The Last Minute

--> “Since when have things been easy?” My dad said this to my mom while she ferociously unloaded the dishwasher. It’s been months of angry housework. The rest of us stayed out of the way. I sat in the dining room, staring at decades of photographs. Dust tickled the insides of my nose—my eyes watered and I sneezed. The memorial was in two days. **** Death never comes at a convenient time for the living. Even with months to brace for impact, knowing full well that someone is in that oily place between living and dead, grief’s seatbelt is a chokehold after the crash. My grandfather’s death was a year in slow motion. The stroke happened like most strokes – without apologies. That night on the phone he was still groggy, his voice muffled by an oxygen mask. Comfort came only in stirs of mumbled vowels. At least he was alive . People handed me this counterfeit hope regularly, watched me walk face first into a spider’s web and didn’t say anything at all.    ...

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” -- Mahatma Ghandi  Because ministry is a competition Who can have the craziest, busiest life? Who can have children? Who can get married the fastest? Who gets the call first? Who passes all the ordination exams, has the most life experience, ministry experience, is the least sinful?  Seminary is a lot of "nananana boo boo I'm better and more equipped for this than you are!"  Someone in one of my classes told a group of students, at least three of us under 30, that she prays for the young people essentially because we don’t have the experience of ministry that she does and that we aren’t equipped with enough life experience to do the job right. I held up my end of the bargain as a sassy young person by rolling my eyes. At the same time this attitude that young people are ill-equipped to do the amazing things that ministry requires and be leaders in the...