Pastor

• Has anyone told you that you should be a pastor?
  • Yes, they have
  • I’m wondering why you say that just now?
• Then again I guess we are all in the ministry

But more on this question you’ve asked. It’s probably the nicest thing anyone could ever say to me.

This question is always on my mind. And probably THE reason I write. For example, I began this blog on November 5, 2020 with my first post being, “Its Over.” I’d been reading books (aka listening to audiobooks) by Malcolm Gladwell. His happily ever after formula was such that I found myself feeling that I’d missed my chance in life. That I was a failure. I started writing, and I began to draw with words the image in my mind. I was in a grave, awaiting burial… I’m now as good as dead… but as I wrote, God came along into the picture, to disagree with the picture I was in the midst of accepting.

What I did accept is that I am in Him, and He in me. Forsaking all externally imposed goals.

I find myself today struggling to get out from under this same burden. Is it a coincidence that my brother, Andrew and I, always put that Pink Floyd song, “Time” on to play when we’re in my truck, with its awesome sound system?

Back in the early 90’s I found these words in my journal:

“God is my only obstacle”

Laurence Brand

When young and hopeful, we look at our vocation and calling with the freedom of nothing to lose… dreaming and starry eyed we venture forward.

When I write I tend to follow tangents, like paths that emerge before me as I wander through the woods trying to find my way home. So it gets hard for you, my reader. So I’m working my way through what I wrote yesterday, and making separate pages for those tangents.

Who am I now then? Here’s one aspect of my life. Here’s the career I just retired from.

Just Answer the Question!

Well… to answer the question, “Has anyone ever told you that you should be a pastor?” I’d just like this person to continue asking the question.

“Could you rephrase the question?” I’d like to say.

The email address for this Blog’s interaction is:

walkingdownvimy@gmail.com

I remember absolutely years ago, somewhere around 1990-1992, I’d just concluded a home bible study with the church youth, where the Holy Spirit’s presence was so keenly felt, and things had gone so well. While basking in that moment, one of the youth asked me, pretty much as a sort of rhetorical question, “Why are YOU a bus driver?”

Disillusioned by “trying to become” I went to a pastor for counselling. He shifted me to the reality of my needing to get a job to pay the bills, supporting my wife and kids.

I became a bus driver. And then volunteered at church.

I believe that my ministry and spiritual gift is that of a pastor. “Pastor” as in spiritual gift.

Forgive my flashbacks here… but fast forward from that young lad’s question (he himself became a pastor I’ve heard) to the declaration made by a special needs passenger, – out loud – on a crowed rush hour bus I was driving, about 25 years into my career.

I was not there to proclaim Christ.

I didn’t have a pulpit in front of me, it was a steering wheel.

I had access to the handle that operated the operation of the doors to let people on/off the bus.

But as John 15 puts it, I was abiding in Christ, and He in me. So in all that I did, I could and would glorify him.

Still now, all that I do is in obedience to the simple calling to “Please The Father”.

So… how I reacted to an elderly person who needed me to wait for them to get to their seat before putting the pedal to the metal, or when I waited for folks running for the bus, or any other of the many times to demonstrate compassion and care for “the least of these” that rode my bus. By that I mean:

“The true measure of a man is how he treats those who can do nothing for him”

author unknown

See Matthew 25:31-46

Treating my passengers with respect. I often wondered… because some times I’d see a certain glint in their eyes. A quiet thank you to me, as they get on and recognize its me. The opposite of “Oh! Its you again!” I could feel the love. And sometimes I know they’d like to ask me, “How come you’re different?” And we could talk LOL. Well, one day while driving a bus run, daily, a lady in her 30’s who was some level of high functioning special needs, yelled out, “You’re that Pastor! You’re that pastor…” then she began to tell me which church I was a pastor at. I denied it a few times, for indeed I was not a pastor informally nor formally… but eventually I had to tell her, and the whole dang bus, that was indeed my calling, that I am a pastor, and that’s how I drive my bus, serving God and my community in this practical way. I shared my testimony in words I can’t even recall now. But anyone on that bus that had ever wondered got their answer that day, and because of the clear simplicity of this sweet young lady, there wasn’t anything any hater could do about it LOL.

I had no identity crisis when it came to being a bus driver. I had so many commendations from passengers that my supervisor would hand me the letters in a sort of bored, “here’s another one” sort of way, while he talked about the weather. I’d get my hour’s pay, and it would go in my file. The LORD God and this my supervisor, both, knew I didn’t do it for the recognition nor the money. But for him alone.

I had, from time to time, endured objections from other bus drivers who claimed I was making them look bad by being whom I am. I had one guy LITERALLY say those very words to me. Which left me speechless.

It’s no surprise to anyone… I’m unusual. When I showed my 61st Birthday card from sister to people they laugh involuntarily at one particular word she chose for letter U when turning my name into an acronym.

These are words from a lady who loves me deeply, and knows me well.

In the outside world we have the eclectic freedom to do whatever we want to do. In the church; however, there is a prescribed tradition of the way things are, and any variation from it tends to be viewed as heretical. Even though close inspection of it – honest appraisal – would reveal that it isn’t working. Experimentation and / or deviation from the tried and true traditional method is however available to us.

Just now a brother of mine, who is reading one of the books I gave him – Life Together – paused his reading to send me this excerpt:

Having not been in the position of leadership in a church, neither as part of a church board, nor as a pastoral staff member, I find the liberty Bonhoeffer expressed true for me also.

Through my experience in the secular world I found out that I am a self starter, a leader. Very early in my 32 year career as a public transit driver a Supervisor called me out as a candidate for supervisor. He saw in me what I could not. That I was different, in a good way, from the others. After 25+ years I started to make note of which new hires would make good supervisors, and I’m not going to tangent fully into this by making a list of characteristics…

I’m a little bother, fourth born of five. My part has always been to join in on what’s already going on. To identify the leader, and introduce myself I order that I might volunteer myself.

But after having moved into a 44 unit Coop, I found the work load to be enormous, and the leadership worn out maybe. Only a small percentage of folks here actually participate in its running, because there is no dollar value benefit to participating.

I wanted to take part, and it was fall. There were leaves 🍁 on the ground, and I went to the shed to see if there was a leaf blower. Both were not in working order, and when I tried to find “who’s in charge” it was a bit drafty….

There’s this sound I make of the sound of blowing icy wind whenever I or my wife get a ZERO crib hand.

It seemed nobody was in charge of landscaping. As I pressed forward for funds and permission to get the various pieces of equipment in working order, I was offered the position of “Head of Landscaping”

I found that funny, and still do.

If you have any idea what I mean, check this out:

There’s a movie called Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and there’s this one scene that describes how I feel about leadership roles in general. I call it the “President of the back seat” effect: <click here> and smoonch to 2:46 in the video. For better context… see this one also <click here> the big guy wearing a diaper that jumps up to help is iconic. Brilliant movie.

Organizing a Spring Cleanup day at our Coop gave me pause. I found myself in a situation that felt so strange. I had 10+ folks, my neighbours, who all stood before me, asking me where I’d like them to start helping out. At the time it must have been my own fear of hubris maybe.

But there is another kind of truth we tend to evade. Not only do we hang on to our psychopathology, but also we tend to evade personal growth because this, too, can bring another kind of fear, of awe, of feelings of weakness and inadequacy. And so we find another kind of resistance, a denying of our best side, of our talents, of our finest impulses, of our highest potentialities, of our creativeness. In brief, this is the struggle against our own greatness, the fear of hubris

Abraham Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being

My gut reaction was to think, “isn’t it obvious? (I didn’t say it out loud) I assigned various parties to the tasks that lay all around us. Then I went around and made sure they had supplies like recycling bags, water bottles, brooms and dust pans. I wore myself keeping them all encouraged and directed. As I look back on it now, the person in leadership is the one who takes all of the folks willing to help, and supervises their contribution, harmonizing them so that there is no redundancy, no fighting for resources. If everyone chose the same need, then some needs would go unmet.

So here I am with my blog, trying to figure all this out. I like to write here, because I’m not bothering anyone with long emails that they don’t know what to do with.

Perhaps this person and I will have that conversation face to face, soon. And I’ll let you know how that goes, but it will only to be mutually encouraged by one another’s faith.

See Romans 1:11-12

Goodbye for now.