I'm going to be a grandfather soon. In fact, I should have been a grandfather last week but it seems that the stork sticks to its own schedule and not that of my son and daughter-in-law. Everyone has been telling me for years that when it is your own grandchild, it is somehow different than being a "step-grandfather" which I have been several times. Depending, as always, on where you set your parameters. I think that those people may be right, though I denied repeatedly that I would be affected. I find myself anxious and concerned and on the brink of calling to ask if there is a baby yet, when I know that they would have called if any such blessed event had taken place. I know that they probably have twenty people calling every day to ask the same thing so I have tried to restrain myself and take some of the pressure off but it hasn't been easy.
Of all the transformations that age has brought with it, I suspect that this one will have more impact than any of the others. Being offered "no charge" banking just can't compare with this. Although I am really happy for the kids (if thirty+ can be called a kid), I'm not completely at peace with the idea of being a grandfather. First of all, I don't have any experience at the job. Secondly, it's been a long time since I was around babies. Especially really little babies. I usually have melted into the background when the women around me were playing "pass the baby". This one I will be expected to dote on and hold and handle, and, God forbid, even change a diaper. I'm hoping that it won't come to that, but it could! What if I gag? What if I blanch? What if I simply run screaming from the room at the prospect? Not much chance of that. Being the oldest child and an ACOA has given me an inflated sense of responsibility and a determination to excel at everything, including being a grandfather. As they say, "Failure is not an option".
I think my heightened sense of anxiety is really because I can't wait to see another generation of Nightingale drawing breath. Is it wrong of me to hope the first one is a boy? Like "the bean"'s parents, I will be overjoyed with a child that is healthy. Being exceptional can wait until he or she is three or four. We Nightingale's are a weird breed as any of my siblings inlaws will tell you. We are different and I can't explain it better than that. When we are together, we understand each other extremely well, even across generations, but our various significant others have largely gone away shaking their head at us. That's OK. We're used to it. With a new baby on the way, though, I can be sure that this "uniqueness" will be passed on again. I happen to think that it's worth passing on.
I know that I won't be the standard grandfather. To do that, I would have to be the standard father, and the standard son and none of those are true. Standard, though, isn't always the ideal way to be. Sometimes exceptional is perfect. Weird can even be good. I just hope that I'm still around when my grandchild looks at me with that look that says, "Hey, for an old guy, you're not completely stupid". That might not melt the standard heart, but I know it will melt a Nightingale heart every time. It did when my son said it to me, and when I said it to my father.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Where Are My Ruby Slippers?
I have repeated on many occasions that the best metaphor for the changes in the church is to remember the "Wizard of Oz". The one with Judy Garland. This is not my illustration, I want to point out, but it was suggested at an event I attended in 2008 about the Emerging church. The presenter said that the minister used to be seen as "the great and powerful OZ". He was a man of mature years, with a shock of white hair, who knew all and told nothing, and who could perform miracles if there was enough of a need. Gender, age, and abilities are the key elements here. Then the church went on a campaign to humanize the minister, perhaps in hopes of encouraging young people, and especially women, to enter the vocation, but leading to the net result that the curtain was pulled aside and the man behind "OZ the magnificent" was revealed to be an elderly, barely competent, and emotionally unavailable master of smoke and mirrors. The emergent church, we were told, does not want OZ to lead them. They want Dorothy. They want someone who will walk the road with them; who will encourage them to stay on the path; who will still their fears, dry their tears, and give them a hug now and then; who will constantly remind them of the reward they can expect for persevering.
I never wanted to look behind the curtain, personally. I wanted to believe in the "great and powerful OZ". Unfortunately, as a young man, I was sort of tricked into asking God for the gift of wisdom. God heard my request and gave me exactly what I asked for. If I had known it was really a curse rather than a gift, I would have asked for something a little less challenging. So the curtain is pulled aside by that yappy little dog, and what I see there is me. Not OZ at all. I fit the bill, after all. I am male, elderly, hair whitening with every passing day (if I can keep enough of it around it will be "a shock") and no miracle worker. I always wanted to be Dorothy, and I always felt like a combination of her travelling companions. No self-confidence, no bravery, and no heart. I never wanted to be OZ, though, and yet that's what I am. And I am pretty sure that nobody ever asked the man behind the curtain what HE saw when it was drawn aside.
OZ saw three travellers on the road, who wanted what each one imagined that they needed. They had proved themselves worthy by accomplishing the task he set before them, and they had, in effect, "worked a miracle" by overcoming the Wicked Witch of the West. He understood that what they imagined they needed wasn't, in fact, what they really needed. Finally, he knew he couldn't give them what they were asking for. He saw that they already had a heart, a brain and courage, and the means to get home, and he knew that the only thing he had to give them was more smoke and mirrors. Heavy on the mirrors.
I know that feeling. I have looked at the work that congregations have done and been in awe of the miracles that they have accomplished. I know that it wasn't because of anything I did, or taught, or gave. I can see that they have the gifts within themselves to be successful in whatever they choose to do. I see that the only thing I can do for them, to help them to get what they have asked for, is to hold up a mirror and say, "Look at yourself! See your courage! See your heart! See your brains! Take these gifts and change the world!" Congregations have lots of brains, heart and courage but little self-confidence. OZ gave the travellers a degree, a ticker, a medal and a magic formula. I have tried all my working life to give my congregations self-confidence by giving them faith. I have tried to tell them that if they believe in God, and they believe that God loves them, then they will discover that they can move mountains. Mostly, I have been unsuccessful. Tripped up by the truism that you can't teach faith or give faith to someone else. I keep hoping for the right course, the right book, the right mentor who will teach me how Dorothy did it, but I know that it is probably too late for me to start down the Yellow Brick Road. I keep clicking my heels and chanting, "There's no place like home" but nothing ever happens, it seems. Little wonder. No ruby slippers.
All I know for sure is that I am not in Kansas any longer. Toto is gone. The Emerald City has lost some of its glow. But I'm still here. I still have a job to do. I still have a calling. I still have an expectation of myself, and most importantly, I still have faith. If not in my own abilities, I certainly have faith in congregations to work miracles and in God to provide a handy pail of water whenever things get threatening. Maybe I've always been home and that's why the chant never seems to work. You don't need ruby slippers to grow where you're planted.
I never wanted to look behind the curtain, personally. I wanted to believe in the "great and powerful OZ". Unfortunately, as a young man, I was sort of tricked into asking God for the gift of wisdom. God heard my request and gave me exactly what I asked for. If I had known it was really a curse rather than a gift, I would have asked for something a little less challenging. So the curtain is pulled aside by that yappy little dog, and what I see there is me. Not OZ at all. I fit the bill, after all. I am male, elderly, hair whitening with every passing day (if I can keep enough of it around it will be "a shock") and no miracle worker. I always wanted to be Dorothy, and I always felt like a combination of her travelling companions. No self-confidence, no bravery, and no heart. I never wanted to be OZ, though, and yet that's what I am. And I am pretty sure that nobody ever asked the man behind the curtain what HE saw when it was drawn aside.
OZ saw three travellers on the road, who wanted what each one imagined that they needed. They had proved themselves worthy by accomplishing the task he set before them, and they had, in effect, "worked a miracle" by overcoming the Wicked Witch of the West. He understood that what they imagined they needed wasn't, in fact, what they really needed. Finally, he knew he couldn't give them what they were asking for. He saw that they already had a heart, a brain and courage, and the means to get home, and he knew that the only thing he had to give them was more smoke and mirrors. Heavy on the mirrors.
I know that feeling. I have looked at the work that congregations have done and been in awe of the miracles that they have accomplished. I know that it wasn't because of anything I did, or taught, or gave. I can see that they have the gifts within themselves to be successful in whatever they choose to do. I see that the only thing I can do for them, to help them to get what they have asked for, is to hold up a mirror and say, "Look at yourself! See your courage! See your heart! See your brains! Take these gifts and change the world!" Congregations have lots of brains, heart and courage but little self-confidence. OZ gave the travellers a degree, a ticker, a medal and a magic formula. I have tried all my working life to give my congregations self-confidence by giving them faith. I have tried to tell them that if they believe in God, and they believe that God loves them, then they will discover that they can move mountains. Mostly, I have been unsuccessful. Tripped up by the truism that you can't teach faith or give faith to someone else. I keep hoping for the right course, the right book, the right mentor who will teach me how Dorothy did it, but I know that it is probably too late for me to start down the Yellow Brick Road. I keep clicking my heels and chanting, "There's no place like home" but nothing ever happens, it seems. Little wonder. No ruby slippers.
All I know for sure is that I am not in Kansas any longer. Toto is gone. The Emerald City has lost some of its glow. But I'm still here. I still have a job to do. I still have a calling. I still have an expectation of myself, and most importantly, I still have faith. If not in my own abilities, I certainly have faith in congregations to work miracles and in God to provide a handy pail of water whenever things get threatening. Maybe I've always been home and that's why the chant never seems to work. You don't need ruby slippers to grow where you're planted.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Deck Chair, Anyone?
Last night there was a meeting of Hamilton Presbytery, and I came away, as I often do, with the idea that we are spending a great deal of time re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Even though, at several administrative intersections, people yelled, "THE BOAT IS SINKING" (metaphorically), we went right on doing business as usual. This is especially troubling after spending the weekend with one of North America's foremost consultants in church matters, namely, Alice Mann of the Alban Institute. Towards the end of her presentation, while she was fielding questions about the "emerging church", I asked her if it wouldn't be better if the "mainline" church (which is rapidly becoming the sideline church) just had the good sense to lay down and die, and let whatever will replace it "emerge", since all of us, including Dr. Mann, admit that we have no idea what the "emerging church" will look like. I was reminded of the lines from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran that says "You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams." Alice confided to her driver, on the way back to the airport, that the question was one of the few she has been asked that left her without a ready answer. I admit that it sounds like a really negative view of the church, and I will further admit that I have not been immune to that attitude, but I didn't mean it in a negative way. I really want to know what we can realistically do to midwife the birth of the emerging church that will keep it from being dragged down by our more traditional view. Was Martin Luther being negative when he resisted the theology of the Roman Catholic church? Was John Wesley being negative when he abandoned his institutional predecessors? Is Bob Nightingale negative in saying that the institutional church is more in the way of the emergent church than helpful to it?
In the meantime, we talked about re-aligning small rural churches so they can feel better about themselves, and making upgrade loans to small churches so they can stay open a little longer, or morph into something the founders would never recognize as a church. We talked about cutting costs across the board, changing the way in which newly ordained ministers find a first pastoral charge, and chatted about the sad plight of university chaplaincy funding. The truth is that we are growing smaller and yet we are still asking those fewer, older people to funnel a greater and greater number of dollars into the upkeep of an institution which, again, everyone tells us is not relevant to the next generation.
It's time we started to ask the tough questions, I'm afraid, about what the church is, what business it is in, and how business is going. Closing churches is not the answer. Anyone who thinks we can close churches and maintain ministry is living in an urban centre where they don't know the person in the next cell. Spending money on youth work that is designed to entertain instead of convert is not the answer either. More and more, I think we should understand that the church of our parents, of the fifties and sixties, is on palliative care and treat it appropriately. Let's take care of the people in our pews, mostly seniors, and the people in our community that need our help, as much as we can, and slowly slip into the coma where we barely keep our metaphorical lungs and heart moving until the release of death. There is great grief in this, I know. But where there is grief, there is comfort. This way we don't saddle the next generation of Christians with Gothic buildings, obsolete instruments, arthritic administration, and antediluvian forms of worship that we struggle with. If we are going to die, and if we need to die in order to make room for the next generation to become the church, then let's get on with it and stop crying about it. If there are tears, let them be for ourselves and not for the future. If their is sorrow, let it be that we are sorry we held on so long to what we valued but our children and grandchildren never did. If there is pain, let it be the birth pangs of a new church, conceived in faith, nurtured on God's love, and growing into a new reality. It feels GOOD to think about that. I may go down with the ship. That's OK. It was my ship. But my grandchildren will rescue themselves because I gave them the room to do so.
In the meantime, we talked about re-aligning small rural churches so they can feel better about themselves, and making upgrade loans to small churches so they can stay open a little longer, or morph into something the founders would never recognize as a church. We talked about cutting costs across the board, changing the way in which newly ordained ministers find a first pastoral charge, and chatted about the sad plight of university chaplaincy funding. The truth is that we are growing smaller and yet we are still asking those fewer, older people to funnel a greater and greater number of dollars into the upkeep of an institution which, again, everyone tells us is not relevant to the next generation.
It's time we started to ask the tough questions, I'm afraid, about what the church is, what business it is in, and how business is going. Closing churches is not the answer. Anyone who thinks we can close churches and maintain ministry is living in an urban centre where they don't know the person in the next cell. Spending money on youth work that is designed to entertain instead of convert is not the answer either. More and more, I think we should understand that the church of our parents, of the fifties and sixties, is on palliative care and treat it appropriately. Let's take care of the people in our pews, mostly seniors, and the people in our community that need our help, as much as we can, and slowly slip into the coma where we barely keep our metaphorical lungs and heart moving until the release of death. There is great grief in this, I know. But where there is grief, there is comfort. This way we don't saddle the next generation of Christians with Gothic buildings, obsolete instruments, arthritic administration, and antediluvian forms of worship that we struggle with. If we are going to die, and if we need to die in order to make room for the next generation to become the church, then let's get on with it and stop crying about it. If there are tears, let them be for ourselves and not for the future. If their is sorrow, let it be that we are sorry we held on so long to what we valued but our children and grandchildren never did. If there is pain, let it be the birth pangs of a new church, conceived in faith, nurtured on God's love, and growing into a new reality. It feels GOOD to think about that. I may go down with the ship. That's OK. It was my ship. But my grandchildren will rescue themselves because I gave them the room to do so.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Why the "Accidental Pastor"?
When I was forced into the first difficult decision in setting up this blog, I was amazed at how few thoughts I had about what I might call this site. They all seemed to thrash around the word "pulpit" in some form or other. I understand that because, within my role as a minister in the United Church, I see myself primarily as a preacher rather than anything else. The truth is, though, I never expected to be in this profession in the first place. I wanted to be a librarian, or failing that, a hired-gun researcher which would allow me to read, learn, investigate, and limit my interactions with the public. I was well on my way in university before my "Road to Damascus" or "Burning Bush". There was an investigation by the police of some nefarious goings on in my summer workplace, a small car accident, a moment of despair, and then the heavens opened and the clouds parted and the light shone and a loud booming male voice said, "I have a job for you". Nonsense. No opening heavens, parting clouds or booming male voice. Just the growing thought that I should be a minister. Tough to do since I didn't really have a faith, a church, or much knowledge about the Bible. Just a constant, gentle, push in one direction. And whenever I veered from that direction, the undergrowth closed in, things got dark and murky, and the only open path seemed to take me back to the one I had left. It was spooky at times. It still is. If Moses should have been passed over because he was a stutterer, I should have been passed over because I was a pagan. It didn't seem to matter. When I needed greater faith, it came. When I needed gifts to preach, they grew. When I needed to be able to relate to people and not get completely drained, I found a reservoir called Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Hence, the Accidental Pastor.
I've created this space primarily as a way to reach out to my congregation at Stoney Creek United Church but also to follow my "geek side". I've been playing on computers since my friend Roger got his frist TRS-80. My son, Johnathan works for Firefox Mozilla, in part, because he grew up on my Commodore 64 (I still have the button that says, I Heart My 64). For me computers have always been more fun than ministry and now I get to use them together. I might not be in seventh heaven yet, but I'm working my way upward. I hope that I can be faithful in what I write, and faithful in responding to those who comment. I also hope that I can be at least a little entertaining in the process. But isn't that what every blogger wants?
I've created this space primarily as a way to reach out to my congregation at Stoney Creek United Church but also to follow my "geek side". I've been playing on computers since my friend Roger got his frist TRS-80. My son, Johnathan works for Firefox Mozilla, in part, because he grew up on my Commodore 64 (I still have the button that says, I Heart My 64). For me computers have always been more fun than ministry and now I get to use them together. I might not be in seventh heaven yet, but I'm working my way upward. I hope that I can be faithful in what I write, and faithful in responding to those who comment. I also hope that I can be at least a little entertaining in the process. But isn't that what every blogger wants?
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