My Friend is Dying
I had a strange conversation with a regular at work tonight. He’s been coming in since the restaurant opened. He used to come in with his partner and they ordered the same drinks every time (a brandy manhattan and a gin martini) and generally the same food. Since his partner died two years ago he stopped drinking and started coming in for the community instead of the food. I know this because he only ever eats two bites before he’s finished. He is 77 years old and alone. I’m not trying to play this up more than it is. He has a sister in Arizona who cannot afford to fly here (he says even for his funeral) and he occasionally has a friend or two join him at the restaurant. But he was going to be alone on Christmas until an employee at the restaurant invited him to their house.
Anyway, tonight I asked him why he didn’t order his regular dessert and he said it was because he was feeling sick. “I’m loosing weight you know” he said. When I asked him about it he said that he was dying. “It’s a losing battle. My body is done and my time is short. I won’t be around much longer.” Fighting against awkwardness and finding it easy to ignore my duties as the manager that night I asked him what it felt like to know or think that your life is nearly done. “I”m OK with it, you can’t grow old and be a sissy! I’m ready to go because I have lived a full life and I’ve been everywhere I want to go. My only fear is that I will outlive my body. Nothing terrifies me more than losing my independence.” “Do you have someone to take care of you if that happens?” He said that he didn’t, that his sister lives far away and can barely afford her own life let alone his.
Somehow the conversation turned to Winston Churchill at this point. He recommended his favorite Churchill biography and I wrote down the title. He told me a story or two about Churchill and FDR, how for a longtime Churchill was the leader of the free world. I told him that I was taking an extended leave of absence from the restaurant and he said he’d miss me. I got his address and phone number and suggested that we find a way to talk when I’m done working.
He has ridden his motorcycle across the United States, he’s worked as a newspaper reporter, owned a publishing company in Hollywood, seen the death of his parter of 37 years, travled around the world multiple times, and now he prefers to watch TV and read books.
I think that I would fear losing my independence too if I was without community. I think that when you live in community you’ve already experienced what it’s like to lose your independence and it no longer seems quite as terrifying. I want my friend to live with my family, to not die alone. I probably should have said something about hope in the resurrection or something like that (I mean, I am a church planter) but I just listened instead.
Are you Practicing Ramadan?
So my brother-in-law Ben is practicing Ramadan for the next few weeks in Bellingham where he works as a pastor of the Sterling Drive Church of Christ. Intrigued? Enraged? Impressed?
Read the article that ran in the Bellingham Herald newspaper, read peoples responses, and also take time to read Brian Mclaren’s blog about why he is doing it. Are you comfortable with this?
Article about Ben: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/102/story/1045056.html
Brian Mclaren’s blog: http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/ramadan-2009-part-1-whats-going.html
Let me tell you my quick thoughts about the whole thing. Ben’s not a Muslim. He’s not even trying to agitate things or “stir the pot”. I think he is doing what he can to learn to listen to the world around him, to learn to listen to the people around him that Jesus loves and died for. Ramadan is a season of prayer and fasting, both of which are traditional Christian practices. It’s not as if he’s joining in with sacrifices or or pilgrimage or some sort of practice that all Christians should not already be doing. I’m impressed by what he’s doing and I’m looking forward to hearing his observations about it. It’s not a stunt in anyway, rather it’s a willingness to go to places that Christians have often avoided, to listen to people that Christians have often been unwilling to listen to, and an openness to feast with people that have been rejected in normal Christian circles. Take some time to read through the gospels and tell me that Jesus did not feast with the “worst of sinners”, that he wasn’t willing to go to places that were considered off limits to “good God fearing folks” (do some research about Caesarea Philippi), and that Jesus didn’t listen to those who were considered rejects by the religious elite.
peace.
Contextualizing Suckers
I was blessed to have a great conversation with a person last week that made me tear up. We weren’t talking about anything necessarily emotional, it wasn’t a bear all session but it was one of those conversations where everything that a baby church dreams about was happening. This person was struggling because there were too many suckers around her. Other people use the word “follower” but I prefer the term “sucker”, you know, they’re the people who just want to suck off you. They come to you to be fed emotionally, spiritually, and physically. They want you to make them dinner, listen to their problems, and help them work out a solution. It’s not bad, these aren’t bad people, they’re normal people. They’re most people. Most people at churches are suckers because most people at churches are taught to suck. In many ways you can’t grow unless you’ve got someone you can suck off of.
Anyway, this girl was stressed ’cause she’s tired of feeding suckers. As a fairly new Christ-Follower it was great to hear her lament about the good ol’ days when they had other friends who shouldered more of the load, who they could suck off of. It was great because I was able to contextualize for her and say “Yeah, those people who you used to chronically suck off of, they were called leaders. And, well…welcome to being a leader!” I was able to tell her that she’s experiencing the pain of transitioning from being a follower/sucker to being a leader. And it’s hard. And she doesn’t want to do it. The greatest part is that she’s not leading because she went to some new leaders course at our church and she’s not leading because the staff wisely assessed her as an upcoming leader. She’s leading because she lives her life in such a way that she listens to the Spirit, cares for those who need Jesus around her, and invites those people to journey with her. So in turn people are following her. I think it’s John Maxwell that says that leadership is simply influence.
Part of her struggle is that all the churched people want to add more things to her schedule, they want to add “evangelism nights” (whatever that is), they want to add special trainings on how to do evangelism, and other “good” churchy things. So she screams out that she doesn’t have time for this stuff, that she’s too stressed and busy as it is! And where I teared up a bit was when I was able to say that she is living the life of a missional (and I defined this to her as someone who sees their every day life as an opportunity for God to use them to transform the world around them in simple, spectacular, and mundane) follower of Jesus and that this is our prayer for every follower of Christ.
By the end of the conversation a weight seemed to be lifted off her shoulders and I think she walked away believing the reality that the Spirit was doing something in her, that the draining she was feeling from people sucking off her was actually God pouring her out to those in need, that her role is vitally important in the kingdom work of Vancouver, and that she needs to hang out with a couple other leaders to commiserate and be sharpened.
It was a blessed conversation and I look forward to having many more.
