Pre-Grieving

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Matthew 6:34 ESV

At the end of this calendar year I will re-purpose (OK, retire) away from full-time preaching.  In less than three weeks my youngest child will be heading off to college.  I fully expect a call in the next few months that one of my aged, increasingly frail parents will have fallen or have had some kind of medical emergency or have even passed away in their sleep.  And I am increasingly convinced that this year, the 250 year anniversary of the Grand Republic, may be one of its last.  

I've still got a few months to preach.  I am trying to enjoy my son before he abandons us to become a College Man.  I am grateful my parents are still living, and maybe I'm completely wrong about our nation's future, that Dimwit Donnie is just a blip in our nation's history before we finally wake up and realize the damage he and his minions are doing.  

But this year has been one that, if somebody someday decides to write my autobiography, will be titled 'The Year of Pre-Grieving'.  Even as our Lord has told us to not be anxious about what is coming, that each day has enough garbage in it, I'm already starting to deal with the struggles that I know will be coming soon.  

The classic five stages of grief are usually defined by denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. And so given that this summer has found me a bit sad quite often, I wonder if I've already been jumping the gun on the grieving that I will be doing for all of these things.  I've been truly angry about where our country is going.  Part of me is in a kind of self-denial that come the end of December I won't be standing before a captive audience several times a week.  Have I bargained a little bit about my son leaving, questioning whether he really wants to major in what he has said or wondering whether or not he'll really like it there and transfer back to somewhere closer within a year?  Am I even accepting that my parents will die having lived a good old age, since I have seen so many others do much the same thing through my years of working with elderly people?  

I suppose that my purpose in writing this today is to deal with some of the depression I've been facing.  I don't know that it's clinical, and I know that it's not debilitating.  Throughout life I've found certain little coping mechanisms; as a younger man I had a punching bag and a pair of gloves that allowed me to take out my frustrations; in recent years I have rediscovered video games, mostly driving and puzzle games that I can pop into for 20-30 minutes at a time.  But in recent weeks I've found how much I love an early morning walk where I get to clear my head and get ready for the day.  Most mornings I walk around 45 minutes through the streets of our town.  I see some of my neighbors doing much the same; do they struggle with their own sense of the future?  

Perhaps starting to cope with the things that are going to come will be of benefit to me.  Like checking in to an appointment or a flight the day before, pre-grieving has this way of watering down the annoyances of grief that are to come.  I've never been much of a procrastinator, as I try to get stuff done ahead of time...and maybe that's what I'm doing with the future griefs that are certain to come.  Who knows whether or not this is a good idea, but it's what I do.  

You CAN Fight City Hall (and their quasi-official subcontractors)

I accept that there are expenses of living in this modern life.  A toll on a turnpike that means it stays maintained?  OK.  A tax levy in our school district to make sure the buildings are secure?  Fine.  

And so I wasn't all that bothered when we were in downtown Kansas City the other night for a soccer game and saw that we would be paying a parking fee.  It was at 16th & Main, right along the tramway that would take us (for free) to the game.  I got a spot right in front of a payment kiosk; $9.25 to get us through the evening on a Friday night?  Whatever.  It's a tenth of the cost of the same spot in New York City.  

So we come back from the game and there's a ticket on the car.  I get back to my in-laws and look up the information (the ticket is nothing more than a 9-digit number and a QR code) and find that the ticket was issued at 5:48pm...6 MINUTES after I had parked the car.  Yep, there's a photo of our license plate and the spot in the broad daylight where I had parked.  Luckily I had saved the text that served as a copy of my reciept, so I emailed the information (kiosk number, tag number, time, etc.).  What followed Saturday morning was a series of emails between me and an AI server.  First, they couldn't find the information of our payment.  Second, they couldn't read the screenshots I had sent them proving we had paid.  After about a half-dozen back and forths I gave up, deciding to wait until Monday when real live human beings might be back on duty.  

So today was that Monday, and I once again started up and got what might have been a real person who continued to say that nothing had been paid.  Eventually, after a few more emails, it started to become clear that the kiosk that was three feet from my car was not actually the kiosk for that lot, which was a private lot.  Rather, it was the kiosk for anybody foolish enough to park on the street (and so be in danger of getting hit by the streetcars or other traffic).  On some level the agent for the private company I was dealing with that handles tickets on this lot saw the problem, and he/she/it bumped us down from $79.25 to $31.25.  That was something, I guess, but I am the angry consumer, and I decided to keep going.  

I went onto Google maps and found a street view shot of exactly where I'd been.  In that photo there was a white Toyota truck, and three feet away, a kiosk that had in huge letters PAY HERE.  I finally had the smoking gun. "Do you see where the white toyota truck is in this image from google maps?  That's where I parked.  And see the brown parking meter right in front of the truck?  That's where I paid."  Evidently they realized just how unjust this was, and email #19 finally came back and said that they were dismissing this ticket.  I fought the law (private company edition) and actually won!  In this life there are little victories we have to celebrate, and though I likely spent more than $79 of my time on this inconvenience, I'll take it.  I closed by thanking the nameless person who helped and then gave the advice that they really needed to look into this problem, because I'm not the first person on Google reviews who has had this problem.  

Maybe it's not the most inspirational story (my son wasn't as enthused as I was), but in these days in which Trump makes everything turn to garbage, it's nice having some good news.  

Waiting for a Star to Fall, annotated.

June, 1988.  I was finishing high school and getting ready to go to college.  Looking back, I'm guessing that like most middle-aged people, this time of transition was my musical apex, and part of that glory involved this ever-wholesome pop duo called 'Boy Meets Girl'.  They were a married couple during this time, and after having written a few songs for Whitney Houston and others they decided to sing this themselves.  Maybe it doesn't get the radio play it did almost four decades ago, but the earbug quality of this song and having come across it recently on YouTube means that I am compelled to write a reaction to the video.  Let's go.  

0:01 A sepia-toned giant bubble flying through the air?  Heck yeah. 

0:21 After running through the ocean waves, you'd think you'd be refreshed, but no.  Shannon throws a bucket of water on George, because maybe he's dehydrated?  

0:27 Now Shannon's pushing George into the ocean.  Now we got something here...is twice in less than ten seconds we see how much she really wants him to drink that water. Or maybe something more sinister...

0:32 True fact, the little blonde girl was their daughter.  

0:36 "I hear your name whispered on the wind, it's a sound that makes me cry."  Not sure where this is going, but two attempted drownings, maybe that's the reason he's crying when he thinks of her name.  Does betterhelp do couples therapy?  

0:46 "I hear a song blow again and again through my mind, and I don't know why."  Yeah, that's the earbug of this song.  Not sure why it's come back to me after 38 years, either.

1:03 "Trying to catch your heart is like trying to catch a star."  This is a fun, happy, perky little pop song with some lyrics that make us think George and Shannon really didn't quite get each other.  Couples really do struggle to have that connection, even when they sit around the piano and sing.  

1:10 "So many people love you, baby...that must be what you are."  Wait, is she having an affair????

1:19 Is it just me or does he look kinda like Michael Bolton back when he had hair?  And she's got a real Amy Grant vibe about her (but far more awkward when she's trying to dance).  

1:39 I remember when I was maybe 9 I asked for a Polaroid camera for my birthday...I loved that thing, and the package came with a cartridge of 10 pictures.  I took them all within a week...I remember a picture of my grandpa Church walking through the hallway of our old house, and another picture of my other grandparents sitting on a sofa.  There's another incredible picture somewhere of me in a yellow shirt in front of a birthday cake, as well as one of the few times I ever saw my parents kiss each other.  Good times.  Anyway, I used the whole cartridge and then asked for another and found out that a cartridge cost TEN DOLLARS.  This was almost a half-century ago, and I was 9.  Where on earth was I going to get TEN DOLLARS in 1979?  I probably only used that camera a couple more times over the years before it disapperared forever.  Polaroid was truly ahead of their times when it comes to tech...sell a good product, and then basically charge an outrageous subscription fee in order to keep using the product.  

1:44 "I've learned to feel what I cannot see but with you I lose that vision.  I don't know how to dream your dream so I'm all caught up in a superstition."  Man, this dude is really questioning his relationship.  Get these people help, stat!  

1:59 "I want to reach out and pull you to me; who says that I should let a wild horse go free?"  Yep.  This song is about her having an affair.  

2:47 After watching half a minute of a home video set in happier days, we come to the bridge.  Nothing says a late 80s song like a bridge.  

2:55 The bridge about waiting really does speak of love that's difficult...he'll continue to wait for her to come back, no matter long long it is.  I was reading from the book of Hosea recently where the prophet is told to go and woo back his wife Gomer after a time in which she had a been a prostitute.  It's a statement of God's love for his people that, no matter how long it takes, he'll be there to take us back.  Maybe this is a Christian song?  

3:09 Mark #2 of a late 80s song is a really strong and loud sax solo.  Love it.

3:17 If their little girl had ridden a bike in a house, mom would have been so ticked.  But since mom's got all the power in this relationship, no problem then? 

3:24 I guess George is trying to drown himself now?  

3:29 So, I guess it was worth it to literally air the dirty laundry about a dysfunctional relationship if they made it to  #5 on the pop charts.

4:05 One more time with the water.  He's in trouble.  

4:10 "I don't know, officer.  Several times it seems like she was trying to drown me, and then this morning I woke up on the beach as the tide was rushing in.  I thought maybe she had left me here to die, but then I remembered I could get up and run, and so I outran the tide.  Unfortunately, I made it to shore and she was standing there, looking at me."  

I really do love this song.  But it's a lot darker than I remember.   

An End, A Beginning

At the beginning of the month I announced to our little congregation that I would be 'repurposing' by the end of the year.  After 21 years of full-time ministry, I've decided to step away.  I don't like the term resigning at all, nor is this retirement.  I will keep on driving my school bus and will also find something else to do within the school district.  But as for being 'the preacher', my days of finding much of identity as that are coming to an end.  

When I first began 31 years ago as a campus minister, I was filled with ideas and knowledge and energy.  I still have the first two, but perhaps energy has been replaced by a much more humble spirit.  I learned a long time ago that ministry is hard, because it's a calling.  Not everybody can do it.  I liken it to trying to move a large piece of furniture across a room without breaking it or damaging the surroudings or hurting yourself.  Even in a small, relatively unified and loving church where I've been for the past 21 years, it's not at all been easy to try to keep together a group of people on the same page.  We've lost some people along the way who disagreed with my understandings on things or disliked me or disliked what we were trying to do or saw a shiny new church the next town over.  I'd like to think that I've been faithful in my ministry, though as I look back I see a lot of things that I've not been good at.  Maybe this is why it's time to leave...in 2026, I'm not sure I have the proper kind of giftedness for doing ministry.  Can I still preach?  Yes.  Do I still believe in the truth of the gospel?  Absolutely.  But being 'the preacher'?  I'm stepping away from being the preacher because I'm increasingly convinced that this is no longer what I'm called to do. 

I remember at the beginning of my ministry encountering older ministers (ie, guys who then were the same age I am now) and often seeing within many of them a spirit where they might well have been trying, but maybe more seeing what they did as a job than a calling.  I always thought it kinda sad to see this.  Maybe it's burnout after years of pushing the boulder up a hill only to watch it go back down.  Maybe it's fear of not knowing what else to do.  Maybe it's even a heart that has grown cold and has little more than a desire to hang on to a steady paycheck until retirement comes.  I had told myself back in those good-hearted days that if I ever got like that in ministry, I'd do something else.  

And then over the course of several months, about a year ago, I realized that I had become that old minister.  I still love our people, and I believe that my preaching is still truthful and (at times) powerful, convciting, and of the Spirit.  But I found myself wondering, is this what I'm called to do?  I sat with this feeling for almost a year.  I talked with my wife, my parents, and a few trusted friends.  

Finally I decided it was time.  But it's not been easy...when's the right time to tell people you love that you are leaving?  But when I did, people have continued to love me and support me and my family.  One of the greatest blessings I have experienced is that that genuine and practiced love has been shown from the church all the years I have been here.  I know so many preachers and ministers who quit because they or their families were abused by churches.  I've never felt like that.  And after I announced what I did, the love continued.  People have told me they understand because they recognize doing anything for 31 years is a long time.  Or they are sad, because I may be the only preacher they have known or liked, or the only church leader who didn't judge them or bully them.  A few may even wonder whether I will starve...can that guy do anything besides make speeches a few times a week or chat with the old ladies or hum hymns by the copier machine all day?  But nobody has begged me to stay, either.  I think most people instinctively know that it was time, maybe even before I did.  

Of course, the question now gets asked...what's next for the church?  We've started having some meetings about what we need to be doing.  I gave a list of options in the first meeting from hiring a new preacher to reprogramming our schedule to selling the building to even planning for our demise.  But while I have some ideas, the church will have to start making these decisions I've been making almost exclusively for the last two decades. I will be excited to what happens.  I told them the other night that this might be a very uncomfortable time of disruption, and we have to consider whether we are just going to talk about what to do or instead whether we will start marshalling our energy to actually do some of these things.  

A few rocky meetings may well come.  One issue is how much women can lead in this process in the future.  Our congregation has traditionally been male-led, but more than a few women have started challenging this.  I hold a middling principle that leadership is generally about 'male-headship BUT Spirit-led', but more important than what we decide is whether we will act in love and charity to those who don't feel as if we do.  I fear a few people may leave if they don't get their way on this.  This, and many issues, may well cause some stumbles along the way.  

I began by saying that I believe that my change of life is about 're-purposing'.  While this applies to me in particular, I suppose it now applies to everyone who sets foot in our building.  We all have a purpose, but sometimes those purposes in life change as God pushes and prods us by his Spirit to do his will.  I feel as if God called me for the purpose of being a preacher and church leader for the past three decades...but now maybe he's got something else in mind.  I'm excited to see what this beginning will be.  

Reflecting Pool Time Machine

Every single day we see new stupidities from the Executive Branch of the United States.  Maybe it's the fact that Trump's peace deal with Iran is now being shown to leave us in a much weaker position than we were before a war that should never have been.  Maybe it's the continued corruption in cryptocurrencies with his kids, or the way we have alienated almost every former ally, or Trump's big beautiful bloodsport UFC fights on the White House lawn, or a thousand other things that we've already forgotten with the flooding of the zone of stupidity.  The Trump trainwreck continues leave death and devastation in its wake.

One of the current stupidities involves Donald J Trump, Builder Genius.  Because he's decided Washington DC might well be a sh*thole city, he's taken it upon himself to clean it up and recreate it in his own image: giant arches, tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build himself a ballroom, spending millions in no-bid contracts with his buddies to re-do the reflecting pool which turns into a beautiful algae green three days after it opens.  In some ways these things on the surface don't actually bug me that much...DC probably did needed to be cleaned up, and run down places like the East Wing probably needed to be replaced.  It's just that the way he does everything, without any sense of that he's not the owner, just a current resident of the city, makes it terrible.  The next president is going to spend the next four years trying to undo so many of the tacky gold-plated monstrosities that he is building that the things that are actually important as President might be neglected.  

As much as I despise Trump, however, part of me still thinks that the Democrats share at least a minority share of the blame.  Even now the approval rating for the Democratic party is STILL worse than Trump's; this is not just a mark that a. people are stupid for still supporting Trump, but b. people really, really, REALLY hate the Democrats.  Why did it have to be this way?  

There are times when I dream of going back in time to early 2023 and seeing a different history being written.  Let me set the scene: A fading Joe Biden calls in the (literal) old guard of the Demoratic party into the Oval Office: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Bernie Sanders, and a dozen others who have been holding onto to Congressional control for the last two decades.  "Listen", Joe says.  "I'm done.  It's been an honor and a privilege to be President, but it's time for me to go.  And it's time for all of you to go as well.  We need to turn over the party to the next generation.  Stay in Congress if you want, seek to be influential and mentor a new generation, but we make a rule that none of us will be committee chairmen or will run for president.  Maybe we can convince our Republican colleagues to do the same, and so we won't have to ever see Donald Trump again."

That night, President Biden, surrounded by a bunch of these same leaders, goes on national TV and does his best Lyndon Johnson impersonation.  The American people realize that, hey, finally we can move on from the past few years: COVID, January 6, and most of all Trump.  A new generation of Democratic leaders is empowered to step up, the Democrats win against a visibly diminished Trump, the Republican party begins its road back to repentance and sanity, and nothing of the past 17 months actually becomes history.  

Heck, maybe the reflecting pool fix would have been worth it were it a time machine.  I'd brave wading through all that algae if I could change the past year and a half.  But movies ain't real, even as the current dystopia is.