THOUGHTS: "The Disorienting Year that Was"

I struggle still to make sense of 2018, and maybe that'll have to do.  Maybe some years, some experiences never fully line up, never finally resolve in orderly, meaningful narrative.  I began the year confidently, satisfied with my work and growth, grateful for spiritual practice and God's faithfulness.  As unhinged as the world may seem, I felt comfortable with myself, with my vision of community and spirituality and Christian witness.  I'd stumbled through some things, to be sure, across many years.  But I'd learned much.  I'd discovered something like my own voice, my own approach, my own way of accompaniment and ministry.  And to be honest, as 2018 opened, I was receptive, eager even for a new challenge to stretch with.  I was ready.  I thought.  For an opportunity to test myself and the confidence within.

Before leaving for Washington DC, and that new challenge, I received blessing after blessing, more than my share really, in conversation with the friends I'd served in California for nearly 17 years.  At breakfast, over lunch, or long walks through the woods, we talked about the things we'd taught one another, the pain we'd survived, the challenges met in church and beyond.  We remembered wild and meaningful (and sometimes strangely miguided) sermons and prayer circles and soulful small group sessions.  We recalled the stands we'd taken together, and the experiments that didn't work out as we'd hoped.  These friends looked me in the eye with such gratitude, with such love, with such kindness.  I tucked their words and tears away, in a quiet but forever part of my heart.  God is good.

On the way to Washington, in the thrill of that call, that process, I had hoped for the courage (and creativity) to do something that turned out to be undoable.  At least for me.  

Because our youngest daughter was still in school--and would begin her junior year of high school in September--we dared to believe that we could do a geographical split.  Me working in Washington.  Kate and Hannah staying, riding out those last two years of high school, in California.  We imagined long weekends together, vacation days spread out over months, occasional visits midway across the continent.  Not ideal, and we knew that.  But we imagined making it work: for a couple of years, long enough to see Hannah through high school and off to college.

Looking back at this now, I failed in my own practice of prayer and discernment.  Maybe that's entirely too strong, I know.  If any of you used words like that, I'd caution you to settle down, take a deep breath, and give yourselves a break.  But I might have--really, I should have--anticipated how painful it would be to start over again without my family, to build a new life in a new (and--let's be honest--supercharged) environment without Kate and Hannah.  3000 miles from dinnertime banter, date nights and family frivolity.  It ate at me those first months in DC.  Not to be there as Hannah studied for big tests.  Not to be there as she began to plan for college visits and other big moments.  3000 miles.  In praying about my own future, in discerning new calls to ministry and service, I didn't forget Hannah or Kate.  But I sure missed how critically important it is to prioritize, to physically and spiritually prioritize, the most important relationships in my life.  I got swept up in the urgency of my witness, and the wonderful opportunity to do something of signficance at the heart of the American Empire.  Maybe my discernment was self-centered.  Or at least, it was missing something.

At McDonald's, Kettleman City, California, I-5 on the Way Back

The hardest thing about deciding to leave DC (after just a couple of months) was the pain I saw in the eyes of many there.  These are brave people, deeply faithful and hopeful folks; and they'd really and truly hoped that my partnership would serve them well and help them build a beloved community at the heart of the Capitol.  In a lot of ways, it was a great fit for me.  They were open to experimentation and improvisation.  They recognized the crucial place of spiritiual practice and discipline in progressive Christian community.  And they were (and still are) determined to shine brightly with the light of gospel compassion and Christian mercy.  Right there, just six or seven blocks from Trump's White House.

But the challenges there--as everywhere--are many, and they are unavoidable.  Building beloved community (anywhere) requires unflinching leadership and fully invested pastoral care.  And for me, having my heart divided as it was, I just couldn't be fully invested.  Not as I needed to be.  And not as the church needed me to be.  I'd go home at the end of the day, watch just enough of the Kavanaugh Hearings to be unnerved, and weep into a bowl of Campbell's Soup--and I'd wonder what in the world I was trying to do, and how in the world I could ever do it alone.  I'd worry about Hannah, incessantly, and look at her image on the Facetime screen and feel only distance, very little connection, and certainly no opportunity for parental tenderness or lovingkindness.  

I don't know about the rest of you.  But I stink at Facetime.

This sign (LOVE/RESISTANCE or maybe LOVE IS RESISTANCE) was pasted to the wall the night I attended a Black Lives Matter/Showing Up for Racial Justice celebration in Columbia Heights in August.  It was a great night, rich with chutzpah and folks of all ages and races determined to collaborate and risk it all.  LOVE IS RESISTANCE.  

I believe this.  I believe that faith--especially now, especially here--requires a very particular kind of resistance.  Not silly resistance.  Not fair-weathered resistance.  But LOVING resistance.  In the ways we show up for organized justice campaigns.  In the ways we show up to care for the forgotten and weary and poor among us.  In the ways we worship and preach.  Even in the ways we play.  To resist in the spirit of Jesus is to resist with love.  And that means everything to me.  Always has, really.

I learned--the hard way, the circuitous route--that my own witness does not (and will not) stand alone.  There's nothing heroic, nothing solitary, nothing unique about me or my ministry.  I lean on the lovingkindness of so many friends, such a great family--and through them all, such a generous Spirit.  If I'm to resist lovingly and serve thoughtfully, I'll always need to keep this mind mind.  And to keep them close.

So whatever comes next for me, it'll have to involve resistance soaked in love, witness energized by deep friendships and primary relationships, a life that goes out to meet the world's pain and then returns to cook dinner and eat well with my family.  I have a hunch that'll mean parish ministry again, maybe soon, in one setting or another.  But I have still more sorting out to do, still more prayer and wondering to do.  Because 2018 has been a disorienting ride into gratitude and disappointment, courage and failure.  Inevitably, that ride is always a trip into the heart of God's mercy.  The deep, deep, deepening heart of God's mercy.

So that's what I'm thinking about this Advent.  Keep watch, Dave.  Keep watch.