WTF, Preacher Man?

Yesterday I sat with some colleagues and listened to a local pastor (who is well-respected and has published several books) talk about living without spiritual regrets.

One of his sermon illustrations went something like this:

A busy man who traveled for work (leaving early Monday morning and returning late Friday night) bought a lake house so that he could spend time with his family. The family spent their weekends at the lake house, not at “church.” The child loved Jesus and, we were told, was “saved.” The child wanted to go to church and asked his dad why they didn’t. The dad explained that this was their family time. Then the child was tragically killed in an automobile accident. And his father spoke of being haunted (and fearing he would be the rest of his days) by his son’s question. The point of the illustration was that we should avoid the regret of not investing in our children’s spiritual lives (presumably, by failing to get them to the sacred building on Sunday morning)–a regret this man obviously suffered and, by implication, rightly so.

That was pretty much it. I’m sure I might have misinterpreted, but I don’t think so.

I’m just gonna make this short and sweet. I don’t doubt that the man might have some spiritual regrets, but not getting his kid to a magical edifice at a magic time so that he could be magically processed through a magic program by magically-empowered religious professionals shouldn’t be one of them. Especially since his misplaced priorities resulted in the ostensibly spiritually-abused child spending more time with his parents and siblings.

I don’t much mind the Sunday morning regimen. And I have a modicum of respect for the institution. But neither is the Church. And, in my opinion, the biggest spiritual regret in this scenario should be that of the pastor who, from all that we were told, spoke–to his brother, the bereaved father, and to us, the listening body assembled to be edified with the truth of the Kingdom–with all of the amassed wisdom of Job’s friends.

Whereas . . . Wheareas . . . blah, blah, blah

New Year’s resolutions annoy me.

For that matter, so does so much of the marking of the New Year.  It’s like that whole birthday thing.  One of the stupidest things we ask each other (and, I admit, I’ve asked it myself) is “so, do you feel a year older?”  You shouldn’t.  The same time 24 hours earlier, you weren’t a year younger; you were 24 hours younger.  You were–in annual terms–pretty much the same age even a month before your birthday as you are on your birthday and will be a month after your birthday.  It’s just silly.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s great that we celebrate people, and their birthdays are as good a time as any.  I don’t so much know about celebrating the progression of time.  I find “time” a troublesome abstraction, to be perfectly honest.  Yes, abstraction.  But that’s another digression for another day.  And don’t even get me started on entropy.  Oy.

But, no, what really bugs me is the artificiality.  New Year’s resolutions are at once compulsory and melodramatic.  Let’s be honest, most New Year’s resolutions will fail.  Most of us enter into them knowing (somewhere deep inside if nowhere else) that they won’t last, but we do it anyway,  because we feel that that’s what’s expected.  They are a lot like marriages.  

If you’re going to do something, do it.  If not, I think you and we are better off with your not making such a big deal out of your tepid commitment.  As so many half-assed marriages are merely the prelude to divorce, so many “commitments” made for the New Year are more dissolution than resolution.  If we were truly resolute, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t need the histrionics.  But, in any case, what we need less–and not more–of is the pretense of commitment and the pretense of change.  We’ve got plenty, thanks.

Janus is a two-faced bastard and we rightly honor him with our lies.  But let’s not.

Change.  (That’s an imperative and, therefore, a complete sentence, and not a fragment; not that I don’t do fragments).  Go ahead.  And grace to you as you do.

Exercise, eat better, balance your checkbook, love your family, upend the world, make sense of your life, whatever.  Do it.  Ask for help even.  Announce it.  But mean it.  And count the costs.

And, no, I’m not advising that we not take chances.  What I’m suggesting is that we really take them, instead of just going through the formality.  

And I’m not damning us for our failure.  We will fail.  We can be forgiven.  We must get up and try again.  But we shouldn’t just play at it.  For that matter, some folks play with more commitment and passion than most of us live.  Let’s not let them have all of the fun, eh?

I resolved a long time ago to stop making New Year’s resolutions, and I’m proud to say that I’ve kept that resolution.  But I don’t mean to be a legalist; if New Year’s works for you then more power to you.  Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m the only one who perceives this time as fundamentally duplicitous.  I do.  But though it be dark and foggy it is not unredeemed.  I am, amidst the shadowy mists, preparing, perhaps, for purification in February, battles in March, etc.  

I’m pretty sure that God isn’t bound by the Julian or Gregorian or, for that matter, Maya calendar.  We tend to be, but we can be free.  Will the world end in 2012?  Hell if I know.  But I do know that we could usher in the end of the world as we know it today if we chose to.

Oh, and–coincidentally or not–I would like to exercise some more, so I’d like it if all of you January posers would get out of my gym.  You know you don’t mean it anyway.  You know who you are.