My congregation knows enough about me to know that I am a second-career pastor. My first “life” or career was as a Navy musician. The next layer of knowing this about me is that I originally wanted to be a pastor around the age of ten. That roughly coincided with the age at which I started playing trombone. Which led to my “arrested development.” When music took a hold of me, being a pastor took a back seat.

In seminary my previously delayed life ambition was formed. I now knew what I had always suspected and learned about myself. At forty I was more mature, self-confident and ready for the rigors of ministry than I would have been at, say, twenty-two. Of course, there was infinitely more to learn about myself. Appropriate emotional expression, for example. Be concerned, not anxious. Don’t be angry or resentful. Embrace moments of solitude but don’t succumb to loneliness. It was like “the code.” That is all “tongue-in-cheek.” Every pastor is a person first, not some theological automaton. “The code” lends itself, if one is not careful, to the same anfechtung that Luther felt in his training in the Augustinian order. It makes one unhappy, feeling unworthy, unfaithful, and guilty as all get-out.

Thankfully, I can identify with many of my parishioners in the “been there, done that” category. I am a “wounded healer”, as Henri Nouwen calls it. My emotions, like yours are spiritual. We who together make up the church inhabit the world’s biggest lost and found department. We are constantly being formed and shaped, even when we think we are in our final rendition of who we think we are. I used to engage in so much self-defeating thought, all the “what ifs”. Did I truly squander eighteen years of my life that could have been devoted to God’s service? Did I ever actually “grow up” when I retired from Naval service? We do ourselves a great favor by drawing ever closer to the One who gives us peace, joy, kindness and gentleness – with ourselves. God’s hand on the rudder of our little boat ensures that we are always where we are supposed to be, when we are meant to be there. Such is His unconditional love for us in our formation, delayed and constant.

Pastor Art