The Communion of Saints

"The wound is the place where the light enters you". "Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure."  Rumi

The fellowship consisted of  a group of seven ministers--one Lutheran, one Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a United Methodist and three Southern Baptists. When I joined there were then four Southern Baptists.

After abruptly leaving a church position with nowhere to go, I was in a particularly difficult stretch of emotional road.  The Methodist minister invited me to join  his "group".  This fellowship of saints met every Thursday morning  from 8:30 to 10:00. It was somebody's job to make the coffee and another to bring the donuts. Just plain glazed donuts. There was no agenda, but there was a format. The rule was this--if you have an issue pressing on your heart and mind, then you have the floor. If more than one person needed to talk, we decided who got to go first. If there was time for the second, then ok. But there usually was not.

Over the two years we met before life sent us in separate directions, we sorted though a multitude of personal issues.  We coached one through an affair and helped him to salvage his marriage and family. We saw another through his depression and a total emotional meltdown. Another of our group went through a divorce and we helped him through the worst of that. One minister at one point was dealing with serious financial issues, especially after paying money he didn't have for his daughter's wedding. One of the things that was most significant to this Southern Baptist is that no matter how serious the situation, no matter what emotional shape someone was in, no one quoted scripture and there were no prayers uttered. No not one. This was an encounter of compassionate human beings. Divine intervention is such a good thing, but it was never needed.

With that many ministers in one room we certainly dealt with many church issues, but we mostly discussed deeply personal matters of the heart. And what did I talk about? As well as I remember those faces, that youth Sunday School room on the second floor of the First Baptist Church, the coffee and donuts and many of the conversations, I don't remember specific things I talked about. What I remember is the warmth in that room and that I had the rapt attention of seven men of the cloth, men who had not only been through the fire, but had the ability to help me through mine. I also learned that God was not a Southern Baptist.  I had been raised and educated in the Southern Baptist world and had to come to view the world through Baptist tented glasses. All of a sudden grace, mercy and love were finding me through different doors, with different liturgical colors.

That was thirty-two years ago this week that I met those men. I have lost touch with all of them except two.  I talked to one of those Southern Baptists a few days ago.  And that United Methodist who invited me to join? He retired to the United Methodist church where I attend and I talk to him quite often. Instead of coffee and donuts, we  meet over a meat and three to discuss issues we hold in common. But we do as much  laughing as talking. Thirty-two years ago I was seeking salvation. Now I'm just seeking a friend.

If someone ever writes "the story of my life", they must include those twenty-four months and how they helped shape the person that I am today. The title of that chapter could be "The Wounded Healer." If the wound is the place where the light enters, then there is a very bright spot in my soul.