To be or not to be ... Rude

I was intentionally rude to someone the other day, the practice of which I do not make a habit. But I found myself in a no-win situation and had to make a decision ...

Every pastor gets sideways with some parishoners. You do your best but sometimes the politics or the personalities just don't work out. If we are lucky the folks just go to another church and leave it at that. But mostly we aren't lucky and have to deal with some pretty nasty behavior aimed personally and directly at us. And as pastors we are supposed to eat it up with a big ol' spoon in the hand and a smile on the face, resisting the urge to release our inner cage brawler. That's probably why the disability insurance for ministers is in the same category as high-steel workers and undersea demolitions experts; ten or twenty of thirty years of that kind of suppression means that when we blow, there ain't no coming back.

Any way, I was walking to work the other day and came face to face with a member of the church who had publically bad-mouthed me, made statements that were absolutely false, lied to me when I confronted her about the behavior, and had declared she would never return to our church as long as I was in the pulpit (to which I must admit I had uttered a grateful "Amen").

It had just become public that I will be leaving my current church in October to serve a church in Bellevue, Washington. As we encountered one another on the street that morning she smiled and yelled "Good morning!"

We have not spoken in eighteen months, she dislikes me intensely, and the only thing that made it good for her was that I was leaving in six weeks. And encountering her at that moment meant it definitely was not a good morning for me.

So I simply smiled and grunted. She then began to tell me about how they had just been in Bellevue to visit their daughter and how neat a town it was ... etc., etc. I must admit my blood was boiling, the synapses were firing, and the many nasty speeches which I had mentally rehearsed during the months of her attack on me began to make their way to my tongue ...

Once upon a time a novice asked an ancient desert monk, "Abba, what is humility?" The monk replied: "To do good to those who hurt you." The brother said: "If you cannot go that far, what should you do?" The old man replied: "Get away from them and keep your mouth shut."

I put my head down, buttoned my lips, and just kept on walking without a word. And of course when I was down the road a bit she reverted to form and uttered some rude words at me.

There is no joy in me with the nature of this encounter, but sometimes the best you can do is not make a situation any worse.

Church For Sale

One of the saddest experiences of traveling through small-town America is the economic devastation one sees. I was in one little town in the West (I'll keep its identity secret) and after unloading the bike and checking in I did my normal walk-about.

I've been in a lot of small towns off the beaten track and seen lots of economic pain, but this town certainly took the prize. On virtually every street there were numerous buildings, houses, and businesses for sale: a dance studio, a bakery, a dozen small retail shops, a couple of motels, a car dealership (for sale by owner), even a church! And the bad news is that I discovered one church that had already been sold and was being turned into low-end apartments - Yikes! You know it is really bad, both economically and spiritually, when churches (plural) start folding. Banks don't want to foreclose, members do everything they can to keep the doors open, and in a town where the only thriving businesses were bars and casinos, you know there is a problem.

Not that I have an issue with bars and casinos - this is a free country after all, and goodness knows I have stepped inside more than a few bars in my life. Casinos not so much ... watching all that money go back and forth positively freaks me out. We were in Las Vegas once and my wife won $1.25 (yes, that's right, one dollar and twenty-five cents) on a nickel slot and I immediately started shouting "CASH OUT!!!!"

But my admittedly anecdotal experience is that usually you find a balance between bars/gambling halls and banks/churches. But not in this place: the whole town was for sale. Even the job training center was shuttered up and on the market! That tells you how bad things are in this town.

When I see businesses shuttered up I tend to stand and gaze at them for awhile, trying to imagine the joy and hope of the owners when the business first opened. I imagine the work that went into planning and stocking the shelves, the meetings with bankers ... I see the "Grand Opening" and I imagine the first heady days as a long-held dream was finally realized.

Then my heart cries as in my minds eye I see month after month of downturn until finally the coffers are empty and the owner has to shutter the door and walk away, downcast. How horrible it is to have your dream morph into a nightmare.

All of this was going through my head as I stood and gazed at the "For Sale" sign on the church pictured here. But then something curious happened ...

It was six o'clock and from some other part of that town I heard ... church bells. How long had those bells tolled the hours in this town, reminding folks - reminding me - of the contstant movement of time? The bells rang and my heart lifted, for they reminded me that "to eveything there is a season, and a time to every matter under heaven," and that though it was true that the time for this place of the worship of heaven was finished, Heaven itself was still a living reality.

Jazz Man

I have discovered that although I prefer urban living, I most enjoy small town visiting. While on long rides my habit is to find a little town - the more beat up the better - get a room, unload the bike and then wander the streets. I get off the main drag and try to make contact with local folks and my ventures never go unrewarded in some way.

I was in Ely, Nevada - a cool little town though pretty beat up - and after getting settled at the Hotel Nevada ($40 a night for a great room in what back in the day was at four stories the tallest building in Nevada) I set off a-wandering.

Like so many small towns in America, there was a lot of sadness in this place. It had been a boom town with a couple of mines in the late 19th and early 20th century (hence the Hotel Nevada) but those days were long gone. The little cracker-box houses which had no doubt seemed palatial to mine workers a hundred years ago are now pretty decrepit. But even with run-down buildings and for sale signs, there are a good number of folk who call this town home and have happy lives. I got to become acquainted with a couple of them.

As I wandered off the beaten path I suddenly heard some pretty good jazz licks. SoI headed towards the location of the music and saw a fellow clad in only his pajama bottoms, smoking a cigarette and leaning up against a car, just listening. I figured "when in Rome" so headed over to say howdy. We got to chatting and I learned the author of the music was a jazz musician who was re-habbing the place across the street and every now and then he would just stop the construction work and pick up his trumpet. Whenever the Jammy Man heard the Jazz Man he would step outside and just listen.

After a bit Jammy Man asked me if I would like a beer (to which I responded in the affirmative - wouldn't want to be rude!) and we leaned up against his car and drank just like at any good jazz club. The weather was beautiful, the company was interesting (although it did take me awhile to get over my companion's attire), the jazz was great, and it was all for free.

So find those little towns, turn off the electronics and wander off the main drag ... like the man said, there are a million stories in the city (even little cities) and even if I can't collect all of them, I'm going to get a lot of them!

Mistakes and Regrets

I think we don't differentiate enough between a mistake and a regret. I believe that most of us make the best decisions we can with the information at hand but still those decisions don't turn out the way we had hoped. That's a mistake and to my mind something easily forgetable and forgivable. A regret on the other hand is a decision or a choice or circumstance that leaves a profound sense of loss from which we can never fully recover - forgivable but not forgetable.

And I think that those folks who say they have no regrets are either liars or have not lived life nearly to it's fullest.

A few years ago when I headed out on my first official long ride I loaded the cruiser, set off down the road, and along the way made a detour down a dirt road to see something that interested me. The further down the road I went the worse the road became, until I finally realized that I was in way over my head, especially riding a loaded cruiser. So I started a u-turn, hit the gas too fast in that dirt, slid the rear tire and of course dumped the bike. There I was in the middle of nowhere, six hours into my first long ride, with 700 pounds of me, motorcycle and gear lying in the dirt. And at that moment my cell phone rang; it was my wife, just "checking in." How do they know???

So I twisted the truth just a bit and told her everything was fine Iwhich I really was), then dusted myself off, set a spell to get my head together, then picked up the bike and learned a lesson: cruisers and dirt do not play well together. That's an example of a mistake (dumping the bike, not lying to one's spouse which, if not appropriately confessed later, could be a BIG regret!).

On the other hand, I do have a couple of regrets in my life. Without going into all the detail, I have a brother, Archie, who is eighteen years older than me whom mom threw out of the house when I was very little. Archie had his own family, my mom and I relocated to another state and I lost touch with him. I tried to find him many years ago but everything I found indicated he was dead.

So imagine my surprise when, two years ago I received an email from his daughter, telling me that Archie was very much alive and doing well. So my brother whom I had not seen in 45 years and thought was dead, was found! We have spent much time together since and it means to world to me to find my lost brother. But I deeply regret the many years which we have lost and the moments and depth of relationship that we can never regain.

But mistake or regret, there is usually nothing we can do to change the past. All we can do is determine how we will live in the new moment.

So Many Roads

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I really liked: So Many Roads to Ease My Soul. All of us in life have more than a few instances of soul exhaustion due to our own decisions or circumstances beyond our control. And when I say soul exhaustion, I don't mean when we feel a little blue or even find ourselves in a psychologically depressed state, although they can be related. Soul Exhaustion is when you just don't see any options, when friends are absent and you feel completely invisible - when you are ready to say "Not even God likes me."

But then the fog clears bit and a road appears, almost as if by magic; a mystical path of possibility - not necessarily a final destination, but at least a direction. The road itself may be rough, full of potholes, just a rugged trail, but at least it's a road, and a road means someone else has traveled here before. And just knowing that someone has gone before us can make the road less lonely, more hopeful.

But like any journey, it is up to us to keep our eyes open for the road, or to at least listen to our friends who will point us in the direction of the road.


Certainly in my life I have experienced both soul exhaustion and roads that eased my soul. But the road was always made better with a companion, a friend who was just walked with me or family who refused to let me remain lost. And at times I have even been the one who walked the road with another, helping to provide some ease for their soul.

So Many Roads to Ease My Soul. Ain't it the truth ....

American Exceptionalism

Durng the 19th century a school of thought called American Exceptionalism emerged. With roots in Puritanism, the original concept was that God had chosen this land to have a unique place among the nations of the world; over time other foundations for this notion of emerged, based on our geography and abundance of natural resources, and ultimately on our political system, based as it is on representative democracy and "self-evident truths."

The past decade this idea of American Exceptionalism has grown, gaining credence among many who have advocated a new form of Manfiest Destiny, combining all the above foundations with American economic and military might. As a result our nation has acted imperialistically and then been surprised when people are mad at us.


There are two kinds of travelers on the road: tourists and companions. Tourists grab the low-hanging fruit; they simply want to see the natives do their cute dances in their quaint costumes, sample a little bit of homogenized local fare, grab a few trinkets, and then head home. Tourists really don't want to see the indigenous peoples. These are the kinds of folks who advocate American Exceptionalism.


Companions on the other hand climb high into the tree to spend time with the locals, ask questions, and venture far beyond the tourist meccas. Companions want to see and experience life from a new perspective, to understand the people with whm they travel and thereby understand the world in a new way. I would say these folks advocate American Acceptionalism.


I love what President Obama said: "I believe in American Exceptionalsim, just like the British believe in British Exceptionalism and the French believe in French Exceptionalism."


The truly Exceptional are the ones who are Acceptional.