The Pastoral Grind

(Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column September 27, 2019) I just returned from a trip to Disney World with part of my wife’s family. We spent a week in hot and humid Florida enjoying one another’s company and four of the parks. There were long days of walking, meeting characters, riding the rides, and enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells. Though I don’t need to go back any time soon, I can genuinely say I had a good time. My experience of Disney World captured something from several conversations I’ve had recently: distractions. We live in a time and society full of distractions, full of things vying for our attention, devotion, money, and worship.   If something new or different is going to take those, then something else in our lives must give them up or lose them.    The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins “What is the chief end of man?” What that question is asking is what do you exist for? Why are you here? The answer is “Man’s ch

Photo by  Julie Laiymani  on  Unsplash 18 years ago, I was 12 years old, a 6 th grader, and I was on my way to school when I first heard the news on the radio of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. All I knew about the WTC was that there was a skyscraper in New York City. I could guess from the name that financial work happened there, but that was about it. I didn’t even know there were multiple towers at that point in the day. I remember thinking it was sad, and how strange it would be to see an airplane strike a building in a city! But I, like many students who didn’t live near the crash sites or see the first images broadcast on TV, went on with my day, not thinking too much about this crash. (It’s a good reminder how most kids that age didn’t have phones, especially phones with any access to the internet, and social media wasn’t a thing yet in 2001.) Eventually—I don’t remember if it was later in the morning or early afternoon—our teachers shared with us what