I don’t know how to be a pastor.
I don’t know how to react when I tell people something that’s true,
and they decide they’re done with me.
With our church.
With the Church in general.
I don’t know how to react when I say something like “God cares about refugees and immigrants and wants you to care about them too.”
Like, read the Old Testament.
It’s clearer than clear.
If “the Bible is clear” about anything, it’s that.
I don’t know how to react when their response on social media is “So disappointed that our pastor went on stage and only talked about his political opinions.”
And they never come back.
So much inside of me wants to say “F— them.”
(Yes, I did use that word. Because that’s how I feel at the time. I don’t feel like saying “Fine, leave.” I think “F— them”)
If I spend hours upon hours engaging with scripture, and when I bring that scripture to them, they refuse to engage with it honestly, everything in me wants to be done with them.
And yet.
And yet.
And yet.
I also care deeply about them.
I’ve sat in hospitals with them.
I’ve been with them when they poured their hearts out.
And I know that they won’t do it with anyone else.
I know, because they’ve told me that they never before have.
I know, because they’ve told me that I’m the only person with whom they feel comfortable enough to do it.
I know they won’t do it if they don’t do it with me.
Honestly I don’t know why.
I’m not special.
Other people would look them in the eyes and listen to them over coffee.
But for whatever reason, I’m the person they trust.
And if they leave our church and swear off talking with me, I know they won’t have anyone else.
If I’m being honest, it makes me not want to tell the truth.
It makes me not want to say hard things in church and outside of church.
Not because I don’t think it’s important.
Not because I don’t want to help people engage with the world in a more positive way.
I’m just not comfortable with the idea that people could possibly live the rest of their lives with nobody to trust.
For many people, the last years of life are the hardest.
I want people to have someone during their last years.
I’m that someone for many people.
When I tell people that part of me hates my job, this is one of those reasons.
Before I did this, I didn’t know how many people didn’t have a person.
Before I did this, I didn’t know how many people needed a person.
Before I did this, none of that weighed on me.
Because I didn’t know.
Ignorance really was bliss.
I won’t stop being honest when I need to be.
But I’m going to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty for causing people to lose their person.
1. I’m trying to learn to be ok with it when people are mad at me for the right things.
2. Once upon a time when I was a student chaplain, I had a patient who shared their trauma story and finished with “I’ve never told anyone this before.” I felt so honored and poured compassion into that wound. Then a few weeks later, same patient was in the hospital, and the same story unfolded with another chaplain (we discussed cases for educational purposes). Before the residency year was out, the patient had told every chaplain out the same story and claimed they had never shared it before. I have since realized this is a strategy some people use to dial in your attention. I wasn’t with your person and I can’t know whether that was happening. But keep it in mind.
3. People get to make their own choices. We frequently have patients who can’t really take care of themselves who choose to go home, alone. The hospital staff tends to feel like they have to choose between being callous or being distraught. It’s a false choice. We have absolutely no right to tell that person how to live their life. If they think that being in their home and having their privacy and independence, with the risk of harm, is a better option than being in a nursing home with no privacy and the risks of being in an institutionalized group setting, they get to choose that. We can grieve with and for them if it doesn’t work out, but we also don’t know all the reasons they made that choice and why it seemed good for them. And they got to exercise their autonomy, which is a basic human right.
If a person has chosen to cut off a supportive relationship, that probably will have some sad consequences for them. But their choices and the consequences are not your responsibility. It isn’t right for you to try to take that responsibility from them. They are not your child. Treating people like grownups and telling them the truth in love is a mark of respect. If I’m way off the mark here, feel free to argue with me.
4. I struggle with confrontation. It is scary for me. Sometimes I look back on how I handled something with critical eyes. I’m trying to learn to give myself grace that maybe i was doing the best I could at the time.
Also, it occurs to me that, for as much as the authenticity might lead to someone losing their person, it is also possible that it leads to someone gaining a person they need and did not have access to before, eg a pastor who is LGBTQIA+ affirming or an advocate for refuges, etc. Thank god for pastors who will be a person for the least of these, when there are so few who will.