People of Hope:
Earlier this week, I attended the Bishop’s Fall Gathering, where all pastors and deacons currently serving in calls meet for retreat and continuing education organized by the synod office. This year, among others, we learned from and with Mark Ramsey, the executive director of The Ministry Collaborative, a non-profit that connects pastors from many Christian traditions to form diverse collaborations for learning and growth. Because of his particular ministry, he keeps abreast of the research, done by Barna and Pew, among others, about religion and spirituality in US culture. Though people in the US have been plagued by loneliness since before the pandemic, loneliness has increased since the pandemic. You are welcome to view the data here from 2020: https://www.barna.com/research/mettes-lonely-americans/.
But we almost do not need data to confirm what we see around us everywhere: couples sitting in restaurants across from each but both on their phones, people ordering online instead of interacting with other humans at stores, people working from home and interacting with others only over zoom, massive amounts of emails and text messages but very little human touch or in-person connection. Sure, we can cultivate relationships through the medium of technology, but doing so requires intentionality. And even when connection is intentional, sometimes, we just need a hug!
This past Tuesday, Mark Ramsey said to the pastors at the bishop’s fall gathering, “We are starving for tenderness.”
Around the room, an audible gasp erupted. YES. We are starving for tenderness. We are starving for other humans in our presence, just there, just listening. We are starving for kindness, for people who take us as we come, for people who sit with our yucky parts and don’t judge us. We are starving for patience, for time when we do not have to rush off, for space to really feel before going on to the next task.
Though I do not want to minimize the complexity of mental health, I do wonder if we start to move towards ill health when tenderness disappears from our lives. I wonder if many of the troubles we see in personal relationships, in church families, in workplaces, and in schools are fed at least in part by a lack of tenderness. Even when I read the news, I wonder about the tenderness that world leaders experience—or don’t. I truly do. I wonder if our world would be significantly different if leaders of nations and states, college presidents and CEOs, pastors and teachers, supervisors of every stripe, and just everyday, ordinary people prioritized tenderness in their relationships with the people they encountered. It seems to me that, if we did that, if we inquired in a genuine way about others, if we slowed down to listen carefully to each other, if we showed the most basic compassion for other humans no matter how much we disliked them, our world would be very different. Or at least, the little worlds we inhabit would be different, our workplaces, our church, our neighborhoods, our schools.
A community that practices tenderness, that could be the church. That could be us, inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit and led by the love of Jesus.
That could be us.
With love for each of you,
Pastor Sarah