Audio Books

Confessions of an Unemployed Minister - Part Four: Audio Books

I have to admit that, while I have been walking everywhere, I am not always taking in the beauty and wonder of creation, nor always engaging with my neighbours. Sometimes I am listening to an audio book. One can borrow new or classic audio titles from the library for free, and enjoy hours of someone personally reading a story directly into one’s ears. I can often be seen walking along my treks with those iconic white wires hanging out of my ears and plugged into my iPhone.

When I first left full-time, ministry employment, I found I was mostly attracted to listening to spy fiction. I consumed all the books of these definitively macho (and mono-syllable named) characters like: Jack Ryan, Mitch Rapp, John Wells and Jack Reacher. It doesn’t take a psychologist to see how, in wounded ego circumstances, one might be especially drawn to fantasy stories about heroes who are consistently always young, powerful, decisive, correct and successful.

Once I passed through that odd stage of the grief process, I also listened to some beautiful fiction. One story that was particularly helpful for moving on was ‘The Little Paris Bookshop” by Nina George. This is the story of Jean Perdu, who owns and operates a “literary apothecary” used bookshop from a floating barge on the Seine. Monsieur Perdu can intuitively prescribe specific books as the precise medicines for individual readers’ needs. The only one he cannot prescribe a healing tome for is himself.

“Perdu” sounds like the French word for “to lose”, or “forget”. And Monsieur Perdu must cut loose from his moorings, and, like Huck Finn on the Mississippi, or Charlie Marlow in the ‘Heart of Darkness”, he must journey the river. That journey becomes a cruse through the stages of grief, confronting what he has forgotten. According to www.thefreedictonary.com, another associated definition of ‘Perdu’ is “obsolete”, as in “a soldier sent on an especially dangerous mission”, like a “lost sentry posted in a position in which death is likely”. It’s also associated with “perdition”, as in purgatory.

I found myself caught up in Perdu’s journey, and the book became a prescribed medicine for my own emotional voyage. Transitions in one’s life can feel like being a “lost sentry” unexpectedly “sent on an especially dangerous mission” of faith and trust. The expedition may pass through some healthy forgetting and remembering, and through some difficult deaths of old dreams and expectations. But, hopefully, it breaks through into uncharted, buoyant territories of new gifts of maturity and wisdom. It may feel like a kind of purgatory at times, but the promise of new destinations is heartening and healing.

Alan

Confessions of an Unemployed Minister - Part Three: Alan

Another gift of being in transition has been my regular visits with my friend Alan. Alan has cerebral palsy. He lives in a residential care hospital facility and needs personal, professional care for most of his needs. But, he gets out in his electric wheel chair every day and he consistently does the many things he loves to do. He is an accomplished photographer. He takes photos with his specially equipped camera and he has reproduced many of his compositions as cards, which he sells from his chair around town. He visits his many favorite spots in our city, especially several coffee shops where they know his name and his tastes (milk with four sugars!). He has many friends and he visits the library almost every day where he can get on a computer to communicate with them, as well as to connect with the wider world.

I met Alan through a mutual friend who was the pastoral care priest at another facility where Alan lived. Later, Alan started attending the church I was serving. He would come early each Sunday and we would chat while I prepared for the morning services. I had to keep getting to the church earlier over the years as there was usually about an hours worth of things to do before I could engage with anyone and Alan kept coming earlier. When I was no longer serving that church, I wanted to keep seeing Alan. So, I began visiting him at his places: his home, his coffee shops, his library.

Alan’s friendship is very special to me. Our friendship is not based on what we get out of each other. I think Alan simply likes me for who I am, not what he can get from me. Others meet his physical needs. I cannot drive him anywhere. I don’t have the money to take him on the cruse to Alaska he dreams of. He also doesn’t fit into promoting some ministry agenda of mine. He is so independent sometimes it’s hard to find him. When we are together, we both have to work hard at communicating verbally. Because of his other physical limitations there are many things we can’t do together. But, we can simply be together, and there is something profoundly precious to me about that. We can sit and chat over coffee. We can watch TV together. We can simply head along a path together enjoying our beautiful city. Visiting with Alan each week is an important and enjoyable discipline in my life. Alan is teaching me some important lessons about life and friendship and the way of Jesus. Alan is one of the many special gifts that have come into my life.

Neighbours

Confessions of an Unemployed Minister - Part Two: Neighbours

Another gift that has come to me through being in transition and from walking everywhere has been getting to know some of my neighbours. It is a gross irony that one may preach for years about “loving one’s neighbours”, while, as a busy, full time minister, one doesn’t even know one’s own neighbour’s names. This has been my case for my whole career. My neighbours, in three different cities, have mostly only known me as a blur running out my door, into my car and off to another meeting. Or, we were the family whose house filled with hoards of people taking up all the parking on the street two or three evenings a week. One day, a neighbor asked if it was a bible study that was happening at our house on Thursday nights. I told her it was, but that it was only for young people. I invited her to a different evening’s event, but she said Thursdays were her only free nights. Afterwards, I regretted saying anything about it being only for young people, and I vowed I’d invite her next time I saw her. But she moved away not long after that.

When we first moved into the neighbourhood there was a season of communal intimacy. Before the business of ministry took up more of my life, there were moments of connection with neighbours. There were crises that brought everyone out onto our street – an ambulance, a small fire, a tripped car alarm. These were often moments of sudden familiarity, with people standing about in their pajamas, with an air of embarrassment, not about the pajamas, but about not really knowing each other’s names. There was Halloween, when we shared the intimacy of our children trick-or-treating together, and Christmas Eve, when (with my large extended family) we sang carols outside on the street. But these moments seemed like small seasonal punctuations in the long reality of us ignoring each other’s actual existence.

Now, with most of my ten thousand steps starting and ending on my home street, I have had more chats with neighbours in two years than I have had over the last thirty years added together. I have been invited into people’s homes and gardens. I have helped people with small house repairs or errands. I have given and received big and small gifts of sharing food and tools and resources. I have had long meaningful chats about trivial matters as well as deeply personal things. There is an ease of slipping into transparency and vulnerability with these people with whom I share this intimate space. The missing ingredient was time; having the time, taking the time to stop and chat.

One of my favourite neighbours to stop and chat with is Bob. Bob is an eighty-year-old Greek man. I saw him sitting in his driveway one day as I was walking past. I walked over to introduce myself. I said, “Hi! I’m James.” He said, “You are James Bond!” He’s ben my friend ever since. He is often sitting in his driveway, having a smoke and a drink. He invites me to sit and we chat. He has so many great stories about his work as a sailor on cargo ships. And he has so many interesting opinions about politics and religion and history. I love to listen to him. I’ve met his wife, his children, and his granddaughter. He’s invited me into his home. He’s given me amazing homegrown vegetables and homemade wine. One day I tried out some of my biblical Greek language knowledge on him. He laughed at my horrible pronunciation! He has promised to read through parts of the Greek New Testament with me to help me learn it better. What a gift!

Ten Thousand Steps

Confessions of an Unemployed Minister - Part One: Ten Thousand Steps

After thirty years of full time ministry I found myself in transition. One of the gifts this has brought to me is the daily discipline of walking ten thousand steps. I was encouraged by a friend to make this a habit for health sake. He gave me a pedometer and challenged me to never waver in completing the full ten thousand steps every day. He also shared health news with me that argued that this might be the closest thing there is to a “silver bullet” for personal health. Now I make special efforts to walk everywhere. It helps to be a bit obsessive compulsive. I have to finish all my steps each day. Sometimes I come to the end of the day, and as I am getting ready for bed, I realize I need more steps. I simply head back out to complete them. I know the number of steps each regular route is. If I need 3 thousand more steps, that’s to the grocery store and back. If it’s 6 thousand, that’s needed, that’s the other Starbucks and back. If I only need a quick thousand, that’s just around the block. I walk to meetings. I walk while talking on the phone. I make excuses to go to the store for something. 

It began as a health measure, but it has become a Spiritual discipline for me. It is a holy habit. It’s one of the things that give me a sense of accomplishment and consistency. It is a picture of the authentic Spiritual walk for me. The Christian life is not a sprint. It is a marathon. And, it is not done all at once. It is done in daily, faithful steps; one foot after another, patiently doing what’s needed for today, and getting back up and doing it all over again tomorrow. It is a pedestrian journey.

One thing that I have enjoyed while walking is seeing the details of things that I would not notice if I was driving by them; the particulars of each home I pass; the specific faces of those I meet; the flowers and trees and greenery growing in places where only pedestrians can observe; the minutiae of this world that God has created and invaded and invited us to appreciate. I often think about how Jesus walked everywhere with his disciples. That was their school. As they walked, he used what only pedestrians could notice, to teach them about the realities of the Kingdom of God. While waiting for my next ministry employment, I want my daily ten thousand steps to make me a more disciplined follower of Jesus Christ, and a more observant participant in the realities of the Kingdom of God all around me.