Christmas Identity Crisis
Every Christmas for these past
forty-five years I found myself with a Christmas identity crisis of sorts. So this year after retiring this past June
from being a United Methodist pastor I again will face an identity issue.
The identity crisis I allude to is
the tradition I established long ago of taking on the identity of someone in
the original Christmas story and presenting the drama as a monologue. I realized early on as a young pastor that
there is not much improvement you need do to when it comes to the Christmas
story. It tells itself.
So I got in touch with my
imagination, which is not much of a challenge with me, and I would dream up
characters and on the Sunday before Christmas I would take on a new identity and tell the story from that point of
view. Of course after a few years the
usual cast of characters were “used up” so I had to start creating new ones.
After becoming Joseph, the Innkeeper, a shepherd, a Wiseman, and even
Herod I took a chance and “tried on” Gabriel.
After many years of doing this I did redo some of these characters but
never Gabriel again. I told my wife, who
was always wanting to outfit me for the part, that I did not want to do the
angel with wings thing but wanted it to be more subtle and “ethereal.” I ended up looking like a cross between
Richard Simons and some male type nymph.
Gabriel went into the closest, literally, never to return again.
So I went deeper into my mind rather
than my wardrobe and started creating characters that were in the background of
the story such as a man who was lost in Bethlehem the night of the birth and
found himself in a crowded inn. Then
there was the census taker telling of what he discovered really counts. I even
created a potter who ended up giving Mary a chalice that he created just for
her.
Now I face my first Christmas in
many years without a “job.” Who will I
be this Christmas? This is a different
kind of identity crisis for sure. Wayne
Dwyer once wrote, “If you are what you do, when you don’t you aren’t.” Pastors often become what we do.
I used to tell young pastors in a
seminar for brand new ministers that if they had signed on to be a minister as
a “job” that they were in the wrong work because it is a “life.” After warning them about that I would say it
was up to them to carve out time for their families and time to take care of
their own souls. We pastors can get
awfully thirsty while giving other people water.
But now I face a Christmas without the
“job” of coming up with an identity in order to tell a story. So as Jean Valjean sang in Les Miserables,
“Who am I?”
Who am I apart from what I did for
those forty-five years? I am discovering
that daily. I am still Betsy’s husband
and have more time for that. I am to be
a grandfather for the first time in December.
That will be a new identity and one that many tell me will be really
great.
I am still a Christian and will need
to see and feel what that looks like when it is not part of my job. I am a person who now sits in the pew. I always thought that would be hard for I
would have to turn off my inner critic that rates worship and sermons. Thus far I have done pretty good at that and
have actually worshiped a few times.
So I am discovering me this
Christmas apart from that wonderful identity crisis I used to have. This year I will try to listen to the story
instead of tell it. It will help to have
a Christmas baby to go along with the Christmas
baby. Who am I? I will remember what I used to say when my
identity was a working pastor; “You are a child of God.”
No comments:
Post a Comment