A New Heart, a Beer Can and a Broken Flip-Flop

A New Heart, a Beer Can and a Broken Flip-Flop

There is an amazing story I heard on the radio about a cardiologist who allowed a pastor to observe a surgery he was doing on a patient.  After the doctor had done all of the technical/surgical things he had been able to do, he leaned over to the patient, a woman, and whispered to her, “Okay, I’ve done all I can do – now you have to take over, tell your heart to beat again…”   And Christian songwriter Danny Gokey took that inspiring vignette and penned these lyrics:

Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of Grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again

I cannot begin to tell you what these lyrics have meant to me in the last eight months.  As some of you may know, I was the victim of a group lynching at the place where I should have been the most emotionally safe:  the church where I did part-time ministry.  I was misconstrued by one group of people, who ran to the power brokers and complained, who in turn went to the pastor, who called me into a private meeting that was not in fact private.  It was five people – two of them very angry, having already jumped to conclusions that I was a bigot.  They did not use the word, they painted the picture – and it was skewed by second and third-hand interpretations.  They did not respect me as a professional educator and minister and try to understand what I was saying to them.  They just shouted at me while the pastor sat there and let them do the dirty work. 

As my brain and emotions reeled from the treatment I was getting, I tried to re-group and figure a way that I could continue doing the job I loved under the eye of people who had stopped loving me a long time ago…. The same people who stand there week after week and sing a song that has the lyrics “all are welcome in this place.”  The hypocrisy was painful. I had presented over the past seven and a half years what I know to be the philosophy and teachings of Christ, and subsequently the interpretation of that by the Roman Catholic Church.  They on the other hand refused to listen to what our party line is, thinking somehow they can endorse something else.  Well, you can’t say you are this, and in actuality be that. 

As I left that room, I could feel my heart being rent in two inside me.  It was scary and horrible at the same time.  Some dear friends supported me, and one of them went in to the room to give them a clearer picture of what they were doing to me…. in a pretty direct and loud fashion.  And she was met with, “that wasn’t what we intended.”  As anyone who has been through this sort of experience will tell you, you cannot cross back over a bridge that has been blown up.  So I resigned.  And thereupon became, in a particular sense, “churchless.”  I still believe what I believe.  I still am who I am.  I still value what I value.  And I could not do that with that group of people watching for me to cross their own lines…. So I have been a nomad on Sunday mornings looking for a church to worship in, while at the same time, not looking to put down roots or trust too quickly that I have found my spiritual home.  My spiritual home, in fact, I carry within me. It cannot be a building or a particular group of people because I have learned that this will, in the end, fail you.  As my great grandmother once said in her broken Polish accent, “peoples is peoples.”

As I travel on Sunday mornings to find the faces of faith in a variety of different congregations, I am feeling a little better.  At times I have even been entertained or inspired by some pretty good homilies.  And other times, not so much.  I have been to multi-million dollar churches with a congregation so large they have to have four Masses to accommodate their people – and each with a different style or flavor to it.  You know, the 9:00 am has the guitar music; while the 11:00 am has the organ, etc.; the pastor and associate banter back and forth creating a friendly vibe – they keep it light.  I found a sweet little back country church where the priest actually faces the East (symbolic of waiting for Christ’s return) and consequently with his back to the congregation as he does the Eucharistic prayers.  It was like attending the Old Latin Mass, only in English, well mostly.  

I attended an evangelical Protestant church mid-winter that had a congregation of 25.  Twenty-five, period, end of sentence.  And half of them walked in 20 minutes late.  I found that kind of entertaining.  All these years I beat myself up for showing up five minutes late, like somebody cared, and half their church is late!  I liked the music; I liked the sermon, but then the next three weeks were going to be about marriage and that is kind of not on my grid right now so I continued my sojourn. 

Last week I went to a far-flung place with a big, traditional physique as far as the building goes.  The deacon gave the homily.  I just remember that he started out by saying how long some material things last, and that eventually everything gives way to time and the elements…. including us.  And he launched into making a point about us preparing for the moment of our death, when we meet our Maker.  Except he gave no practical tips, like say, pray the rosary every day or read ten minutes of the Bible every morning.  So, I just stopped listening.  This is a privilege I am allowing myself in my middle years:  if you stop being interesting or don’t get relevant within the first eight minutes, I am no longer interested.  It’s just the brain screening out the extraneous in order to last longer itself. 

At the end of the Mass, the pastor got up and said something kind about the homily the deacon gave.  He then remarked that, as the congregation was aware, he himself is a card-carrying, lifetime member of alcoholics anonymous.  (I love him for his authenticity.)  He said:  Deacon told us that a beer can left in the woods lasts about 80 years and I am pleased to report that I have just turned 81!  In other words, he outlived the beer can.  The entire congregation chuckled at that – it was great.  And I love it when a group has a sense of humor and doesn’t let their “church-iness” put a veneer on their sense of humor.  Nonetheless, I was and still am not ready to meet and greet new people.

 

I tried to slip out the side door where he was saying good morning to people.  I tried very hard to be invisible.  I don’t even know by what childish magic my brain thinks that someone in an adult body like mine can become invisible by just moving quietly around a group of people.  Well, the next thing that happened was my pretty black flip-flop with the fake diamonds on its strap just BROKE.  I could not manage to get a flat foot on the ground and did a series of awkward, Big Bird-like movements to maintain my balance and grab the flip flop without falling over on the sidewalk.  I walked back to my vehicle with the flip flop in one hand and a barefoot on the ground as well.

It is likely that my predicament was not un-noticed by the very people I was trying to skirt.  However, it is for sure and for certain that Someone Else has not left any of my predicaments and awkward scenarios unseen.  He is watching (and probably was laughing divinely) and I feel loved by Him.  That’s all that matters now.

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