent to be against executing someone for a crime of passion and yet wanting people who abuse animals to die a horrible death. But that's what I feel about people who mistreat animals on purpose. It's the only case in which I would probably be willing to drop the floor, insert the needle or flip the switch.
I worked as a Social Worker in West Virginia for a few years and was a Child Protection Specialist. I saw abuse of children that made me physically ill, but I also could understand the extremes of life that could end in a person abusing a child they love. (I did believe, in almost every case, that the parent abusing the child did, in fact, love them.) I would punish those people severely, but I wouldn't kill them. (Anyone who has had children can remember a few times when if it hadn't been for economic stability, trust in love and hope, that little shake you gave them could have gotten out of control....)
But those folks who abuse, starve, mistreat, purposefully hurt innocent animals...in my heart, they don't deserve to live. I can't even watch the ASPCA TV commercials. I just switch channels and write a check....
Domesticated creatures like dogs and cats give us unconditional positive regard in a way that rivals my theological understanding of the Love of God for us. Purposefully abusing an animal is much like purposefully doing harm to God (if you could!).
When animals get involved, my well meaning Liberal principles and my Left-Wing Belief System goes out the window.
Hurt a dog or a cat and I'm suddenly turned into a judge from Texas, where they kill people, as Lear observed, seemingly, 'for their sport'.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Memo from CT to Atlanta
Snow happens.
It happens here a lot more than there.
Cold weather happens--again, more here than there.
But, from a place that knows more about snow and freezing temperature than you do, and a place that has hundreds of plows and snow moving stuff where you have almost none: a tad of advice.
If you can't remove snow, don't let anyone go out in it. Cancel school and send workers home and close major highways.
Don't dare give me the sh*t I heard from your mayor and governor about 'can't fight Mother Nature'--you can't, that's true, but even in a place that has lots of snow and temperatures in the teens, we know that since you 'can't', you have to have good sense.
You knew on Sunday that this Tuesday storm was coming. Cancel school and tell workers not to show up on Tuesday. Don't have everyone go to work and school and then send them all home at the same time and create absolute logjams on major highways where people spend the night in their cars trying to get to the school to pick up their kids and their kids spend the night in the school because their parents are in a frozen road with frozen traffic overnight.
For God's sake, Atlanta, you don't know nuttin' about snow. Listen to the Weather Channel and shut the whole thing down when you're getting 4 inches.
Four inches in Connecticut is a 'dusting', but you have snow in Atlanta, what, every 20 years or so? So don't pretend you know what you're doing.
1200 traffic accidents reported within 8 hours. People in Georgia should lock themselves in their rooms when every 240 months, it snows.
What a nightmare you guys created.
Someone please say, "I'm sorry" to those tens of thousands of people who would have been fine watching TV and eating popcorn if you'd only shut down the state on Monday like you should have since you know diddly squat about snow and cold weather.
Give us a call next time and we'll tell you how to handle snow and ice.
Have a great day....you deserve one.
It happens here a lot more than there.
Cold weather happens--again, more here than there.
But, from a place that knows more about snow and freezing temperature than you do, and a place that has hundreds of plows and snow moving stuff where you have almost none: a tad of advice.
If you can't remove snow, don't let anyone go out in it. Cancel school and send workers home and close major highways.
Don't dare give me the sh*t I heard from your mayor and governor about 'can't fight Mother Nature'--you can't, that's true, but even in a place that has lots of snow and temperatures in the teens, we know that since you 'can't', you have to have good sense.
You knew on Sunday that this Tuesday storm was coming. Cancel school and tell workers not to show up on Tuesday. Don't have everyone go to work and school and then send them all home at the same time and create absolute logjams on major highways where people spend the night in their cars trying to get to the school to pick up their kids and their kids spend the night in the school because their parents are in a frozen road with frozen traffic overnight.
For God's sake, Atlanta, you don't know nuttin' about snow. Listen to the Weather Channel and shut the whole thing down when you're getting 4 inches.
Four inches in Connecticut is a 'dusting', but you have snow in Atlanta, what, every 20 years or so? So don't pretend you know what you're doing.
1200 traffic accidents reported within 8 hours. People in Georgia should lock themselves in their rooms when every 240 months, it snows.
What a nightmare you guys created.
Someone please say, "I'm sorry" to those tens of thousands of people who would have been fine watching TV and eating popcorn if you'd only shut down the state on Monday like you should have since you know diddly squat about snow and cold weather.
Give us a call next time and we'll tell you how to handle snow and ice.
Have a great day....you deserve one.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Church Time re-visited
I read that unread post myself and I realize that 'church time' no longer is a part of my life now that I'm retired.
I now read 4 or 6 books a week. Given that I've been retired since April of 2010, I've read over 165 books since I've been retired. I've always read a lot, but when I was a full-time priest I usually read 1 or 2 books a week. But now, I live in fiction rather than 'church time'.
I also appreciate how devoted and committed lay folks are than I did when I was on Church Time. My God, lay folks ARE The Church--not the clergy! That's just the truth and working with three churches 10-12 hours a week who practice 'Total Common Ministry' it becomes more obvious that the 99.9% of the church that are lay folks truly are the church.
And another thing--I love the church more now than I did back then. And I'm much more optimistic about the future than I ever was when I was a full time priest.
"Church time" is way out of touch with "Real Time". Real time is about church, surely, for many people, but Real Time is about family and work and friends and figuring out life.
I'm happy not to live in "Church Time" any more.
Real Time is much more fun.....
I now read 4 or 6 books a week. Given that I've been retired since April of 2010, I've read over 165 books since I've been retired. I've always read a lot, but when I was a full-time priest I usually read 1 or 2 books a week. But now, I live in fiction rather than 'church time'.
I also appreciate how devoted and committed lay folks are than I did when I was on Church Time. My God, lay folks ARE The Church--not the clergy! That's just the truth and working with three churches 10-12 hours a week who practice 'Total Common Ministry' it becomes more obvious that the 99.9% of the church that are lay folks truly are the church.
And another thing--I love the church more now than I did back then. And I'm much more optimistic about the future than I ever was when I was a full time priest.
"Church time" is way out of touch with "Real Time". Real time is about church, surely, for many people, but Real Time is about family and work and friends and figuring out life.
I'm happy not to live in "Church Time" any more.
Real Time is much more fun.....
One that noone read...
The 5th anniversary of this blog is coming up in March and I've been going back, looking for the most read blogs to repost in March and I found one NO ONE read. It was only a few days after I started pondering, but the one above it was read 33 times, so I'm wondering why this was never read.
I'm going to try to copy it here so at last, nearly 5 years later, someone might read it....
I'm going to try to copy it here so at last, nearly 5 years later, someone might read it....
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Church Time
I want to write about my concept of 'church time'. This concept and
belief comes from over 30 years of being a parish priest. This is what I
notice when I seek to explain 'church time' to people: most clergy
acknowledge it as vaguely interesting but bogus. Most people just don't
get it because in our culture 'time' is an absolute: an hour is like
every other hour, a day just one more day, and months--except for
February of course--are equal opportunity time measurements. However,
some lay people--most of whom are very involved and committed to the
parish--really get it and it gives them comfort as well as
understanding.
Here's Church Time in introductory fashion: Most church going folks, even if they are very committed might spend two hours a week in church--one for a Eucharist and one for a coffee hour, an adult ed class, a committee meeting. So, at two hours a week, people spend 104 hours a year in church. That is the equivalant of 13 8-hour work days spread over a year. Imagine having an 8 hr a day job which you only went to one a month or so. I would content that you wouldn't accomplish much because the memory and learning curve would be so compromised and when you showed up for your day of work you would have missed almost a month of what your company was doing. No way to catch up or stay even.
Church Time is like that. I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, but because I was back at church today, it began to come back and I could move on and make progress. A week has 148 hours (those reliable measures of time). If two or even three of them are spent 'thinking about or participating' in church, that's barely 2% of the weeks hours. Next to nothing. You might expect to spend that much time stuck in traffic in a week--and how much of the stuck in traffic time do you retain to build upon so you might progress and grow and expand????
However, 'church professionals', like me--I sometimes tell people who ask me what I do for a living is that I am paid to be religious--spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about church stuff--worship, music, education, outreach, program, evangelism...on and on. We have, at the least 50 hours a week to obsess on church stuff. Most clergy spend more time than that, let me tell you, because we clergy are so anxious to justify our very existence and being paid to be religious...which we--and most people--would think a silly thing to make a living doing. That's another post right there...But consider this: the 'professionals' spend at least 1/3 of every week thinking about church while even active members spend 2% or so. So, should we be surprised that most church folks don't seem to understand, appreciate, respond to 'church stuff' the way the clergy and staff do? If you spent 1/3 of your time obsessing on cacti and succulents and I spent, at best--who could imagine it--2% of my time in the same study, would you expect me to appreciate the subtleties and wonder of those plants?
"Church Time" requires those of us who get paid to do it to realize that those we work with, serve and minister to simply don't have the 'connection' to the issues we worry and fret and plan and scheme about. Their learning curve is very slow rising--it looks mostly like a straight line! And that is as it should be. So when they forget a meeting or say, "I meant to come to that class but just forgot" we should realize why. Lay folks are wonderful and profound and loving and truly committed to the parish. They simply have other lives, as they should, and don't live, breath, sweat and digest church stuff.
I'll leave it at that until later. But 'church time' helps explain why clergy misinterpret lay folks so profoundly and don't recognize the beauty and grace of their contributions. It also explains why clergy are almost continually frustrated because the enormous amount of time they spend wishing, hoping and dreaming about all the church could do is totally lost on lay folks because they really don't spend much time at all worrying about that stuff.
More later about church time, okay?
Here's Church Time in introductory fashion: Most church going folks, even if they are very committed might spend two hours a week in church--one for a Eucharist and one for a coffee hour, an adult ed class, a committee meeting. So, at two hours a week, people spend 104 hours a year in church. That is the equivalant of 13 8-hour work days spread over a year. Imagine having an 8 hr a day job which you only went to one a month or so. I would content that you wouldn't accomplish much because the memory and learning curve would be so compromised and when you showed up for your day of work you would have missed almost a month of what your company was doing. No way to catch up or stay even.
Church Time is like that. I have trouble remembering what I did yesterday, but because I was back at church today, it began to come back and I could move on and make progress. A week has 148 hours (those reliable measures of time). If two or even three of them are spent 'thinking about or participating' in church, that's barely 2% of the weeks hours. Next to nothing. You might expect to spend that much time stuck in traffic in a week--and how much of the stuck in traffic time do you retain to build upon so you might progress and grow and expand????
However, 'church professionals', like me--I sometimes tell people who ask me what I do for a living is that I am paid to be religious--spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about church stuff--worship, music, education, outreach, program, evangelism...on and on. We have, at the least 50 hours a week to obsess on church stuff. Most clergy spend more time than that, let me tell you, because we clergy are so anxious to justify our very existence and being paid to be religious...which we--and most people--would think a silly thing to make a living doing. That's another post right there...But consider this: the 'professionals' spend at least 1/3 of every week thinking about church while even active members spend 2% or so. So, should we be surprised that most church folks don't seem to understand, appreciate, respond to 'church stuff' the way the clergy and staff do? If you spent 1/3 of your time obsessing on cacti and succulents and I spent, at best--who could imagine it--2% of my time in the same study, would you expect me to appreciate the subtleties and wonder of those plants?
"Church Time" requires those of us who get paid to do it to realize that those we work with, serve and minister to simply don't have the 'connection' to the issues we worry and fret and plan and scheme about. Their learning curve is very slow rising--it looks mostly like a straight line! And that is as it should be. So when they forget a meeting or say, "I meant to come to that class but just forgot" we should realize why. Lay folks are wonderful and profound and loving and truly committed to the parish. They simply have other lives, as they should, and don't live, breath, sweat and digest church stuff.
I'll leave it at that until later. But 'church time' helps explain why clergy misinterpret lay folks so profoundly and don't recognize the beauty and grace of their contributions. It also explains why clergy are almost continually frustrated because the enormous amount of time they spend wishing, hoping and dreaming about all the church could do is totally lost on lay folks because they really don't spend much time at all worrying about that stuff.
More later about church time, okay?
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