EMOTIONS

There are times in my life when tears flow and I can do nothing about it and it is embarrassing. I don’t want anyone to see the tears because I think that at that moment in time I should be in control of my emotions. After all self-control is a must if we are to live any semblance of a balanced life. We can’t go around crying for almost no reason at all nor can we fly off the handle at the least bit of indiscretion. We have to be able to control our emotions.

Yet, on the other hand we cannot be so stoic that nothing ever moves us to tears, on the one hand, or anger, on the other. God created us to have emotions, to feel pain and grief and joy and sorrow and elations and dejection and whatever else it is that causes our hair to stand on end or tears to flow. Being emotional is part of being human. It simply goes with the territory and we need to deal with it even when we are embarrassed by it.

I was reminded of that a while back other day when I watched two videos friends sent. The first was of a flash mob at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the second was of a magical piano at Chicago’s Union Station. Unexplained tears started to well up when a group of student musicians and singers surprised those who had come to the museum for reasons of their own by singing a Christmas hymn. I’m still trying to figure out how to explain the tears.

On the other hand, I do understand why I smiled and laughed watching the video of the magic piano. The piano automatically played music that fit the person standing by or sitting on the piano bench: accompanying a little girl playing “Chopsticks”, playing fast music as people rushed by to catch the next train, blaring loud music to accompany a man on his cell phone who was obviously upset about something who finally turned to the piano and told it to just shut up.

I well up with pride – and tears – when the National Anthem is played when someone from the USA stands up on the stands and receives his or her gold medal at the Olympics. Yet I don’t feel the same way at a baseball game when the anthem is sung or played. Why this is so I have no idea. It only goes to prove to me, at least, that I cannot control what kind of emotional response I will have to any given situation or if  I will have any emotional response at all.

It is also a reminder that there are times when I have to keep my emotions in check and there are times when I have to let them go. If it means that I have to be strong in order to deal with a situation that will be difficult and emotional, so be it. If it means that I will look like a sap to those who see me crying, so be it. Then, when I step back and reflect on what has passed and how I reacted, can I decide if I need to apologize or be thankful.

We are all emotional beings. For that we need not apologize but simply be thankful. What a dull and uncaring world we would live in if it were not for our emotions. They keep us alive. They keep us focused. They remind us of what is good, what is bad, what is important and what is not. They keep us human.

ORGANIZATIONS ARE CONVERSATIONS

Somewhere along the line I read the statement that “organizations are conversations”. I wish I can remember who wrote those words or in what context they were written, but I cannot. What struck me at that moment was not only the truth of that statement but that it can be applied to any organization including, perhaps especially, to the church, both the larger church as well as the local congregation.

One of the main reasons why conflict arises in any organization, including the church – yes, even the church is not exempt from conflict, he says with tongue firmly planted in cheek – is that conversations do not take place or they take place where they should not: parking lots, in the corner at coffee time, anywhere but where they should. Open conversation is the lifeblood of any organization, including the church.

When organizations fail to communicate, problems arise. When the communication is one-sided or is not open to all, problems eventually arise. Even when everything is going smoothly, when no problems have surfaced, conversations still must take place: real conversations, in-depth conversations and not just those around the coffee machine or water cooler or even coffee hour.

Successful organizations are those where conversations are going on and ongoing all over the place and not just in the board room or the vestry conference room. Furthermore, good conversations, conversations that produce growth, are, again, vital not just for the wellbeing of the organization but for the wellbeing of everyone who is part of it. If there are those who feel left out, who believe their thoughts and ideas and even they themselves are not important, then the organization is less for it.

There is an art to conversation, good, meaningful conversation. And that art has to be learned, even taught. Some of us are good listeners and some of us have a hard time listening to anyone but ourselves. Some of us are good talkers; but if the only ones we talk to are the proverbial “choir”, then we are wasting our breathe and their time. That, of course, is not good.

Good conversation can only take place, however, when everyone from top down to bottom up is both willing to speak and willing to listen and, even more importantly, change when that is the outcome of the conversation. Change: change one’s mind, change one’s way of doing things, and even change one’s heart because what needs to be changed is for the betterment of the organization.

There are times when we do not want to enter into conversations because we see no need because we like it the way it is. But honest conversations may reveal that the way it is the way it should be, at least for now.

For us in the church, we must never be afraid to enter into conversation, to always be in conversation. It is the only way to be church. It is the only way for us to be about who we are and who we are called to be. It is the only way to be.

WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE

A while back before I retired a couple without their three children came by to drop off food for the food basket, and headed out the door. I asked them where they were going. The wife replied: “We're running away from home.” I laughed, and added, “And leaving no forwarding address either.”  They laughed. I've been there. Every parent has been. It isn’t easy being a parent. Parenting gives us sometimes the greatest of pleasures and sometimes the greatest of pains. Sometimes we would do it all over again and sometimes we would run like the wind. It depends on the day – and sometimes on the hour.

It almost always depends on the answer we give to our children when they ask for something: to go out tomorrow night even though we told them yesterday that they were grounded for a week; to stay out late even though it is a school night [“I’ll get up in the morning, I promise.”]; for a new outfit because they have nothing to wear [look in their closets]; or a new pair of shoes [to add to the ten pairs they already have].

     
When the answer is a calm and simple “No,” their typical response is: 1) “You don’t have to be so rude.” 2) “You don’t have to yell at me.”  3) “What’s the matter? Do you have an attitude problem?” 4) All of the above. It is no good to try to respond. It only makes the matter worse. The only thought that went through my mind back then was: I can’t wait until you get married and have children of your own. They now are! Revenge is sweet. 

Raising children is only one of the many challenges of life. For life itself is a challenge, a challenge to make it from day to day, one day at a time, a challenge to see if we can get through this day without some sort of pain, or at least with more pleasure than pain. We don’t always succeed. And when we don’t, I suspect the temptation is to try to escape by simply running away from it all.

           
The temptation doesn’t last very long, thankfully. But in those quiet moments when we have the opportunity to reflect on life and the pains and problems of life, we sometimes have to wonder why it has to be so painful at times. And the fact that no one escapes the pain is really no comfort when we are in the midst of our own. Knowing that another is in the same boat as we may be a consolation but it in no way takes away the present pain.

 

It does mean that I am never alone and that I never have to go it alone. I need others to help me through my moments of pain and others need me to help them through theirs – whatever the pain, however great or small or even trivial. Pain is always intensely personal. We can walk alongside someone in pain, along the same road, as we all do as parents, but we can never walk in their shoes. We can only be there for support.
          
When we gather as a worshiping community, we gather as a people in pain, people who suffer from the effects of our own sins, the sins of others, and from events and happenings that are entirely out of our control. We gather to receive the strength of the Eucharist to help us through our pain, and the strength that comes from the loving support of one another to walk that road where we’ve all been before and where we will be again. But we must walk the road together. It’s the only way.

AN INDELIBLE BUMPER STICKER

There's a story about a man who stopped at a traffic light and saw that the car in front of him had a "Honk if you love Jesus" bumper sticker. Playing along, he gently beeped his horn. The elderly woman driving the car in front stuck her head out the window and yelled back at him, "Open your eyes, you jerk! Can't you see the light's still red?"
    
The moral of the story is not that we better not put a bumper sticker on our car that asks others to respond if we don't want the response. Rather the point is that we all wear a bumper sticker on our forehead that says "Baptized Christian." No one can see the sticker, of course. But it is there. My old theology books talk about an "indelible mark" that comes with baptism, a mark that cannot be removed. It can be ignored. But it cannot be removed. We are who we are.
        
And because we are who we are, we invite anyone to call us on it at any time, call on us to live out what we professed through our baptism we would do and what we believe. In essence, what we say to others, because we have been baptized, is: "Honk if you need me. I'll be there." And when they honk, we respond in love and not like the lady in the story.

Yet it is more than that. Baptism not only says that we will be there to respond, and will respond, when someone honks asking for help. Baptism also says that we will go out looking for opportunities to help even when we don't hear anyone honking. Baptism is our ordination into a life of service. In fact, our bumper sticker is very simple: "I am among you as one who serves." That's who Jesus was. That's who we are. No honking necessary.

           
It's easy to forget, sometimes. It's easy to think not kindly about others when they call upon us, upon our time or our talent or our financial resources. I get that way at times when I receive those phone calls from people in need who have no church, who have no use for the church, but who expect that the church, demand that the church, respond to their needs simply because we say that we are a people who serve others in need and they are in need.
           
It is at those times that I forget that I am called to serve first, last and always, even if, especially if that service is not easy, especially when I have judged that the person who wants my service doesn't "deserve" it. There are times people have said to me, "You say you're a what? A Christian? Aren't Christians supposed to help?" I have no comeback, nor will they come back.
 
I know: it's not that simple. Professing our faith, living out our faith is never as simple as honking a horn. It sometimes demands biting our tongue. It often demands giving when we would rather not. It means that demands will be made upon us when we are least prepared to respond, when we would rather do anything else, when what we really want to do is call the person who wants us a "jerk" rather than seeing Jesus in that person. But we are called to be who we say we are.