The Wandering Shepherd

Prayer requests.

They always seem to draw an endless stream of illnesses–ours, our family’s, our relatives’, our pets’, our friends’, our friends’ neighbors’ and then often, you even get requests for people even more obscure.  We take these lists and we pass them as broadly as we can.

We used to send these things out via church prayer chains–this person calls that one and that one calls that one until everyone knows everything and everyone is praying.  With the internet, we can pass the scoop on with a few keystrokes.  Then we get creative.  Facebook pages get 1,000,000 prayers for a little girl with cancer.  Chain emails win God over with 1,000,000 forwards about a woman in a car accident.

We feel very spiritual passing out prayer requests.

My daughter broke her arm.  Should we have people pray about her arm?  Should we give it a Facebook page?  Should we send out emails?  Should we warm up the phone lines?

There is something good about praying for broken bones.  We all pray and God heals.  We give God the glory for a whole arm.  We count it as a prayer answered because the bone healed.  Faith is bolstered.

But bones heal when they are set and put in a cast.  Prayer or no prayer, God causes the bones of the righteous and the wicked to heal.

But we like to pray for broken bones.  They heal.

Even cancer.  Even something terminal.  We still like to pray about it.  We can do a scan and see progress.  We can report a new treatment.  Doctors document the progress or the further need of prayer.  It is all very clinical.  We give God praise for progress.  We remember His faithfulness even in death.

It emails well.

You know what doesn’t email well?  Broken hearts.

Broken hearts have no metrics to know if they are mending.  There are no tests to say they are improving.  There are no doctors to declare them healed.

Broken hearts have a privacy that broken bones do not.  There is no shame and no real need for privacy when it comes to broken bones.  Broken bones are the result of specific, physical forces.  Broken bones heal when you put them back together and give them a bit of time.

Broken hearts have causes which are not nearly as clean and neat.  They come from violence, tragedy, fear, shame, and a host of other reasons which are equally unseemly.  Broken hearts heal with the gentle care of a few trusted friends, but they are exacerbated by being shared indiscriminately.

Broken hearts don’t need a million emails, or their own Facebook page, broken hearts need real friends who take the time to care.

When churches insist on focusing their energy on broken bones, broken hearts are subverted, ignored and hidden.  Broken bones that are not set right might make you limp.  Broken hearts can kill you.

I don’t know how to get out.  I can’t stop rethinking everything.

God, please quiet my mind.  Please quiet my soul.  Please give me peace.

Had a great visit over coffee with R.  Love that guy.

Apparently the whole review thing arises because there are several people (like M and M2) who don’t like that I am not preaching the sectarian doctrines of our denomination.  (Never mind that I am just preaching through a book and those sacred cows have not even been addressed.)

At one point R asked me, “So what do we do with the weaker brother?”

I asked him to clarify who he meant.

“The ones whose dogma are rattled by the preaching through Mark.”

I said, “We just keep rattling them until they crucify us.”

He was taken back.  But our conversation went to the way such dogmatic people treat people who don’t fit their mold.  R’s own children fell into that category.  The dogma police run those people off.  They greet them at the door with dogmatic questions and follow them home to quiz them further.

If someone doesn’t fit, they show them the door.

I say that causes more damage than the rattling of any legalistic foundation.

R agreed.

Let the temple walls fall down and let the resurrected Jesus be raised in its place.

Don’t worry.  Don’t be anxious.  Seek first the Kingdom and all these things…

I have been sitting in my office staring at a screen for a long time.  I am not even sure how long.  Things just circulating in my head and not stopping.  I’ll list them, maybe that will help.

1.  Last Sunday was one of my daughter’s birthday.  We had one grandmother in from out of town, we went to lunch after church.  No party.  My mother comes into my office today dejected because we didn’t invite her to the birthday celebrations.  I didn’t even know we had a birthday celebration.  Now I feel bad that I didn’t invite my mom.  I feel bad we didn’t even do anything really for my daughter’s birthday.  My mom is pouting about it.  I feel like a bad son and a bad dad.  Sheesh.

2.  The elders gave me a self evaluation to fill out before they review me.  I spent three hours on it yesterday.  I know the things I want to say, I don’t know how to say them.  I don’t know if I whitewash things and pretend everything is fine and then let conversation bring it out or if I tell what I think and let the cards fall.

3.  DHS, Church, daughter.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  We keep having prayer meetings to pray for the predator.  We still don’t give a rip about the TWO victims we know about.  We still don’t even acknowledge that we have a history now of sexually based assault here.  DHS is coming to interview everyone, but I don’t know when.  In the mean time, I really don’t know what my daughter is thinking because I am so busy with all the other stuff.

4.  IRS.  I don’t think I have even talked about this on here.  We accidentally didn’t hit the send button on our taxes in 2009.  2010 was so complex we took our taxes to an accountant.  Our records were in such disarray that it has taken the accountant 6 months to figure out what to do and we still don’t know.  The penalties and interest tick up every day.  My wife handles all of that and it is completely out of my hands.  It is driving me absolutely insane.

5.  Business.  We run a business that provides the income we need to survive.  It is also the only safety net I have if/when this ministry goes south.  My wife runs it and doesn’t like running it.  We are trying to find ways to relieve the pressure on her of running the business and still keep it viable.  If we mess up, we will be in deep …..  I might be better to scrap the whole ministry thing and focus here.

6.  Relationships.  All of this stuff strains all of my relationships–wife, kids, mother, etc.  I look at worry #6 and I think, “These are the most important…” But then I remember that I have 1-5 and probably 7-1,000,000 that if I don’t take care of, it will all fold like a house of cards anyway.

Those are the top 6 things circling Matthew 6 right now.  I guess #7 should be disobedience to God for worrying over all this stuff.  I am not sure I am the healthiest one in my house….

oh, and BTW, I haven’t even begun to write about all the conspiracy theories going in my head.  I am thinking I am seeing black helicopters and aliens taking me away….. (for those who don’t know me…that was a joke….)

M2 came up to me, gave me a hug and said, “Love you, brother.  I think you are doing a pretty good job.  I hope you think I am.”

I was speechless.  I said, “Thank you.”

I think I should have said, “I think you are an ok elder.”

Betsy made me think.  I actually know that is her job and I have heard she is quite good at it.  :)

There is a song by Styx,

Every night I say a prayer
in hope that there’s a heaven
And every day I’m more confused
as the saints turn into sinners
All the heroes and legends
I knew as a child
have fallen to idols of clay
and I feel this empty place inside
so afraid that I’ve lost my faith.

I see this in the lives around me–not the least of which is my wife.  It is so unnecessary.  It is the ones who are supposed to be godly that are screwing it up.  It is the ones who clutch their Bibles to their chest as they parrot empty platitudes about goodness and rightness while evil slowly chokes the life from this congregation.

I don’t know exactly what my role is.  Is it to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness for repentance or is it to be a herald calling people out of a lost city?  Perhaps my role is to simply fade away and allow them to live their own little dream without the disturbing pieces of the Gospel they have ignored for so long.

My wife and I have struggled hard here.  We have discussed until neither of us want to even talk any more.  We know–if we came only to be light for S and his family, it was enough.

Last night I received an email from S’s daughter sharing the deep fight that still is in her soul from the vicious attack that had its genesis in our church–a fight that nearly cost us her life.  As I typed a response, I knew.  This is what the resurrection is for.  It is not for those who prefer death, but for those who are willing to fight it with every breath.

That is the Gospel.  Resurrection is real.  Life wins over death.  Love overwhelms hate.  The God who raised His Son from the grave will recreate us in His image.

The image of One who bore a cross.  Kind of makes my too much a little like…well, like the weakness which finds its hope in resurrection.

Show me the way, show me the way
Take me tonight to the river
and wash my illusions away
Show me the way, show me the way
Give me the strength and the courage
To believe that I’ll get there someday
Show me the way

Thanks, Betsy.