Fantasy

Robert de Niro's new movie Everybody's Fine isn't getting great reviews, apparently because it doesn't ring true, it isn't realistic. Duh. The plot of this movie--the demanding, neglectful father visits each of his four children one by one in an effort to reestablish a relationship with them after their mother dies--is pure fantasy. In fact, I would venture a guess that this is the ultimate fantasy, one that trumps any scenario involving superheroes or Angelina Jolie in a bikini. The fantasy is that Dad will eventually get it, that he will see the pain he has caused, that he will reach out to connect and that he will take responsibility, thus freeing the adult kid from the shame of not being good enough for dad all those years. (Disclaimer: this isn't my own personal fantasy since my own dad didn't cause me a lot of pain and he is great about connecting in loving meaningful ways and he definitely takes responsibility. But I promise, if there were more dads like my dad, I would have a hard time making a living.) I'm glad the movie isn't believable because if it were, there would be just be more pain--why can't my father do something like that? why can't my dad say those things? Every now and then I have the rare opportunity to ask a father to write a letter of blessing and affirmation to a child, usually a son. I can't even express how healing that is to the child. But dads also say they will and then never get around to it. Or they try to bless but they just can't hold back the judgment. Oh, but when it happens, it's like magic.

Saddened

Like everyone, I'm sad about the massacre at Ft. Hood. Learning that some of the dead and wounded were recently returned from overseas was almost too much to absorb. I understand how an unstable, paranoid person becomes obsessed with killing a public figure. I understand how an immature person, in a fit of rage, kills an intimate partner. I even understand how someone can nurse a grudge long enough to become murderous. What I absolutely cannot understand is how someone goes out and kills strangers who have never done anything to him personally. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Which I guess is a good thing.

Here's another thing that makes me sad, although in a completely different way. Just about an hour ago, the CNN commentator said, "We're still trying to determine the shooter's nationality . . . " and I've heard several others say almost exactly the same thing. Let's all take a minute to remember that this shooter, like McVeigh and Klebold and Harris and most of the others, was an American. He may turn out to be a particularly evil or sick American but he is one of us. There seems to be this pervasive sense that there are "real Americans"--white, Christian, native-born--and then there are "not really Americans"--in this case, brown, Muslim, born to immigrant parents. It reminds me of the appalling moment 20 years ago when the chief of the LAPD referred to "black people" and "normal people." If we're going to be the nation of immigrants that we've always been, we've got to figure this out, even when one of our own has committed the ultimate betrayal.

One thing at a time

I think I have self-induced ADD. I don't want to take lightly the struggles of people who actually have the neurological disorder that causes attention deficit but I think I have a similar behavioral disorder and I think I brought it on myself.

I seem to have completely lost the ability to do one thing and focus completely on that one thing. (One exception: seeing clients. I have an almost creepy ability to be fully present to clients while they are sitting in my office.) I read a little bit and then remember something I have to do. I start to check email and want a snack. I start to cook but during a lull, I'll open a magazine. I address envelopes or iron or pick up clutter while I watch TV.

Almost 15 years ago, I developed a seizure disorder that required me to take high doses of a really potent medication. For almost a full year, I couldn't do two things at once. Multitasking was impossible. I couldn't even doodle while I talked on the phone or write letters during the commercials on TV. For that year, my world was very small (for half of it, I couldn't even drive.) My pace was very slow. Even the smallest tasks took every bit of my attention. I don't want to go back to that, but I do want some of the mindfulness that I had back then.

Brain-based psychological studies tell us that multitasking is really an illusion anyway. Apparently, people who think they are good multitaskers are actually unitasking really fast. The brain is not able to do more than one thing at a time; it can only do one thing at a time really fast. And people who describe themselves as effective multitaskers are actually less efficient than the plodders who do one thing at a time.

The problem with ADD (even the self-induced kind) is that it inhibits "flow," that super-creative state that we get into when we're fully absorbed in what we're doing. I need less productivity in my life and more flow. I'm intrigued by the idea the flow is the antidote to some kinds of stress. So, the new experiment is to do one thing . . . then do another thing . . . then another . . . one thing at a time.

Benediction

Life is short and we do not
have much time to
gladden the hearts of
those who travel with us.

So be swift to love and
make haste to be kind.

Go in peace.

Happy Halloween!

This is entitled "Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian side"--just for fun!

Sometimes the last are first

It used to be that pastors were the spiritual guides in the important transition points in life. They did what southerners call "marrying and burying," meaning that they incarnated the presence of God--that they became a means of grace--at births and baptisms and marriages and especially, always, deaths.

This is now a quaint, old-fashioned way of doing pastoral ministry. Pastors who spend a lot of time on pastoral care--especially with the elderly--are dismissed as "chaplains." Sitting by bedsides isn't considered "strategic leadership." Praying with old people isn't "high-leverage." Comforting the grieving isn't "missional."

C came home from a midweek joint worship service tonight only to be greeted with the news that Mrs. So-and-so was dying and the family was hoping he would come. You need to understand that Mrs. So-and-so and her family are not important members of our church. They don't have much to give, either financially or in terms of service. They aren't well-known. But they are a sweet Christian family and they wanted C to come pray.

When he walked back in the door two hours later, he told me briefly about his visit. Mrs. So-and-so had died while he was there and he had helped each family member begin their own unique journey of grief, offering to do the funeral even though it involved a trip out of town (way out of town) on his day off. He described their deep gratitude for his pastoral presence as they faced one more grief in a long string of family griefs.

We both know how this kind of ministry is perceived by those who are more visionary about pastoral leadership. Maybe that's why C said reflectively, with a little laugh, "You know, tonight was high-leverage in the Kingdom; if it really is all about love, this matters." I think he's right.

Being a leader is a hard job. Being a leader in the Kingdom of God is really a hard job. I don't even pretend to know how a pastor is supposed to do it all, including providing strategic, high-leverage, missional leadership (which is all important, even if I'm not exactly sure what it all means.) But I'm grateful for the many, many pastors who remember that in this Kingdom, everything is upside down and what seems unimportant is often most important and what seems insignificant changes everything.