As I said in my first post, blogging is a new venture for me. If there is an etiquette to blogging–to knowing what to write and who to share it with–I worry that I’m more likely to get my fingers crossed on the keyboard and offend you, my unassuming reader, than I am to say, “May I?” and, “Sorry.” Maybe it’s dishonest on my part but this is, I suspect, why I’ve said so little about myself as the writer.
By day I’m a preacher. I have a pulpit, a congregation of listeners, a business card with an address linking me to a church. Now what I know, and what I’d like you to know I know, is that neither the pulpit nor the congregation nor the church are really mine. They belong to God Almighty and to the world God is so desperately wanting to reach to heal. That I get to stand in the pulpit, before the congregation, at the church, means I’m just playing my part willingly (sometimes not so willingly) in the healing process. Preaching I find is dialogue. It’s not nearly as one-way as it appears. To the degree that it is dialogue I am (I’ll say it again), just a player, a single player among many. The best preachers are the ones who when you sit down to listen to them make you feel like you’re stepping into a world already in motion, and you’re being offered a seat on the grass. So in the midst of the spinning you can rest, even lay back and close your eyes, provided you reopen them often enough to remember where you are and how you got there. You’ve been invited. God wants you to step onto the canvas, to lend your voice to the dialogue, to play your part in the healing process.
When I first set up this blog and filled out the section entitled “About the Writer,” I failed to mention that I am a son. My mother, quite naturally of course, caught this omission. Honestly, I didn’t mean to not say I am a son. It was just a given to me. I mean, everyone is either a son or daughter. I just figured that what needed to be spelled out is who I am beyond this. What my mom reminded me of though is that without first being a son, I am nothing else. This is a powerful realization that cuts two ways. Some people grow up as sons and daughters without moms and dads. Maybe mom and dad were lost to them or mom and dad wanted to be lost to them. Either way you are still a son or daughter. In my case, my parents had me and gratefully kept and raised me. That I am a son is a powerful given. That my mother wants to make sure I claim this before the world is even more powerful, not because it’s a given to me that I am a son, but because it’s a given to my mother that I am her son. She invited me into this world if you will. She wants me here.
There is a story about a young girl who was dying. Her father runs to find her a healer, someone who can rescue her life. On their way to where the little girl is, the father finds out that his daughter has died. But the healer says, “Do not worry. She is only asleep.” Whether she was asleep or had in fact died we never find out. If we take the Healer at his word, it’s a given that she’s only asleep. But the story ends with the Healer taking only the girl’s parents and those we are told who were “with him” and they go in to get the girl up. I’ve always wondered why everyone else gets left outside while all the magic is happening inside. Couldn’t we all stand to see a bit of miracle? I don’t wonder if it happens this way because the Healer knows that most people, after seeing the girl sitting up at the breakfast table eating again, will still be trying to figure out which one it was: sleepiness or deadness. And when she grows up to get a job, and she gets a business card with a title on it, or she becomes a mom herself, the world won’t see her for any of it. But to mom and dad it won’t matter either way. That she’s their daughter is a given, and that will be enough.
So under the section, “About the Writer,” where I list ten or so things about myself, I’ve made sure now to say, I’m a son.
PleaseGrace 