The Four Gs

I have just started a book by Max Perutz entitled I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Scientists, and Humanity. In the preface are these words -- "According to Paul Ehrlich, the father of immunology, scientists need the four Gs: Geschick, Geduld, Geld, und Gluck (skill, patience, money, and luck)."

I think that it's not only scientists who could use those four things. I think the rest of us could benefit from them as well. At least I could. I've been thinking a lot about my ministry in the last few days as we prepare for our time on sabbatical beginning in early June. I feel like I've been doing a lot of soul searching...and I gotta confess -- I ain't findin' a whole lot.

I have real questions about how I'm being helpful to the congregation I serve here. They are a truly wonderful group of people. They dream big. They laugh a lot. They hurt some. They take big risks. They have an incredible and rich history. And I feel like I'm lettin' 'em down. Probably that is the clock ticking on our heading out of town. But it is something I'm aware of these days.

The Easter season, as the passage about "doubting" Thomas attests, has a full measure not of triumphalism (at least the original Easter) -- but instead a time of searching and questioning. I often feel like the rhythms of the church year are my own rhythms -- and that certainly seems true, today. So -- my own Easter struggles, and the struggles of others around me -- are good reminders that we are simply going through what the early disciples of Jesus did in the wake of Easter. A time of questioning, struggle, and tentative steps. So, when I read those words in Max Perutz's book this morning I maybe thought -- hmmmm....maybe I should hold on and pay attention to those things around me.

Having said all that -- let me pay tribute to one of my favorite writers -- Kurt Vonnegut. Jordan goes to the school he graduated from. And one of my very favorite passages of his can be found in his book TimeQuakes.

I still quote Eugene Debs (1855-1926), late of Terre Haute, Indiana, five times the Socialist Party's candidate for President, in every speech:
'While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.'
In recent years, I've found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he is to be taken seriously. Otherwise many in the audience will start to laugh. They are being nice, not mean, knowing I like to be funny. But it is also a sign of these times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap.
Which it is not.