making the most of it

So, God is good (all the time)--

In my opinion, my message at our early worship gathering was a train wreck, a great massive train wreck--I wanted to go hide in a dark place and cry and suck my thumb and wonder why it happened that way--and then Bob comes out and says, "I know you think it didn't go very well, but your honesty really touched me. You did well."

After all the glad hands and "nice sermon's" I needed to hear Bob's word.

The 10:45 gathering went much better in my eyes and I think I conveyed what God wanted me to--but it's a bit of a struggle right now. The summer breaks have gotten me out of the rhythm of sermon prep; the repeated funerals are keeping me out of the rhythm of sermon prep; and I'm at this point where I think God wants me to just chuck the manuscript and go with the outline, and that leaves me feeling like George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? ("Damn, we're in a tight spot!"). And it makes me feel like a beginner all over again.

I don't know. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe I'm taking the task a little more seriously, a little more humbly. Maybe it's good that I'm nervous again when I step into the pulpit (or away from it, for that matter.) My friend in California told me, "The day you stop being nervous is the day you need to retire." So at least I'm still nervous.

I'm worried about my friends not having their visas renewed because she's lost her job and it hangs on a "yea" vote for a school-tax levy--and the state's view of "what makes a pastor a pastor" versus what the church thinks aren't in agreement when it comes to handing out religious workers visas. (For those of you who think we have separation of church and state, ask yourself why I need the Secretary of State's permission to preside at weddings to visit people in jail, and why the INS wants the state's seal of approval on an appointed pastor to offer a religous worker's visa.)

Tomorrow I'm presiding at my third funeral in four weeks--fourth death, though. And to top it all off, I'm living a little bit of Psalm 42 right now, and that makes caring for others a little hard (being that I'm thristy and hungry myself.)

We went canoing yesterday, which was a nice break. Being on the water--getting into the water's rhythm, studying the flow of the river so as not to get caught on rocks in the shallows. It was a really nice break.

So now I'm back in the fray. Maybe my emptiness is a good thing because it's all God at this point.

Pacem,
The Pilgrimm