Reflections on a Past Career

The following is not a spiritual reflection, but this has been on my mind and plays a real role in how I got where I am today. This is a diary after all, so I’m going to include it:

Seven years ago this April I left the ad agency where I had been working for 17 years. I was laid off along with a number of friends by a new manager who demanded he have the freedom to replace whatever staff he wanted if he accepted the job. Advertising is one of those businesses that has a lot of turnover, but I’m one of the lucky ones who managed to work over 30 years in an advertising career without ever losing a job, until then.

I remember so many friends losing their jobs prior to it happening to me. I tried to help some of them when I could, which isn’t easy. It’s very frustrating when you want to help, but you can’t really. You seem to always hear the stories of those who left that go something like, “It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” or, “My stress level dropped so much, and I feel so much better now.” or, “I love my new job so much more than when I was there.” We love to keep record of these “success” stories when our colleagues loss their jobs. We won’t admit it, but we really don’t want to hear the hard times stories. We awkwardly sit back waiting for something, anything, that sounds like good news.

Well, I want to say this for the record, I did not land on my feet. Sure, I thought I’d find another job at some other agency quickly enough. Nearly all of my colleagues pointed out my vast skill set back when I was employed. But when you’re over 50, and you would really rather remain in your home town, the options get eliminated quicker than a fat guy in a dodgeball tournament. Age discrimination has been going on in the advertising industry since before the Hula Hoop, but you never really understand how bad it is until it happens to you.

So no, like I said, I did not land on my feet. In less than 18 months I lost $100,000 just trying to hold things together, my entire retirement completely gone. Freelance came and went, but could never make up for the lost income of my previous job. Through creative financing and renting out my unaffordable house I somehow protected my credit, but that’s about all I saved. My identity as a significant player in the national advertising world was stripped from me forever. My self-esteem was, and might still be, essentially destroyed. All of my plans over the last seven years had to be shelved for survival.

Finally, in February I sold my “creative director’s” house that I could not afford. I now have a job that pays 60% less than I made as an ad guy, but my wife and I are financially solvent and possibly in the best financial state we’ve been in since we got married back in 1986. It took seven years to get this way, so I don’t call that landing on your feet. The worst part of what happened seven years ago is the feeling of betrayal that never goes away. I wasn’t just a good employee of my former agency, I played a pivotal role in saving the Coca-Cola business for them in the early 2000’s. So much so that the Chief Executive Officer from our New York headquarters came down to Atlanta to personally meet me and shake my hand. I had clients that refused to go places without me. In the ad biz, that shit barely lasts a week.

So forgive me if I don’t believe people when they say I’m valuable, or that I have seriously marketable skills. Thanks to that event I have PTSD when it comes to jobs. I will never again feel secure. Oh sure, you’re about to tell me, “Rick, nobody is secure and it’s really that way for everybody.” I will tell you to spend 17 years with a company that you’ve poured everything into before you attempt to downplay the effect that event had on me, or any of my other friends who went through the same thing. That day seven years ago effectively ended my career. Thank god I work for nice people today and I have managed not to lose my marriage, or my home getting here. So, if you think things all worked out for the best, well don’t kid yourself, the last seven years were the worst years of my life and I will never forget how it happened.

Now, back to thinking about my upcoming cruise to celebrate putting all this behind me.

[Image: Rick on the Brooklyn Bridge while shooting a Coca-Cola commercial for Atlantic Records, 1997]

 

Trusting the Process

For the last week I have been in a funk of self-doubt. It doesn’t take much for me to wonder what I am really doing with this whole discernment for ordination thing. Sure, it’s true I have felt a calling for darn near my entire life to some form of ordained ministry, but way too often I can’t help but to think maybe I’m just hanging onto the desires of a young boy who was too naïve to fully grasp what that means.

When I’m asked why, I have a thousand answers and at the same time I have no answers. The discernment process is tricky business (remember, I’ve been through this before 23 years ago), and one of the main questions that occurs over and over again during the process is, “Why do you need to be ordained to follow your call to ministry?” Trust me, just saying because I’ve always wanted it since I was 8 years old isn’t really an acceptable answer.

I am not in the habit of focusing on myself when thinking about matters of faith, or at least not out loud. When I try to explain to someone why I feel called it always comes out awkward and, to my ears at least, sounds silly and juvenile. I want to take my ministry past the invisible line that separates the laity from the ordained, because I know with the credentials of ordination I can break past the “velvet rope” of a prison where a lay person has limited access.

Perhaps much of what the ordained can accomplish in the eyes of a lay person is more perception than it is reality, but those perceptions matter. When I sit and pray with a grieving family, tend to a dying patient, or seek to give comfort to a memory impaired person my status as an ordained minister will matter more to them than it will to me. Perhaps I’m wrong for seeing it this way, and maybe this is where my self-doubt kicks in.

Any ministry I have had to date has been sporadic and inconsistent at best, if you don’t count my years of service as an active choir member of my parish and all the various functions I have served in both my parish and my diocese over the years, mostly which had to do with using my skills as a professional communicator. I have spent most my life as a very busy professional ad man and single income earner for my family. After the massive recession which included my career coming to an end and the struggle to hold onto a house I could no longer afford it has been hard to make much room for outside ministry. Only as of February of this year has that all changed, and I am now finally free to make room for whatever comes next, which is why I re-entered into discernment.

But the doubt continues to eat at me. How can I make this work? Am I not sure I haven’t made this all about me rather than about what God wants? Am I lost in some kind of spiritual narcissism? Do I use self-pity to protect myself from being exposed as a fraud? Yeah, these are the nagging questions that follow me through the process.

Then today, I looked at the readings of the Daily Office. I also get daily devotionals from contributors to Living Church. Today’s contributor reflects on Matthew 3:13-17. Near the end of his reflection he wrote:

“We cannot foresee all the stops along the way, nor can we always comprehend the rhyme or reason for certain people, places, and events. But so long as the journey’s end is found in Christ, so long as the signpost of the way is the Cross, when God asks us to take a detour from the roadmap we’ve laid out for ourselves, then we can do so with confidence and step out boldly in faith.”

This was my wakeup call. Once again, I have to return to my mantra which is “Trust the Process.” I still don’t know where this will lead, and right now I feel like the further I get into this the less I know. Like John the Baptist, I need to let go and let Jesus direct the journey, even if, or should I say, ESPECIALLY if it doesn’t make sense to me right now.

Exodus 19:16-25
Colossians 1:15-23
Matthew 3:13-17
Psalm 38
Quote attributed to: Rev. Ben Hankinson

Daily Prayer from Forward Day by Day

[Image: Baptism of Christ, Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Galleria degli Uffizi]

 

The Tire Swing

For today I thought I would reblog this story from my other page.

Letters From Nod

The author singing the National Anthem at the Douglasville Military Honor Garden

When I was a little boy we had a tire swing in our backyard hanging from an abnormally large dogwood tree. I guess in actuality it was really an inner tube swing. More like a giant rubber band tied to a rope.

I used to lie inside the inner tube with my chest in the sling facing the ground. Then I would kick myself around so I could fly like a super hero in big circles. Another thing I would do, when I was alone of course, was sing while I was flying around. I would sing in my biggest most grown up voice I could muster, and one of the songs I most often sang was The Star Spangled Banner. I loved that song.

I think I loved the boldness of the melody and the braveness of…

View original post 1,523 more words

Unfinished Business

April 4th, 6:01 pm (Central Time). I was 8 years old on that Thursday evening in 1968. Too young to remember what I was doing that day. Too protected to understand the struggle. Too white to be affected by it. I grew up practically down the street from his home.

One of my fondest childhood memories was going to FunTown, which was a small amusement park on the south side of Atlanta. It was a lot like a carnival or county fair with all the usual rides you see at those events. It even had games like the ones you might find on the midway of a big fair and a small gauge train you could ride around the park. When I was in the first grade my mom took me there with all my friends for my birthday. I still remember having recurring dreams of going there and riding rides.

What I didn’t realize was, while my friends and I were playing in FunTown, Dr. King could not take his own children there to play. I didn’t learn until years later that FunTown was a “whites only” park. In King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963 he wrote:

“…when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?'”

Fortunately, the park was finally desegregated shortly before it closed in 1967 thanks to pressure from King. Six Flags Over Georgia opened later that year and that pretty much put an end to FunTown.

I am fortunate to have had a mother who had a distaste for racism even if we did live in a very white world in those days. My sisters and I were taught to respect every living person and were not allowed to use any of the ugly pejoratives of those times. However, I was raised alongside many friends and parents who wore their racist beliefs quite openly. As I continued to grow up in this world it became an ever-present challenge to not get swept up in the prevailing ethos of southern white society.

Peer pressure is a damnable thing. Its gravitational pull can be nearly impossible to break at times. As I grew older, I never caved in to pressures of racism, but I ignorantly played into the “southern white boy” stereotype on plenty of occasions. I even had a large Confederate flag in the back window of my muscle car by the time I was 17 years old. I suppose it was some kind of naïve homage to the Dukes of Hazzard, but it was gone by the next year.

I never had a black classmate until I was in the 8^th grade. One of the only three African-American kids in my entire school at that time was Barney. Barney was a super friendly guy and a little hyper, kind of like me, so I liked him. About a year later I was sitting and talking to Barney when he looked down and shook his head. I asked him what was wrong as he just continued to look down and said, “I wish I had been born white.” I was devastated to hear that. I begged him to never, ever feel that way. I had no eloquent words to console him with at that age, but I will never forget hearing those words. They have been written on my heart to this very day.

As much as I would like to credit the church at that time for steering me in the right direction and keeping me from going down a darker path of racial ignorance, I can’t. Every racist friend I knew either attended my church or one of the others in my neighborhood. To be honest I probably never really got a clear look at a culture without blatant racial tension until I went to art college. It was the grace of God through my mother and through people like Barney that kept me off of that dark path, but this is far from over. I still have much to learn.

We’ve recently seen through so many unfortunate events in our society that we still have a very long way to go. We have a lot of unfinished business if we are to realize the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Our complacency in the post-Civil Rights period has allowed for a darkness to fester and it is again challenging us to look closer at ourselves and admit there is still much work to be done.

So today, and this week I surely give thanks to God for all the work Dr. King did and for his legacy of peaceful rebellion which we, once again need to employ. We have surly seen positive change since his martyrdom, but we are a long way from finished. It takes more than the changing of laws to bring the Kingdom here, it takes the changing of hearts.

As today’s Prayer for Mission says:

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Daily Prayer from Forward Movement

[Image: Martin Luther King. Jr. above the entrance of Westminster Abbey,
London, England, by Andrea Schaffer | Flicker]

 

The Mulligan

If you play golf you probably know what this term means, but I like it even better in the context of the gaming world. As Wikipedia so eloquently puts it: “A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder.”

Well, here we are two days on the other side of Easter Sunday and guess what? We get a Mulligan! The ultimate “do over.” Jesus defeated death on the Cross and we all have the chance to hit the restart button in our lives. We see in the second chapter of Acts where Peter (that’s right, the dude who completely failed Jesus in the last hours before the crucifixion) speaks to a multitude of people and shares with them the Good News. We get the greatest Mulligan of all time! A chance to be Born Again into a new life in Christ.

Wow, that might be the most evangelical thing I have said in years! But it’s true, and by doing so we are changed down to the very fiber of our being. I’ll confess, Holy Week wore me out. I sing in a very dedicated choir and we sing in every service of the Triduum along with the Easter Sunday morning service. Our rehearsals are long and a little intense (understatement) in the weeks leading up to Holy Week. All of this makes Easter Sunday that much more meaningful to us, and it also makes us pretty worn out. It is awesome though, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Now it’s time to see what this new life can bring. As they say in the gaming world, it’s the ultimate power up!

Psalm 33:18-22
Acts 2:36-41
John 20:11-18

Daily Readings from Forward Movement

The Void

Nothing left but questions, fear, and disappointment. Years invested in this ministry that seems to have suddenly taken a very bad turn. This is not what was expected. Tomorrow is nothing now. The occupying government and faith leaders have managed shut down the dream and maintain the status quo.

For the friends of Jesus this was a day of emptiness, a day of mourning. I imagine Peter was too embarrassed to even face anyone. John was likely consoling Mary. Judas was dead. Everyone else? Probably hiding. The one thing they weren’t thinking about was tomorrow.

God has shown us there is always hope. Even when it looks like we have reached the end. Even when there is no hope in sight. We are fortunate to have the benefit of history and hindsight. In our life we may all come across these seemingly dead end places. Your hope for what you may have planed seems to suddenly stop. When we can recognize that the plan is never ours in the first place, we might finally realize where God means to take us. Today is a good day to be still and listen.

Job 14:1-14
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
1 Peter 4:1-8
Matthew 27:57-66

Daily Readings from Forward Movement

 

 

 

Good Friday

I’ll never forget the first time I read the prophetic verses of Isaiah 52:13-53:12. I think I was about 19 years old and in the midst of my first “manic” Evangelical period. There would be many others to come over the next ten years. Although today I don’t fancy myself as an Evangelical in the popular sense of the word (that is with a capital E) these verses from Isaiah remain some of the most profound pieces of my early Christian formation.

The Psalm for today; I must have sung this so many times over the years I almost have it memorized. As with many familiar scripture I want to absorb it differently today in the context of my calling. However, in this diary entry for today I want to take in the whole of these readings and contemplate Good Friday and what it means to me right now.

Peter’s denial shines a light on a real possibility that can raise its head in any of our lives; especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus. Despite however committed Peter was to following Christ, right to the grave if he had to, he ultimately failed. I find it interesting the one thing he did do, according the John, was to draw a weapon and strike a man only to be rebuked by Jesus for doing so. It certainly fits Peter’s profile, reacting emotionally without thinking things through. Maybe that’s why I like Peter so much, but that’s another story.

I think what we can see here is a warning for us all. It reminds us that no matter how much we think we are ready for the worst situation we can, and probably will, fail. We imagine ourselves being heroic when the going gets though, but when the going gets real our real self may not be what we expected. We’ve seen these scenarios played out in movies and more recently we’ve seen it played out in real life.

Scot Peterson, the armed security officer who failed to run into the Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, comes to mind. Now I don’t know this man and we may never know what was truly going on in his head or in his heart that fateful day, but I couldn’t judge him right away. Not without first considering, with all honesty, what I might do in the same situation.

I’ve met a few high school security officers in my days, and I think it’s fair to say none of them expect to be faced with what happened in Parkland. Officer Peterson was well liked by the kids at the school and I imagine he saw himself as a protector over them. Imagine you are one man armed with only a service weapon and suddenly you are expected to run into a building where you hear a high-powered rifle with a high capacity magazine being fired over and over again. You don’t even know which room or hall the shooter is in. For all you know you will be shot down the second you open the door. You are not a former special forces solider, or a retired wartime veteran. All the pre-situational bravado in the world will not make you ready to face death, no matter how heroic you imagined yourself two seconds before.

The very last thing Peter ever did while Jesus was still alive was to deny him. Imagine living with that. Imagine how Peter felt when he saw Jesus being led up to Golgotha. For Peter, this is how he thought it would all end. I’m like anyone else. I want to believe I’m not Peter, just like so many people are sure they are not officer Peterson. Only when we pass through a crucible such as theirs can we know who we truly are. I think the Gospel gives a good clue—we all have the potential to be Peter.

I’m going to stop writing here, because today is the day Peter and all the Apostles, for whom we hold in such high esteem, didn’t show up.

52:13-53:12
Psalm 22
Hebrews 10:16-25
John 18:1-19:42

Daily Readings from Forward Movement

[Image: The Denial of St. Peter, by Caravaggio]

Maundy Thursday

In today readings, we see that God has established the instructions for the Passover in Exodus 12:1-14. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians St. Paul goes over the mechanics of the Holy Eucharist and reminds us of Jesus’ words proclaiming it as the “New Covenant.” Just as God commands the Passover be celebrated in “perpetual ordinance” Paul tells us, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” It’s seems obvious for a moment what today’s readings seem to point out and set into order. It’s Maundy Thursday after all and we’re all about the Last Supper and its ties to the Passover, but then the Gospel reading takes us to what the story is really all about. Servanthood.

I think it’s of no coincidence the Psalm works to tie the Old Testament and Epistle readings to the Gospel message. In it the Psalmist submits himself as a servant and lifts up the Cup of Salvation and calls on the name of the Lord, then promises to fulfill his vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. Then Jesus shows us what servanthood looks like in the Gospel reading.

In fact, Jesus makes certain to tie our very identity to that of servanthood and love when he tells us, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So, yeah, today is about servanthood, but not just today. Today we learn what a Christian looks like for the rest of the days of their life if they choose to take the way of the Cross.

Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 13:31-35

Daily Readings from Forward Movement

I Have Set My Face Like Flint

I am often fascinated when reading the Daily Office just how much the scripture can apply to specific things going on in my day. Today was no different. Lately I have been pondering what to do about expressing my believes and more specifically my revelations brought on by the Gospel. Social media is ablaze right now with anger and opinions. Many people are losing friends and ending relationships over current events, namely the March for Our Lives protests and gatherings that just took place all over the country.

I have a large amount of friends on both sides of the issues. I grew up as a good ol’ southern boy and was taught to use a gun from an early age, so consequently a large number of my friends are pro-gun, many of whom are members of the NRA. My problem is the more I read the Gospel the more I feel the need to say something. Something that speaks out on behalf of the weak, on behalf of the children. I know if I begin to speak out on how I feel I could lose friends. I don’t want to lose friends, but I feel like the gun culture in America is not only on the wrong side of history, but showing a dark side of human behavior unlike I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

Then I turn to the Daily Office and come across Isaiah 50:4-9:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens– wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord GOD who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

Am I to fear repercussions over what the Gospel compels me to proclaim? Certainly I don’t want my friends to turn a deaf ear to my words. But something must be done. There is no room for weapons in our response the Gospel of Christ. NONE. I will have to see where the conversations go from here, but a line is being drawn in the sand and I fear we must all take a side and no longer live in silence.

I thought also about the Gospel reading for today (John 13:21-32). In it Christ chooses to dip bread into a dish before handing it to Judas indicating who would betray him. My mind went directly to the Eucharist as I read that. How many times have we, have I, accepted the bread of Christ only to go back out into the world and betray His trust? Let’s face it, it happens. Judas’ betrayal may be the most sinister one we can think of, but the scriptures have shown us how even Peter fails Jesus in his darkest hour.

But Peter never stopped trying and neither should we.

Daily Readings from Forward Movement

Let’s Get this Party Started

Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” —1 Samuel 3:10

Welcome to my diary of discernment. I’m going to attempt to add to this as regularly as I can in hopes to establish something of a habit of it. This adventure began in February of this year with the “Here I Am” retreat at the Cathedral of St. Philips in Atlanta, Georgia. As of three days ago my Parish Commission on Ministry (PCOM) had its first meeting with me and now we are pretty much off and running.

As I said, I hope to be adding to this regularly, if not on a daily basis at least every few days. As of this writing I’m leaving it completely open to exactly what each entry might entail. Mostly I will be reflecting on the Daily Office readings here over the next 4 months. With any luck this might even become a regular enough habit to go on in perpetuity, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Although I have to write to fill these pages, for now I am Listening. May my words here be an open and honest response to God’s call, not only to my heart, but to the world around me.

Let’s go.