Precious - Present - Presence

Endings and transitions heighten my tendency for reflective pondering - for looking at events (recent and historic) in terms of patterns and meanings - seeing the detail and larger story, and wondering how it all fits into bigger pictures.  Into the meta story.

Truth-naming.  Meaning-making.  Story-telling.  Dream-seeing.  Reality-accepting.   Life-living.

Process.

And as the focus of this current ending and transition is vocational - ministry - much reflection right now involves my pastoral identity and experience.  I sit with memories, recent experiences, questions and assumptions, and ponder what it means to be an effective and successful pastor (while simultaneously wondering if words like effective and successful are even rational descriptors for ministry).

In the midst of  all this reflection, two powerful experiences came into focus:  One is a memory, and the other, an unexpected moment of grace.

The memory:  It is my Service of Installation as Pastor, and Teacher here at Boise First.  At one point during the liturgy, I passed into an experience of non-ordinary reality - I was simultaneously standing in the installation service at every church I had served as Pastor.  Decades of time and thousands of miles separated these experiences, and yet there was a unity - a oneness - about the experiences, even though each one was distinct (yet simultaneous).   It was a powerful moment that rendered me speechless, and the resonance of that moment remains to this day.  The memory returned as I sat during morning prayer and reflected on the meaning of ministry.

The moment of grace:  As I savored this precious memory, my thoughts then turned to my ministry as a pastor, and my mind was flooded with all the categories I (and society) use to evaluate ministerial "performance"- all the markers that are so easily used to determine whether or not ministry is successful.  As my mind raced through an evaluative matrix of quantitative and qualitative metrics (it was as awful as it sounds), it was as if my mind accelerated enough to finally slip out of orbit, and I found myself - suddenly and unexpectedly - in a very quiet and peaceful place.

And in my arms was the baby I baptized last Sunday - his parents were beside me.  And I heard the voice of Wisdom say:  If this were your only act of ministry at Boise First, would it be enough?  Without hesitation, I answered "yes."

And then I was in my previous church, looking into eyes of a teen who spend many hours talking to me about painful matters of the heart.  And the voice asked again:  If this had been your only act of ministry in this church, would it be enough?  Of course.

Slowly, I revisited each church I had served, and in each case there was a face - a person - a story of a time I had entered into the reality of life with someone entrusted to my care.  And each time, I could see that this one experience, even if it had been the only experience, was enough.  It was not about how many of them had happened (quantitative) nor was it about the outcome of these encounters (qualitative). The power was the encounter - the presence of God inspiriting our presence with one another.

As these faces and stories filled my heart, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that ministry happens in moments of presence and care, and that the world of quantitative evaluative metrics is rubbish when applied to ministry.  It is like trying to create a subtle water color painting using neon spray paint and sledge hammers.  You can create a painting - but the tools do not allow you to capture the essence and soul of the desired experience.

Ministry is lived and celebrated in the moments - with individuals, families and communities.  God inspirits and abides in these moments.  It is where God's realm opens and where love lives - Holy Ground.

The witness of Rabbi Jesus throughout the gospels is one moment after another of encounters - of a ministry of presence -  meeting people in their present moment and creating space for healing and wholeness - for honesty and transformation.  It was always one moment at a time - with real people and all the messy and complicated stuff of life.  

Ministry is like a beautiful strand of precious beads - cherished one bead/one person/one encounter at a time -  strung together in love and held in a reality encompassing but greater than the present moment - part of something greater than itself - held in very heart of God.  This is my pearl of great price - worthy of the sacrifice.

Thank you, loving God, for the gift of remembrance and refreshment.  Tonight I will rest, and then joyfully continue my trek through the wilderness.

With a song in my heart,
Kim