I just fired a couple of shoeboxes full of sermon notes into the recycle bin. This has been contemplated for a number of years. In spite of my resolve to put some ‘stuff’ into garbage or recycle bins every time the scheduled City truck comes around, many times that weekly tip has been quite effortless for the big machine. It's hard to throw stuff away. This time I did it – I bit the bullet. 😓 Whoosh, those weighty shoeboxes slid in and mingled with all the other valuables (?) in the truck.
And now it is done. The hardest part obviously was
letting go – those works of prayer and exegesis and stories in agony or inspiration - most of them handwritten. I did not take typing in
high school, opting for the academic courses rather than those mickey mouse
career type classes my brothers and some of their friends opted for.
Consequently, each of these sermons were a few handwritten paragraphs of prose, and that followed by point form – bullets often
with tiny squiggly diagrams in the margins. Those margin pictures would be the real inspiration, usually the gateway to the extemporaneous! Nothing there except the ignition, the image in my head essential to communicate something - at least so I hoped! After delivery those notes would be slipped into 71/2 x 101/2 inch
envelopes and then into the shoebox filed simply by biblical reference or text! These sermons would come in handy someday, I thought, when I’d be retired and want
to summarize or expand on all the great wisdom I had disseminated! How wrong I was about
that. Even as I preach the occasional sermon these days, there has been no
research needed in the shoeboxes.
Irony. There is another pile of documents taking up space in my closet. These have a rougher tougher look to them, simply laying there piled atop each other. Logbooks, lots of them, right beside the shoebox sermon notes. This may seem incongruous to many, but not to me. They take up equal or even slightly more shelf-space. My family and many friends and colleagues know that my professional ministry career, serving as pastor of several churches beginning in rural Saskatchewan and then in two urban settings in Alberta, came to an end thanks to, yes, mental illness. The great redemption of this almost sad career path is that my planned recess into “a few years of trucking” to claim some reprieve, became a career move, twenty-one years of longhaul trucking. I delivered my last load in October, 2017, grateful for 2 million accident-free miles, with new and old friends all over, new joy in family and life in general, and a fresh faith in God, the same One who was subject of all those sermons – and a pile of logbooks!
Those ‘comicbooks,’as often referred to by trucker friends, were actually legal record required by Department of Transportation to be availed to inspectors at any time – regulations still stamped into my brain, [U.S: Every 24 hrs maximum 10 hrs driving, plus 4 hrs at work not driving for maximum 14 work hrs, 10 hrs sleeper which could be split between afternoon siesta and night time zees] a good system once you got the hang of it. Occasionally in recent years I have paged through some of these. I am shocked at the recall. Each page opens up the memory, including whether it was a good day or a bad day. Sometimes I can even recall an exchange or two with manager or dispatcher regarding circumstances unfolding in that particular trip, etc. I even recognized an occasional Time Off (TO) stretch which was in reality time spent in a repair shop 😳, then followed by extra hours of desperate night-time driving in order to deliver on-time (therein of course the comicbook delineation). Aagh those delivery pressures, the curse of us truckers and the proud fresh promise of grocery stores! How us truckers sympathized with one another about the hard lives we were living! 😎 Each of these pages has a story, and the memories still too tender for the recycle bin.
I could go on (and on) now with trucker stories! But I shall not, in deference to all my non-trucker friends! My main point is a theory about memory. Seems to me that it is easier to dump a load of ideological theological teaching sermonizing material than it is to dump a pile of logbooks, memories, incidents good, bad, or indifferent. That is likely why the logbooks still have a place in my closet. Logbooks are rich in imagery and sentiment, a ticket to remember, while sermon notes only needed for the occasion that day behind the pulpit, namely to create a pulpit experience. Recently a friend told me that his mother in a dementia care facility would occasionally speak about past incidents often confusing characters or spoken words, but remembering quite clearly whether it had been a pleasant or unpleasant encounter, and fully remembering if she felt offended. Memory, is it composed of information or of incident? I’m not ready to make a big assertion here, but obviously for yours truly the incident recall is better, actually more accurate than the info recall.
Something of this also has application to end of life. A few days ago I was summoned at short notice to conduct a funeral service for a complete stranger, with a family and community also strangers, most of them from an Indigenous village in northern Manitoba. Obviously there was an identified need for a 'God Representative', but beyond that they were easy. I was both surprised and moved by the meaningfulness of the simple service which included quiet, almost inaudible heartfelt sharing and then graveside interment where nobody would leave until everybody had submitted handsful or spadesful of soil into the hole. "We always bury our own", so I was told. Needless to say it was only my clergy presence needed. Beyond that they owned the grief and the love for the young woman who had died.
This week our church also tended to yet another death. A dear friend from our midst has suddenly slipped away. There are many options these days for end-of-life services as conducted by clergy or celebrants, usually facilitated by funeral directors. Still thinking of the indigenous funeral just experienced, imagine my relief when I noted this funeral would be preceded by a viewing. Standing by the casket, even if only briefly, was at least as important to me as the ordered words about how interesting or nice he was and what he taught us, etc. etc. The words of eulogy or sermon will likely slip into oblivion, but to view my friend even in final repose was sacred, the best way to say good-bye.
I’m glad my sermons are now dumped. The logbooks will follow
shortly. Everything in its order and its time.
For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).
