Talk With the Preacher

I’m surprised by my feelings, since I have years of experience dealing with this very thing.

My experience, of course, comes from growing up in the same family system as my sister, Maile, who was then very popular, captain of the cheerleading squad and homecoming queen and is now gorgeous, mother of 4 children whom she homeschools, and devoted wife who makes her husband’s lunch every morning. For years I have wanted to hate her, or at least live with some degree of self-righteous indignation, but the problem is that my sister is possibly the nicest person on the entire planet, totally and completely undeserving of my resentment.

It’s just so unfair.

Anyway, similar feelings emerged when I met Heather Entrekin. Heather is a former member of Calvary who is now pastor at Prairie Baptist Church in Kansas and is currently taking sabbatical time to read, reflect and think about the church from the outside in. In order to do that, Heather has found an apartment in DC’s Chinatown and is immersing herself in the life of the city and the rhythms of Calvary’s congregational life.

My initial response to hearing of Heather’s plans was to wonder aloud why on earth she’d want to spend time here at Calvary while on sabbatical. My secondary and more gut-wrenching response was a huge and overwhelming wave of envy, which has only gotten bigger as I’ve watched Heather take art classes at the Smithsonian, devour books I’ve been wanting to read, stroll through Eastern Market deciding on the fly what to cook for dinner, etc., etc., etc.

I just have to say: dealing with my envy would be so much easier if Heather were mean. Or stuck up. Or ugly or not too smart or clearly not very spiritual.

The problem is, when you meet Heather you can tell instantly she is the exact opposite of all these things. She’s nice and friendly. She’s a really good listener. She’s very calm and self-possessed. She has a soft and comforting voice that she uses to speak truth and also claim the work of God in the world. She’s not starry-eyed about ministry; she cries right along with you. And she has great ideas about text and faith and community and church.

I think I am going to have to put her in the lofty category my sister inhabits, in fact.  But I won’t stop being jealous.  The truth is: watching Heather soak up the joy of solitude and reflection is enough to make me drool (if only I had time).

Because I can’t hate her and I can’t join her, what I’ve decided is that I will become a sabbatical voyeur, peering into Heather’s experience and trying to remember to find little pockets of sabbatical wherever I can and taking moments to (if breathlessly) thank God (again) for bringing another wonderful colleague and friend to walk alongside for a little while.

Join me in peering over Heather’s shoulder as she experiences sabbatical!

You know, sometimes the best thing you can say is, “who cares?”

One of my nagging problems is that I seem to care too much, mostly about stupid things, like whether or not my children are eating enough vegetables or, alternatively, whether everyone is happy about everything all the time.

You know I have about as much control over the first issue as I do the second.

I know the world needs compulsive worrywarts like myself (at least that’s what I like to believe) but sometimes all the things that need my worrisome attention get to be a little too heavy for me to carry around. And also at least marginally function. When that happens all the concerns I’ve packed onto my shoulders, most of which I cannot control no matter how hard I try, push me down and hold me there until I feel like a fish who’s jumped too high and ended up flopping around on a pier.

My husband Mark, who some might say could care a little more about things, says that when I feel like a flopping fish I’ve got to let it go-release the responsibility for everything I can’t possibly ever control and let it float away. Say it as you exhale . . . “who cares?”

Who cares if that’s a decision I would not have made? Who cares if the science project is turned in late? Who cares if I can’t make the meeting? Who cares if she chooses to be unhappy? Who cares if the house isn’t clean?

Who cares?

Feels good, doesn’t it? Letting go as you breathe out and surrendering responsibility for everything you can’t possibly control no matter how hard you try? Yes, it does, actually. If feels freeing and light, it feels like flying, finally moving through life without carrying all that extra stuff.

Who cares?

The problem is that, no matter how hard I try, I care. I care a little more sometimes than others, and probably a lot about things that don’t matter in the end. I care way too much for things I can’t control and people who won’t be happy even if I stand on my head.

I am betting Jesus had some disciples with the very same problem I have. That might explain why he told them, “Therefore I tell you, don’t worry about your life . . . “, which, in my estimation, was Jesus’ way of saying “who cares?” Jesus’ admonition comes right on the heels of his parable about the rich man who didn’t have any place to store all his excess grain and who threw himself into the task of accumulating more and more and more . . . all the while missing the fact that his life was fast coming to an end-my Bible calls that one the parable of the Rich Fool. Ouch.

So I am going to work on saying, “who cares?” I’ll try not to say it to folks who find themselves in momentary crisis, but I will try to say it about science projects and messy closets and perpetually unhappy people and all the things I can’t control no matter how hard I try.

I just don’t know, though, if I’ll be successful at letting go like this.

But, then again, who cares?

I gave up the dream of my children bragging about me on the playground long ago.

When I decided to go to seminary I already knew what it felt like when your parent is the preacher because when I was in high school I was a friend of the pastor’s daughter. 

She would beg us to please NEVER mention in public what her Dad did for a living. 

Like, she cried about his job. 

I never could quite understand this, since I thought his job was the coolest job ever, but her vehement protestations stuck with me.

When I decided myself to become a pastor, I confronted and accepted the cold, hard truth: my children would never think what I did for a living was cool.  (Of course, now that I am the mother of a 14 year old I can clearly see that nothing in my sphere of influence, including my job, is in the remotest realm of coolness.)

I have already grieved this loss.  (Jesus matters more.)  Which explains why I was shocked . . . floored . . . flabbergasted! . . . to hear Samuel Butler, age 9, officially inviting me to be a speaker on June 9 at career day at Oak View Elementary School.  It would be very cool, he explained, if I could come to his class and explain what it’s like to be a pastor.

What joy!  Not only does my kid want me at school with him, he also must have some deep abiding well of spiritual maturity that I somehow happened to miss before now.  He’s proud of his church!  He thinks professional ministry is cool!  Maybe he’ll be a pastor, too . . . !

I expressed my pleasure and surprise and told him I’d be delighted to speak at career day.  And just because I wanted to hear that spiritual depth out loud I asked him why he invited me.

“Well,” he said, “I just thought it would be interesting for the class to learn something new.  The thing is, nobody in my class even knows what a preacher is.”

I can hardly bear to write about this, preferring, I suppose, to live in the delusion that if it doesn’t appear on the blog then it’s not real.  (Please–we all have our ways of coping.)

Alas, as the clock ticks toward June it’s becoming more and more real: the call of God is causing problems. 

 Again.

I admit that I have spent a large portion of my life following this elusive thing everybody has labeled “God’s call on your life.”  It has led me personally over oceans and into the strangest places you might imagine, exasperating people who love me and birthing muttered comments like, “There she goes again!,” among other things. 

And now, even though I would be the first to warn against ignoring its tug on your life, it seems I am being invited to stand aside and witness the movement that God’s call on a life again.

Two years ago I met Allyson Wisdom.  I totally and completely confess to being very worried–what were they thinking assigning this sweet, white, young, Georgia sorority girl to live in downtown DC, a gritty urban center with one of the highest crime rates in the country, to run a program

for inner city kids . . . most of whom were teenaged boys?  Yet the last two years of watching the call of God take hold of a life and propel it to unthinkable possibilities has been nothing short of astounding. 

In June Allyson (far right) will finish her two-year assignment as director of Calvary’s Horizons Club, an afterschool club for inner city kids.  She’ll wrap up an incredible two-year tenure of organizational mastery and relational miracles.  She’ll pack her boxes and leave us . . . to follow the call of God to what’s next for her. 

Of course, following the call of God is what got her here in the first place. 

And kids like Joy and Ferlando will never be the same after knowing her stable, faith-infused presence in their lives. 

And those of us who have been her colleagues will pause, again and again and again, to admire her faithfulness and to thank God for directing her journey of faith to intersect with ours, if only for a little while.

But all of us will also be wondering about where this call of God leaves us.  Who will plan the next Spring Break Horizons trip?  Who will be a faithful presence in the lives of these kids who need one so much?  Who on earth will be able to take Allyson’s place?

No one, really. 

But I’ve lived long enough with the call of God to know that someone else out there is also feelng the need to answer a call from God.  And that someone will be just the person that Joy and Ferlando and Calvary Baptist Church need next.

Such is the mystery of the call of God . . .  giving us just the right person . . . and then another right person . . . reminding us that we are never the creators of God’s work in the world, only faithful midwives who have the holy honor of standing by and watching, and sometimes pitching in a little.

Thank you, Allyson for having the courage to answer God’s call . . . every time.