While I continue to ponder my life's work and continue to discern and articulate God's call on my life as a Pastor, I think I will post this in an effort to be present with what the poem is telling you & I.
Calling
Written by J. Barrie
Shepherd
Both less and more than
family and good friends,
still you belong there at
the high moments and the low,
included in the laughter and
the tears, all the embraces,
words and gestures of
delight and consolation,
across the years even
participating in remembering,
noting the absences, the
gaps among the circled chairs,
the ones who couldn't make
it for whatever reason,
glad or sad.
Both less and more than
family and good friends,
still you belong there at
the high moments and the low,
included in the laughter and
the tears, all
the embraces,
words and gestures of
delight and consolation,
across the years even
participating in remembering,
noting the absences, the
gaps among the circled chairs,
the ones who couldn't make
it for whatever reason,
glad or sad.
Yet, for all the long and
hard earned familiarities,
You are also set apart. You
have a role to play,
a place to fill, a dimension
toward which it is your duty
and your privilege to focus
everyone's attention.
Your task to speak the words
and open up the silences
that unite,
that lend shape and form and
texture,
and at least a glimpse of
the beyond,
within these joyful/painful
moments crammed
with here and now.
If you can do it, if you can
evoke and hold together
both this world and the
next, if you can
somehow embody,
even for the instant of a
handclasp or a prayer,
that sheer intensity of
presence
that fills all absence with
new hope,
then they may realize they
have a pastor,
then you may even touch the
fringes
of the garment of the
Master.
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