Ridin' That Train

I realize, now, that I wanted to be a minister for all the wrong reasons. Back in 1998, I think, maybe 1997, I persuaded myself I had received God’s call to preach the gospel. But, like so many others who say that God told them to do something when, purely coincidentally, that was exactly what they wanted to do, I was fooling—or lying to—myself. Worse, I was fooling—or lying to—everyone else, because at every step of the journey I received nothing but support and affirmation—from my pastor, to the congregation, to the Florida Conference, the guys who psychoanalyzed me, to the seminary itself. I’m pretty sure my wife, Carol, figured it out right quickly, but she knew nothing she could say would stop me, or even slow me down. I was riding a diesel locomotive, and it was gaining speed, for sure.

The thing is, regardless of whether I was fooling myself or subconsciously lying to myself, I really did believe that my deep desire to go to seminary and a be a preacher came from God. In hindsight, I still believe God was calling me, but the call was to live the gospel and not to preach it. Those of you who know me know I have only succeeded in answering that call sporadically. But I have tried. Lord knows I have tried. Living the gospel is my aspiration but not my achievement.

The real reason I wanted to be a minister, I guess—no, I’m sure—was to feed my ego. I think that’s the real story for a fair number of people who “receive the call.”

My career as a wannabe preacher was not, however,  a complete con, and my desire was not completely illegitimate. It all started this way:

I remember that each Advent, my pastor was in the practice of conducting Sunday night meditation where we would just listen to the quiet in a candle-lit room and, as we felt ready, present ourselves before her for private prayer and to be anointed with oil. Those Sunday meetings were blessings for me. It was during one of those meetings that Loey took me by the hands—why is touch so important in prayer?—and asked God to touch my heart and tell me “how truly loved he is.” It was a transformative moment. That was when I became truly convinced of the truth of those words to which I had previously payed lip service: God is Love. Nothing dramatic happened; only things whereof I had not believed, I now believed. Was this my real baptism?

One weekday, Loey either called me or approached me—I can’t remember which—and told me she had to go out of town on the following Sunday. She didn’t say it, but in retrospect I think it was for a job interview. Be that as it may, she asked me if I would take her role in the meditation service and pray with and anoint parishioners as they desired. I was surprised and gratified. Without thinking twice, certainly without considering the implications, I agreed. 

Sunday night came. I lit the candles, put on the soft New Age music, and poured a little Vigo olive oil in a little bowl. A half-dozen, maybe eight, parishioners showed up. I gave the invitation and stood waiting, not really expecting anyone to come forward. To my surprise, a woman, who I will not name, came forward. I dipped my thumb in the oil and traced the sign of the cross on her forehead. I took her hands, and we prayed. I don’t remember the words I said but I remember as clearly as I remember anything, that I felt like a switch had been thrown and a low grade electrical current was flowing through me. I felt a light shining on us, and the thought entered my head: this is what I should do with my life; this is what I was born for. It just felt so right. The feeling remained strong as I anointed and prayed with three more people.

I was attending orientation after I did reach Eden Theological Seminary a couple of years later, when each of us was asked to tell the story of our calls to ministry. I told this story, and a woman told me I had experienced “a miracle.” Considering the way things turned out, I’m not so sure, but you can see how I came to believe I had been called, can’t you? And I had, just not to the ministry.

I had been called to be what we are all called to be. You know what that is; if I were more creative, I’d try to tell you anyway, but others have described it far more accurately and eloquently than I can. I can only say that, in a nutshell, we are called, as Kurt Vonnegut so eloquently put it, to “Be kind to each other, dammit!”

Wake-up calls can be gentle or they can be dramatic. Some of us don’t respond to gentle, so we must beaten over the head. Some of us respond earlier and with less reluctance, my wife and my friend Judy among them. It took a dramatic gesture to get my attention, and it took an even more dramatic gesture to convince me that my take on the first gesture was wrong.