Solitary Refinement - Christianity Today

I knew they would soon invite me to “preach for a call.” My discussions with the search committee had gone well. But I had not yet seen the church building, and for some reason it was important that I do so.

The day of the evening meeting with the committee, I drove the two hundred miles early in the day and arrived at the building in the afternoon, long before my appointment. To my relief, there were no cars in the parking lot.

I had imagined this scene many times. Some things I had imagined correctly: the size and shape of the building, its colors and layout. But others were a surprise: the long narrow parking lot, the old cemetery, the small grove of trees by the yard, the location’s isolation.

The air was mild, though it was winter. I wore only a hooded sweatshirt. I wandered around, circled the building, and tried to peer into windows. I picked my way carefully through the snow in the cemetery. I studied gravestones, wondering at the history behind them.

Then I walked under the trees. Things were so quiet that I heard only the hum of distant traffic.

Then it happened. While I was standing among those trees, a deep conviction washed over me: “Here is a place where I can pray.”

Perhaps the realization was more about me than about this place. But here I knew I could listen to God. I could hear God. This place was holy.

PACKED WITH PRESENCE

In one sense, all places are holy. But in certain places, God’s holiness seems more discernible and more accessible.

I had thought about this call for some time. I had read the church’s profile long ago. There were discussions on the phone, meetings with the search committee, research, explorations, and prayer. They were all significant: part of a careful, well-informed decision.

Yet this flashing epiphany was as significant as–or perhaps more significant than–the other preparations. For at that moment, an important decision was confirmed and deepened. I knew then what I would say to the committee that evening. The moment crackled with the energy of God. Trudging cautiously through the snow that March winter day, I experienced a moment of tremendous promise and potential.

It was not just a call to pastor in a particular place, however; it was a call to a particular style of pastoring. I was ruefully aware that in my last pastorate, busy work often precluded prayer, personal agenda often overshadowed God’s agenda, numbers and effectiveness often outweighed faithful being. I had taken too many cues from my education.

In “Seeking the Face of God,” William Shannon writes humorously on the problem of the lack of preparation for prayer in seminary education. During his six years of seminary, he expected that he would learn to pray. It never happened.

Shannon writes, “Two of the things I was supposed to know how to do after I left the seminary I actually wasn’t able to do: I wasn’t able to balance a check book, and I wasn’t able to pray.” He was ordained without ever having a sense he could pray!

But I knew that God had called me to be a pastor who prays. I didn’t want to be a pastor who leads the congregation in public prayers and prays for others, but who does not pray alone with God.

UNPRODUCTIVE GUILT

Some time ago I had a particularly quiet week. Our church has its share of crises, but we are also graced with a gifted and committed congregation that does a lot of the work. I am not saddled with many busy tasks that so often eat up one’s time.

Nevertheless, I felt guilty that I was not too productive that week. While fretting about this, I recalled that Eugene Peterson had written about this. Immediately I sat down and read the relevant chapter in The Contemplative Pastor.

Peterson says that while there is plenty to do in our work, busyness should not be our norm. Busyness, according to him, is betrayal, noting that Hilary of Tours considered busyness “a blasphemous anxiety to do God’s work for him.” Peterson argues that his busyness (and probably that of most pastors) arises from either the vanity of wanting to appear important or the laziness of letting others decide what one must do.

Peterson writes, “If I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don’t have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?”

Peterson says, “I know I can’t be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted, or dispersed.”

Reading Peterson consoled me, and my guilt for my lack of productivity left. As Providence would have it, however, the next day was extremely busy. The first early morning meeting was quickly followed by another. Then a chairperson of one committee cornered me, and two members approached me at different times to process important personal concerns. Then a woman connected to our church was admitted to a psychiatric ward for help with her addiction; I went to visit.

But in all the flurry, I was never distracted. I was attentive and present to each person, mindful of the depth of our encounter, listening for the footsteps of God. If I had been busy the previous days, I would not have been prayerfully present in that potentially stressful day.

I recently spent time at Daybreak, the L’Arche community where Henri Nouwen resides. A middle-aged Presbyterian pastor was taking his sabbatical there. He admitted that he had been too busy. Yet while he was away, all the church work was still being done quite well–without him. Nouwen encouraged him to re-enter that former life without taking on all of the old duties, continuing to allow others to do some of them.

This pastor did not want to be perpetually busy. Neither do I.

NEIGHBORHOOD DESERT

I once wrote a lament on the loneliness of pastoring and cited Nouwen: “To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.”

In the intervening years since penning that piece, the loneliness of pastoring has not diminished. Even though my Mennonite tradition minimizes lay-clergy distinctions, I still find that I am set apart in oddly perplexing ways. I belong in the church but somehow do not fit with others.

When our family accepted the present call, we looked at dozens of houses, trying to decide which to purchase. Long after we made our choice and I began my new position, we learned that on two different occasions we had happened to look at houses next door to church members.

When we told these members that we had looked at the house next door, both responses were the same and equally unsettling: “What would it be like to have your pastor live next door?”

Would they live differently? I wondered. Would I be expected to be different? It seemed pastor and parishioner alike were better off living apart!

No matter what my Anabaptist theology says, pastors have a unique role in the church. I am set apart, available to everyone with no guarantee of experiencing mutual intimacy. People are free to tell me all, but I have no promise of being able to unburden myself too.

Perhaps it is a matter of maturity or a better self-understanding, but the loneliness of the pastorate no longer feels as onerous as it once did. It is part of the job and part of who I am as an introvert. Partly it is not so severe because I learned to look elsewhere–fellow pastors, a spiritual formation group, my spiritual director–for companionship, intimacy, and support.

The loneliness is still there to be sure, but I accept it now. I am no contemplative monastic; I am just a country preacher, and this little church is my prayer cell. I am no desert father, but my work is my desert where I experience trials, temptations–and healing, silent solitude.

Sometimes I envy the way parishioners seem to fit better into the church community than I ever will. But mostly I realize that it is a great privilege to live a life of prayer and to practice my vocation in intimate conversation and companionship with God.

I have learned not to count on others or on busyness to fulfill me. “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (Ps. 62:1, Amplified).

CELL WORK

The dry gravel road is badly pitted. I roll up my windows to keep out billowing clouds of dust. My destination is the only building on this country road: the little, old church where I now practice my vocation.

It is spring with green grass and trees joyously clothed in leaves. I park the car and get out. A cardinal calls from across the road, Canada geese honk in the distance, and a bend of the Grand River flashes at me from afar. The world is hushed and lovely. I breathe a quiet prayer of thanks.

As I lift my hand to unlock the church’s door, a shiver of anticipation shoots through me. I am so glad to be here. The building is silent, and I am alone. My small, book-crammed office is in the back. Its window overlooks the small grove of trees and cemetery where I heard God call me to pastor here. (The cemetery helps me–as the psalmist says–to “count my days that I might gain a wise heart”).

I sort mail, do some filing, respond to messages on the machine. Then I turn off the lights and light two candles. With them and the window, there is light aplenty. I read a devotional book and then begin my prayers. After softly chanting some Psalms and reading the day’s gospel, I move to the sanctuary for a time of contemplation between prayer-soaked walls. Then I return to the office for further prayer and intercessions.

I do not report this in any way to the church. I am held accountable for living up to my contract (preaching so often per month, visiting the sick, et cetera), but no one ever asks whether I pray.

Nevertheless, in my garden of solitude, prayer is the heart of my work.