Monday, August 13, 2012

Speechless in Seattle

I'm sitting in a room lit by two light facing a secretary's office that is dark and surrounded by a long, equally dark hallway. I will do my work with Pandora radio my only noise. I will in all probability not see many persons, if any, today.

It is a Monday, but it could be a Tuesday, a Thursday, basically any day that ends in Y.

I pray this means everyone is fine. That all their lives are functioning well. That there is nothing they need to, or want to, talk about. That there are no problems, no worries, no malfunctions.

But I wonder.

I see the smiles on the corners of their mouths but the see the worry lines under their eyes and I wonder.

When you love a group of people, you want to help. That they don't talk to you only concerns. It can't worry, or one would worry oneself to death.

It's not the three churches I have now. It's all the churches I've ever served. Very few have ever talked to me in my office about problems or concerns. I can believe they have none, but statistically that would be nigh on impossible.

So, I wait.

I'm not, however, the first.

In Isaiah 65 I read: "I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help. I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me. I said, 'I am here, here I am!' to a nation that did not call on my name."

I wonder, then, why we keep our council to ourselves? Why do we bury deep inside the pain of life? Why do we keep these secrets that can only hurt us, not help us?

An adverse effect of keeping secrets is that they can ultimately destroy relationships–with family, friends, spouses, and other people you may deem important in your life. Some secrets have been kept for so long and have been carried on through a façade that when it gets out, it takes everyone by surprise and eventually hurts certain relationships. Secret affairs, illnesses, addictions, or past actions can all have this effect.

That, in part, is why Jesus told us "...if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you,  leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift." In other words, go tell him (or her) about it. Clear the air. Let it out.

And if you can't do that, go tell someone. Clergy, laity, someone. 

Part of what Alcoholics Anonymous does so well is this procedure. Step 5 of their 12-step program is :admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." Their is cleansing to be found in this.

But there's more. The program adds "made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all." Then "made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others."

Part of growing closer to God, I think, is letting go and giving Him all of us. To do so, one needs to, I believe, talk to another person.

Unless, of course, none of us have any problems.


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