This evening, my pastor, Jacqueline Baker Hammett implored us to return to God. Citing scripture from Joel and Isaiah, she spoke of the meaning in Lent, stating that this season is as much about forming habits of good as relinquishing the bad. It was not until today that I confronted a negative habit that has caused me a lot of pain and suffering: putting other people on pedestals and expecting them to live up to it.
On Sunday, a friend I have idolized and admired with abandon made me feel very small and insignificant. You might be of the Eleanor Roosevelt school of “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” and I thought I was too, until that moment. I was confronted with a side of my friend I had never seen and was accosted with a rant so vitriolic I still haven’t fully recovered. Was I deserving of the treatment? No; it was a sad misunderstanding that unfortunately continues, but I stood by what I believe to be the truth in the matter, and for this I’m in grief that the friendship is lost.
I have recently completed my second year of Commissioned Ministry study and will be interviewing in early March to have my license renewed. The anger I felt at this confrontation with my friend caused me to question whether I still have what it takes; the humility, the grace, the love and forgiveness a pastor must have.
What I realized tonight, in hearing the words of Isaiah on people who professed to worship God but still clung to other gods, is that in putting a human being on a pedestal, regardless of how much I love him or her, I am serving another god. I trusted this friend in the deepest, darkest trenches of my 2011. In my mind I referred to the friend by the word, “savior.” This was wrong.
Last month I addressed the local chapter of the Optimist Club. They were meeting at a food establishment whose threshold I had never before crossed, and as I began setting up to make my presentation my eyes lit on their Creed. I would encourage anyone suffering from self-doubt or cynicism to read it, and in fact, to commit it to memory.
I wish this very much for the friend whose words have wounded me, for a deeply held cynicism has taken root in that soul, and I pray it can be shed like a dead, unnecessary old skin. If you are reading this, I love you.
“Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning.” Joel 2:10 And so, I return.





