Last night, in the dark, Brian reached out for me. I was awake as I’d just finished nursing Joseph. Brian’s hand slid across my stomach and rested there. He whispered hello. We lay there for a while, both of us awake in the dark, just silent. He was tracing circles on my stomach.
At first, I was just focused on myself – could he feel the stretch marks? wishing I could lose the baby-baby weight…wishing I would have done more sit-ups and less sugar cookies – but then I suddenly realised something.
It almost hurt. Brian’s fingers were so rough and his palms so calloused that it was like being touched by sandpaper.
Brian is a pastor by trade. A scholar even. He wrestles with the deeper questions of life on a daily basis. And he is also a carpenter, a labourer and a “certified flood tech”. He will spend the day with men that don’t have a high school education, whose favourite adjective is an expletive, drinking Tim Horton’s coffee while driving a large white work van with a phone number on the side. In the past three years, there has been much about him that has changed. We’ve become parents together, for starters. But last night, it occurred to me just how much his hands had changed.
His previously uncalloused hands had become hardened. They are the hands of a labourer. Nothing soft or dainty or unmarked. He has scars on his fingers, stains in his knuckles that won’t be lifted, callouses on his palms and his finger tips are a mess of rough skin.
He’s more than a scholar. More than a pastor. More than a carpenter. More than a labourer. He’s walking between two worlds.
And he’s been better for it.
I wonder sometimes if it isn’t better for those men and women that feel called to this – pastoring – to work in the real world for a while.
Instead of going from their Christian schools to their Christian colleges to their seminaries to their churches, that they instead spend years with people, working regular and irregular jobs. To see what “real life” looks like for the vast majority of us. To hang out with people that think very differently than you.
It’s gotten to the point that we prefer this life. We prefer this life outside of the “church-y bubble”. We prefer being salt in a tasteless world. We prefer being a light in the darkness than one more candle in a brightly lit room. We prefer people that are different than us. We like to think that, if nothing else, we are making a bit of space for God.
And plus, we just plain like people. And they have become our true friends.
I know pastors that haven’t ever had a job outside of ministry. They can be hard on people. “Why aren’t you at everything the church does? Why aren’t you doing more here? What do you mean you want to skip the retreat to be with your wife and kids?” Sometimes, they seem to have a real sense of entitlement. Almost like the people in their church owe them a living. I remember wanting to shake them on occasion: didn’t they realise what a privilege it is to do what you love to do? What a privilege it is to pastor and get paid to do it? Didn’t they realise how hard people work? And so I would get angry when I would see them slack off or become lazy or entitled. Didn’t they realise that someone’s husband was out at two in the morning working as a flood tech so that they could give their money to the church so that they could have a salary? Didn’t they realise that there were mothers who worked in jobs without much thanks so that they could contribute?
I’ve realised I’m not angry about that anymore. It’s understandable.
Because how could they know?
Their hands are still soft.
Meanwhile, Brian has a whole new perspective. He has a deep compassion for working families. For making ends meet. For the demands of work and labour and family and balance.
Our life has changed how we plan on pastoring and the expectations we have on people. We have grown to understand that the greatest ministry -the greatest work – is for us all. Pastoring is no more holy than carpentry. Singing worship songs is no more holy than cleaning up after toddlers. Work is sacred. Work is honourable. Work is holy. So how much more should our pastoring change from “trying to get people involved” to being a support to one another, an equipper for one another? And sometimes that means that the holiest thing of all is to tell folks to stop volunteering their face off at church and get home with their kids for supper.
Last night, I winced at one point when he inadvertently scratched me. He felt terrible and almost a bit embarrassed by his hands.
I lifted them and kissed each finger.
