A public private person
30/07/14 05:00
I think of myself as a private person. As soon as I write those words, however, I know that they sound silly. I am a preacher in a congregation. I get up in front of a group of people every week and every week we invite visitors to join us and to become a part of our congregation. I serve in several volunteer capacities that require me to meet new people and to become involved with folks that I had not previously met. Over the years, Susan and I have shared the same vocation and have worked together. But we have tried to create a few boundaries between work and home. Keeping confidence with those whom we serve sometimes requires that we don’t even discuss certain parts of our work with each other. When we had children living at home and when we were caring for our parents, it wasn’t appropriate for us to share the stories of others in our home setting. And having a family life meant having boundaries between work and family. When our children were infants, we lived next door to the church we served. Our next move put us in a home that was about a mile away from the church. When we moved to the hills, our children were teens and we chose a home that is 10 miles from the church. The increasing physical distance has meant that home life and work have had a bit of separation.
Our vocation, however, isn’t one that can be constrained to a specific location. Pastoral concerns don’t always arise on our timetable. The needs of the people we serve aren’t contained in eight hour days.
One of the symbols of how work and life merge for me is my cell phone. I survived and served as a minister for about half of my career without having a cell phone. I didn’t use one for the first few years after we moved to South Dakota. But as the phones became more common I saw the usefulness of the phone as a tool for ministry. At first I was very guarded about the number. I gave it to my family so they could reach me. I gave it to our administrative colleague so she could get messages to me. But I didn’t make it available to the congregation in general and I tried to keep its use limited. I remember the days when I would turn it off and put it away when I got home. After all we have a home phone and our number is in the telephone book. All of that has changed.
These days I get phone calls from people that I have given my number to and I also get phone calls from those who have gotten my number from others. Here are a few of the calls I have received in the last couple of days as an example:
I am “on call” for our LOSS (Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide) team. That means that I am carrying my phone 24 hours a day and have to be able to assemble a team of responders to go on a moment’s notice. I was just getting ready for bed when a call came in on Monday evening. I spoke with the answering service, and with dispatch as I changed my clothes. I exchanged messages with team members and placed a couple of calls to assemble the team. I spoke with a deputy and an investigator to determine what we might find on scene. By the time I had finished that series of phone calls, I had gotten my resources, backed the car out of the driveway, programmed the address into my GPS and transitioned my phone to a hands free connection with the car. I was still speaking on the phone and making arrangements as I drove to our team rendezvous point and out to the scene. Over the next 24 hours follow-up to that event took a dozen more phone calls.
I was at home when a person I had never before met called looking for assistance to avoid a power cut off for past-due electricity payments. This particular person had been on the phone a lot before my number was found. Every resource in the community of which I was aware had already been tried. After all, the power company doesn’t turn off electricity the moment a bill is past due. They don’t even turn it off when a bill is 30 days in arrear. That person knew that this crisis was coming for months and has been on the phone trying to find money to pay the bill. By the time the phone call came to me on the eve of the cutoff date a lot of time had passed. I tried to make a compassionate response, but I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the choice to pay the phone bill and not pay the electricity was a poor choice.
The day after being out into the wee hours of the morning on the LOSS call, I received a call as I was eating breakfast from an out of state person who was worried about an adult child who was in our area who suffers from mental illness and addiction issues. The concerned parent wasn’t sure about the exact location of their child, but had a general sense of where the child might be camping. A wellness check was in order. Someone needed to go out and visit with the child and report the situation to the parents. I didn’t make the wellness check myself, but arranged for it to happen. That meant a few more phone calls. Again, multi-tasking, I was talking on the phone as I finished breakfast, drove to a meeting and I took two phone calls related to that wellness check during my meeting.
I guess I’m not really a private person at all. But I have learned to treasure some of the small things in life. Last night I plugged my cell phone into the charger and set it in its place within reach on my headboard and went to sleep. This morning I woke up and the phone had not rung at all during the night. There were no messages left for me and no text messages to which I needed to respond. It was wonderful. I enjoy nights like that.
Our vocation, however, isn’t one that can be constrained to a specific location. Pastoral concerns don’t always arise on our timetable. The needs of the people we serve aren’t contained in eight hour days.
One of the symbols of how work and life merge for me is my cell phone. I survived and served as a minister for about half of my career without having a cell phone. I didn’t use one for the first few years after we moved to South Dakota. But as the phones became more common I saw the usefulness of the phone as a tool for ministry. At first I was very guarded about the number. I gave it to my family so they could reach me. I gave it to our administrative colleague so she could get messages to me. But I didn’t make it available to the congregation in general and I tried to keep its use limited. I remember the days when I would turn it off and put it away when I got home. After all we have a home phone and our number is in the telephone book. All of that has changed.
These days I get phone calls from people that I have given my number to and I also get phone calls from those who have gotten my number from others. Here are a few of the calls I have received in the last couple of days as an example:
I am “on call” for our LOSS (Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide) team. That means that I am carrying my phone 24 hours a day and have to be able to assemble a team of responders to go on a moment’s notice. I was just getting ready for bed when a call came in on Monday evening. I spoke with the answering service, and with dispatch as I changed my clothes. I exchanged messages with team members and placed a couple of calls to assemble the team. I spoke with a deputy and an investigator to determine what we might find on scene. By the time I had finished that series of phone calls, I had gotten my resources, backed the car out of the driveway, programmed the address into my GPS and transitioned my phone to a hands free connection with the car. I was still speaking on the phone and making arrangements as I drove to our team rendezvous point and out to the scene. Over the next 24 hours follow-up to that event took a dozen more phone calls.
I was at home when a person I had never before met called looking for assistance to avoid a power cut off for past-due electricity payments. This particular person had been on the phone a lot before my number was found. Every resource in the community of which I was aware had already been tried. After all, the power company doesn’t turn off electricity the moment a bill is past due. They don’t even turn it off when a bill is 30 days in arrear. That person knew that this crisis was coming for months and has been on the phone trying to find money to pay the bill. By the time the phone call came to me on the eve of the cutoff date a lot of time had passed. I tried to make a compassionate response, but I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps the choice to pay the phone bill and not pay the electricity was a poor choice.
The day after being out into the wee hours of the morning on the LOSS call, I received a call as I was eating breakfast from an out of state person who was worried about an adult child who was in our area who suffers from mental illness and addiction issues. The concerned parent wasn’t sure about the exact location of their child, but had a general sense of where the child might be camping. A wellness check was in order. Someone needed to go out and visit with the child and report the situation to the parents. I didn’t make the wellness check myself, but arranged for it to happen. That meant a few more phone calls. Again, multi-tasking, I was talking on the phone as I finished breakfast, drove to a meeting and I took two phone calls related to that wellness check during my meeting.
I guess I’m not really a private person at all. But I have learned to treasure some of the small things in life. Last night I plugged my cell phone into the charger and set it in its place within reach on my headboard and went to sleep. This morning I woke up and the phone had not rung at all during the night. There were no messages left for me and no text messages to which I needed to respond. It was wonderful. I enjoy nights like that.