I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re never too old not to be weirded out by how people behave; never too old not to be yet again appalled by the functioning of the reptilian brain. I figured that, given my own extensive life history in Bizarro-land—including (but not limited to) being an Army trombonist in the occasionally hot zone of the war we lost, working with an insane and evil associate, lying naked in the hospital hallway after heart surgery, and attending the 2000 presidential prayer breakfast where the darling and I were scared half to death by the militant national self-righteousness of the Jesus-in-a-flag gang gathered if not to worship, at least to fawn over Mr. Uniter, the Compassionate Conservative and the Victory of their Churches; that having been through two major congregational conflicts with people standing up and walking out at the beginning, middle, or end of the sermon, depending on how they chose to show their snit, not much else could throw me.
 
I was, of course, wrong. I have, for the first time in my 40-year public speaking career been disinvited to a church after they heard me. Tom Pynchon was right: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.”
 
It’s a pretty good tale. E Z Don’s last day at his ex-church was May 31st, and the congregation was desperate for pulpit supply a couple of Sundays later. No preacher was to be found. So I agreed to cover at his ex-church while E Z handled things down at Grace. I’d spoken there on a number of occasions, and was familiar and comfortable with the place. In the meantime I was also asked by the ex-church to say some things at his you’re-outta-here bash, which I did, doing a “remember the good old days” shtick. Thus, “Geez, remember the good old days. Remember when your house was raided by customs and you were indicted and the council had to put you on administrative leave, and we all went to federal court together? Gosh! We had FUN!” Then went on to mention that I had admired how both the congregation and E Z had handled that. And did other stuff like that. Went home thinking that I’d helped make the day good.
 
A couple days later I got an email that said, “We won’t be needing you to preach.” Hmm. Apparently somebody thought the old days weren’t good enough to be mentioned, though it took me more than a day to figure that out (social subtleties—not to mention graces—not being my forte).
 
Naturally, once I caught on to it, self-recrimination set in: my God! What have I done?! So I worried about not being liked, and did the old introspection thing for a number of days, searching my heart, as the psalmist says, for the sin there, re-examining my motives, my choices in doing it the way I did. Trouble was, I couldn’t find any (with regard to this particular incident). What I ran into instead was relatively surprising: somebody has to speak the absolution. Forgiveness means you can’t improve the past; you can only notice the redemption at work in it. The absolution breaks the power of sin to hold us in its shame. And shame gains its power through secrecy—”We dare not ever speak about that.” So the absolution has to speak exactly about that in order to absolve; otherwise, we live with the fear that our secret will be exposed. Better to name it than to be haunted by it.
 
Which is where I come in, being genetically incapable of not calling a spade a spade (though being routinely accused of calling it a ‘fucking shovel’). I blame this on my father, who also was unable to control his—as N T Ray so graciously puts it—”authenticity” in social settings. My mother, who is very socially refined and ever alert to the feelings of others, was as often mortified by his behavior as she was glad to be with him (as recalled in my memories of them returning home from events, ala, after the party, Dad’s going to get chewed out). I inherited many of her social sensibilities, and they served me well in the VBIG days (I wouldn’t have gone where I went without ‘em). But the longer I live in Bizarro-land, the more my dad’s DNA gains the upper hand (yes, egad! we become our parents). Thus, ecce homo: the mouth who roars about the elephant in the living room. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. (And his spouse, like my mother, also knows a peculiar mortification.)
 
It’s not like the one who does it can choose not to do it. It’s not like during the four hours I spent preparing for E Z’s congregational eulogy, I wasn’t aware that I might be stepping on some toes. You put three hundred or so folks in a room playing church, you have the whole gamut of human experience and psycho-spiritual maturity (and otherwise), which, of course, confines what can be said “safely”. All preachers are aware of that (we hope). All preachers know that a transgression of these boundaries can result in substantial personal pain springing out of the reactivity of whoever’s toes were stepped upon (in extreme cases, say, the loss of their job; usually it’s more subtle, though: phone lines burning behind the scenes, little comments here and there; the loss of popularity; secret meetings; such as that). The problem for the mouth that roars the absolution is that to speak anything less than full honesty is to participate in an enslaving deception, pretending that that which has been, has not been; declaring that a shameful secret and living in fear of it. “Ain’t no forgiveness where there is fear,” says the mouth that roars, even if you get hurt speaking it. (Ala Martin Luther on preaching: “You throw a stick into a pack of dogs, and the one that gets hit is the one that howls.”) Besides, you can’t outrun DNA; it could be that I’m just an ontological asshole.
 
In any case, I spent many days in the agony of rejection, seeking the balm of the soothing words of friends, ala Marlin the Wise (and Elderly), “Don’t let them get to you, Larry. I appreciate what you say.” Later, “But you do have a way of poking people in the eye.” In fact, gripped by the fever of rejection, I probably turned what was merely a pissy situation with Sue (her fault) into a full-blown shitty situation (mea culpa). It’s not that I’m not used to people disliking something I’ve said (or even me myself, for that matter), but this was a rejection by the whole congregation; the three hundred people in that room and more: “We don’t want you here.” So amid the days E Z Don comments, “Hey, I got the lowdown on your talk.” “Oh yeah? How many people’d I piss off?”
 
“Two.”
 
“One of ‘em was the wrong one.” Welcome again to the world of congregational politics.
 
On the other hand, I was honored when a couple I knew many moons ago flew in from another state seeking my assistance through a marital catastrophe, and have been thanking me unmercifully: “You are an angel! The answer to our prayers!” The words are like water to the soul in my desert of rejection. And it gets me to thinking again of Brother Martin and his anthropological summary: simul ustis et peccator; we are at the same time a saint and a sinner; one man’s asshole is another man’s angel.
 
So take heart, fellow assholes of the world; God has probably made you an angel to someone.
 
Somewhere.
 
Somehow.