Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Endings…and beginnings…

Today is Sunday, July 29, 2018.  It is also my Birthday.  This day marks the end of my 72nd. year of life, and the beginning of my 73rd.   It seems to me that our lives are a series of endings and beginnings.  As we live our lives the unstoppable river of time keeps moving ever forward.  And because of this, the events we celebrate, our birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, graduations, the endings, and beginnings are really an attempt to stop that river so that we might savor for even a fleeting moment the wonder and joy of simply being alive, because that is exactly what happens when we share these endings and beginnings with those whom we love.

December 31, 2017, was another ending for me.  The end of my 39 plus years of ordained ministry as a pastor in the ELCA. (Evangelical Church in America.)  A journey that began on May 31, 1979, in Kenosha, Wisconsin in the Siebert Chapel on the campus of Carthage College where I was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament.  I never intended to be a minister, in fact, the thought of it all was frightening.  Being someone who by nature is an introvert, as well as one who does not like to be confined by rules and regulations, this was not the profession I would have chosen.  On reflection, it turns out that it chose me, and in large measure has formed the person I am today.

As my formal ministry ends, my passion for trying to understand what life and God are, without the confines and restrictions of doctrine, begins.  That is why I write and I invite you to join me on this journey, not only as a reader but if you choose, a participant whose reflections and comments I welcome as we travel together.  The frequency of my writing is yet to be determined as this is all new to me.

I have learned many things since that ordination day so long ago and chief among them is that all social institutions including the church begin with a noble purpose. And once established, all social institutions including the church, shift from purpose to self-preservation.  I believe this is why it has taken so long for our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers to openly and aggressively deal with the years and years of sexual abuse by clergy.  The preservation of the institution of the church has been paramount, even though it meant a continuation of said behavior long after it was known.

It is the reason that our own ELCA and its predecessor bodies, LCA, ALC, and AELC took so long to begin ordaining women, or to fully include our LGBTQ sisters and brothers into the Body of Christ.  Or why there is such disparity among our various congregations as to size and wealth reflecting as they do the society we live in.  A society where those who have more than they need are ever getting even more while others live in poverty.

As long as we have paid clergy in our churches we will either shackle the ordained women and men or seriously restrict them to say and preach what the congregation members want to hear.  That is not healthy for either clergy or lay.  It is my hope that I can share with you my deepest convictions about things I have learned along the way, and do that without the fetters and restrictions of bureaucracy.

As a parish pastor, my driving philosophy was a very simple one gleaned from the works of His Holiness The Dalai Lama who wrote, “My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness.”

As a writer, I embrace for myself the words of Woodie Guthrie who said, “Let me be remembered as just the man that told you something you already knew.”

(Photo was taken after my last sermon and worship at Advent Lutheran Church, December 31, 2017)

“For who is greater, the one who is at table or the one who serves?  Is it not the one at the table?  But I am among you as one who serves.”  Luke 22.27.

And so on this day, the anniversary of my birth, I celebrate yet another beginning, this journey that I invite you to take with me.  Just Janis.