Vocation & Grandiose Delusions

Simply to believe that the Almighty God, creator of all things, calls one into his service may be seen by some as a grandiose delusion and a symptom of mental illness.  As a matter of faith we believe as Christians in vocation, that God does indeed call one into his service, and that we are where we are because that is  where God would have us be at a particular point in time.  But if one is a secular mental health professional, one who does not share such a faith, such beliefs are delusional, as they don't conform to a 'reasonable' understanding of reality, and grandiose in that they reflect an inflated sense of self.  Perhaps we allow for faith in our world view.  Then it becomes a  matter of degree.  When does one's sense of being a servant of God cross the line and become delusional and grandiose?

An anecdote:  During clinical pastoral education I visited the mental health ward a couple of times as a chaplain.  One of the interesting little dynamics was that they had two individuals on the floor, one of whom was convinced he was God, the other equally convinced he was Jesus, and they didn't get along.  Each of them could perceive the delusion in the other, but not in themselves.

One of the ways that the Church has protected itself against "the Call" being a matter of grandiose delusions of an individual is by insisting that the legitimacy of "the Call" must be confirmed by the Body of Christ as a whole.  Today, Peace Lutheran Church will vote on extending to me a "Letter of Call" to serve as their pastor.  That action, if taken, will confirm my own convictions that this is where God intends me to be.  "Do you believe that the Church's call is God's call?"  That is one of the questions put to the candidate for ordination.  And apart from such a sense of Call, its hard for me to imagine being a pastor.

And then it gets very specific.  Are my actions on a certain day the result of divine guidance?  A few years back I was doing some remodeling at church, fixing up the sacristy.  I needed a little water heater and so went into Coeur d'Alene to pick up one.  Having done that, I realized as an afterthought that one of my parishioners, Jim, was in the hospital.  "While I'm here, I'll stop by." was my thought.  So I did.

When I walked into the room, and greeted Jim and his wife Alice, they shared with me that just fifteen minutes before the Dr. had informed them that Jim's cancer was a rare form of lymphoma, that was non-Hodgkin's, but behaved like Hodgkins Disease.  In short, the original prognosis was that Jim would likely die of something else before his cancer was a threat.  Now, what the doctor had shared was that Jim had a short while left to live.  Minutes later, I walked in.  Was God behind my being there at that moment when they needed me?  Or was that merely coincidence?  A sacred calling?  Or a grandiose delusion to think that the Almighty interrupted my remodeling project and inspired that visit to the hospital at that particular moment?

I believe that my most pronounced manic episode resulted in my active involvement in the development of senior housing.  It wasn't the one project in Sandpoint that was so out of the ordinary.  I mean, I did it.  Luther Park was built.  It is operating.  Done deal.

What leads me to believe that I was in a manic phase were the grandiose (and delusional) aspirations of what could follow.  Not only would I develop Luther Park, but I would duplicate that effort across the country and in so doing transform the Church and equip it for an extensive outreach, giving it the resources to vastly multiply its efforts in evangelism.  There was a degree to which I considered myself a modern day Apostle Paul.  Millions of dollars were spent.  But the collapse of the economy spelled the end to it all.  Accepting that was difficult.  I was so convinced that this was my divine calling that I struggled to accept the banking world putting the brakes on the endeavor.  "If only. . ."

Predictably, what followed was a deep depression.  The pattern was there.

Back to today.  Peace Lutheran Church will vote on extending a "Letter of Call" to me to be their pastor.  Its not part of a grand delusion.  A simple Call to serve a small congregation.  I hope to make a difference in their life.

When I began my service as a Transitional Minister at Peace I was very intentional in sharing with them that I was bipolar.  Their blunt response was that my medical condition was not a concern to them.  Such an acceptance of my struggles is one of the reasons I believe this is where God would have me be.  Serving there does bring with it some risk of grandiose delusions.  They have been declining for over twenty years.  The depressed side of me says that will continue and my role will be to help them gracefully complete their ministry and one day close their doors.  The manic side, however, believes that even in the face of the decline of Church membership in the country, we can reverse the trend and become a growing, vibrant, congregation once again.  We will see.

I do believe in God.  I believe in a God that is actively engaged in the world.  I believe in a God that is doing work in very concrete and specific ways.  Yes, I believe that God has put me where I needed to be, and where I was needed at a particular point in time for a particular purpose.  This, I believe is reality, not delusion.  And to obediently accept a Call is not an instance of grandiosity, but of humble service.

So they will vote today.  If the outcome is positive I will accept their Call as God's call for my life.  It's that simple.  And then I will preach.  And teach.  I will baptize.  I will preside at communion.  I will counsel those in need.  I will visit the sick.  I will bury the dead.  And all this I will do with the help of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus.

And I will continue to take my meds so that my service there might always be in response to a genuine sense of my vocation as a pastor, and not the result of chemical imbalances in my head.

Hopefully.

Making a difference.

One of the problems associated with being bipolar is that one's thought patterns are, uh, bipolar.  They tend to come from the two ends of the spectrum.  At one end of the spectrum is unbridled optimism that sees no limits and craves the opportunity to transform the world.  At the other end of the spectrum is debilitating resignation to what is.

During one of my  more pronounced manic phases I hatched a plan to transform and empower the Church's ministry.  It was based on my experience developing Luther Park at Sandpoint, our congregation's senior housing ministry.  I proposed using this model as a means of fueling Church growth across the nation.  Elements of the plan included:

1. Initiating a new ministry based on the development of Senior Housing in conjunction with a new congregational start.
2. Operating the "not for profit" senior housing, as a "for profit" enterprise, and using the revenue generated by the senior housing to support first, the new congregational start, and second, further expansion of the Church's ministry elsewhere.  The proforma developed for the proposed new ministry in the Boise area projected a total of 225 units to be developed, and would in short order, when leased up, produce about a million dollars annually of positive cash flow.  A significant amount.
3. In addition, I envisioned a day care for the children of staff and the community to be developed as part of the ministry.  It was conceived of as a quality of life issue, surrounding seniors with children, and children with seniors, and providing day care for the many staff members that would need it.
4. The hopes also included a nucleus of multicultural ministry, as many of the staff would likely come from the Hispanic population in the area. 
5. And finally, and most importantly, I envisioned this model as being capable of duplication throughout the country and offering to the Church a means of self supporting mission expansion.

This entrepreneurial approach to ministry had its merits.  I was able to sell the idea to the powers that be, enough so to get the Church to purchase the land for the development.

What went wrong?

The damn economy collapsed.  Non-recourse financing, upon which the project was conceived, ceased to be available.  Projects that used to be financeable based on their own merits now required considerable 'skin in the game' by the parent organization, including both collateral and the ability to back the loan.  And the market shrank for senior housing with the collapse of the housing bubble.  Thankfully, the millions of dollars that were spent will in time, be recoverable.  At least I hope so.

At the other end of the spectrum one can get locked into a depressed resignation to the way life is and become convinced that nothing can be done to change the outcome.  Depression.  Pessimism.  

There is a danger of falling victim to that in my current call.  The congregation I'm serving has, for a variety of reasons, experienced a decline in membership and  worship attendance over the last few decades.  It is at the point that if we lose a member, the budget needs to be reworked.  We're that close to the line.  

What can we do?  I fight the tendency to resign myself to a belief that there is nothing we can do.  We are victims of the drift in our society toward a secularism that excludes involvement with the Church, and that social trend is not going to be reversed by any effort on our part.  OK, so is that depression or honesty that results in such thoughts?l

The truth is that the sociological and demographic shifts in our country are real and profound.  It's not just one congregation that is declining.  Across every denomination in the country the experience is being shared by congregation after congregation.  As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, posting my sermons on Facebook and boosting them throughout the community is not likely to alter the current trend in our nation.  Would that I be so profound and gifted to do that.  I'd write a book and retire.  

Unbridled optimism.  Depressed resignation.  Polar opposites.  Bipolar thought patterns.

Somewhere in the middle there is a balance that represents a healthy, realistic, world view.

Every journey begins with one step.  Current trends will not continue forever.  

Perhaps the healthy balance is to forge a middle ground between 'you can change the world', and 'there's nothing you can do', toward an outlook that simply affirms that 'you can make a difference'.  

I think that is what I currently desire more than anything else.  Simply to make a difference.  This happens one person at a time.  Tom Cable of the Seattle Seahawks made the observation regarding Thomas Rawls, one of the Seahawk's running backs that "you can't become a thousand yard rusher on a single play".  Success as a running back involves slogging it out a few yards at a time.  And repeating that.

Pentecost was a miracle.  Three thousand baptisms in one day.  Billy Graham would have been proud.  We have had one adult baptism this last year in our congregation.  One person who was adopted through baptism as a child of God.  That's one person more than no persons.  One step in the right direction.

I have found hope, and I believe a healthy balance, in the agricultural images for the life cycle of the Church.  There is a time for tilling.  A time for planting.  A season of growth. And a time of harvest.  

Now this is the thing.  If you try to harvest the corn on the 4th of July you are going to be disappointed.  "Knee high by the 4th of July" means, among other things, that there will not be any cobbs until later.  I have come to believe deeply that we are at a time of tilling and planting in the Church, not a time of harvest.  "It's springtime in America" is not a pessimistic statement.  But springtime is not harvest time.  

In the midst of all this a bipolar person does well to retrain those thought patterns.  Life is lived best in the middle ground between the polar opposites.  Sober optimism.  Realistic hope.  Achievable ambition.  Making peace with the tension between mania and depression.  This is not a lukewarm existence.  It is neither static nor explosive.  It is not a lifeless equilibrium.  

You can change the world make a difference.  

And making a difference, however small, is sufficient.