Words to Match

Michael Heher

A LARGE tropical bird circles overhead as I climb out of a murky pool. The breeze dries my skin even before I reach my towel. The swimming and the sun and the heat have left me sleepy, feeling slightly drugged, yearning for the protection of my room and bed. The room key I pull out of my pocket has no number on it and none of the hotel buildings look familiar. Wings swoop down in front of me and soon the bird lands on the crown of my head, its sharp claws digging into my scalp. I swat at it fiercely and it flies off screeching

I decide to sit down and sleep right where I am, but when I try to rest my back against a cool, shaded wall, I can’t. My hair is caught on something above me. I stretch my neck upwards and see, spread out on the edge of the roof, an old hound dog with his left paw hooked on my hair. The dog startles and springs up, forcing me onto my tiptoes. If he leaps off the roof, I am certain he will take the top of my head with him.

Moving quickly now, my eyes hunt in every direction for my room. An energetic group of youngsters surrounds me. They are deeply tanned, none of them as tall as my shoulders. I ask for help but they hardly notice me. Then I get bumped from behind and someone starts shouting. The youngsters are a swarming heap of twisting arms and torsos and, out of the middle, a young goat appears and clambers up my back, settling itself on the very top of my head, its four hooves balanced on my skull.

I wake a little dazed but not surprised; I dream like this often enough, especially in these early hours of Sunday morning when my dreams exhibit their strongest vigor. They leave me worn out, so exhausted that I sometimes cannot tell whether I am awake or asleep. Later I will stand before hundreds of people, seated row upon row. In the front will be people whose names I know, those I’ve worked with on committees and met at civic affairs. Many of them have had me in their homes for dinner. They will be looking up at me. Farther back, with heads down, are others whom I know as well. I may not recall their names, but I have listened to their gossip and their sins, anointed their sick bodies and buried their dead, refereed some of their squabbles and baptized many of their children. I am their pastor and they are my parishioners.

When that moment does arrive, the hymnbooks and purses will have been put away. Parents will have finished whispering warnings to restless children. The assigned scripture passages will have all been read. And there will be an expectant silence. What will I say?

My vivid dreams do not reflect a preoccupation over how my parishioners will review my preaching on the way home from the service. I have all the reputation I can handle for the moment, the preaching equivalent of the utility player in baseball. I may not dazzle but I rarely disappoint. More likely it’s my mother behind these dreams. Growing up, I remember hearing her wander the house at odd hours of the night. In the morning, she’d be asleep on the couch, on top of the guest room bed or curled up in one of the big easy chairs in the den. Invariably she claimed that she had been seeking asylum from my father’s snoring, which was in volume, density, and duration truly colossal. But all of us in the family also knew, though none spoke of it, that she was what they called “high strung.” I have inherited her soft silver hair, her small pink nose, her propensity for sinus trouble, and a dose of her nocturnal agitation.

When insomnia swallows a too large portion of the night, I think of friends of mine who are contentedly asleep. They will rise from their slumber, well rested, to preach, as they usually do, very well. A combination of pharmaceuticals and psychotherapy could make my nights as snug as theirs, of course, but I am not ready to give up my dreams. Their anxiety is more intriguing than annoying. I have become fond of them, even grateful for them. For they are mine and no one else’s, and in them something caught slips free.

During the day, amid the constant churning of events, I remain unruffled, having inherited my father’s calm exterior. My father and I, as well as my brother, would be perfect as captains of a sinking ship. We would direct the emergency procedures with bravery and poise, giving the distinct impression that we are not fazed even by disaster. Through my numerous projects, conversations, and appointments, I proceed confidently, knowing what to do during almost every event. Even when tensions do surface, when arguments erupt or committee meetings border on chaos, my teeth grit and my neck tightens only briefly. I blink and then there is more to do and off I go to do it. My days are like a poorly scripted action film: quick cuts from scene to scene, short snips of dialogue among characters, a throbbing bass beat underneath. It is fast and often fun, and I go through it as if I already know where it is leading. But I don’t know.

My nighttime visions expose what I lack, can’t control, or don’t understand: the rough edge of rude passions, the forecast of unseen dangers, the unyielding treachery of bitterness and grief. No wonder I wake up.

In the minutes or hours I lose waiting to be pulled back into sleep, I do not meander from room to room, as my mother did. I just lie in bed, gaping into the night. I am not sure how, but what the dreams expose gets developed, like film in a darkroom. I see the results float in the dimness between my bed and the ceiling: loose pieces seeking their fit in a puzzle.

What I see in the night counteracts the daytime habits that build in me with age. My friends will tell you that I have always tended toward the emphatic in my pronouncements, but the older I get, the more I get away with it. As a parishioner tells me her problem, I am thinking, “Oh yeah, that. I know what to say about that.” My voice slips more and more into the past tense as I discuss present circumstances from the distance of experience, sounding like someone who has the answer to every question and has acquired every necessary skill. I have even become what I hated as a youngster: the adult with unsolicited advice. I know what others should do and I spell it out without invitation.

When I do this in my homilies, they come out sounding like what they used to be called: sermons. The words shake with too much confidence. The ideas possess an unearned clarity. What makes great sense to me sounds like nagging to my listeners. I see them wince.

During the first year I preached, each Sunday morning, without fail, on the center aisle, in the fourth pew, sat a large middle-aged man with a face only a bulldog could love. As I spoke, he stared up at me blankly, like an ancient Buddha. With other parishioners I could sense how I was doing, whether they understood, whether they agreed, whether I connected with their emotions, but him I could not decipher.

Weekend followed weekend, a new homily each time, yet his expression remained implacable. His blankness insisted on something, for I could see he was listening. He did not look bored or confused or like he wanted to disagree with me. If anything, he looked like he was having a bad day and I couldn’t tell whether or not it was my fault.

I jacked up my radar, monitoring him for a sigh, a yawn, an arched brow of rebuke, anything that would suggest the thoughts or feelings concealed behind his enigmatic eyes. Nothing I said provoked a reaction. I wondered about his life. What was his occupation? Why did he attend church alone? Where was his family? Was he a lonely widower? Newly divorced? The sole Catholic in a Mormon household? None of the priests or the staff knew anything about him so my only clues were the clothes he wore, the vehicle he drove, the composure with which he slipped out of Mass after communion. Processing down the aisle, I strained unsuccessfully to get a look at his left hand to see if he wore a wedding band. I imagined him grinning slyly then, pleased he remained undiscovered, whispering victoriously through his teeth, “Hey, bright boy, there’s a whole world out there that you don’t know a thing about. Shut up and listen.”

I don’t know if that’s what he actually felt; he never gave me the chance to ask him. I sensed that other parishioners were edified by what I said. If I had inspired their faith and tamed their fears, why hadn’t my words impressed him? The first thing I asked myself when I began to prepare for the upcoming weekend was what he might notice in the assigned scriptures.

His unresponsiveness goaded me to look where I had not thought to look, to stretch beyond the confines of what people expected to hear from a preacher. Because I watched him listening to me, I started to notice how antiseptic I sounded, how often I found the things of God in the clear and the orderly, as if the most hospitable place in the world for God was the living room I grew up in, where the windows were always shut and plastic encased the lamp shades. I gave the distinct impression that the things of God were so delicate and fragile they had to be protected against nicks and stains and dust and only used on special occasions. Were the places too occupied to be tidy—the den, the kitchen and, yes, the bedroom, as well as the office and factory—outside the ambit of grace? Were not our days themselves littered with whispered secrets, rumors, odd facts, questions and all the items, ideas, and projects that we never complete? Excess is our habitat. From a distance of twenty years, I see Buddha looking at me from the fourth pew still. If my preaching had been able to find God hidden in the clutter, at home among the litter, I might have roused what was tired, untied what was frustrated, and comforted what was troubled, in him and in myself.

Which is why I find myself staring out the window into the half-light of this particular Sunday morning, waiting, as usual, for verbs in the present tense that will adequately describe God’s action under this dawning sky, for us in these neighborhoods, wondering what to make of this new day.

I shower and dress, very much aware that I am running out of time. The confused jumble in my head must be sifted and shaped into something strong enough to help my listeners. I can comment on the news of the day if I want, or, if I think it would help, spread out before my congregation an instructive incident from the church’s history or my own experience. I can explain an insight from modern biblical research or refresh an archaic doctrine. I can proclaim that we live in a wonderful world or that it’s going to hell in a hand basket. (Enough evidence exists this weekend to support both views.) My words can try to keep things in order or ignite a revolution. I might throw my arms up in rage over a moral weakness in our society or quote a poem to accentuate the beauty in our midst. It’s up to me. Which of the many options spinning in my head will help?

The way I was trained to preach presumed that one’s listeners have short attention spans and are eager to be entertained, but I have not found that. None but the youngest are easily bored. My listeners want to be talked up to; they listen for news, for the latest reports of where God is revealing, helping, touching, loving, saving. They want practical suggestions. Where and how and when can we ourselves find the life that shines luminously in this world? If I can aim them in the right direction today, they will listen with rapt attention.

I recite my prayers and sip my coffee while a part of me monitors the psalms and prayers for an image or phrase that might better focus or amplify what I’ve found in today’s readings. Or show me a better message. At breakfast I am not ready for conversations with the other priests. I position myself in the corner of the kitchen, keeping silent behind the newspaper. Turning the pages, my eyes scan the columns for a useful story, cartoon, or advertisement. When I get to the sacristy and begin to vest, I am not ready for the information and questions that come at me from the ministers. Since their instructions only partially register, I have been responsible for more than one disaster. I forget the name of the person I am supposed to introduce or the specifics of an announcement I am asked to make. I cannot be trusted with any special ceremonies unless the words are written out for me to read. Once I congratulated a couple on their fiftieth wedding anniversary to be told loudly by the miffed bride that it was only their fortieth. The sacristan has taken to leaving post-it notes at various points in the sanctuary. She knows how I am.

A knock at an old wooden door. I look up from my desk and watch the knob turn. A young child’s sad face appears from behind the door. “I am very sorry,” he says. “I don’t have any more stories. I had seven of them and you’ve heard them all. That’s all I’ve got.” He closes the door and disappears.

As I leave the sacristy and walk toward the front door of the church, I greet my parishioners and receive updates on family news. They ask me various questions and introduce me to visiting relatives. As he shakes my hand, Mark is yawning. A detective, he tells me he’s been up all night, trying to solve a drive-by shooting. Soon I see Veronica, walking slowly this morning, looking tired and sleepy, a little unsteady on her feet. Is it a side effect of her medications or has her “lousy blood disease,” as she calls it, gone out of remission? As I meet a family that’s just moved into the parish, my attention is drawn to the bags under Brian’s eyes as he passes silently into the dark church. His wife does not attend Mass with him anymore. Is there trouble between them or has she perhaps gone over to the conservative parish in the next city? While I am answering an altar server’s question, I notice Jessica with a new boyfriend. They greet Robert who enters the church like a convict going to the gallows. His mother is behind him, her defiant jaw set with a severity that’s been there as long as I can remember.

I watch and listen to them with the same fascination I have for my dreams, attracted to the unceasing vitality and alarmed by the intractably harsh edge. The glances we exchange and the intimations beneath our conversations this morning, as well as those moments of crisis when I am called to bedside, accident scene, graveyard, and emergency room, shrink my ignorance of their lives. Because I have shared so many of their important moments, they do not feel obligated to listen to me politely as they would to a visiting preacher; they hold me to a higher standard, as they have a right to do. And their confidence makes the giant gap between what they need and what I have to offer painfully clear.

Still, preaching is not primarily what I have to say. It never was, though I imagined it so for a long time. I stand in the sanctuary and do the talking while the congregation sits quietly in the pews, of course, but we do the preaching together, and the important words usually come from them.

Often when I am preaching, a moment comes when I hear coughing. Soon heads are shifting from one side to the other. I see legs and arms stretching all over the church. Right in front of me, their eyes go blank as they turn their minds to other considerations, like people who have slipped on headsets, each tuned to some more helpful or absorbing program. My parishioners continue to listen to me, but in the way one listens to a radio playing quietly in the next room: with just enough attention to notice when an interesting bit of news breaks in. I can’t go on as I had planned because whatever they need or require or wait for is not what is coming out of my mouth.

And so I strain beyond the words I had prepared and even stretch beyond the person I knew myself to be. Quickly, I must find what I lack. On the outside talking, I dash recklessly inside my brain searching for whatever will jolt me beyond the blindness and complacency that has caused this situation. I experiment. I say things I had not intended. I am desperate enough to take chances, not knowing if what I’m saying is right but trusting the congregation to know what is needed. On those occasions when words do come that somehow transfigure the world, my parishioners promptly return their concentration to my voice up front. The pews hush and all of us are amazed to hear the lucid or fresh or poignant or ripe words coming out of my mouth, words their lives and hopes and prayers have given and demanded of me.

This development comes as much of a shock to them as it does to me. Mary of the Never-fail Novenas to St. Jude does not think that she is interested in what helps Herb, a guy she considers a quarter of an inch from heresy. The wife who cares for a husband with Alzheimer’s doesn’t see how her world intersects with Javier, recently released from Juvenile Hall and trying to stay clean. Jo, born in Cebu and reared on devotion to Santo Niño, listens for something other than what Carol, with her degree in theology, wants to hear. The conservative Republicans are certain they are interested in something very different from the parishioners who volunteer at the soup kitchen or Larry who is working up the courage to tell his parents that he is gay. We enter the church as partisans to what we know and what we want to believe; on a good day, though, that is not where the preacher and the parishioners end up.

This is why they call it revelation.

After not seeing Sam since his brother’s wedding reception two years ago, he comes walking toward me. Across a long lawn surrounded by large trees, he is dressed in the same tux he was wearing then. With his coat off, he approaches me with a very long, flat piece of wood in his hands. “You remember what to do with this,” he says smiling.

I know immediately what he’s talking about. I know that we have flown together by such means, though I don’t recall how we worked it. No matter. Sam is insistent. The two of us are soon flapping the plank up and down, up and down, while, hip to hip, we run the whole length of the lawn, without success.

When we turn and run back the other way, Sam forces me to run faster and thrusts the plank back and forth with more intense flapping. The draft increases against our faces but the speed and straining are not sufficient to lift us off the grass. We do not fly. And Sam does not want to stop trying.

A couple of years ago two of my most faithful parishioners were diagnosed with cancer. When Fred finally went into remission, I cheered for the miraculous grace of God and the skilled work of Fred’s doctors. When Jim did not heal, despite our many prayers, I was not surprised, even though he was no less filled with sincere faith. At Jim’s funeral, the chosen scriptures proclaimed comfort to the grieving and the reward of eternal life for this compassionate man, but, distressed that he had been taken from us, I could not bring myself to urge the grieving to “have more faith in this dark hour.” I did not remind them that Jim is “in a better place” where there is “no more suffering and no more tears.” It was just too pat and not at all what I felt. I said: God calls the shots, not us. I don’t like it, but all of us, including Jim, are ruled by a mysterious and sometimes painful destiny. Sure, God will make things right, but they won’t be right in my book until we are sitting again with Jim in the Kingdom of God. Until then our lives match the suffering Savior’s more than the jubilant Father’s.

There was obvious disappointment on the faces of some of my most faith-filled parishioners. “Couldn’t he have been a little more uplifting?” At the house afterwards I could almost hear Mary whisper, “You-know-who must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.”

The scriptures are supposed to be a light that shines on in the darkness, a covenant announcing how God’s power, healing and comfort are at work in our midst. Like a mathematician with equations, I wanted every word of them to be true and effective. If they don’t work, how can they inspire?

I have by now encountered almost every verse that promises good fortune and boundless blessings, verses with words like “always,” “forever” and “everlasting” in them. I wanted them to be true, as they appeared to offer what I wanted for me and my parishioners. I’d love to guarantee that if we do this or that with all our hearts, God will come right to our doors and fill us with every blessing. I wanted to, but my parishioners would not let me; they knew it doesn’t work like that.

When my voice over the amplifier announced as true what I only wished were true, I was never the first to notice. When I declared that evil and illusion are easily cast out, or guaranteed that grace comes quickly or swore that God protects us vigilantly, my listeners had already looked away, as if embarrassed to catch me in a lie. My voice bounced uselessly off the ceiling and walls.

In the silence that followed, my listeners demanded: don’t make promises God doesn’t keep. Account for the shaky ground and sudden patches of quicksand. Don’t deny our disappointments or turn away from our broken hearts. Explain the beasts lying in wait, the damaged goods that can’t be fixed, the trouble in the streets. Show us God in the horrors hidden under cover of night and the prayers that don’t get answered. Make your words equal to our predicament. Give us faith as wild as the world. Describe that and we’ll hang on every word.

And so I read the scriptures now with an eye for the power of those words that do not appear in the superlative, human words of entreaty when things have not worked out. There’s Jonah’s peevish disappointment, Job’s defiant complaint, Rachel’s impassioned trust in the face of loneliness and loss, Paul’s frustration with back-sliding converts, words that express what those at the end of all their other possibilities have said or prayed as they waited, patiently or not, for the divine promises that had yet to be kept.

Yes, Jesus, even you do not know the day nor the hour. Your intimates betray and abandon you. You weep alone in the garden. From the cross you question your Father’s fidelity. Your life, we know.

I can’t see it behind me, but I know there’s some kind of danger coming at me with the speed and power of a Mac truck. Ahead of me a group of people stand at the edge of a country road. I run toward them, yelling, warning them of the impending disaster. The peril, whatever it is, is at my heels. I will not escape it but they can still be spared. They see me, but, with the loud din behind me, they can’t hear what I’m saying. I am horrified to see them, trying to catch my words, move off the sidewalk directly into the line of fire.

I ought to preach like Jesus but I don’t. The gospel portrays Jesus as an itinerant preacher fearlessly proclaiming from town to town his God-given message, like prophets before him. He does not mince words or engage in idle chitchat. He names sins, pulls the covers off unexamined lives, and demands complete and immediate repentance. We see him overturn the tables of the Temple moneychangers and hear him denounce the powers that be. “With authority and not like the scribes and Pharisees,” he preaches in the imperative tense. “Repent! Believe! The kingdom of God is at hand!”

When the assigned gospel text demands, “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor,” I should marshal my most persuasive arguments to encourage us to do what Jesus has clearly commanded. “Let’s take that risk,” I should say. “To receive Jesus’ great reward we must give to the poor. Don’t worry about college tuition for your children. Who dares to choose home equity over gospel fidelity? God will take care of the rest if we take care of what he has asked.” With strong words like these, I should demand sacrifice and be indifferent to the havoc that changing our ways would cause. I should put my hand to the plow and not look back.

But I do look back. I always look back. I have never not looked back. What I see is a comfortable and usually satisfying life. I don’t want to be poor. Poverty is hard and I prefer soft. In this and a number of other gospel demands, I am not yet prepared to volunteer. When the lottery jackpot gets big enough, I buy a ticket and watch for my numbers to come up.

How can I ask others to do what I am yet unwilling to do myself? My parishioners see the car I drive, the clothes I wear, the restaurants in which I dine. Christmas gifts reflect their keen observational skills. I get pricey Italian red wines and Dewar’s scotch. Baskets arrive with Arborio risotto and aged Parmesan. They know what I willingly admit: I am not Mother Teresa. Were my preaching to feign a love of poverty, they would giggle over the irony after Mass while pouring themselves cups of coffee.

Neither do I wish it upon my parishioners. I would rather they enjoy the life they have and not suffer lack or want. And yet I am responsible, since I do the talking, for what I do not say and for what I say too modestly in my preaching.

I am clearly not up to the ass kicking that the Gospel requires of preachers. And so an ass kicking may await me at the heavenly tribunal. If I go to hell it will be for this: my words were sincere, well-intentioned, and unequal to our true conditions; they did not sufficiently intersect with the world as it really exists or declare what part God expects us to play in it. They were not hard enough to help.

The only passable excuse I have for my cowardice is my allegiance to the other example of Jesus in the gospels, the rabbi ever patient with his disciples. While his chosen ones promised loudly that they would follow Jesus wherever he went, they didn’t. They argued among themselves. They jockeyed for position. They fell asleep. They ran away. And yet Jesus did not condemn them for being unfaithful to the challenges he demanded in his preaching. No matter how dense or fickle they were, with them he shared his bread and his dwelling. For them he calmed the stormy sea and healed sick relatives. A good shepherd at home with his inconstant flock, Jesus drew them close and spoke encouragingly in the present tense.

I am thus a man divided. While the preacher in me ought to be standing at the front pointing the way and leading the charge, I find myself more often the shepherd at the back keeping an eye on stragglers, laboring to get the whole flock moving, more or less and no matter how slow, in the same general direction. A pastor is instinctively cautious, like a parent, and not in a rush like a preacher. If the preacher in me starts giving orders, the pastor in me shouts back, “Wait a minute! We’re not going anywhere until the supplies are loaded, the life jackets counted, and the crew has practiced the emergency procedures.” When the preacher isn’t looking, the pastor hands out towels to the elderly, asks the strong ones to hoist the youngsters onto their shoulders, and tells the timid that it’s all right to lower oneself by degrees. If the preacher finally does require us to enter the waters of deeper commitment, the pastor will protect the flock as much as he can from the freeze.

Given the chance, I would choose the pastor’s responsibilities over the preacher’s but I don’t get to pick and choose. I can certainly work to protect my flock (and myself, if I can) from the harsh cold, the gnawing fatigue, and the unforeseen hazards that life’s journey inevitably brings, but I cannot do so adequately, and God does not protect us the way I would if I could.

I want to protect my parishioners like my parents used to protect me. They are gone more than a decade and I miss their tender custody. But as much as I cherish the memory of it, that’s not what keeps me going. It is an inner vigor that I can only attribute to them, though I can’t tell you when or how they passed it on to me. I don’t have it in the measure I remember them having it, but it sparks in me an occasional fierceness, the surprising ability to do what must be done, no matter what. It inspires an endurance and a daring that occasionally keeps me going while I am terribly vulnerable or exhausted. I love my parents more for this than for their kindness, for they have planted in me a love that demands something back and gathers in me something approaching courage. As far as I can see, this steadfastness is the closest to what possessed the brave prophets. Only something that forceful can lead the way and keep us moving toward it in adversity. It alone impels us beyond our pleasures and excuses.

If I had it in the strength my parishioners need, I would preach like Jesus, but I don’t yet. I have just enough to know what I’m watching for in the prolonged nighttime darkness and what I’m begging for in my restless prayer.

I turn and see Jesus rolling down the corridor in a wheel chair. He expertly swings the chair toward the bulletin board where I have just stapled up a flyer for “A Night With Jesus.” He scrutinizes the announcement. He does not seem pleased. I immediately think: I should have included his photo.

When I was very young, growing up and seeking God were the same thing. Whatever had in any way to do with God interested me, and I related these interests without asking why. My excitement was just there, like the color of my bedroom walls: I took it for granted and did not notice. My friends did the same. I told Ron how I admired Saint Francis Xavier because he had baptized thousands in Asia. He did not look up or question my opinion. He kept rubbing the baseball into his new mitt and said, “I know what you mean. I feel the same about the way Sandy Koufax can pitch.”

In the fifth grade, I built an altar in the garage out of an old bedstead and invited my friends to join me for services. We would play war in Mitch’s yard then we would play Mass in our garage. One of my friends must have said something to his parents because my mother was soon in the garage, taking more than a passing interest in this new project. She looked it all over and asked, “Now what is this? It looks like an altar or something.”

“Yes, Mom, it is an altar!” I laid out the history of the project for her, how I decided to build it, where I cut the wood and where I hammered and glued the pieces together. I pointed out how the color of paint matched the marble in our parish church. I described the services where I performed the part of “Father,” another friend was “Sister,” and the others took on the role of congregation. As I ran through the many details, my mother was silent. I got up from the bench to fetch fabric I had recently purchased from a discount store. I was going to show her how I intended to make it into vestments, but she lifted up her hand and warned crisply, “Michael, you’re flying.”

I sat back down, embarrassed by all I had said. I was afraid to look into her eyes and neither of us said anything. After a few moments, she returned to the house. A couple of days later I put the bright cotton fabric in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I still “played Mass” from time to time but no longer invited my friends.

In this and similar incidents I learned too early to be reticent and guarded, to believe that letting myself go in front of others was more likely to lead to embarrassment than liberation. I adjusted my behavior, careful not to raise my hand too often in class and learning to share only those enthusiasms that I knew were of interest to others. This lingering undertow is part of the reason I never became much of a dancer or linguist. I lost the one thing I needed: the ability to forget myself.

As I grew older, the fascination with the things of God did not cool, and I did not want it to. It led me to the seminary, and I was nurtured by it there in the safe refuge of prayer and liturgy. The hunger swelled as I devoured books of spirituality and theology. The bond with the hidden, mysterious, often silent presence of God flowered, like a seed finally watered, growing into the most significant relationship in my young life. What I had with God did not take the place of other relationships; it was the security by which I gave myself to other friendships. I remained lonely and restless, like my friends, but our restlessness came from longing, our loneliness from our love for God remaining, like so many of our other loves, still much unrequited.

I looked forward to preaching, then, eager for the day when I would speak publicly about what I experienced so deeply and had kept so private. I thought a lot about what I should say and worked on techniques I hoped would help me say it better, my heart already given to the unknown parishioners whom I hoped would soon count on me and share with me this love of God.

What I had not thought about in those days, what had not even occurred to me, was how much of me would also be revealed in preaching week after week. When I started preaching, I was frantic for affirmation but the comments I received were not about the message I had proudly proclaimed; they were about me. I was complimented on how clever I was, how charmingly I expressed myself, how interesting my life sounded, even how handsome I looked in my vestments. As positive as it was, I was unprepared for such scrutiny. The oft-repeated praise—“You are so human!”—frustrated me most. Who were these people to have opinions about my life? It’s none of their business! It was as if nude pictures of me had begun to surface.

Putting God in the spotlight was supposed to have the added attraction of keeping me a few steps away, safely in the shadows, but it didn’t. I wanted my insights and my loves to be known, of course, and I was still young enough to imagine my virtues were worth emulation. But I also knew the light to be bright enough to expose my doubts and vices, and when they were revealed, well, then the jig would be up. Who would be convinced by a preacher who does not believe enough of what he professes or puts into practice only part of what he preaches?

To protect myself from the prying eyes of my parishioners, and them from the scandal of my weaknesses, I unconsciously began changing the way I preached. While I continued to be unambiguous about my message of God’s presence and love, the methods I used to present it left me more and more out of the picture. My preaching voice developed a timbre quite distinct from the inflection I used with family and friends. Pious, objective, and tinged with the distant ring of authority, I loved the way it sounded. I thought it resonated with the depth of eternity. No one would confuse it with the voice of one “flying.”

But this change in my preaching style had an unexpected result: my parishioners missed me. In discreet ways, they wanted to know what had happened to the guy whom they knew better than he knew himself. Where had he gone? People asked me, “Do you remember when you told us about your brother’s trip to Vegas?” Others peppered me with personal questions. “Your homily on prayer was inspiring! Tell me how you pray.” Why? I told myself, I have a right to my privacy. I owe no debt to a congregation’s prurient curiosity. Who are they to expect me to display my relationship with God in public?

But I noticed something else when I heard confessions, took counseling appointments, and visited the hospital and mortuary. My parishioners saw the reticence in my ways, how I evaded certain topics and carefully used some words and avoided others. They wanted to know why I was so silent with the dying patient. Why did I not comfort or prod them with the pious things other priests said? Each time a slice of my confusion surfaced or a hint of fear bleached through my protective skin, their suspicions became further roused. Was this evidence that the preacher had lost his way? Why was the pastor so uncertain? Was something amiss between the priest and God?

In the gentle and delicate way they probed me, my curious parishioners made it clear that they would not be shocked but relieved to hear that I sometimes felt unworthy of the promises in the Bible, or worried that I had bet my life on an illusion or wept to see my earnest efforts toward virtue collapse. Their tactfulness showed how consoled they would be to know that I suffer what they suffer.

My parishioners wanted their preacher to be a companion. How could I maintain my reserve in the face of their heartfelt invitation? If, inside and underneath what I say, my parishioners are bolstered by hearing of my lingering doubts, then today they shall hear them. If noticing my unhealed wounds helps them to hold out for their own healing, so be it. If their fears begin to relax when I admit to what still scares me, then confess it I will. Saint Theresa wrote that one ought to be a clear window through which the light of God shines without distortion, but I don’t have the luxury of waiting until I am so purified. To speak of God this morning I will, however begrudgingly, let myself be known just as I am.

That doesn’t mean I have become confessional, baring secrets like a tabloid talk show guest. My homilies still focus on God, not me. But they only work when they reflect the genuine contours of my own ironic encounter with God. Which is why today my parishioners may hear me bear witness to both what I can see and what I can’t see, to when I have been open to God and when I have not, to what I do believe and what I don’t yet believe. My unanswered prayers and questions will not be hidden nor will the places where my heart is hard or disappointed.

If I can suggest exactly where to look, such frankness will help Mark to find God in the crime lab and the alleys tonight. As the ministers take their places in the procession, I notice Jim’s widow and pray my candor will indicate how God might embrace her as she sits with her empty heart in that big, vacant house. Without truthful encouragement, Veronica would certainly miss God’s comforting presence during the many complicated explanations made by her doctors. I even long for an honesty strong enough to pave the way for Robert to hear God at the dinner table in, or underneath, or perhaps in spite of, his mother’s harsh words.

Tucked in bed, gloriously asleep, I feel the jolt of my sister’s two children jumping up on me. I squint at them and we wrestle happily. We’re having such a rambunctious time I don’t notice when others join in. Soon eight or nine are on top of me, building themselves into a pyramid. My niece and nephew smile down at me from the top. I twist my hips just slightly and the whole group swings and shakes, sending Joey and Colleen crashing down from the dangerous height. If only I had thought my action through. We were only playing.

Just because you feel you’re flying does not mean that you have actually left the ground. When I look back, what has really lifted me toward heaven has most often been what’s hidden and risky, what’s whispered not shouted, what peeks at me through the cracks in my logic and beckons to me from behind the locked doors of my heart. It revealed more than I wanted to see and demanded of me more than I had bargained on.

What I see is what I proclaim to my parishioners: Praise for the staying power of God, for the relief of its dizzying clemency and the pleasure of its unexpected graces; and Amen to the grinding that continues to wear us down like a virus. Gratitude to God for the breathless endurances that let us accomplish the impossible; but also prayers against the times when the smallest blow knocks us flat. Across a single horizon, let me name our rapture and our ache, our miracles and our murders. When I show that, and just that, the fire of it burns in the eyes of my parishioners.

The consistent person demands: tell the people that, in love, God is either demanding or unconditional but don’t tell them he’s both. But I tell them God’s love is both. And it’s more besides. It’s always more. I don’t explain or justify it; I just declare that I see it so.

The things of God and the experiences of life are supposed to fit, or so the great theologians believed. Step back far enough, they claimed, and you could witness nature and grace and every other reality as threads woven into a grand divine tapestry. I see millions of threads all right, but I don’t see the tapestry. At the rate our universe is expanding, who can step back fast enough to get the overarching view?

What I see these great realities do is leak like old faucets. They ooze underneath, and flow over, every expression, equation, and metaphor I use to capture them. Their excesses aggrieve and frustrate my appetite for order. No words do them justice and yet words are all I’ve got. Name them goodness, truth, beauty, and love, if you want, but know that what they really are will soon spill over the tops of your classifications. This is precisely the way in which, I regret to say, they most match their Creator.

At this point in time, I resist making conclusive statements about God, but if you shoved me in a corner and put a knife to my throat, I would say that God is not careful or measured, despite what you may have heard; that freedom seems to be as important to God as order, and certainly much more important than obedience; that God makes wild bets and enjoys surprises much more than I do. This is not the God I want to know nor even the God for whom I searched. But when I dream and when I read the Bible, that’s whom I meet.

Still shaking hands with those just arriving, I hear the opening hymn announced. Gladys passes me briskly without a word of greeting, the corners of her eyes watching me watch her. Since the collapse of her marriage, she is like a grenade; pull the pin and she discharges pure rage. As I walk down the aisle, I’m trying to imagine what her difficult life is like. I’m still scratching my head, unsatisfied. What I had planned to preach will not likely help or comfort or guide her. As the scriptures are being read, I look out and see Joe who buried his wife two weeks ago. There’s Phil whom I persuaded to start therapy and, across the aisle from him, shy Bev whose family is spinning out of control before her eyes. Somewhere in the pews sits the woman who cried in my confessional yesterday. In the second before I open my mouth to preach, I make a silent prayer, “Help me, Lord. All I’ve got is words.”

Michael Heher is the pastor of Saint Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress, California.

Issue #23 • Summer 1999