Bloom Where You are Planted

It is that time of year when Methodist ministers move. In the past few weeks you may have seen those of "our type" sneaking in ABC stores trying to quickly obtain boxes...or maybe some other stuff. After all moving is stressful.

We've moved 7 times. I celebrate that I was not on the list this year although it is almost a reflex action to start looking for boxes this time of year.

I think back on the memories of moving. There was that move from seminary to our first church. A hurricane came through the night we moved. We packed in the rain. When we arrived at our new parsonage the guy we followed had attempted to save a few steps and planted his rented moving truck at the front door with the wheels on the lawn. When he attempted to leave he bogged down in the wet grass. The tow truck also bogged down so when we arrived it looked like someone was putting a septic tank in the front yard...or maybe a swimming pool.

My first thought was, "The people who come to see us will think I did it and know that their new preacher must really be stupid." I quickly put the word out that it was that other "stupid" preacher not this one.

I then remember the move where we decided that we had enough money to actually have someone move us. That was the good news. The bad news was that the guy showed up with another preacher's furniture already in the truck figuring that Methodist ministers do not have that much stuff...He got only half our "stuff" in the truck and then said, "You must have been hiding things when I came to give you an estimate."

What? So I ended up borrowing one of his other trucks and driving it to the new place. When we got there his movers were quite drunk. They must have helped some other Methodist preachers find boxes at the ABC store and hung around a while.

I remember finding my dear wife crying out in the backyard of one of our "new places." She told me that moving was hard. I reminded her that when we started dating years before she informed me that "She always thought she wanted to marry a minister." The problem was that her "model" for this was her Lutheran pastor who was with the church for 35 years. She married the wrong denomination...and maybe the wrong guy...but not really.

Anyway I remember and empathize with all those dear ministers who just moved. We Methodists laugh at our Baptist and Presbyterian minister friends who talk of "interims." Presbyterians often have as much as two years of interim time before they get a new minister. The interim time for we Methodist ministers is "two hours."

Everybody moves the same day. You say bye in the morning and hello in the afternoon. It is kind of like those divers who do not "de-compress" and come up too quickly from the depths. They get cramps called "the bends." Well...such quick transition can give one the emotional "bends" as we go from tears of goodbye to greetings of hello...but that's the way it is.

"Bloom where you are planted," is our motto even if there is a bit of "transplant shock." So to all my Methodist minister brother and sisters I send a prayer your way...let me know if you need me to make an extra trip for you to the ABC store...you know to return some boxes for refunds or something like that....

jody