The Pastor

For my eldest brother, and a few others, both men and women, I’ve been lucky to know. 

You were plucked from the current,
only to be tossed back in,
facing upstream,
to capsize again and again.

Your vocation concerns the chemistry of ambiguity,
the logic of paradox, the mathematics of mystery.

Semi-hermit, secret mystic, cultural iconoclast,
on-call counselor, ribbon cutter, weary diplomat.

Part thespian, part pedestrian, part Edgar Allan Poe,
Billy Crystal, Billy Holiday, St. Theresa, Hank Snow.

You are an under-sourced apologist, toiling into the night
to roll away a single stone.

You feed upon the pages of ancient scribes,
your knees are glazed, your eyes burn.

Aware of splinters in your faith, distance in your soul, still
you preach of what you long for, dream for, unquenchable.

Your knuckles bleed from knocking,
your ears ring from straining.

You author picture-rich sermons,
in the knowledge that sermons seldom convince.

You lean heavily into God is love.
Knowing everything else you say is tinged with heresy.

You lie on small beds of nails,
knowing the gossip at Sunday dinners is not always polite.

You are a contemplative on a full schedule.
A prayerful sub-contractor, meditative time manager.

You are faithful to show up at hospitals, prisons, shelters.
You quietly resist all mantles.

Your tools are a stir stick, some clay and water.

The seminary has given you the uniform of a tour guide.
You wear it for a year.
One Sunday you disrobe and stand naked in front of the pulpit.
(Forever forgoing invitations to more celebrated circles.)

At the board meeting, you recline under the flashing storms in the room,
show how each one’s inner light is neither rare nor elite.

When in town, you blend in, yet rarely escape
the conversation that exposes your vocation
and elicits the awkward air,

the unstated appraisals that pitch you in with the hucksters,
the imposters, the deluded, the pitied.

You lean upon your partner, your good friend, your Jesus,
for this is your enlisted, pilgrim-lonely life.

Like those stones on the beach, no one selects,
those shells above the tide no one stops to pick up,
turn over, hold up to the sun, see the pearl-coloured beauty within.

All this, and still you rise to fling your thankfulness out over the water,
and feel within your body, a holy longing, a growing tenderness,
a loving-kindness and truth,
you will not conceal from the great congregation.

Day by day feeling farther from the grave,
feeling there is no grave, not really.