Monster dandruff

My journey through life has offered opportunities at every turn. When I was unemployed after seminary I had the opportunity of pumping gas and working in a leather factory. I learned things and grew in ways that I am very grateful for. One would think the ministry would be such a place, full of fertile ground in which to grow and become and develop. But the ministry is a job. It entails a lot of meeting deadlines, going through the motions, living up and down to expectations, just like any other job.

One of the hardest disciplines for me is to deal with the day to day, the routine and not get buried under the monster dandruff. When I was green in the business, I made sure that I adopted mentors. I visited them regularly and pumped them for how’s, when’s, where’s, and brilliant tidbits that I could claim and use to make things work. One of these saints shared with me that the people would put up with just about anything I had to say as long as I “paid the rent.” I asked him what that entailed. Very simply, visit them. Or more accurately, let it be known that you are visiting them. He told me most of them don’t want you to come to their house, but they want to know that you are doing that for the people that “really need it.” I thought that was rather cynical. But after thinking about it I realized that what they need to know is that we care about them on a personal level. That’s how they figure it out. OK, it made sense. But putting it into action, getting out of the church, away from classes to teach, and counseling sessions, and crises to deal with was hard. Breaking the inertia of my priorities to sit with someone who didn’t really have any pressing problems seemed…, like paying rent. The drifts of bits and pieces of hours and days, of routine business, of times when inspiration seemed far away, and a cup of coffee was my only defense against fatigue, all of it piled up and made it hard to let light shine.

Back in the days when I played and sang in bars and coffee houses and anyplace I could get a gig, I learned a trick. Most of the time people don’t listen to you. They treat you like elevator music and ignore your efforts to bring beauty and soul into the moment. So I used to sing to one or two people in the room who seemed to be paying attention. And if it was a hard house where no one was with me, I’d try to worm into the song and let it speak through me. I’d put me into the song.

So, I started to do that with my visits. I’d try to find something about the person to celebrate. And if they were ornery or nasty, I’d wrap the moment around me and try to find something interesting or hopeful in the environment. It started out as a survival mechanism, evolved to a habit, and now I treasure it as a gift.

It’s easy to get buried. There is so much that sandbags our gifts and makes our moments dim and difficult. But we are gifted. We are gifts, if we are willing to invest ourselves in the moment.

But honestly, sometimes it ain’t easy.