Brothers
19/06/13 05:43
Growing up, I thought that we were a very close family. We did a lot of things together and our parents always made family a high priority. Our parents had a strong marriage and genuinely enjoyed spending time together. They shared the work of running a family business as well as the work of running a household and raising a family.
We were encouraged to go out into the world and to find our own directions in life. As such, I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that we each found a different path and that those paths led us away from each other. It is not that we have conflict. We just lead different lives in different places and don’t get together as often as our parents did with their siblings. There have been marriages and the births of children. Over the years five of the seven experienced divorce. One sister and one brother have died. We have learned to say “hello” and “goodbye” as our family has been reconfigured over and over again.
Still, sometimes it surprises me that we aren’t closer than we are. It’s not one of the great tragedies of this life, simply a reality. We see the world differently. We have different experiences. We have become members of different communities. And there is space between us.
My brother, bless his heart, called me on my birthday recently. It was a pleasant conversation and I appreciated his reaching out to me. We talked in some vague ways about the things we are doing and the projects that are important to us. After speaking with him I sat for a moment with the telephone in my hands. I don’t really understand how he thinks, not that he needs me to understand. We are really quite different. I have been a full-time minister for 35 years. The shortest pastorate of my career was 7 years. I don’t think that he has ever had the same job for seven years in a row. And there have been many years - perhaps most of them - when he has not had the kind of job that means going to the same place to pursue the same projects day after day. He has tended to tackle a project for a while and then switch to another. He has moved more often than I, traveled a bit more and been in and out of many different relationships.
It isn’t fair for me to try to describe him in my blog. He is more complex and wonderful than the words I write. And he probably wouldn’t agree with my interpretation of his life. I am not writing to describe him as much as I am trying to figure out who I am. Part of who I am is “not him.”
For much of his life he has been trying to change the world. He has an eye for injustice and is not afraid to speak out. He has been politically active and has even run for office. He has participated in protests and demonstrations. He sees things with which he disagrees and sets out to convince others to change.
More often than not, I agree with his observations and his goals. Where we disagree is in our approach to bringing about change in the world. I’m not much for confrontations. I haven’t found it useful to tell other people what to do or what to believe. I know that conversion occasionally occurs, but I’m not much for trying to convert others. I think that it is far more important to get other people to speak to each other than it is to get them to listen to me.
And that is what is so strange about the paths our lives have taken. I have an audience. I get up in front of more than a hundred people every week and they listen to what I say. Sometimes when I speak a hush falls over the room as if everyone is straining to hear my words. He seems so confident that he knows exactly what people should think and believe and is so sure that he could tell them what to do. I have none of that confidence. I struggle and sweat over every sermon. I wonder if I have anything meaningful to say. I hope and pray that I might occasionally inspire, but know that it is probably sufficient to simply do no harm. I don’t have the answers.
He, on the other hand, seems to have lots of answers. But he has no audience. Sometimes he can get a few people to listen. He mostly speaks to very small groups and often it is a collection of people who already agree with him.
Life is strange that way.
I think I understand one of the differences between us, but I am not sure that he would accept my analysis. It seems to me that he owns his message. He has come up with his ideas and interpretations and they belong to him. I, on the other hand, did not create the ideas I try to communicate. The message I have does not belong to me alone. My job is to give voice to truths that existed long before I was born and that will exist long after my voice is stilled. The stories I have to tell are stories that our people have been telling for generations – for millennia. And I struggle to get them right because I believe deeply in the power of words. The words we use are important and language is a changing entity. It takes new words to speak to a new generation, but the truth is much bigger than my choice of words. It is much bigger than my life.
I once read that it is not difficult to choose between right and wrong. The difficult choice is between what is right and what is best. Maybe that is one of the differences between us. He is struggling to proclaim what is right in a world that has much wrong. I, on the other hand, live among people who know right from wrong and who are trying to figure out what is best.
So we are both making our way in the world. It is not that one life is better or more meaningful than another. We are just different.
And speaking with him is a blessing if for no other reason that it encourages me to take a fresh look at myself. I’m still trying to figure out how to do the work to which I have been called.
We were encouraged to go out into the world and to find our own directions in life. As such, I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that we each found a different path and that those paths led us away from each other. It is not that we have conflict. We just lead different lives in different places and don’t get together as often as our parents did with their siblings. There have been marriages and the births of children. Over the years five of the seven experienced divorce. One sister and one brother have died. We have learned to say “hello” and “goodbye” as our family has been reconfigured over and over again.
Still, sometimes it surprises me that we aren’t closer than we are. It’s not one of the great tragedies of this life, simply a reality. We see the world differently. We have different experiences. We have become members of different communities. And there is space between us.
My brother, bless his heart, called me on my birthday recently. It was a pleasant conversation and I appreciated his reaching out to me. We talked in some vague ways about the things we are doing and the projects that are important to us. After speaking with him I sat for a moment with the telephone in my hands. I don’t really understand how he thinks, not that he needs me to understand. We are really quite different. I have been a full-time minister for 35 years. The shortest pastorate of my career was 7 years. I don’t think that he has ever had the same job for seven years in a row. And there have been many years - perhaps most of them - when he has not had the kind of job that means going to the same place to pursue the same projects day after day. He has tended to tackle a project for a while and then switch to another. He has moved more often than I, traveled a bit more and been in and out of many different relationships.
It isn’t fair for me to try to describe him in my blog. He is more complex and wonderful than the words I write. And he probably wouldn’t agree with my interpretation of his life. I am not writing to describe him as much as I am trying to figure out who I am. Part of who I am is “not him.”
For much of his life he has been trying to change the world. He has an eye for injustice and is not afraid to speak out. He has been politically active and has even run for office. He has participated in protests and demonstrations. He sees things with which he disagrees and sets out to convince others to change.
More often than not, I agree with his observations and his goals. Where we disagree is in our approach to bringing about change in the world. I’m not much for confrontations. I haven’t found it useful to tell other people what to do or what to believe. I know that conversion occasionally occurs, but I’m not much for trying to convert others. I think that it is far more important to get other people to speak to each other than it is to get them to listen to me.
And that is what is so strange about the paths our lives have taken. I have an audience. I get up in front of more than a hundred people every week and they listen to what I say. Sometimes when I speak a hush falls over the room as if everyone is straining to hear my words. He seems so confident that he knows exactly what people should think and believe and is so sure that he could tell them what to do. I have none of that confidence. I struggle and sweat over every sermon. I wonder if I have anything meaningful to say. I hope and pray that I might occasionally inspire, but know that it is probably sufficient to simply do no harm. I don’t have the answers.
He, on the other hand, seems to have lots of answers. But he has no audience. Sometimes he can get a few people to listen. He mostly speaks to very small groups and often it is a collection of people who already agree with him.
Life is strange that way.
I think I understand one of the differences between us, but I am not sure that he would accept my analysis. It seems to me that he owns his message. He has come up with his ideas and interpretations and they belong to him. I, on the other hand, did not create the ideas I try to communicate. The message I have does not belong to me alone. My job is to give voice to truths that existed long before I was born and that will exist long after my voice is stilled. The stories I have to tell are stories that our people have been telling for generations – for millennia. And I struggle to get them right because I believe deeply in the power of words. The words we use are important and language is a changing entity. It takes new words to speak to a new generation, but the truth is much bigger than my choice of words. It is much bigger than my life.
I once read that it is not difficult to choose between right and wrong. The difficult choice is between what is right and what is best. Maybe that is one of the differences between us. He is struggling to proclaim what is right in a world that has much wrong. I, on the other hand, live among people who know right from wrong and who are trying to figure out what is best.
So we are both making our way in the world. It is not that one life is better or more meaningful than another. We are just different.
And speaking with him is a blessing if for no other reason that it encourages me to take a fresh look at myself. I’m still trying to figure out how to do the work to which I have been called.