Episode 499 - Ministry of Presence (Live from Cedarville University 2023)

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Alright, well everybody, just a quick introduction today, and by the way, We're probably not going to get through everything that I prepared today. I probably over-prepared. One thing I'm learning about myself is I'm a bit of an over-functioner, so I'd rather have too much material than not enough. So when we're doing this today, feel free to, you know, raise your hand or say something. I'd love to, you know, as much as possible have a conversation about things, especially if there's anything that might be a little bit new to anyone in here, I kind of feel like we're all beginners when it comes to spirituality, no matter how far along we are. And I am here not so much as one that's an expert to like say, "Look at all my knowledge," as much as I am as just somebody hopefully here to kind of guide us a little bit with the oar in the boat down the river a little bit. And it could very well be that I learned as much from you today as you learned from me in this session. Okay, so I just wanted to kind of lay that out as we begin today. My name is Rick. I use my middle name Lee because there was another Rick James several years ago. And depending on the age group, some people remember the original Rick James who played songs like Super Freak, and others remember there was a Dave Chappelle skit based on that. And so I had to start using the name Lee to distinguish myself a little bit online because I kept getting all these hateful emails. You are not Rick James! So I had to assure them I am, I'm just not the one you know. So, but it made for a funny story when I did meet Dave Chappelle and I got to tell him I actually am Rick Lee James, and he said, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, so it was a fun time. I am the music pastor at First Church of the Nazarene in Springfield, Ohio. These two over here in the middle, Christy and Jill, they are actually two of the people on our praise team. So I'm glad to have you both here today. I would have thought you had enough of me by now, but you decided to come anyway, so I'm grateful to have you. So in addition to being the music pastor at my church where I've been for 21 years now, I think, something like that, a long time, I also have been a traveling singer-songwriter for sometimes. So if you see that guitar case that's lit up out in the foyer right when you walk into the worship hall area, that's my table over there. Feel free to stop in. I have a guitar out for the guitar players because I'm always the one at the conference that's like, "I wish I had a guitar to play," you know. So feel free to stop by, play a little bit if you want while you're here. But I have been doing that for several years. I made an album with Lifeway Worship a few years ago called Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations, and it's been a pleasure to get to share music with the church in many locations over the years. I've always been an independent artist, but I've always enjoyed collaborating with people. So in addition to being a music pastor and being somebody that's on the road, I also am a podcast host. I host one called Voices in My Head: The Rick Lee James Podcast, which I'm actually recording this today day, so if you tune in, you might hear it again on that day. But that usually is where I'm either doing something like this, or I generally have a guest on there. So I have artists, like I've had Andrew Peterson on several times, if you know his music. Such a great guest to talk to. I've had different authors, I've had some actors and people like that. So I just enjoy having conversations with people. And then for my next workshop, I also doing a workshop about Mr. Rogers and what Mr. Rogers can teach the church because I run the largest Mr. Rogers-related Twitter account. I guess that's my claim to fame. It's called MrRogersSay, if you look it up. It would have been says, but I ran out of letters. But I just put quotes from Fred Rogers up every day, who has been a real inspiration to me and my ministry. So I won't talk too much about that at this workshop, But in addition to that, about a little over a year ago now, my team can tell you when it started, I started having this real uncomfortable feeling in my life that God was telling me I needed to do something else, as if I wasn't busy enough already. And I started struggling with chaplaincy. What is chaplaincy? God, why am I feeling this call? I don't even know what a chaplain does. You know, all I could think I think was, I've been in a hospital several times as a minister. It must be something like that. And what I found out is, well, it's something like that, but it's not exactly like that. So today is actually about something that I've been a chaplain now. I'm a resident at Kettering Health in Kettering. I actually work at the Grandview Hospital. It's technically called Kettering Health Dayton now, but I am a resident chaplain there until August. So I'm full-time there doing chaplaincy work. So everything else kind of revolves around this, what we call a ministry of presence right now. So just because this is coming from someone who's a hospital chaplain, I just wanted to share today about this thing called the ministry of presence because I think it's something that is helpful to everybody. It's something that I have learned through CPE which, that's just an abbreviation for Clinical Pastoral Education. But these are spiritual practices, ways that we can actually come to know ourself more and come to know God more so that we can be more present to each other and to ourselves and to God, and then help others be present to God in those same ways. So that's kind of the quick introduction, okay? And I don't usually use PowerPoint, so forgive me if something goes way off with the slides. We'll just all joined together. I want to get feedback from you. What do you think presence is? Like, you may have heard this term before, like ministry of presence, but I'd just love to know when you hear that, what comes to mind? It doesn't have to be the right answer from the textbook or anything. I'd just love to know. Just throw them out. I don't even need you to raise your hand. Just kind of ministry of presence, say some things.

In the moment.

Okay, in the moment. Showing up.

Eye contact.

Sorry, eye contact. What was it? Available. Very good. It's spiritual, actually. Spiritual. Yes. Yeah. Anything else that comes to mind? It's being fully present with someone, so you're sacrificing your wants or needs to be with someone. That's good.

Yeah.

Ah, that's very good. Yes? Emotionally and mentally present as well. Emotionally and mentally present. Wow, these are great answers. Really good. Just curious, by the way, has anybody ever done CPE before? Anyone in here? Just curious. Some of these are like, wow, you took the class. Good for you. All right. Well, these are really good answers. I mean, all of them. There's none of them that are incorrect. Matter of fact, you find out as you journey into Christian spirituality, there's not a lot of incorrect answers. There's just answers about whether you're being true. Is this truthful? Is this something that's real? So what I'm gonna use for today, what we're gonna say, presence is a vaguely defined word often used by chaplains to describe their work with patients and families and so on.

Staff.

Okay, and what we're going to be focusing in on today is the idea of creating a non-anxious, non-judgmental atmosphere for the compassionate sharing of another's story. Okay, and that whole idea of being non-anxious, non-judgmental, that's huge in being present with other people. To be able to listen to another's story story is a sacred ground that we enter into with a person. In CPE, we talk about something that a doctor named Anton Boyson came up with, which was a phrase that says that every human is a living human document. Every person that we look at, there is something— it's as though we are reading a letter from God that God has placed on this earth, and there is something that we can learn from each person, from their experience that we walk with them. Their journey is always going to be a little different than your journey, as similar as they might be. Every single person is a different living human document, something special about them. So presence, it has no apparent agenda, okay? So you're not going in with like, all right, I'm gonna go in and get this person saved today. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm not saying that. But in order to be really present with the person, we have to put some of our agendas aside, all of our agendas aside actually, except to focus on the one who is right in front of us. There has to be much flexibility and it requires emotional vulnerability in the chaplain's interactions. So now I say chaplain a lot in this. I want you to take that word out and put you in that place, okay? I'm coming at it, matter of fact I wrote this when I was at the hospital the other night, the PowerPoint part anyway, because I was doing chaplain work that evening. So I was sitting in the office thinking through this, what do I do from this perspective? So we're gonna focus on 4 areas today. Again, we may not get through all 4, and I apologize if we don't, but I wanna recommend a book to you if you're interested in knowing a little more where I got this from. It's by Matt Sanders, and it's called Chaplaincy: A Ministry of Presence. Chaplaincy: A Ministry of Presence. It's not the only book out there, and you don't even have to be a chaplain to appreciate it, as I think you're gonna see today when we get in. I have learned so many valuable things from this book, but one thing he talks about is the 4 ways of being present. We have to be present to oneself, Being present to the Presence, the Divine Presence, God in our midst, in personal prayer and spirituality, being present to others, and then, and only then, helping others be present to the Presence. All right? So those are things that I think of a lot as I walk into hospitals, rooms, as I go in to be with patients, it actually has to start with me before I get there. It has to start on the way with me realizing, where am I right now? So we're going to start out by talking about being present to oneself, and we'll get as far as we can. When we talk about self, what we mean is we want to be very aware of our inner world. Okay? When we talk about our inner world, we want to think things like, what is our motive? Because nothing will kill credibility faster than a minister who acts from a place of false motives. Nothing can do more damage to a person than a minister coming in with false motives. Not actually being there for the person but actually being there for yourself. You know, sometimes as ministers, I think we can actually do that a lot. We show up saying, "I'm here to minister to you," but then we end up doing something for me. Anybody ever experienced that before? The motives are sometimes a little out of whack. It's a human thing. I think it's something we all do. So I'm not— I don't say that to like cast stones at anyone. I say it as like it's something that we need to be aware of when we're being aware of self. We don't want to also take anything personally. I love this quote by Don Miguel Ruiz. It says, "Nothing others do is because of you. What others say or do is a projection of their own reality, their dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. All right, anybody have trouble not taking things personally? Sometimes that's one of the hardest things in ministry, isn't it? Because we feel like everything is so personal to us because we have this personal relationship with God. We are in relationships with people at church that are personal. It's hard not to take things personally, but we have to realize when those hurtful comments come, when things that we want to take personally, those are actually coming from that person. Those don't necessarily have anything to do with you. They can tell us a lot about what that person is going through, and they may be a very helpful tool in actually helping that person have a breakthrough if we can learn to not take it personally. Easier said than done, right? It's like saying, "Don't think about a pink elephant." When I say, "Don't take it personally," sometimes But it's something that we want to be aware of. So one other thing, or a few other things, I just want to mention a few of these. If any of these stand out, you might want to jot them down. When we are trying to be aware of our own inner world, we want to be aware of things like our prejudices, our projections, things that we're putting on to other people that may not be true. It might just be things that that person reminds us of someone else and we put this other person maybe that we don't like, and we projected it onto that person. Um, our fears— we want to be aware of our fears. Our attractions— sometimes we have to be honest about attraction. Did you know that sometimes you can't be the person to minister to certain people? As, as Sanders puts in his book, he said with a client he was working with, a friend of his, it wasn't even his situation, There was a psychiatrist who had a lady come to him, and she said, "You know, I'd really like to see you as my psychiatrist." And he said, "I can't do it." She kept coming back time and time again, "Please, will you take me as a client?" And he said, "I can't." And finally she said, "Why?" He said, "Frankly, because you turn me on." Right? You don't get that honesty very much. But it is important for us to acknowledge those things, because if we don't acknowledge those things, things, even just to ourselves, we can't step away from the traps that might be laid. Things like attractions, aversions. What do we have aversions to? Why do we have aversions to those things? Our preferences, our hungers, our shadow self, our codependency on others, insecurity, shame, several things. For me, this is one of my things that I know I have to be aware of. The hospital I work at, we don't get very many children there, okay, because we don't have a birthing unit, so that goes to a different catering facility. So I have noticed— this is about me, and I didn't even realize it before— I always knew I liked children, but I didn't realize that when I have kids at the hospital, on the occasion when there is they're there because of a relative or someone that comes in. Everything about me goes toward that kid. I'm like, oh, look at the kid, he's here! You know, we never get children. Or somebody carries in a baby. I didn't even know I was that much of a kid person until I got in an environment where there were never kids around. And, and when something happened— we had one tragedy that came in where a little boy, his dad ended up passing away. He was so young. And for me, it was like, it rocked my whole world. I was new to chaplaincy and I had to learn how do I deal with this? Like, like for me, my inner world, everything in my day, instead of focusing on all the patients, it all just went back to that kid again and again and again. I had to start searching out for me, what does that mean that I respond this way to children and that I maybe don't respond to other people So for you, it might be something completely different. It's just something about me that I learned along the way. Again, these aren't necessarily bad things. They're just true things, things about us. So the next thing, you know, I wanted to talk a little bit about don't delay. This thing here, say it, do it, don't delay. And that comes from this little poem by Roy Masters, which I really like. Says, if you have something to say, say it. If you have something to do, do it. Don't be upset, say it. Don't be upset, do it. All right, I am learning, and it took me a long time to learn, and I'm still learning to not let things sit within me without dealing with it, especially if it comes a relational issue. If I have something I need to talk to somebody about. Last night in the middle of the concert we were at, the worship service, I was like, "I need to call somebody right now." There was somebody that just came to mind. I'm like, "If I wait till later, it's not gonna happen." And I just said to the team, I said, "I gotta go make a phone call real quick, you know, I need to talk to this person." And I went and did it, and I felt much better after I did it. I didn't know why I needed to, but I knew I needed to, and I had to get it done. Sometimes we do so much damage to ourselves, and maybe sometimes to others too, by just delaying. It's okay to wait on some things, but there's sometimes things in our heart that's like, we just need to do this right now so it doesn't fester, so it doesn't grow, so it doesn't become a bigger thing. While it's still called today, as the scripture says, you know, sometimes we need to say what we need to say. Doesn't mean being rash. But it just does mean sometimes it's okay to go ahead and get it done. And then this is my favorite part, the thing that I've been focusing on a lot. Know your STUF. And it's not a misspelled word, okay? It actually stands for something. Know your STUF, S-T-U-F. Sensations, thoughts, urges, and feelings. So if STUF helps you to remember that. I have discovered about me, I am discovering, I should say, because this is an ongoing process. I'm not always very good at putting my feelings into words. Like, I know I'm feeling something, but until I actually took time to take a moment and actually name those things, I wasn't always very good about knowing what I was feeling. Somebody asked me one day when I was in class for the CPE, Clinical Pastoral Education, did you feel angry when this happened? And I went, no, I don't think I did. And I thought about it and I said, you know what, I think I was angry. Like, I think I was raised up and trained to think we don't get angry as Christians or something, but yeah, I was angry. I was really ticked off at this person. And I didn't know why. And I hadn't thought enough about it to like get in touch with the fact that I was angry. And it was important for me to like stop and go, okay, that tells me how I need to proceed so that anger doesn't like take me over. I know that I'm dealing with these type things. So I wanted to look at, as we're talking about the stuff today and being present, when we talk about sensations, it's important maybe for us to ask the ask this question, like, "How does this experience of blank feel inside you?" That's a good question for us to ask. When you think about the way that we will actually feel things in our body, when we think about sensations— and sensations are things like physical manifestations of our experiences. Okay, that's what I mean by sensations. It can be things like we'll feel something in our chest or in our belly, or maybe we'll get a headache, or we're gonna be feeling these some way. I think that sometimes those things that happen in us can be God's way of telling us something that's going on that we need to pay attention to. Sometimes instead of just immediately reaching for the Advil, we might have to stop and think, why is it that I I'm having this headache right now. Doesn't mean that we don't just sometimes get headaches, but I'm a migraine sufferer, okay? I suffered for a long time with migraines. They were getting so bad that I was having them almost every day, to the point that I was just in a chair in a dark room and I could barely function. When I finally figured out that I was having a relational problem with someone in my family, and I needed to talk to them about some deep hurts and some past wounds. And I had a very difficult time doing that. I noticed that after I did this, my migraines— not completely, they didn't completely go away, but I started having them like once every 2 weeks rather than every day. There are things inside of us, these sensations that we have, that we need to pay to pay attention to in order for us to be present for others. It's hard if you're in the throes of your own stuff to be present for other people and their stuff. Is this all making sense? Okay. So a good question to ask is, how does this experience of whatever, how does this experience that I just had feel inside me today? Am I feeling it in my shoulders? Am I feeling it in my gut? Am I feeling it anywhere in my body? Is there a tingling? Is there a heat somewhere? Am I angry? Am I sad? Am I happy? Things like that. It seems like it should be so easy, doesn't it? But until we sometimes stop and think about it, we may not know what we're feeling. Does this feeling inside want to say anything important to you? That may be kind of a strange question to ask, but as a Christian, I I kind of think that God does speak through the body sometimes. Like, maybe lots. There are times that I think that some of these sensations that we have— not saying every case is like this— but there are times that we may be feeling a prompting of God moving in our heart, giving us this uncomfortable feeling, or maybe we're reacting to something that we need to open up to God about, that we're feeling it in us. Somewhere. I read a fascinating book. It's not written by a Christian, but there's a lot of stuff you can apply to it. It's called Finding God in the Body, and there's really a lot of different things in that book. If you ever have a chance to read it, it comes from a little more secular point of view, but it really is kind of a deep examination of what would these things in our bodies be telling us. Is there something important that we can apply to our walk with God? Is how I push it. So one of the affirmations that I say to myself often, I say it to patients often, I pray it often, is all shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of things shall all be well. Because it's true. It was Julian of Norwich who said it, and it's something that no matter where we are, no matter what we're going through, it's not a trite statement that's ever untrue. It's always true, even in the darkest, most dire circumstances, because even on the worst day, that's not the end of the story. So sometimes one of the best things we can say to ourselves when we are in the midst of chaos is to be reminded, all shall be well. All shall be well. All manner of things shall all be well one day. Confident in Christ. All right, I'm gonna move on just a little bit from here, but we're spending a lot of time on self. I know I'm gonna probably run out of time. We're supposed to be done by 45 after, is that right? I think. Anyway, we'll just go till we go. A good question that I wanted to ask all of us today you pray twice a day? I don't necessarily need your answer, but I just wonder if you have a good daily prayer discipline in your life. This is one good way to be aware of self. It's one good way that's helpful. Sometimes we make it too hard. I memorized at one point, and I don't regret doing this in any way, but I memorized a rite of prayer that was like 8 pages long from just kind of the Book of Common Prayer and different resources, 'cause I thought, this is gonna make me a better prayer if I will just memorize all this and pray. And in some ways, yes, it did. Some ways I still lean on that. And yes, I learned from it. But I have also discovered that sometimes just taking a phrase from scripture, something like, speak, Lord, your servant is listening, and sitting with that, prayer. Coming again without agenda. Remember how we talked about that when we started? Coming to the Lord without an agenda for what God's going to tell us today, but even just sitting in the stillness and saying, Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. Maybe just repeating that. Speak, Lord. It could be you have a journal with you. It could be that you want to write some things down when it comes. Maybe you leave and nothing has happened, but it might be just the act of showing up has given you a way of hearing that you wouldn't have heard otherwise. Does that all make sense? Like, it's important to have a practice of prayer. I'm not going to tell you what your practice of prayer needs to be, but I think it's important to have a discipline in that. So try not to have a preset expectation No expectation of what may arise. Just experience. Be patient. Just be. That word be is a very important word when it comes to the Ministry of Presence, by the way. Just be. Pay attention to what God may be speaking to you through your stuff. Your sensations, thoughts, urges, and feelings. And then just the question: Do you have a spiritual community? Did I see your hand up, ma'am? Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I wanted to make sure. Okay, everybody with us? Are we good at this point? Any questions or any thoughts to throw out before we move on a little bit? All right, I'm not gonna delay too much because we have other things. We're gonna get into now being present with others. We already just talked about— at the very end I briefly mentioned, but do you have a community. You have a community that you are with on a regular basis. Most of us, we're gonna find that that's our churches, probably, in this room. But some people, I find, don't have any community at all. They don't have anywhere. One thing that surprised me, and I've told other people this, as I started working as a chaplain, I was kind of surprised how many people have no one. And when I mean no one, I I mean no one. They don't have any relatives still living, they don't have a spouse, they don't have children. There have been times that I've met people who, at no fault of their own, they're almost 100 years old and they've outlived everyone in their life, you know, even their children sometimes. Isn't that wild? So there's times where I am the only person present with them and they're life. And sometimes it's, it's just because they've gotten old, they became shut-in, they can't, they can't do much of anything else. But what a hard thing that is to go through life as a solitary individual. So this being present to others thing, it is so important. You don't know the way it might minister to another person just by being with them, coming to them with without an agenda, and just by being. Now this is probably the most important two questions that were ever asked to me when I started my clinical pastoral work in this ministry of presence. I was first asked the question, said, do I want to see, do I want others to see Christ in me, or Do I want to see Christ in others? Do I want people to see Jesus in me? Or do I want to see Jesus in others? Think about those questions for just a second, okay? 'Cause at first, what's everybody's first reaction to this? Who says, "I want others to see Christ in me"? Your first reaction was to raise your hand to that, right? Okay, how many of your initial reaction went to the other one, if you don't mind, by show of hands? Most of us went to the first one, didn't we? I want to be a witness for Christ. I just want people to see Jesus in me, and I just want that to happen. Okay, and so when I was asked that question when I was interviewing to be a resident at the hospital, they asked me that question, and, and I said, well, I guess I want people to see Jesus in me. "Really?" And I thought, "Uh-oh, did I step into something?" And again, it wasn't that it was a wrong answer. He said, "Well, I just want you to think about this, because the answer to that question is very important when you are with other people." And the person who asked me the question referred me to Matthew 25, which you might know it as the sheep and the goats passages, where Jesus is saying, it's the end passage. And so the King has called everyone together and he separates the sheep from the goats and he says, "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me," right? You did it to me. And he names all these people, the people that we didn't help, the people we didn't feed, the people that we didn't care for in prison, and the people that we didn't go out there just a number of things that is mentioned in there. And it says, whenever you did or didn't do it for these people, you were not doing it or doing it for— say it again— me. So isn't that interesting to think that maybe our call, as good and as wonderful as it is— and I hope everybody sees Jesus in you, and I hope everybody sees Jesus in me. I want that. But I wonder if our call as ministers is to see the living God in the people that we encounter. Whatever you've done to the least of these, you've done it to me. So how do I encounter that other person that I meet as this living human document, this person that has been put here by God, who has something of God within them because God created them, God created us, and God said it is good, and God looks at us and sees the child of who he is. So there's something of God always within us because of that. And so, as we come to these people in our lives, even the people that irritate us sometimes, there is something in there that if we approach them as though, how am I gonna see Jesus in this person today, that it changes everything. In our experience. Sometimes that person is nothing like Jesus in our mind. It's a spiritual discipline to be able to look at people with gospel eyes, to be able to look with the eyes of Jesus into another person's heart. I tend to think that what Jesus saw when he was looking at people was a beautiful creation of his Father, you know. And so when Jesus is in a number of situations, the reason that he can eat at the table with the Pharisees who have been disrespecting him, and the reason he can eat with the dregs and the poor and the outcasts in the community, is because in his mind, I think, Jesus is showing us that there is God there in the midst of us. How we serve others is how we serve God. Does that make sense? Does it sound like heresy? I don't think it does, but I do think there's something to it. Now, all that is to say, don't go out and say, I don't have to, I don't have to be like Christ to anybody anymore. It's just the idea of maybe it'll help in our ministry a little bit if we can switch that focus. How do I look over as a worship leader in the congregation? How am I seeing God out here? Meeting with us today and all these people. How am I seeing it? The scripture passage has left my, where I find a chapter and verse, but that wonderful passage about how the people who were rejoicing and the people who were crying in despair could not be distinguished from one another because they were all meeting together in worship and praise. And in that moment, somehow God is embodied in those moments together. We're going to keep moving on. Being present to others. So it's that good question of, are you a witness to people or are you a witness of people? Acts 1:8, the Greek is ambiguous. When, when Jesus says, go into all the world and make disciples of every nation, and he says, you will be my witnesses, it can be translated, you will be my witnesses, or you will be for me witnesses. We usually take it as, "I gotta go preach this message far and near." But it can also be translated, "I need to see this other person. I need to witness for God. I need to witness because God loves this person." Every living human document is true. Treasured by the Lord. So sometimes witnessing another person's life, letting them be seen, letting them be heard, hearing their story— do you know that sometimes that unlocks them to be able to really hear from God? Because maybe nobody stopped to listen to them. Been a number of times that I have seen the light bulb come on in hospital rooms people. Just because I might have been the only person to listen to them in some time. To hear their story and hear what was going on. And sometimes the conversation goes, "No, I don't need a chaplain." I say, "Okay, well, alright, what you watching?" "Oh, I like that show." And then by the end, "I guess I did need a chaplain today." You know, it's kind of interesting how it goes. So think about those words differently. I'm not telling you you have to change your whole perspective perspective on things. But I just want to tell you, I think there's room for us to be witnesses of people as much as we are witnesses to people. Okay, and I think it's biblically correct to say that because that Greek— boy, the Greek is ambiguous sometimes. For those of you that read it, sometimes, you know, we don't even know for sure if Zacchaeus was the wee little man or if Jesus was because of the way the Greek goes when you read it, uh, not in English. So it's okay to be witnesses of people too. Sometimes we see God there. I don't know if you can read it, it was a little small on my screen, but this is a book that we're reading right now in my CPE instruction. It says, by listening for the music of our inner world as we sit with another, we listen to the other's music as well. Through the counterpoint, both harmonious and dissonant, of shared wisdom that springs up between us. The shared music between another person. Isn't that interesting? Like, how boring would it be if everybody on the band just played bass guitar? You know, well, all right, 30 bass players all together, that might be— that's not the— not the fun. Not that that couldn't be cool, I guess. It might get monotonous after a while if you didn't have a little variance in there. But there's something beautiful when the other instruments come together and do their part too, isn't it? It's neat when all the parts work together and they function. And when you offer that, like, okay, I'm a bass. Bass is cool. It would be cool. Now that I think about it, it would be cool to have a symphony of basses. Actually, in Kansas, our group in Kansas, we set a thing called Tuba Crew. Christmas where we get hundreds of tubas together. That sounds amazing. That sounds really cool. No, that's great. Well, again, that's not to say there's not a place for that, but all of it is to say, as we listen to the music of another too, it can add so much. And, and I do want to hear that. That sounds really good, actually. Um, way to blow apart my metaphor. That's good. But anyway, Every metaphor breaks down somewhere, doesn't it? But I think there's a beauty in listening to the music of the other. If we can really stop and listen to that. If you think of it in terms of your worship team, your worship band, the different parts we sing, the different instruments, and even if you have 2 or 3 guitars, if those 3 guitars are playing different things as opposed to all the same thing, you get a different feel, don't you? Or the dynamics of where you go in your worship and how, you know, here we need to get big and build, and then here we need to drop out a little bit and make it smooth. There's something about the way it all works together. So offering that deep bow to another person of hearing their music is so important. If that metaphor helps you, of listening to another person as music. So we're gonna go on from being present to others to helping others Be— oh wait, you know, I didn't skip the being present to the presence part, by the way. I kind of went over it really fast, but that was the part about prayer and everything. I'm sorry, I feel like I just jumped across that. That's important, and we need to do all that, but this is how we get to this final step of helping others be present to the presence, serving others through prayer and meditation. So the first and foremost, most important thing is— everybody say it together with me, that first one. Be you. Be you. Yeah, be you. I want you to think about it for just a second, okay? It's okay to be you. All right? Sometimes we'll come to a conference like this, And we think, I've got to get my church to be exactly like that band I heard last night, because they were great. And if we could just sound like that, if we could just move that way, if we could just sing in that manner, if we had the lights, if we just had the screen, if everything was on, that would be awesome, and we would just kill it for God. That would be great. I want the choir. Yeah, okay, choir, that's fine. You recruit 100 people, we'll do it. That's fine. But there is something that is so important about being the you that God made you to be. There is something that you offer that nobody else has. I don't know what that thing is. Other people are more likely going to see it in you than you are. That's why it's important to be in community. Other people are going to be able to tell you things. Like, I can tell you about Jill, Jill has this gift. Jill, raise your hand. Do you mind me pointing you out here? No, we don't. Jill plays piano for us. She's a wonderful piano player. Jill has this gift of like— she's a party waiting to show up everywhere she goes. Isn't it? That's the best way to describe it. You can come in and half the band didn't show up to practice that night for whatever reason. People got busy, schedules happen. So only 2 people are there tonight for practice, and you're kind of, well, bum, we're not gonna get it. No, let's do this, come on, you know. And Jill is just like, I mean, she'll be clapping her hands at the piano and going— she has this real gift that's unique to her. That's not her only gift, but that's one of them. She pulls something out of us that we didn't even know we needed in that moment. So, and I'm grateful for that, aren't you? I mean, it's something that she pulls out every week. Like, she comes in and we're all up on the platform or whatever, and we're getting ready to practice, and, oh, here she comes, she's running. Yeah, sorry I'm late, but let's do this. Well, I, I say that not just to, to praise Jill. We're grateful for her, but, but everybody, you all have something that you add that is so unique. We spend so much time wishing we were somebody else. We spend We spend so much time wishing we had different gifts or wishing we could do something. If we're a preacher, we wish we could preach like that guy. If we're a singer, we wish we could sing like that person. If I could just play guitar— there's always somebody better, there's always somebody worse. But God has made you unique. In some way, there's something about you that nobody else has, and you are important. And what you have to offer— if you're always trying to be that other person, is not going to be what God made you to be for the people you're with. Just be. It's so helpful when we are trying to be present to others and helping them be present to the presence of God. As we are seeking that in our own lives and finding those own— those ways, it helps us be present for others in a way that helps unlock that for them too. This gets back to, again, starts with me. It sounds very self-centered, doesn't it? But that's where we begin. We move out, we open ourselves to the presence of God in our lives. That helps us be present to others, and then we can finally be present to help others be present to the presence. So false spirituality, it serves nobody, okay? We don't need to be fake about this. It's okay when you're having a bad day to just be like, I'm not having a good day today, everybody. I need you to know I'm tired and worn out. I'm a little crabby. I want you to know I still love you, I think, but this is just me being honest. Doesn't that do a lot more good when you come in with other people than just like, oh God, just has a bad day? One plant, two, and that's just today. Oh, I'm so blessed and thankful for that. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we try to make it, we try to out-spiritual the other person. We use religious language to make it sound like we're up here, but we're really down here. I just feel like it would do our churches so much good if we could model that in some ways. To say, yeah, today's tough. That hurt this week. We lost one of our members. That family's grieving. And today when we come to worship, I just want everybody to know it's okay. If you need to cry while we're singing, you may not feel like raise a hallelujah today. You may feel like I need to pray a song of lament. It's okay. It's all right. We can be real today. God's here with us in every circumstance today. We're here this morning to be real. So there are countless ways that we can be present for others, whether it be prayer, reverence, listening, spaciousness, humor. How many of you have a gift of humor? How many of you think you have a gift of humor? Again, another person will be the judge. But anyway, art, music, guiding people. We have so many gifts. Some of us are not artists, You couldn't paint anything if your life depended on it, okay? Other people can just take that gift and use it in amazing, beautiful ways. And I don't have to be envious of that person that can. I can admire them and even cheer them on and say, "Good for you! What a beautiful offering you are giving to the church." Not everybody is going to be able to sing like Christy. They might want to, but they can't all do it, okay? It's okay. Not everybody can be the singer. Not everybody can play guitar like Lincoln Brewster. Oh man, I wish I could play guitar like Lincoln Brewster. That guy's amazing. But I play guitar like me. For whatever I can do, I offer it to the Lord and I let it work in that way. We create that space. I want to, I'm not sure what my next slide is. Oh, okay, this is a final quote and then we can just talk for a few minutes. If you like, because we've got roughly 14 minutes, I think, left. When we talk about being present to other people, this is one of my very favorite quotes from Parker J. Palmer. If you've read any of his writings, he's a wonderful spiritual writer. He reminds me a little bit of like a modern-day Thomas Merton or somebody like that, that's kind of, you know, deeply spiritual in their walk. But he has an essay that he he wrote, and you can look it up on the website On Being, I think is where this was found. But he tells this story to set it up a little bit for you. A time whenever he was going through something physically, and he was just feeling terribly down, having a hard time. And he had one friend in particular that would come in and just not say a lot. Would just sit with him. And rub his feet. He was just that kind of a friend. He needed that. He wasn't feeling well. The feet were the source of his pain. And this friend just came in, each time he came, barely even spoke, just sat with him and just made room for him. And he said of all the people that came in to offer care, so many of them had these words to say, "Oh, if you'll just trust God for this," and "Oh, if you'll just do that." Everybody had an answer. But this one friend just kept showing up and would just rub his feet more. His feet hurt and it just helped. And then he left. He said that was the person that did more for him than anything. And he has this wonderful quote, and you can debate whether you agree with it or not. I just think it's a beautiful way of saying it. He says, the human soul doesn't want to be advised or —fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed, to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep vow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul's healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through. Aye, there's the rub. Many of us helper types are as much or more concerned with being seen as good helpers— remember that? I want to see Jesus in me. Many of us helper types are as much or more concerned with being seen as good helpers as we are with serving the soul-deep needs of the person who needs help. Witness that. Listening and companioning take time and patience, which we often lack, especially when we're in the presence of suffering so painful we can barely stand to be there, as if we were in danger of catching a contagious disease. We want to apply our fix, then cut and run, figuring that we've done the best we can to save the other person. Phew! I read that and it was like, ouch! Man, do I just want to go in there and look like the good helper? Or do I really want to be a help? Do I want to come in and say, "Jesus in me, look at me, I'm Jesus!" Or do I want to see Jesus in that person? That person who's suffering and that person who's wounded. He's the help. That person is worthy because God has made them. So those last things here, I just wanted to put it up again just to look at one more time, and then I'd love us to just chat for a few minutes if you want. Being present to oneself is the first thing. Being present to the presence in personal prayer and spirituality, that is the second thing. Be present to others, and then we can help others be present to the presence. All right, anything to add to this today, or anything that just comes up to you? Yes. Wow. Okay, so for the recording, she asked, can you draw a parallel What's the difference between someone who is just a very good listener and someone who is present to another? Okay, that's an excellent question. I may not have the right answer, but I'll tell you what I think, okay? And maybe you have some good insights into it to share. I think they both go hand in hand. I think the idea of being present and what we're talking about here, you can You can be a very good listener, but you still haven't worked on yourself. And part of this is learning to get out of your way enough to acknowledge before you go in. In my case, this is gonna be different than yours. If you're not a hospital chaplain, this is not gonna apply, but apply it to your circumstance, okay? When I'm on the way there, I know what kind of morning I've had already.. But maybe I haven't acknowledged it as I went through. There might be something if I haven't stopped to pay attention to my feelings, if I haven't stopped to pay attention to my sensations, to that tightness in my chest today. If I don't understand maybe where it's coming from, that might be something that triggers me in that room that keeps me from being a good listener, that keeps me from being present, because all I'm gonna do is just keep thinking about I have going on. And I want to fix myself. That doesn't mean you can't be a good listener. But we practice present listening in a lot of different ways. One way that I learned, one of my fellow chaplains taught me on day one, just by doing this. You can't hear it on the recording. But I'm looking in people's eyes. They just sat. Looked at me. And it was the most unnerving thing. Because when I talked, he did not move his eyes away. He was listening with his eyes. He was showing me that what I had to say was important. So the guy over there, he wasn't paying attention to that. The person over there wasn't paying attention. He was just listening straight to me. And I thought, is he ever going to blink? But now I have come to understand when I listen that way, I'm actually listening. Like when I give my eye contact, I'm being present. I'm not doing this necessarily. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. And that I'm taking time to really look and listen. Sometimes I'm better at it than others. Sometimes I'm training myself to do that. So I walk in a room and I'm ready to do it. When I get there. But it's hard, isn't it? Sometimes on Sunday morning, they have a lot of distractions and a lot of people. It's hard to be that present with everybody all at the same time. But I would argue it's— it probably does more good to try to be present with the one you're with in that Sunday morning context when you're talking with them than it does to be present to everybody all at the same time, because you actually get that interaction, then move on to the next one. And you know, if If somebody really needs to see you, they'll wait and make that time, or if you need to see them. It's hard. I'm not there yet. I'm still trying and still learning. What a good question. Thank you for asking that. Anybody else have any thoughts or insights or concerns? Everything's safe here. Yeah? Do you have children? I do. Okay, so as a parent, how do you, when you have little children, how do you take time to do all this when you're also monitoring the chaos? That, boy, you've asked the best question. So I just want to make sure everybody can hear. She is asking if we have children at home, and a number of children especially, how do we do this in their presence in the middle of the chaos? Okay, that's a really good question. I want to just say, I don't know, tell me when you find out. But I think part of it is I only have one at home. I have four in heaven with Jesus that didn't make it. I wonder what life would look like if I had more chaos in the house. Sometimes one is chaos enough. I at times have to stop myself and force myself, especially when I— anybody been the angry parent to your child? "If you don't stop me now!" Like your go-to is just like hit the accelerator and just yell at the top of your lungs. I know when I'm feeling that way, I need to stop for even just a few minutes and say, "This is not the self I want to be right now." This is not the one that's going to do any good for anybody today. I don't want to be that angry person. For me, Fred Rogers has helped a lot. That's why I'm talking about Mr. Rogers next, okay? We just have to be intentional, I think, to try to find ways to build it into our day. I don't know any other answer to it than that. It's not easy, but sometimes just acknowledging, you know what, I Right now, I'm not being the parent that I want to be. That's the first step to acknowledging that something's going on within me. It may not fix everything all at once, right? But it's a first step. If we deny it and just go on about our day— sometimes I've had to apologize to my son and go back. That's been part of it for me. I'm sorry. Son, I was kind of a jerk back there. I don't want you to think of me that way. I'm sorry about that. Can I do anything to make it right? Now, it doesn't mean they didn't do something wrong, but I could have handled it better. So if you can answer that question for us, write the book and sell a billion copies, okay? All right. That's why we call it a practice. That's what we call it, a discipline, because it's not something that comes naturally. It's not something we get all at once. You might discover it in the middle of the chaos. Maybe in that chaos— wow, Jesus said, let the children come to me. Somehow we see the kingdom of God in all of this chaos right now. Something about this Jesus looks at and says, look, The kingdom of God is among you. And all I'm seeing is, stop licking the wall! But Jesus says, no, don't dare stop those obnoxious kids. No, he doesn't say that. They do obnoxious things sometimes, but don't let them be turned away. Don't let them be turned away. Something about it, the kingdom of God comes. I don't know. That was probably a really poor answer. I'm sorry if it was, but we're there on the journey with you, okay? Enjoy the chaos. Enjoy it. Yeah, enjoy the chaos. These are really good questions. These are really good questions. By my watch, it actually is 143 right now. That Mr. Rogers numerology, 1, the I, 4, 2 meant love, and 3 meant you. I love you. So I think it's appropriate that I'm about to get ready to do my Mr. Rogers talk at 1:43 right now. We're finishing up. Please, if you feel like you want to talk about anything else as we finish, I'm happy to share all the ignorance I have with you. I'm not the end-all be-all on this. But thank you all for being here. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and have a great rest of the conference.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at RickLeeJames.com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at RickLeeJames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.