"How Different Can We Be?"

The two best books I've read recently are Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom and Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. They give me insights for the work-weary.

In Tuesdays with Morrie, the mentor is Morrie Schwartz, Mitch Albom's college professor. After losing touch for twenty years, Mitch rediscovered Morrie in the last days of Morrie's life. They talked about every subject imaginable. One conversation unfolded this way:

The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.

But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?

Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you ...

In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?

His voice dropped to a whisper, "But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."

I know I need others and two groups specially nourish my soul. Every Wednesday morning I have breakfast with five other guys at the Patio Grill. We sit at the same table each time. We all have different jobs – a pastor, a computer programmer, an attorney, a graphic artist, a contractor, and small business owner – but we have so much in common. We have similar fears, heartaches, joys and stresses. We struggle with the same things. Morrie asked, "How different can we be?" In my Wednesday morning group, I've discovered we are not all that different.

My other group meets monthly for two hours in a psychologist's office. It's a clergy group and we pay the psychologist $85 a session to re-align our thinking. Some months that requires a major alignment. Other months it only involves a minor tweaking. I like to hear the other pastors talk about their churches, their frustrations with pastoral ministry and their moments of pure grace. We serve different size churches. We are different ages. We have good marriages and not-so-good marriages. And we are not all that different.

The Way Home

In the other book, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott talks about her "quirky walk of faith."

There would be different pastors along the way, none of them exactly right for us until a few years ago when a tall African-American woman named Veronica came to lead us. She has huge gentle doctor hands, with dimples where the knuckles should be, like a baby's fists. She told us this story just the other day: When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn't find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, "You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here."

And that is why I have stayed so close to mine - because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home.

I rejoice with you if you have found such an open, honest, and caring community of faith. I weep with you if you have not because without such a community of faith it is nearly impossible to find your way back home.

For the Group

1. Sift through your life. Name three people who have helped you find your way back home.
2. Name a couple of times in your life when you felt far away from home (physically, emotionally, or relationally).
3. Tell the story of your past week. What put a smile on your face? What brought tears to your eyes? What caused your forehead to wrinkle with worry? What turned your eyes green with envy?