I have been enjoying being a pastor in a small town. I must be crazy, says my former self. I can't get sushi here. I live 2.5 hours from my boyfriend. I am about 2 hours from any large city. With the exception of mortars exploding on Friday nights at the high school football games and freight trains passing through, it is fairly quiet here. No night life, unless your idea of the "night life" is falling asleep in the La-Z-Boy with the cat on your lap at 9:00PM. I like this life. I must be getting old.
I turned 40 this past June. I have wondered what happened to me, when I think about my slightly more conservative leanings, remembering my days as a flaming liberal. And then I remember why. I turned 40. I remember a time when I couldn't imagine being "this old." I remember when my mother was "this old." But I must say, turning 40 now is nothing like it was then. They say 40 is the new 30, but I certainly like myself more at 40. 30 kind of sucked for me.
Since my generation, there has also been Generation Y and now the "Millenials" - terms that I am still trying to understand. But these are the generations who are now becoming our leaders. I look to the people who are old enough to be my parents, to see how they are reacting to the changing world, and I ask if I will be like them someday. The Baby Boomers in my church seem conflict-weary and suspicious of authority figures. They seem to grieve these facts also. They are aware that things are not so happy and shiny anymore and while they have accepted this truth, they are not happy about it. They don't live under the misapprehension that things are happy and shiny, but they seem too tired to solve it and prefer to grouse. This is the makeup of the congregation I serve. They struggle to be cheerful about the future. I remarked to someone this morning that our world is much more cynical than it used to be and she said that it "always has been," as if she couldn't even remember a time when the world wasn't cynical! If we dig further into the past, perhaps when she was about 10 years old (1950s), she might be able to remember an age when the world was a bit more hopeful, in spite of McCarthyism and fear of nukes. Technology was viewed as a blessing by many households, at least from the point of view of the men who invented it, and it was viewed as "progress." Even the word "progress" has negative connotations now, for it reminds us that with "progress" there can be negative consequences, thus making us cynical.
Sometimes I get the feeling that folks in our town feel stifled by the positive aspects of "progress," which has passed them by, like the interstate that made most people pass by our town. I think it has made some people in our town embittered and negative, particularly as they have witnessed a number of "good ideas" chased out of our town, when we really needed them. At one time a major university wanted to be planted here. That, I have heard from our local residents, went somewhere else and we missed out on a good thing. Perhaps folks feel so cynical about our present, cynical about our future, because we can't imagine our city government will ever do anything right. No wonder when we get to talking about politics we have such barbed words to express our opinions. Everyone's got an opinion, don't they? And of course they have a right to it. It's better to have opinions than to let someone think for you.
Life in a little southwestern town definitely has given me a first-hand acquaintance with that opinionated, independent, pioneer spirit. We have gone relatively unmixed for over 20 years. Many people leave our town never to return. There is a handful of those who return for retirement, called, "the Ones Who Came Back." They grew up here. We have few, true, imported opinions. I am one of the few "imports." And, I am one of the few Gen Xers in my church. At the age of 40, I am just a kid compared to 95% of my congregation.
Sometimes I have wondered why God called me to this church in this town. I am not the one who is able to breathe new life into this congregation. Nor do I feel it is my job to change who they are. I am praying for the Spirit to do these things, as God wills to do. I do know that I have an unusual grief story that most women my age have yet to experience. I have aspirations to be a country pastor/scholar, since small church ministry affords me those chances to continue serious study of what excites me. I believe in listening carefully before opening my big fat mouth. I really enjoy knowing this town and its people, including our history. I truly believe that this is part of my work, to have a vision for us, hopefully God's vision for us, that might eventually cause this church to stretch its wings and fly into the future. How we will see this through is the question. I really believe that our Presbyterian heritage has so much substance, so much history and staying power, that we can move through these times, nourishing our congregation. We have such a history and substance I really believe it can eventually attract people to us anew, if we figure out how to let God use our great gifts to serve God's purposes.
I am not a cynic. For years I have believed that cynicism is a terminal illness. A little bit of sarcasm can make you laugh a bit, even if ironically, just to get you through a tough day. The day my sarcasm turns to cynicism, just shoot me.
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