Just Fine

This is a photo of me on a lovely autumn day, looking toward a groom and his parents approaching, gearing up to marry him and his fabulous partner.

In order to perform a marriage ceremony one must be licensed (or ordained). However, a person can get licensed online in a matter of minutes, essentially making the requirement meaningless. It’s a formality, one of the many that drive me nuts.

Licensure for me meant pages of questions and an extensive interview followed by a waiting period before licensure was granted. Every single year that I have been a pastor. Ordination is a process that takes years and a lot of money.

The Universal Life Church, a web-based entity, claims that “it’s fast, free and easy,” to get ordained online to officiate a marriage ceremony. Once the deal is sealed, ink dry and document handed to the proper authorities it’s a legally binding contract such that it requires attorneys if the married persons decide to become unmarried.

And let me tell you, there is nothing fast, free, or easy about getting unmarried.

I think we do a lot of things in life just because that’s the way it’s done, without question. Without inquiry.

I see now, reflecting on a long life lived, that I’ve been asking questions ever since I could form words. People don’t much like it. People don’t like having to think hard about why decisions and choices are made.

Why do we send kids to college? St. Lawrence University costs 82k a year. Fordham the same; University of Vermont 60 grand. That is, in a word, insane.

I have degrees from all of those places. Also insane.

Skidmore College is currently advertising for an assistant professor of English. The job pays in the range of 75-85k. That’s not bad except you need a master’s and a PhD to get it. A person could conceivably rack up several hundred thousands of dollars in student loan debt before they qualify for a job that pays what it costs to attend Duke for a year. In a town where the median home price is over $500,000.

Why?

Not long ago I applied for a job as a hospice chaplain. I have two master’s degrees and ten plus years of experience in pastoral care. They offered me the job at $28 an hour.

Last year my nineteen year old daughter made $25 an hour babysitting.

I’m not into it. It’s bad news for everyone. So I ask the question often, why college?

A lot of young people I know have answered with I don’t know what else to do.

Are we so lacking in imagination that we cannot come up with alternative paths into the future for our bright young minds? That we can’t conceive of a way forward that doesn’t cost several hundred thousands of dollars? Do we really need to warehouse kids for four years in horrendous living situations, sleeping on the same beds that have been used for the past forty years, taking classes that mean nothing to them, watching from afar as they spend their weekends getting trashed on cheap beer, biding their time, biding their time, because we can’t come up with a better way?

People, please.

And why we do prize longevity in life over all else? Why is it so important that we live a long life? Have you spent much time in a nursing home? Have you seen the boredom, the loneliness? The grief that comes when a person feels useless? It’s a waiting game, everyone waiting to die.

Wouldn’t it be great if we learned how to prize quality of life over quantity? I’ve worked in the realm of death and dying long enough to know about the panic, the regret, the disbelief that sets in when someone is diagnosed with something terminal at any age before 80. Everyone thinks it’s an assault, a disgrace to be deprived of a long life. But let me remind you, 21,900 days is a lot of life. That’s sixty years on Ye Olden Planet Earthe. That is a lot, lot, lot of opportunity to get done the things you want to do.

I have seen very little joy, very little, content, in people whose lives stretch on endlessly. We’re good at keeping people alive, not so good at creating opportunities for quality of life in the final years.

I like to insist that we have these kinds of conversations: why college? Licensure on whose terms? A life extended endlessly for what purpose? If church is a dinosaur then what instead? Why on earth would you be biding your time for an unknown future when you can live the way you want to live right now? How are you feeling about your inevitable death? Have you made room in your life for the truth that you are going to die?

Asking these hard questions makes me not very popular, but I never really was anyway. The cheerleaders and football players were popular in high school. The rich beautiful ones popular in college. I alway had the wrong outfit, the old car, I’m always running late, as a pastor I’m not Jesus-y enough for most people. My love for God transcends any religious construct and that’s confusing to a lot of people. I don’t wash my hair very often. I communicate with those who have died and that freaks a lot of people out. I’ve never been the popular one. But if you look carefully at that photo up there you’ll see that I am very, very happy. I allow the sun to radiate through me as I walk this life asking hard questions of lazy people. And that won’t end until the day I die. Which could be today, and with that I would be just fine.

I adore all of you. Pretend today is your last day on earth. xomo