Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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Not Like a Pickle ...

The past few weeks have been a kaleidoscopic mix of all sorts of activities. There have been lots of new things to learn, there's been getting acquainted or re-acquainted with people and the ways in which things get done. I've continued to struggle to learn to use new software on our computer. Sometimes I think that for every new thing that I learn, I forget two others.

As I've been going to meetings or visiting people in the hospital, I've had a chance to see and appreciate the beautiful colors of the Fall. I've watched the combines creep across the fields, harvesting the beans. And I've seen that some farmers are bringing in their corn already.

I cleaned up our little patch of garden the other day; the frost had killed the tomato and the pepper plants, so I yanked them out of the ground and threw them out behind the blackberry thicket. I probably should have thrown the plants on the compost pile, but I didn't.

My wife and I haven't picked our apples yet; we just haven't gotten around to it. We intend to get them in so we can make apple sauce and cider. We have seen deer in our yard, maybe because of the apples. Perhaps we'll leave some apples for them.

I've been thinking about my plans for ministry. I have some dreams and very good intentions. Many things have to be done (whether I want to do them or not), and there are so many things that I want to do (things that are not "have to's", but would be very helpful either to others or to me). I admit having some difficulty sorting things out. There are moments when I feel something like Thomas Merton, a devout person and a monk, must have felt when he wrote to a friend, "At present I have my hands full simply thinking."

It is seldom easy to think. Thinking can lead to what Merton called "the inevitable difficulty." He wrote to a friend: "It is the inevitable difficulty of one who refuses to accept passively a solution proposed by a reactionary group on one hand or a totalitarian group on the other. It is the great spiritual and physical hardship of going forward without the support of a powerful or influential group, of isolating oneself from those whose thinking is done along party lines or authoritarian decrees, and honestly striving to think in depth and clarity for oneself, under the eyes of God --- a life of obedience to the truth which is hard to see and which is not seen by one who does not seek it himself with all the strength of his spiritual and physical being."

Merton went on to say: "Even the Church is right only in so far as she preserves... the humility and the poverty of Christ."

Thinking can certainly be enough to keep our hands full, especially if we are striving to think honestly, in depth, with clarity, and with awareness of the presence of God. I would like to believe that is the kind of thinking I am doing. It is the kind of thinking that I hope we, the Church, are doing.

The more that I think and plan for myself and for the ministry of the church, the more I realize that what I think and plan affects more than me. I realize more and more that it is not my place to think and plan for others, but to be the kind of person (the kind of pastor) with whom others can think and plan for themselves, with honesty, in depth, with clarity, and with the awareness of the presence of God.

What will it mean for me to be that kind of person, that kind of pastor? I am not sure of all the details, but I sense that Merton was on to something when he said: "Even the Church is right only in so far as she preserves... the humility and poverty of Christ." Preserving Christ, is somehow central to everything. How do I, how do we, preserve Christ? Hopefully not canned, liked a pickle. You and I will preserve Christ by making room for him to live both in us and through us. How will I, how will we, make room in our lives for Christ?