Friday, January 11, 2013

Vanity

Have you noticed that certain pastors are able to get their every thought, sermon, memo (even their grocery lists, it seems) published in a book?  Trite little bits about what they had for breakfast and how that reminded them of God's grace, or reverent reflections upon the angels surrounding the Christ at his birth, or their opinions on everything from government officials to the spiritual causes of hurricanes.  Nothing against the Rick Warren's and Max Lucado's of the world, but they give the sense that no one else out there is capable of having a decent independent spiritual thought.  There is a vanity in believing that what we write and think has enough value that others should willingly pay for our thoughts.

And so it is with some trepidation and self-acknowledge vanity, that I set out into the world of blogging.  I do so not so much because I think my thoughts are better, but because I needed a place to honestly (and a bit irreverently) state that which often goes unsaid, "That we pastors think a lot of things that might be beneficial for church members, church haters, and people who are wondering about spiritual things like God, the universe and everything (as long as the people aren't members of my church or community-- because then I could offend someone), but we would never say them in a sermon because it would likely cause a riot or at least the tossing of tomatoes and rotten broccoli toward the pulpit."  In other words, stripping away the decorum of clerical robe and collar, and ranting like a grammer-hating, run-on-sentence writing Dennis Miller.  Okay, maybe not with that much talent.

So, if you happen to be from Buchanan, Michigan or attend the First United Methodist Church, you may want to turn away, stop reading, and preserve your happy and content view of the church and your pastor as perfect.  I suppose I should stop at this time and give some sort of legal qualifier like: "any resemblance between the people and characters in this blog is purely coincidental.  All situations and persons described are purely fictional."  But that would be lying, because every fiction is born of the flesh and blood of a real person, and no matter how hard we try we cannot wash that residue off from our final product.

You've been warned.  If you recognize yourself in one of these readings, that is probably because I had you in mind as I was writing.  You're vain enough to believe that aren't you -- just as I am vain enough to believe you'll read this meandering mess.

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