Howl...

Tristan went berserk then...howling occasionally in a language not known on earth. 

- Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall

There are times I just want to howl.

I've felt that way lately.

Coyle was a mentor of mine for a brief season.  As that time drew to a close, he challenged me: John, be a confessional pastor; live with your sin in plain sight.

I remember an evening years ago when I was a pastor, years after his challenge, standing before a gathering of other pastors imploring them to live a confessional life.  I didn't have a biblical text (mistake #1).  Rather, I read from The Velveteen Rabbit and asked if we, as leaders, could live and lead as broken men and women.  From their faces and body language, I was speaking some unknown tongue, a language not known on earth.  I might as well have been howling.

I believe this has changed somewhat since that evening years ago. But it is still the exception rather than the rule.  Maybe it always will be.  I don't know.

We just don't know what to do with our sin, which means we just don't know what to do with ourselves. We haven't found an app for that.  The prevailing rah-rah seems to be that at some point the sin will go away, that I'll reign victorious, more than a conqueror, over this wretched body of flesh.  And the thought that I might still be struggling with the same sin, or a variation on its theme, after all this time? Well, that must mean I'm a schmuck or weak or I just don't 'get it' or I haven't 'surrendered fully' or something.

Mercy.

Coyle also told me, years ago: John, your shit stinks, just like everybody else.


Guess what?  It still does.  Just like yours.

I've added a new name to my blogroll - Jamie The Very Worst Missionary - www.jamiewrightcr.blogspot.com.  Her latest post gets at this in a funny, poignant way.  I appreciated it. You might too.  Maybe.

Then again, maybe not.  If not, you might hear a ruckus in the background.  There are times I just want to howl.