Stand up, Stand up for Jesus (but wait your turn)

I was almost beginning to regret my decision to attend this weekend's retreat near Waupaca, Wis. The minute that Tracy and I set foot onto Pine Lake Camp, we learned that because of the number of married couples attending, we were going to have to be split up into men's and women's dorms. Then, after dividing up our bedding and sitting down at the opening session, I proceeded to make an idiot out of myself.

The chairwoman of the ELCA's Eastern Wisconsin multi-synodical candidacy committee, which determines whether I and other regional seminarians are fit to proceed into the ministry, had invited the committee members to stand up and introduce themselves. Unfortunately, I failed to hear her qualify that it was only the committee members who should stand up. Tracy and I were sitting just to the right of the leftmost person in the room, and as that man (of course, a member of the candidacy committee) finished introducing himself, I stood up and started to talk.

Then Tracy began whispering to me: "Honey, it's just the committee members." I leaned over as she told me again, and I tried to pretend I was standing up for some reasonable reason. Alas, I could not hide from my stupidity. When it was finally time for the candidates to introduce themselves, Pastor Zamzow, the chairwoman, jokingly whispered to me, "Now, you can stand up." Indeed, I could not escape from my embarrassing error. So after identifying myself, I introduced Tracy as "my wife, who tells me when and when not to stand up and talk."

Given the fact that I survived this with minimal teasing (including from the bishop) for the remaining 22 hours of the retreat, there were several valuable lessons from this, including:

1. Always be willing to laugh at yourself, affirm your stupidity and run with it rather than trying to cover it up (I learned this while doing improv at ComedyCity).
2. Always give your wife credit, particularly when she keeps you afloat in life on a daily basis.
3. Lutherans are forgiving people.
4. Keep sitting until you're darn sure you're supposed to stand up (Lutherans seem to be very mindful of this during worship services).
   
5. Listen.

In my first interview with the candidacy committee a year ago (a year ago today, actually), I identified listening as one area in which I needed to grow to become a good pastor. As I proved this weekend, I still need to keep working at it. I don't know what I was thinking about (or, more likely, worrying about, with final papers coming up) at the time, but if I would have been paying better attention, I wouldn't have suffered this mild humiliation in the first place.

Whereas I must keep striving to be a better listener, I learned my lesson well enough for the retreat to become a really terrific experience, rather than the nightmare it started out to be. I really got a lot out of the presentations about "the Green Church" and the worship services (with genuine hugs in lieu of handshakes during the sharing of the peace), and better yet, had a great time talking with a bunch of great people — of course, it really does help when you listen to them. (I will admit to doing my best not to listen to the snores of the guys in the dorm overnight).

I got to know a bunch of Luther students whom I had never interacted with, as well as some students from other ELCA seminaries. And, adding to this academic year's string of amazing little "coincidences," one of the incoming seminarians who received initial approval from the committee on Friday ended up being the brother of one of my longtime friends and ComedyCity teammates from Green Bay. John (that's him with me in the photo) couldn't be any more like his brother, Matt — except if his hair was curlier and he had a more traditional pair of glasses — and it was really fantastic to see him channeling his very similar talents and infectious personality toward ministry.

Throw in a stop at the nearby Red Mill gift shop, where the kindly owner gave Tracy and me the magical experience of witnessing two rare, self-playing piano/organs in action, and it was pretty much the best two-day trip anybody could ask for. All things considered, I'll gladly stand behind my decision to attend ... assuming it really is my turn to stand, of course.