A Spoonful of Sugar

I woke up last night from the strangest dream.  I thought to myself, "well now that was profound, I must have been really asleep!"  In this dream my dear friend Katherine appeared to me.  We were in some sort of dim room, almost like a basement, but behind us was a huge picture window that looked out over a desert landscape with train tracks running past and far into the distance. Katherine asked me some sort of question that I know pertained to my personal and professional character. Something along the lines of, "How can you be a friend to us and a pastor at the same time?" My response to this seems like a riddle: "If I cannot be both, then I am neither."  What does this mean??


As I lay awake in my bed for a few brief moments the thought occurred to me that Katherine is like my very own Mary Poppins!  I laugh even as I write this for it seems so absurd but I thought, yes Katty is quite like Mary Poppins, she is witty and smart and her heart is full of love for people, bottomless as Mary Poppins' carpet bag!  And above all else, she is a lady in the very sweetest sense of the term, but also loves a good ride around the carousel!  I considered this dream conversation to be like Katherine coming to me in a musical and singing "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down!"  What does this mean??
  
Here is what I gleaned from this late night epiphany dear reader.  I am more than just a one-trick pony, and let me never forget it!  I cannot be a friend and neglect my calling as pastor any more than I can neglect my friends and continue to be a good pastor!  I am a wife, a daughter, a niece, a cousin, a friend, a neighbor, a Christian sister, and yes yes a pastor.  It is all of these things that make up who I am and if I cannot authentically live into each of these roles which make up the whole of who I am, I cannot be anything but a knot on a log!  


The authenticity is the trick!  Katy Perry belts out in my mind "this is the part of me that you're never gonna ever take away from me!"  As I think on so many of my friends in ministry who struggle this day to walk the fine line between full disclosure/self expression and that boundary where you protect yourself and your ministry so  it doesn't  become 'all about you', I pray that we can all find ways to skip along this tightrope to live fully into the being that God created us to be. If we say too much, we could lose our jobs, we could cause unnecessary pain in the life of our congregations.  But, if we say too little, we can become isolated and depressed without an outlet for our griefs and our triumphs.   God knows all about us, and yet he still called us, it is a miracle!  


So, after two years I hope that I have been true to myself in my little church here in Appomattox, just down the road from the railroad tracks!  I hope this congregation feels like they know me.  I am in truth a pretty liberal person.  I am in truth a snarky and sarcastic little woman with a penchant for blurting out comments at inappropriate times.  I am in truth one who loves to laugh and to make others laugh.  One who loves lazy days of laying around and reading. One who doesn't care if she gets cookie crumbs in the bed.  And one who delights in each of her friends and family and the particular ways in which they help her maintain her sanity in the midst of this crazy ride we call the ministry! But I am also in truth one who loves liturgical lines of praise and preaching from the lectionary.  One who gets excited about the possibilities of partnering with other churches in youth ministry.  In truth, I am one who geeks out every time I witness another connection of friends within the little PC(USA) family. I am one who still believes very much in the future of the PC(USA) and hopes in my heart of hearts that we can survive the punches that beat us down both from the outside and within.  Perhaps these are the little spoonfuls of sugar that help the distasteful medicine go down!


If I cannot faithfully be all of these things dear friends, then I am neither pastor nor friend. I thank God for the grace to continue to try.  Amen. 


"When trying to express oneself, it's frankly quite absurd,
To leaf through lengthy lexicons to find the perfect word.
A little spontaniaty keeps conversation keen,
You need to find a way to say, precisely what you mean...
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!"