FAKING IN RETIREMENT 7-7-17
Well, that didn’t work out
very well.
I wrote Wesley Dickson.
He’s being appointed to the UMC in New Lenox, IL, after serving several years
in Sterling, IL. I wished him well in New Lenox and thanked him for his service
in Sterling, to a congregation we were once a part of and cherish in memory and
hope and softball.
Wesley is a young man of
great “gifts and graces” for the ministry, in part because his undergrad degree
was in computer stuff, so he comes at ministry both scientifically and
theologically. We’ve had quite a few opportunities to work together, or at
least in the same geographical areas, and so I’ve been able to see firsthand
how able and effective he is. In one of those settings, he was the minister for
the youth group my granddaughter was a part of. She profited so much from the
group and from knowing Wesley, even became the Lay Leader of a congregation
where she lived later when she was only sixteen.
[Wesley, of course, is a
great name for a Methodist preacher.]
But he replied to my note.
He said that I am an inspiration, that he wants to be like me when he comes to
retirement. But I am old and decrepit and irrelevant and useless and tried and
depressed. I can’t tell him that, though. Now I’ve got to start acting like an
old man who is a good model for younger people.
Come to think of it,
that’s no different than how it’s always been. I’ve always faked it, faked
courage, faked goodness, faked faith, faked hope, faked forgiveness, faked
interest, faked belief. It’s been remarkably effective, really.
When John Wesley was a
young man, about the age Wesley Dickson is now, he realized he had no faith. He
asked Moravian bishop Peter Bohler [sometimes Boehler] what to do. “Fake faith
until you have it,” Bohler said. Actually he said, “Preach faith until you have
it,” but it’s the same thing.
So here’s my advice to
Wesley: Fake it ‘til you make it. Or maybe that’s my advice to me.
JRMcF
Because of Learning to Swear in America, Katie
Kennedy is the rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published
by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her new
book, What Goes Up, comes out July
18. It’s published in paper, audio, and electronic, and available for pre-order
even now, from B&N, Amazon, etc.
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