Keeping a Holy Lent, Day 8: No bitching day.

That is probably a word that many folk think a minister should not use. Don’t worry, that is not a word I use very often, if at all. I have other go-to words that I use that some think a minister should not. That’s okay, too, because I mostly only use them when warranted.

In all reality, though, I don’t have a whole lot about which to bitch. Life is pretty good in spite of my living 7.5 hours away from my family.

However, that is not always the case.

In fact, there are many times that I wonder where the line is between when I am offering a valid complaint and trying to make things better, and when I am just bitching. I imagine that line is pretty thin. The thing is ministers are subject to all the emotions and frustrations that everyone else is. In addition, we get angry and hurt and frustrated the same as anyone else. And there are times when we just want to bitch about it. And there are times we just want to use the right words...words that most everyone else can use a time or two and get away with it. (Someone once said, "The vocabulary at the disposal of a minister who bangs her knee on the desk drawer in her office is not as extensive as it is for others.")

There is this old cliche about having the 'patience of Job.' In my reading of the story, though, I don’t find him particularly patient. I do wonder if the cliche has to do with his initial ‘no bitching’ when his wife tells him, “Curse God and die.” Of course, he doesn’t ever curse God, but he does complain an awful lot. He curses the day of his birth and wonders why his suffering is so great.

Who could really blame him? More often than not, I think we are like his so-called friends who come to ‘comfort’ him. Often we offer platitudes because the reality of suffering, even another’s suffering, is more than we can bear. It is difficult for us to just sit with someone who is suffering. We want to do something, to say something that will make it go away. So we say what we think we’re supposed to say, but it is more for us than it is for the person we are trying to comfort.

For today, however, I’m not going to bitch and moan about anything. Then again, I don’t really have anything to bitch about.

Incarnate One, you do not turn away from suffering, but join us in the mess and pain of human life. Teach us patience and presence in our real suffering, and perspective in our inconveniences. Amen.

Shalom Y’all,
Owen