sometimes i think part of why all this confusion shook my core so violently was because of the many layers to it. whether the quake was immense because all the layers needed to be shaken... or if the many layers were shaken because they were each so fragile... is something i doubt i'll ever know. probably a bit of both.
and i guess there's something extremely vulnerable about being a pastor as well. your beliefs are your life and your job... and your job constitutes much of your relationships. so in some ways... when one is effected, they all are.
my counselor has told me that what i was thinking and feeling was natural for someone in my shoes. maybe he's right. all i know is my world wasn't simply upside down... it was exploding. looking back, all i can do is look at the pieces flying past me... play c.s.i.... and discuss my conclusions with G*D.
coming to westwinds was in and of itself a huge step. apart from it being something each of us in my family sensed we were being called to do... and apart from the caustic atmosphere i had left... and apart from the volcanic environment i was entering... the move to michigan was a chance to engage a ministry context that encouraged rethinking everything. i was looking forward to that... to the dialogue and comradery that i anticipated would come in a team of people who weren't comfortable spouting the typical church party line or playing the typical church party games.
after being here a short time, we burst the 'church-in-a-box' seams by exchanging the typical 'sr.-pastor-driven-church' model for a 'shared-leadership' model... i loved the concept and much of the reality. but i under-estimated the amount of energy required to work through the issues that would inevitably arise. not unlike a marriage... it began forcing me to face weaknesses in my character and leadership... and challenged my lack of assertiveness & decisiveness. sometimes i get an 'a+' when it comes to those last two. sometimes an 'f'. so... predictably there have been times when sharing an office with 2 great and outspoken and intelligent and passionate and extremely verbal and sometimes hyper guys has been... ...a... ...shall we say, "challenging." how could it not be so?
but on completely different layer of the earth's crust... for the last couple of years i've been giving myself permission to expand my understanding of G*D... even asking G*D to help me see him true to scripture, but outside the pretty packaging so common to evangelicalism. at westwinds, our services are often very heady and experiential at the same time. it's an interesting mix. i work with some of the best thinkers and most creative people in the world. but that's not to say that we have time to sit around and discuss theology a ton. there's a lot to get done. so... i've found myself working through the questions at a slower pace than expected. interestingly, this past year has forced me into the fog, ready or not. forcing me to think... and engage my feelings. forcing me to see everything in ways that would not have been possible had i not gone through all this.
sometimes i almost see it as G*D saying to me... "okay. you came here to 'rethink'. didn't you understand that I was more excited for you to do that than even you were? so... if you're going to let things distract you from the things i want you to learn about life & ministry & ME, i guess i'll just have to pull out the big guns."
i'm not sure G*D ever talks like that... but there's always been a sense that i was being set-up. (and i'm not concluding that everytime a person encounters adversity that G*D caused those things... or that he even allowed them because he had some goal for us. however, i do think scripture's pretty clear that he uses our adversity to bring good things to us if we allow it to do so.)
on still another layer... a layer on which i didn't expect to experience vertigo... my internal world was rocked, forcing me to face how vulnerable & fragile i was. it caught me off guard. and i didn't like it.
it made me second-guess myself and how far i'd come. it made me question the past and fear the future & everything in-between. i almost felt betrayed. shell-shocked. hesitant to move forward. i questioned my legitimacy as a christ-follower and my ability to pastor.
add to all that... my health struggles... emma's health possibilities... the weirdness from the lack of ministry activity that comes with being on disability... the absence of physical activity from being sick for so long and so often. (not to mention the separation from the physical & spiritual discipline of running each morning)
then... imagine being in a spot where all those unsettled feelings are fully marinated into my psyche'... a point at which my conclusions about G*D were the flimsiest... and have someone say, "it's okay to go back to work now... as a pastor!" it's like spinning around with your head on a baseball bat 5,000 times and then being told you have to get into a car and drive in the daytona.
looking at it all now, i'm beginning to realize that this 'crash' was probably unavoidable... and maybe anticipated, if not welcomed... that is... at least by The-One-Who-Promised-to-Make-Everything-Right.
it was the too-perfect storm.
sometimes i wish the road on the way to 'more right' had fewer sink holes.
like i said. i was set-up.
it wasn't a crash... ...this too was a "kaleision".
