On Speaking with a Breaking Heart

So the word of the Lord has brought me
    insult and reproach all day long.

 But if I say, “I will not mention his word
    or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
    a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
    indeed, I cannot.

Jeremiah 20:8-9

I love the prophet Jeremiah. He delivers scathing words of judgment and piercing cries for justice, but he also utters heartbreaking laments over his people. He is not called the weeping prophet for nothing.

His prayer quoted above is very dear to my heart. I have often used it in describing my call. I often feel like I am compelled to ministry and compelled to struggle for justice. But I often feel like Jeremiah during the rest of his complaint in this chapter. Jeremiah expresses how difficult it is for him to speak judgment to a city he loves so much; how difficult it is for him to be misunderstood or ridiculed by his fellow countrymen; how difficult it is for him to speak out at all.

Jeremiah is an empathetic personality for all of his harsh statements. He feels deeply about the world and cares deeply what others think and feel. Part of him just wants to settle down, mind his own business, and live a peaceful life. But he cannot. This fire burns in his bones when he sees injustice, when he watches the downfall of Jerusalem, when he sees the hollowness of so much religious practice. So he speaks.

But it comes at a great cost. He is constantly at war with himself. He never seems to develop a thick enough skin not to weep over those who did not listen, to weep over injustice, and to weep over his own failure to get his message across. The rejection of religious leaders (after all, Jeremiah is praying this prayer right after he gets out of the stocks) hurts him deeply. He wants to be understood.

It is hard to live a prophetic vocation in the world. To love deeply and still speak. As an introvert, as a person who hates conflict, I feel for Jeremiah. It has to be the hardest thing in the world to do—to speak with a breaking heart.

Follow Me

Wild Strawberries grow amazingly well here, if you are lucky enough to find them. My favorite spot to find them is on dead fallen trees in the summer.

Follow me, Jesus says. Give up everything to follow me. Everything. All of your hopes and dreams, all your possessions and security and wealth, all your certainties and plans, all of your life. Everything. And come, follow me. Follow me to stand in solidarity with the suffering, with the sinner and the outcast and the disrespected, follow me to stand against the power of the world. It sounds like a harsh call. A call of hardship and loss. Come and die, Jesus says. Come, follow me to the cross, follow me into suffering and death. Who would ever wish to take up such a call? 

“And you will have treasure in heaven.” Too often, we think of this as a future reward in some distant place. But perhaps that is not at all what Jesus meant. Follow me and die, yes, but follow me too into resurrection. Follow me into new life. Just as the seed dies in winter to bring forth new life in spring, just as wild strawberries grow on fallen trees, so you too will find abundant life. For the kingdom, which is not yet, is also among you. That is the mystery of the gospel. In dying, you will find life. You will dream new dreams. You will find community and belonging in fellowship with me. You will find joy and friendship on the edges and in the forgotten places. You will live, fully and freely, as you never have before. Follow me, give up everything, and you will find abundant life. 

That is the paradox of the gospel.

Manifesto of a College Educated Redneck Minister

You don’t have to please the institution
You will always come out the doors
to which all are flocking
And enter the hovels those in power
never notice.
You will always ride on the winds of a wild spirit
While others are perfecting yet
another plan at another board meeting
Another strategy for success
with a new bottom line.

You don’t have to care.

You don’t need a mask of perfection
You don’t need a carefully constructed plan
You can abandon the need for
success—accolades—well-crafted
blueprints.

Be yourself so others can be themselves.
Love yourself—love those you meet
Dream of the soil and give that dream
to a child.
Live sacramentally so that the Eucharist
you practice
Can be made a reality.

Love the land. Love your neighbor.
Hike in the woods to find the truth
And entrust what you learn to those
who can give you nothing in return.

Build no monuments—establish no
institutions—accumulate no power.

Live simply. Take all that you have and
be poor.

Live to love. Live so that when you die
no plaque or history book will
preserve your name
But you will live on in the dancing
forest and in the hearts
Of those you loved.

A Day in the Life of a Street Minister

Downtown Aberdeen

As I have settled back in this place, I have taken to walking the streets, meeting people where they are, and being present in community. It is a practice that fills me with joy. When I am on the street, I always know I am exactly where I am meant to be.

Some days, I have to force myself out; as an introvert, I can always find another letter that needs to be written or another book to be read. But I am always glad when I consistently go out. I am just getting started, just getting to know the area again, so I am taking small steps.

Today, I split my time between two small towns on either side of where I live. Elma, a small town of around three thousand has a soaring poverty rate and increasing number of people who are living on the edge. A local church offers lunch twice a week, so I arrive a little early. A sweet man whom I have met before eagerly engages in conversation. He must know half the people living in this county and he loves to quiz me on all my local relatives. As I begin to talk with a group of women, I am struck by how differently trust works in small communities. People who live in cities seem to rely on a certain anonymity. In a small town, where gossip travels faster than you can put your shoes on (as we say), people watch you and get to know you before they open up. It seems like it has been a long time since I have lived full time in a rural area. I will have to get used to this again.

After lunch, I take a break to run a few errands before I head west to Aberdeen, a much larger town at the mouth of the relatively empty harbor. Once a boom or bust logging town, Aberdeen has seen bust for longer than I can remember. Poverty and homelessness are highly visible. I park in the Wal Mart parking lot and start walking, covering much of downtown.

I meet all sorts of people, my natural introversion breaking down as it always seems to when I am in my element. People here, in a larger town, are more open to conversation with a stranger and I even get a date request, followed by a hasty, “I know you can’t, you’re a minster.” A man on crutches explains how he is heading up the street to panhandle, since he and his family don’t have enough to get by that day. I walk for a bit with another man, past boarded up store fronts and seedy taverns. He just returned to the area where he was born and raised, but like so many is unable to find work. In a small town, the stigma of unemployment runs deep. I notice his shoes were nearly torn to shreds for all of his quiet dignity.

I turned up another street to head back on another road, exchanging pleasantries with numerous people about the beautiful weather—the sun had finally decided to show itself after a damp morning. Just as I was turning away, I saw a familiar face and waved. He came up to me with a big smile and we stood for a while, looking over the river. “Do you know what the river is saying?” he asked. He explained, in English for my benefit, but in his native language as well, what he heard the river say. We watched the kingfishers for a bit as he told me parts of his story.

Heading for my car, I noticed a woman with a large suitcase, clearly struggling. I made a detour and asked her how she was doing. We walked her suitcase to her destination across the parking lot and to a bus stop, as she told me stories of her life growing up back east and her visits to Europe. I have made it a habit to accept people’s stories as they tell them—real or imagined, they are always true on some level. And I have often found my assumptions to be completely wrong about a person’s life. I gave her a hug, heading back across the parking lot, where I stopped for a chat with two young men, passing through the area, with their adorable puppy and their signs that were meant to be funny.

As I head back home, I am struck again by the joy I find in this work. It is, more than anything, a sense that I have seen the face of God. That I have learned about community. That I have learned about dignity and courage in the face of impossible and harsh realities. That I have learned to listen to the voice of the river and find the voice of God. I go to the streets to find God and I never fail to find the face and voice of the divine.             

The Parable of the Rich Man

I thought I would share this story I found....

There was a rich man who lived in a fancy house in a nice part of town. He was a kind, compassionate man who loved to entertain his neighbors, spend time with his family, and give to his church. He was also deeply concerned about a certain group of people he called “the poor.” He was always encouraging his friends to give money to organizations to help the poor and he himself gave generously. He signed hundreds of petitions on facebook. At church, he would occasionally speak about national and international policies that hurt the poor and he would castigate policies that lacked compassion for human need. He did much good in the world—wells in foreign countries were dug at his expense and a community center was erected in a small island nation. The rich man was a generous man.

There was only one thing the rich man disliked very much. Not too far from his neighborhood, there was a large community of people that simply took no pride in their surroundings. They let grass go to seed on their lawns and forgot to paint the outside of their homes. There were old cars rusting on the sides of their houses and the people that sat on the porches looked unkept. The rich man tried to avoid driving through this neighborhood and shook his head with his friends.

One day, the rich man decided to throw a benefit party for the poor in a foreign country. He invited all his friends and asked them to bring their friends too. The party was going to be beautiful. The rich man stopped at the store a few hours early to pick up a few supplies he had forgotten. The closest store, unfortunately, meant that he had to drive through the neighborhood he disliked and that put him in a bad mood. As he walked up an aisle, he saw a woman pushing a basket. She had a little girl clinging to her skirts, and two small children in the cart. One little boy, whose face looked like he had just eaten a jar of jelly, was howling. 

The rich man didn’t mean to, but he glared at the woman, who was filling the cart with frozen food. Why in the world do people eat that stuff, the rich man muttered to himself.

And he hurried on. The line was long and by the time he got to the clerk, she was in a hurry, ringing up his tomatoes, destined to be turned into his favorite salsa recipe, and barely noticed him. He was irritated by her rudeness. She had argued with the customer before him and that did not improve his view. Her thick, ugly glasses did not add to her appeal and he noticed her eyeliner had run. Why don’t people keep themselves up, he wondered.  He grabbed his bags, in a worse mood than before, and walked outside. A pickup truck with loud music roared past. The guy’s arm hung out the window, full of tattoos. The rich man again shook his head—what was wrong with people? Stupid idiots.

He was almost to his car, thinking about the party that night and running through his little speech in his head when a man spoke to him. “Can you spare some change?” The rich man, startled, looked up. The man who spoke was thin and wiry and his face was lined and hard, even though he couldn’t be older than thirty. He had a tattoo on his cheek and his hair was tousled.  The rich man looked around uneasily and noticed there was no one else nearby. Without another look at the man, he walked on, more quickly now. He reached his Prius in short order, threw the bags in the back, and settled into his seat.

With the push of a button, he felt the cool air blowing and his music started, a lovely CD of African folk music, recorded by one of the organizations he supported. He sighed with relief.

The party was a great success. He raised more money than he expected and everyone complimented the food. There was good wine in abundance.

The party was slowing down for the evening and people were leaving, when he glanced out the front door. Someone was lurking in the shadows and then turned, seeing the rich man looking at him. He moved into the light and came closer to the steps. “Excuse me, sir,” the man said in a soft voice and in the evening shadows, he looked ancient. “Could you help us out? I come from the next town, me and my wife, and we are trying to get to our son’s place up north. Can you spare a few dollars?”

A hundred thoughts ran through the rich man’s head. The guy was probably lying. Wasn’t that the same fellow he saw at the highway entrance a few days ago? He couldn’t remember for sure. Did a guy like him even have a wife? It seemed like an easy story to make up and tug at some sucker’s heartstrings. He saw a few of his friends roll their eyes in the living room and suddenly he wished that he had closed the door before he saw the man.  “No. I don’t have anything,” he said, closing the door quickly to shut out the man’s face.

Several of his friends were putting on their coats to leave and looked out the window first. “He’s still there,” the woman told him. “I don’t really want to walk out there.” She lingered with her boyfriend for a bit. The rich man went over the window again and, sure enough, the man was still there, sitting by the flower bed. Well, he couldn’t have the guy scaring his friends. And he certainly was not going to go out to talk to him. Who knows what he was capable of? After another few minutes and an awkward silence, he muttered; “I’ll call the cops.” It only took a few minutes and a short, polite explanation to the police, and the man was arrested, and the cars with flashing lights were gone. His guests had enjoyed a little excitement, after all. And the man, he thought, well at least he would get a few square meals in jail.

That night, the rich man slept well, though he checked all the locks in the house before he went to bed.

But, half way through his dreams, came a voice; “This night, your soul is required of you.” His heart skipped a beat and he broke into a cold sweat as he looked around for the speaker. The crazy man from the front porch loomed large. “Who are you?” the rich man whispered. The man smiled and in his soft, courteous voice said; “I am the poor you talk so much about.”      

--Anonymous