Archive for April 2011
Book Review: Love Wins
Posted on: April 28, 2011
Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, by Rob Bell, HarperOne, 2011, 202 pp.
Last Easter, a friend of mine used Rob Bell’s inspirational sermon from sometime around 2006, which was originally called “The Cross,” but soon became known as “Love Wins.” (You can purchase it from www.marshill.org, but I found a podcast here.) I found that catch phrase, and the accompanying stickers, a great summary of Easter faith, and immediately knew it would be the title of my Easter sermon this year. Back in early February, I planned it out. I put it on flyers. I even ordered 276 “Love Wins.” stickers to pass out to the congregation on Easter morning. (That’s nearly 100 more than we needed, but they were cheaper in bulk.)
Just a few weeks later, Rob Bell published his latest book—Love Wins. And all hell broke loose. I’m guessing most of you have heard about the controversy. Bell has been villified among evangelical preachers, with Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary here in Louisville leading the way. This battle between preachers has captured media attention, and been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Courier-Journal, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.
While I am not unwilling to talk about hot theological topics, opening up an already politically charged conversation about heaven, hell and salvation on Easter morning, when the congregation is packed with visiting extended family (many of whom regularly worship in local evangelical churches, but come with mom on Easter) and C&E Christians, was not what I had in mind. But I had all these stickers. And flyers, already printed. I was excited about “love wins” as an Easter message of hope and new life overcoming death.
So I had to buy the book and read it in time for Easter, and then negotiate a theological controversy on Easter morning without preaching a 20-30 minute expository sermon. In the end, I think it turned out pretty well, and gave me a chance to talk about my beloved United Church of Christ and our commitment to welcoming all the people and all our questions. Here’s what I said:
In the book, Bell questions the classical evangelical understandings about hell and wonders how, if God loves us so much, God could then condemn us to eternal punishment just because we didn’t get the message in time. He asks questions about heaven, about salvation, about resurrection and grace. In the end, he concludes, love wins. Always. Eventually. Not without judgment or justice or consequences, but love wins.
So, before I could preach my pre-planned Easter sermon, before I could give you all these items I had ordered, in bulk, I had to go and read the book. And I did, cover to cover, and I did not find anything in it that was either new or objectionable—and Bell himself says as much. He covers familiar debates that have existed throughout the history of Christianity in a new way. We in the United Church of Christ have always believed that faithful questions are more important to faith than unquestioned certainty. You can doubt the existence of heaven or hell, question the resurrection of the body and God won’t cast you aside and neither will we. That’s why our welcome is wide and we generally err on the side of love over judgment, grace over purity, mercy over punishment—because we believe that we are all sinners, no one knows all the answers, but in the end, with an Easter God of resurrection, love wins. I’m not sure exactly why this controversy has gotten so heated, except that some people really cling tightly to their need for eternal damnation. As Doug Pagitt, one of Bell’s friends, wrote in his defense: “Is it possible to overstate the love of God? Is it really possible to tell as story of God that is more graceful than God actually is? Is it really possible to give God too much mercy credit?”
On this Easter morning, when life has overcome death, when the stone has been rolled away, when the powers of destruction and violence are defeated, I would say absolutely not. Love wins. (You can hear the full sermon here.)
As for the book itself, I don’t have much to add beyond the brief review I offered in the sermon. As a member of the mainline, progressive wing of Christianity, I don’t really know what all the fuss is about. Bell’s book covers terrain we have been discussing for 200 years. In the pulpit, I did not anticipate most of our folks would find it objectionable or controversial either. Many found it exciting and refreshing to name those questions publicly on such a high holy day.
However, especially here at the borderlands of the Midwest and the South, single-digit miles from the Southern Baptist seminary of Albert Mohler, we are surrounded by people who have never heard these questions before, or by those who have dared to ask them in the open and been shunned for it, or those who secretly ask but fear losing family, friends and faith for giving voice to their doubts. All around us in our community are people who have rejected God because they reject those beliefs about God. People stumble into our church all the time, led (I believe) by the Holy Spirit, seeking to find faith and community through their questions and doubts. People come with fear about going to hell, even though they aren’t sure what they think about hell.
Bell’s book is worthwhile not because it offers new information or different perspectives or deeper explorations, but because it presents a lifeline to anyone who wants someone to hold their hand while they explore those questions, to reassure them that this is not new territory, that someone else has walked this path and lived, with faith, to tell about it. It’s a resource I can offer to those who ask, tentatively, fearfully, about heaven, hell and salvation for all the people.
Book Review: The Last Week
Posted on: April 26, 2011
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The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, HarperCollins, 2006, 238 pp.
While I should have read this book earlier in Lent, to have it undergird my preparations for Holy Week services, it became my Holy Week practice to read a chapter every day, each corresponding to that day of Holy Week. The authors undertake a thorough examination of Jesus’ activities from Palm Sunday through Easter, focusing on the Gospel of Mark but often holding up other accounts to explore the differences. The book aims to provide serious and scholarly reflection on the stories of Holy Week so that those of us who celebrate them in Christian worship might move beyond centuries-old layers of theological interpretation and examine Jesus’ Passion with an eye toward what Jesus was passionate about.
The first passion of Jesus was the kingdom of God, namely, to incarnate the justice of God by demanding a fair share of a world belonging to and ruled by the covenantal God of Israel… We focus on “what Jesus was passionate about” as a way of understanding why his life ended in the passion of Good Friday. (from the Preface)
I have read enough Borg and Crossan before to recognize similar themes between this book and their other works. Jesus’ passion is about non-violent resistance to the Roman empire, about peasants and villagers who are unjustly treated by the empire and its collaborators, about an alternative vision of the world that is not based on violence and domination, but love, radical hospitality and economic justice. Thanks to Borg and Crossan, along with Walter Brueggemann, Walter Wink and Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, that is how I have come to understand Jesus as well.
This book was incredibly helpful in connecting that understanding of Jesus’ life and mission with the events of Holy Week, which are surrounded by so much baggage of atonement theology, pietism and oversimplification—not to mention the baggage that comes from things like The Passion of the Christ or even Jesus Christ Superstar. As a preacher who tells and retells and interprets this story every year, I felt grounded and refreshed by reading this book. It helped me immerse myself more fully in Holy Week, (more on that here) while keeping me from lapsing into sentimentalism. While I did not ever cite the book directly, it certainly inspired and directed my preaching for the week. I highly recommend it for preachers, teachers and small groups who want to go deeper with the story of Jesus’ last week.
A picture of me on my ordination day.
Today is Good Friday. It is also the 10th anniversary of my ordination into Christian ministry. Every year during Holy Week, I give thanks with all my heart to be a part of this pastoral life.
It was March of 1989, and I was 15 years old when I first got caught up in Holy Week. I don’t remember how it started, but I was swept away by the emotional roller coaster between Palm Sunday and Easter. I felt like I was right there on the streets of Jerusalem, bearing witness to Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. I wrote about it at length in my journal, which I dug out tonight from inside the trunk, under the pile of laundry. On Good Friday that year, I wrote with great youthful earnestness:
I was with Christ in Spirit throughout today. I learned that I have the wonderful ability to withdraw from this world and put myself in another. … Thank you, Jesus. I am just beginning to understand Your love for me.
My journal from 1989, when I was 15.
Every year since that discovery, I have tried to recreate it—to step outside of the ordinary during Holy Week and get swept up in the ancient story. I don’t think of it as “another world” anymore, nor do I invest much energy in imagining myself in the streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. However, I still love to get absorbed in it, to experience its meaning anew, and to forget all other concerns. Some years there are more distractions than others, but the act of walking through the stories and services every year never fails to transport me to a holy place, with deep conversations with God and exhausting emotions.
Because of my life in ministry, I not only can throw all my energy and focus into meditating and understanding and retelling the story of Jesus’ betrayal, death and resurrection, I must. During Holy Week, with all the writing and preparation, I spend all day every day praying and thinking and writing about the story of Jesus. I abandon all other church work, give up on housecleaning, let J take the role of lead parent, and just live into the story. There is no negotiation about whether or not to attend services on Thursday or Friday or both, because I have to be there for all of it. There is no conflict over soccer games or meetings with the boss or anything else—everyone knows that, during Holy Week, the pastor has no more important task than preparing for services through prayer, meditation and writing. If I am wrought with emotions and wracked by the Holy Spirit throughout, so much the better for my preaching. What a privilege.
So today, Good Friday, I celebrate 10 years of ordained ministry. Ten years of throwing myself into Holy Week with all my heart and soul, and having no one think it strange. Did I know in my 15-year-old self where that blessed Holy Week would lead? Could I have imagined the opportunity not only to let myself get lost in Jesus’ story every year, but to devote my life’s work to getting other people caught up in the story as well? There is no better time to celebrate my call, to give thanks to God for this pastoral life, than during Holy Week. Thanks be to God. Soli Deo Gloria.
The phone message my mom wrote about the accident, and the memory ribbon we wore for weeks. Both were tucked inside my journal.
Postscript: There is another connection between the spring of 1989 and my ordination date that cannot go unmentioned. Just a few pages after my passionate account of Holy Week in my journal, the April 22 entry shares the news of a car accident that took the life of one of my dear friends, and injured several others. It was another pivotal moment in my faith journey. When I scheduled my ordination years ago, I recognized the confluence, but still cannot impart a meaning to it. Still, this year, all three converge–that transformative Holy Week in 1989; my friend’s death on April 22, 1989 (both 22 years ago); the 10th anniversary of my ordination on April 22, 2001; and Good Friday. The day feels deep, rich and complex. God sees the web of connections, and perhaps even their meaning. I, as yet, do not.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins, HarperCollins, 2001, 300 pp.
Good to Great for Social Sectors by Jim Collins, self-published, 36 pp.
I am always cautious when people try to apply the principles of running a good business to running the church. However, Jim Collins’ work is more about leadership and organizational development, and those kinds of ideas can easily be modified and adapted to the church world. His original research and ideas in Good to Great were so popular in the non-profit sector (including the church) that he wrote the secondary monograph to explore how to make those adaptations. His work is based on deep analysis of corporations that have been successful for the long term, defined as at least 15 years, and he identifies the core characteristics of companies that make the leap from good to great. I’ll comment briefly on the insights that I’ll take away from each, freely mixing between the two volumes. I know I am late to the party on this (the book is 10 years old, and well analyzed by pastoral leaders), but I want to process what I think that church leaders could learn from these guidelines.
1. Level 5 Leadership: a leader who combines personal humility and professional will, rather than 
charisma or packaged programs.
The Level 5 leadership Collins describes is very apt for pastoral ministry. We all know clergy who are charismatic, who wow crowds with their preaching and publish books by the scores. However, their churches often do not survive losing them. Level 5 leaders, on the other hand, may never have a famous name, but they build an organization that lasts by putting the good of the institution above their personal gain, measuring success not by their personal progress but the strength of the institution. Some of the best pastors I know have built great churches that last and grow–but they are not snazzy preachers or sought-after speakers, although they are certainly competent in those areas. What they know how to do is develop faith and leadership in others, and always defer to the wider group rather than touting their own success. We in the church should affirm the gifts of these Level 5 leaders.
2. First Who… Then What: a primary focus on getting hardworking, team-playing people with the right skills and passions into the organization, then figuring out what to do and how to do it.
In my ministry, this has proved critical. If we can get the right people in the right positions, great things will happen with little direction or motivation from the pastor. On the other hand, we don’t hire and fire church members, lay leaders or volunteers. Part of being the church is working with who God sends, and faithfully welcoming every soul into Christ’s service. This is also especially tricky when working with volunteers and church members who may have served for a long time in the “wrong” position. Just because everyone is welcome in the congregation does not mean that everyone has the gifts to chair the Council, teach the children or manage the finances.
I practice this “first who” by never asking for volunteers anymore. When a task arises or position opens, I prayerfully consider who I think the right person is, then consult with the other leaders in charge of nominations. We then ask that person directly to serve. It takes extra time and energy up front, but saves so much difficulty and energy later if you have to motivate or direct the wrong person. If you get that right person, they can get more right people to work with them.
“Rightness” in the church is not about the best or most righteous or most faithful—we are a community of broken, flawed people and sinners. “Rightness” is about matching a person’s spiritual gifts with the needs of the church, as Frederick Buechner says, “the place where your deepest joy and the world’s deepest hunger meet.” (An important side note: I have never found people put out by never hearing a call for volunteers. Instead, they are flattered to be called directly. If you believe that everyone has spiritual gifts, then there is a place for everyone.)
3. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith): a willingness to name and grapple with harsh realities, accompanied by a steadfast commitment and confidence that success can happen anyway.
If that’s not at the core of our Christian faith, what is? We follow a God who took up the cross, facing and calling out the brutal realities of death, sin, violence and empire—only to be resurrected three days later, having overcome them all. Yet far too often, we in the church are not willing to confront harsh facts. We are declining, young people are missing, buildings are decaying, Christendom is over. Only when we acknowledge the reality of our situation will we be able to effectively move in new ways to address it and be transformed–and, I believe, resurrected.
4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within Three Circles): a clarity about the organization’s primary purpose and mission, defined as what you are passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and what multiplies (for companies, profit and for non-profits, resources).
This is, I believe, the hardest one for churches. We harbor the belief that we should be all things to all people. In some ways, we are right—just look at Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and in prison and you visited me.” So, in addition to offering awesome worship, excellent preaching, quality Sunday school for all ages, and being good stewards of our buildings and resources, we are also supposed to demonstrate excellence in food ministry, prison ministry, a clothes closet, hospital and nursing home visitation. Most churches do a great job at some, a mediocre job at others, and leave some out completely—and always feel guilty that we “should” be doing more.
I remember attending a workshop with Gil Rendle where he said that family-sized (less than 50 in worship) and pastoral-sized (less than 120 in worship) churches cannot do everything, so they need to find what they do well and build from there. He told the story of a small church that hosted birthday parties and social events for children with special needs. At the time, I remember thinking that didn’t sound much like a church’s mission statement. After all, we in the church are, first and foremost, about spreading the love of Jesus. While those birthday parties would definitely be something Jesus would like and approve of, they can’t be the central mission of Christ’s church. Yet I think that Rendle and Collins are on to something. We will never handle disaster response as well as the Red Cross, or homelessness as well as our local shelter, or clothing needs and job training as well as Goodwill. We should figure out what we can do in our community that no one else can do as well.
Each church has its own culture, its own way of telling the story of Jesus, its own ministries that are part of its DNA. We can grow and strengthen the local congregation by discovering those spiritual gifts as a congregation and building on them. If opportunities or needs arise that do not belong, we will have to trust God to find another church that will be able to respond effectively. That means learning to say “yes” and learning to say “no” in discerning ways. I think that Jesus would be O.K. with that. After all, he did not heal all the crowds, nor did he seize every opportunity, and he said “no” to some times of teaching and serving so that he could be in prayer. God has the whole world, full of people of faith—God does not need our one local congregation to be all things to all the world.
5. A Culture of Discipline: people within the organization exercise a great deal of freedom and responsibility, self-disciplined by the Hedgehog Concept.
This one needs little adaptation for the congregational context. When a church is micromanaged, or when someone must always be pumping up or directing in order for a program to happen, whether that is the pastor or board or committees or lay leaders, growth and sustainability are impossible. The church needs to have a shared sense of what its purpose is, what its core values are—and let the ministries unfold from there. If people are growing in discipleship, they are growing in discipline.
6. Technology Accelerators: use of technology and technological innovation does not drive success, but it can accelerate success if used in accord with one’s Hedgehog Concept.
Church leaders share this misconception with corporate leaders: if we are declining or falling behind, it’s because we don’t have the latest technology; if another church is succeeding, it is because they use technology we don’t have. Collins proves this to be untrue. While technology used wisely will accelerate greatness, it cannot cause it. Technology might cause a short-term spike in energy or growth, but it will not be sustained. If you think technology is the cause of a church’s success, it’s only because they are using it effectively, in accord with a deeper sense of purpose. Churches that invest in technology without investing in developing the tools of leadership and purpose will only have empty robots and fancy screens.
7. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: organizational transformation works like slowly pushing a flywheel, grinding and slow until others join and it gets momentum. The Doom Loop is the cycle of jumping from program to program, fad to fad, and replacing the ideas after they fail to produce success quickly.
Oh, if only we could imprint this wisdom in the mind of every new pastor (not just new to ministry, but new to a congregation) and to all those expecting great things from them! Real, meaningful change happens slowly, invisibly at first, as a few core leaders begin to push the wheel. There are no overnight sensations that are lasting–it can take five, ten, 20 years for the change to really take off and have energy of its own. The “Doom Loop” is what happens when you implement a fancy new program that you think will change everything. When it doesn’t, you take your discouragement and go try something else. While I don’t think most congregations will give us 20 years to figure it out, if you start out with small changes, you can build momentum over the course of 5-10 years and see the congregation really begin to take off.
8. Built to Last: Preserve core values and core purpose while changing cultural and operating practices and specific goals and strategies.
This one also seems obvious for the church world. Our core value (“love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind”) and our core purpose (“love your neighbor as yourself,” and “go, therefore, to make disciples of all nations”) have been in existence for 2,000 years. When we keep those cores at the center of our life together, the church thrives—because it is being the church of Jesus. We can change “cultural and operating practices and specific goals and strategies” all over the place, as the church has through reformation after reformation.
As you can see by the length of this review, I think Good to Great and the accompanying volume on social sectors have much to mine for leadership wisdom in the church. While there are plenty of passages and bits of advice that clearly don’t apply in an organization that is about people and not profits, developing disciples not customers, there is plenty to make it worth your time to read.
My biggest question at the end is about some of the companies featured in the book. In the most recent financial collapse, several of Collins’ “great” companies have fallen apart—Fannie Mae & Circuit City chief among them. The book is 10 years old, but these companies clearly did not remain great. I wonder if Collins has analyzed why—if they changed some of their behaviors after his book was written, or if he would change some of his analysis.
Copyright oracorac, flickr.com
Our family drove to Florida a few months ago. If you’ve ever made that journey, you know that the highways in Georgia and Florida are lined with billboards advertising pecans. Both J and I have mild allergies to nuts, but B loves them and seems unaffected. So, to pass the time, we were pointing out the billboards and asking him, “Hey, B, they have pecans! Wanna get some pecans?” His consistent reply was “Eww, yuck! No.” We assured him they were good and he would like them, but he refused. It became a repeating pattern: “Look, B, more pecans ahead! Good stuff! Don’t you want some pecans?” followed by “eww, yuck! No.”
We finally relented in pointing out the billboards, and another hour or so passed in the car. B spontaneously said, “I can’t believe you guys wanted me to eat that pee in cans. Yuck. Pee in cans. I wouldn’t like that at all.”
As hilarious as that moment was, and as revealing as it is about how I say “pecan,” it got me thinking about vocabulary. Since the advent of Willow Creek and other “seeker churches,” there has been an ongoing conversation about how the church’s extensive insider vocabulary can be intimidating, confusing or exclusionary for newcomers. Words like narthex, doxology, anthem and chancel have been replaced in some churches with less fancy (and more secular) terms like foyer, praise song, choir song, and stage. Other churches continue to use the traditional words, but make the effort to explain their meaning on a regular basis.
A church map to help orient newcomers, filled with words I don't even know.
We may be doing a better job of explaining those words, or putting things in terms people can understand, but what about the more important words of our faith? Are we taking the time and energy to explain what we mean when we talk about forgiveness, resurrection, disciple, Passion, trinity, sin, prophet, Kingdom of God, grace, or the Body of Christ? In my experience, many of the people in our congregations, whether newcomers or lifelong members, have only a passing familiarity with these words. For example, I recently used the word Messiah in teaching a class. While most of the class knew that referred to Jesus, that was the end of their understanding. They understood it as another name for Jesus, not a theological proclamation that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a savior for the world.
It’s easy to teach people to understand that the narthex is the foyer, but how can we teach them that disciple does not just to refer to the original twelve men, but to all who seek to follow Christ—and what that act of following means for our lives? Are we explaining that forgiveness, both human and godly, is more than saying “it’s fine, no big deal”? Do our references to the Kingdom of God include a clarification about where that kingdom resides, and our access to it? When we talk about grace, are we sure that people are hearing about the power of God’s love and forgiveness, or are they just thinking about a formulaic table prayer?
I wonder whether our preaching, teaching and evangelism sometimes resemble our car game: “Look, Jesus died on the cross! Forgiveness from sin! Grace! Want some? They’re good–you’ll like them!” It’s no wonder we hear, “eww, no, thank you,” because people don’t even understand what it is we are offering. Let’s be honest with ourselves. To those who do not know the vocabulary of our Christian faith, talk about sin and death on a cross, even with the promise of forgiveness and grace, is about as appealing as pee in a can. If we want to get past the “eww, yuck,” we need to find a way to explain what we’re talking about.
From Soccer Field to Funeral Home
Posted on: April 8, 2011
One of the great joys of serving as a pastor is bearing witness to so many intimate moments in people’s lives. When a baby is baptized, I get to stand right up there with the family and even hold the child. When young people give their lives to Christ at Confirmation, I get to place my hands on their heads. When a couple is married, the three of us stand alone atop the chancel as they make their vows. When someone is facing a health crisis, I am invited into intimate conversations about life and death, and I can sit with people in very deep moments of contemplation. When people discover faith for the first time, or when they take a new step in devotion or understanding, they talk to me about it. I am regularly privileged to be at someone’s bedside to pray as they take their last breath. When a loved one dies, I am honored to listen to the stories their family tells about how much this person meant to them, and then to give them back those stories during the funeral service. It is an honor and a privilege to be a pastor in these holy moments.
However, it is also a disconcerting experience at times. These beautiful moments that I participate in on a regular basis are not my moments. It is not my mother or father or spouse who is dying or being buried. Neither I nor any member of my family is being baptized, confirmed or married. For those at the heart of these life-altering days, these are unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. For me, they are just another day at the office. What they are doing once in a lifetime, I may be doing several times that week, or even that day.
I am not being flip. As I said before, these are holy moments, and it is an honor to be present in them. But the reality remains that they are not my moments, I am only a witness. And this can leave me feeling a bit disconnected, not just from those around me, but from my own life.
B makes a drive to the goal, a part of the game I missed
This was brought home to me last Saturday, when B played in his first-ever soccer game. I had a memorial service at nearly the same time, but I managed to make it for part of the game, cheering from the sidelines in my black suit and heels. After a quick hug from a sweaty kid at halftime, I jumped in the car. Twenty minutes later, I was somber-faced, leading a gathering of people saying goodbye to a beloved mother and grandmother. An hour after that, I was handling a phone call from another family in crisis, then heading out to Red Robin for B’s victory dinner (even though his team lost badly) and home to finish the sermon for Sunday.
I was fully present and attentively caring to the grieving family, and I felt genuine love and concern for them and even some small grief for this woman I had come to know. Yet I floated above their level of heartache, distant from their absorbing grief. For them, the moment itself was overwhelming, an emotional experience that knocked out all other concerns. For me, it was not even the most emotional event in my day.
This happens regularly in pastoral life, as we travel alongside people and accompany them through life’s major moments. As witnesses, we are present and compassionate without being fully immersed in the experience. That distance is a sign of a healthy self and functional pastor. Yet, I sometimes think that it keeps me distant from my own life as well. While I was cheering and clapping on the sidelines, I was also distant there, wearing my funeral clothes. I couldn’t give myself over to pride and jubilation, because the 15 minute drive from the game to the funeral home wasn’t going to be enough to change gears so fast.
What does this quick-change pastoral life do to our own emotional depth? Am I a ghost, a hovering specter in other people’s lives, somehow untouched by their hardship? Am I a chameleon, changing my emotional colors to blend in with my environment? Am I a prop, playing a functional part in other people’s scenes? On some days, I think this distance is an obstacle to diving deep into my own emotional well, because I am always present and subject to the varied emotional states of others.
On other days, I look over the richness of these experiences and understand that they equip me to journey deeper. As a frequent traveler over the terrain of death, of birth, of sickness, of joy, of love, I come to know its contours well, and I can engage my own experience with a richer perspective. Because I have witnessed so many holy moments, I can recognize them more easily in my life. I may have frequent roller-coaster experiences from one extreme to another, but that’s because my pastoral work always keeps me close to the heart of what matters most—which includes both the soccer field and the funeral home.
Yet another tension we hold on to in this pastoral life.
What do you think? Do you ever feel this tension in your personal and pastoral life?
Book Review: Saints at the River
Posted on: April 1, 2011
Saints at the River by Ron Rash, Henry Holt and Company, 2004, 239 pp.
Ah, escape! I needed a novel to escape from a hectic and challenging time of pastoral care. I went to the library, scanned the shelves and returned with Saints at the River. It fit the bill.
The novel tells the story of a young girl who drowns in a protected whitewater river, her body trapped beneath the rocks in a dangerous eddy. The tension in the story is between the girl’s family, who wants to dam the river to retrieve her body, and the environmentalists who have the law on their side to protect the river’s natural state. The story’s narrator, Maggie Glenn, is a photojournalist who hails from the small town at the center of the crisis, but now lives and works for a paper in the state capitol. She returns to cover the story, and (of course) deal with unresolved family issues from her past and present. The southern Appalachian mountain landscape and culture figure heavily in the plot as well.
The story was well-written and interesting. In spite of the premise, it was not overly maudlin, and I was grateful to read something that was not emotionally wrenching, like the other novels I have been reading lately. If anything, the book suffered because it didn’t suffer enough. As a narrator, Maggie is detached from the action. She has loyalties on both sides of the debate, although she leans toward the environmentalists. No one in the book seems to struggle profoundly or emotionally with the death of the girl or the river. The situation just is.
Saints at the River is not a book that will be particularly memorable, or that I found particularly inspiring, but I enjoyed it and I have no complaints. I just wanted something to escape with for a few hours, and this book did just that.
For The Someday Book 