There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged
to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
-Nelson Mandela
You can’t go home again, but we do anyway. In fact, it’s all we want to do. The old place exerts a powerful draw. The impulse to return home is driven by some inner need to make our bearings certain: Do the old people back home still remember me? Am I still accepted there? Despite all that has changed about me, is there yet some deep part of me that still belongs?
Last Sunday I was invited back to my old church. It had been almost four years. For those unfamiliar with such protocol, for clergy departing a congregation there is an explicit rule disallowing any contact with members of the congregation. When you leave, you leave. It’s a good and necessary rule, meant to ensure a healthy break with the old pastor, so that parishioners can form a bond with the new one. Going back, then, after a necessarily abrupt departure, I wondered what it would be like.
After more than fifteen years in the congregation, I had developed strong relationships with many people. Pastors meet people at their best and worst, in times of celebration and moments of crisis. That makes for deep bonds, but the pastor-parishioner relationship is tricky because it’s based in the role the pastor fulfills in the congregation. The pastor is called to serve a congregation as a designated spiritual leader, and the ministry she or he offers is done in that role. That is, it’s not personal—or not completely personal.
Anyone in a helping profession—doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers—knows how critical it is to tend the boundary between the personal and the professional. It’s important because when you’re dealing with precious human lives, only a very poor doctor or therapist would approach their work solely as a dispassionate professional. If you don’t care deeply for those given into your ministry, you can’t experience what is profoundly human and offer a resonant response. But, on the other hand, if you get too personally invested you don’t have the emotional distance necessary to make sober, rational and wise judgements. You have to let yourself be personally touched by depression, grief, fear or joy, but in every moment of ministry you must be saying to yourself, silently, “I am personally touched by this, and I am aware of that; I am watching that boundary.”
What this means is, the relationship I had with all those splendid people at Saint Luke’s was partly personal and fully in role. And going back after four years I no longer had a role. Or so I thought.
What I discovered on Sunday is that I have a new role. I’m a former pastor. Whatever relationships and encounters I had with people over those many years are not erased, they are simply preserved in the history—the story—we wrote together. Now my role is not to lead and engage but to marvel at the new, to pray for the congregation, and to cheer from the stands.
And yes, this is still a home for me. I still belong, if I can lay down something old and take up something new.
You and God are my two favorite cheerleaders.
Yes—I can co-cheer with God. Totally.
Beautifully put, David! I’m sure people were so happy to have you there. You are such a true shepherd!
Thanks, Sandy—you were there the day Pam and I walked in the door and mentored us both so beautifully.
Nice
Oh David. It was so wonderful to have you back. But, you left too quickly. So many were waiting to see you at the picnic. We were all in tears when we saw you up at the altar. We weren’t aware you’d be there. We love Ryan, our new pastor. He has as true a calling as you do. But, remember the old scout song: “Make new friends but keep the old,One is silver and the other gold.” Come back for another visit !
Wish I’d been there! Mobility and Covid impaired..,,
I’m sorry I missed seeing you! You and Pam are beloved by all of us and we miss you – while also loving our Ryan. Much love and thanks to you for all you’ve done for me and my family.
Well said! And I’m so sorry that I missed you and Pam. I’ll hope to catch you next time. I was very happy to hear that you are doing well.
Saint Luke’s was, and still is, my spiritual home. One of the blessings of COVID is being able to attend services remotely, which I have been doing since their inception. I was so happy when I saw you at the altar and wished I could have been there.
It brought us such joy to welcome you and Pam back home. Please come again soon and stay longer next time! We miss you both and are so grateful for the way you so lovingly cared for and guided us for so many years. You’re very much still with us…don’t forget that!
In so many ways, you are still our rector. It happens often they arrive just when needed. Thank you. Rick
Thanks, Rick—Trinity Solebury is another of my beloved homes!
David,
Thank you for sharing this. Despite having left us, you remain very much with us. Liz
I so appreciate your willingness to open up about your very human experiences as a pastor and former pastor. Thank you for sharing this ♥️. You and Pam are so loved and I’m relieved that you know you belong. I look forward to welcoming you home again next time!
Thanks, Lindsay–great to be back home at StL and see the marvelous ministry happening there. You all are killin’ it!