Stuck in the Mud?
Great! You're Getting a Boatload of Nutrients
Can I be honest?
Last summer, I left two decades of ministry in the Presbyterian church to do a new thing.
Follow a call.
Listen to an inner nudge.
A pull, really.
An ache even.
And if you read any Small Stories from last fall, the glimpses of my journey that I provided there coalesced in such a way that I imagine the general impression one got about my current path is this: Bobby is walking steadily, surely, and confidently through a tree-laden wilderness that ultimately ascends toward a vista of unparalleled beauty and clarity. Truly, a noble and good path Bobby treads!
But alas… I fear I have not given an honest impression.
The truth of this transition is more like the frozen puddle that my three-year-old stepped on while we were visiting Cincinnati over Christmas.
He was wearing the only shoes we had packed him for that trip, and at one point he proceeded to stomp them right down atop a glassy, frozen-over puddle of water. Having never seen a frozen puddle (he’s a Central Texas boy), I am sure it was a paradigm-altering shock to experience the ice shatter below him. And I’m sure it was yet another level of shock to experience his white shoes (and little feet) now submerged in six inches of freezing mud.
“Whaaa!” he let out a cry. I pulled him out. We then spent the afternoon cleaning and drying shoes now forever a muddied shade of white.
Stepping away from the familiar terrain of ministry and into something new is not like walking a wilderness trail where the sense of adventure and possibility is ever-before you.
It’s far more like reducing your packing list to one key item, stepping forth upon the unfamiliar, and discovering that the glossy, glassy thing that looked amazing is a mirage. It cracks the moment you test it. And then you and your one item are cold, frustrated, and stuck in the mud.
You see, when I stepped forward, everyone told me, “Bobby, you are a good speaker. You need to go speak.”
I do need to speak, don’t I!?
Speaking, I knew, was the singular pair of shoes I would pack for the journey.
And off I went toward the glossy, glassy world of speaker circuits and conference rooms of adoring audiences.
Actually, no. Turns out nobody really wants you to speak for them unless they know you. In fact, people mostly hire speakers whom they have hired or seen before.
So how do you get hired that first time? Speak for free. Everywhere. Online and in-person. To anybody with a pulse who might know somebody who might know somebody who knows of a paid gig. Didn’t you used to do a lot of funerals? one well-meaning colleague asked me recently. What he was getting at is that at this juncture even the audience’s pulse need not be a prerequisite for getting my name out there. Just speak, Bobby.
So I did all of the things, and the glossy, glassy mirage quickly shattered. Me and my speaking abilities were knee-deep in the mud of no clarity, no direction, and no real plan for moving forward.
Of only one thing was I certain: muddy terrain does not allow for fast progress. And on more days than I would like to mention, I did nothing more than look for someone to drop by on an ATV, invite me to hop on, and speed right on through the mud and onto the Real Place I was supposed to be going.
Those days felt especially foolish.
And embarrassing.
And humbling.
That’s the honest truth about the first months. But even that is not the full truth.
The full, confessional-level truth is this: I wanted this.
As fearful as I was about the unknown timeline, what others would think-and-say, the financials, and the general ambiguity surrounding my leaving the known and entering the next… increasingly, I was more afraid of my comfort.
Comfort professionally, financially, and spiritually.
I was afraid of a life where most of the important stuff is settled and most of the time is spent making sure that my life is preserved, planned, and insured. I was afraid of a life where the remaining adventures were found in books and movies, the outlets were found in a drink or a wager, and the signals for how I was doing were sent by way of an address zip code and conspicuous purchases.
And it wasn’t that I felt such comfort defined my life, but I could sense a notable level of comfort growing like weeds - the kind that look so easy to deal with one day and then soon overwhelm and suffocate the original lawn.
Maybe that’s being too hard on comfort, I don’t know.
What I do know is this: at least part of why I shifted gears professionally is that I grew more concerned with those weeds than I did about the unknowns. Plus, how many times had I preached within a tradition where it is a fundamental, spiritual truth that the more unknowns there are the more Nutrients there are as well?
(Also, my recent reading of The Crisis of Comfort: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self makes clear that I am hardly alone in questioning the pursuit-and-lure of constant comfort.)
So, in faith, I stepped.
And it was icy and muddy and slow. In two words - deeply uncomfortable.
But here’s the thing about the space where the mud sticks, the steps are labored, and the path remains quite unclear: you are forced to go deeper with where you are, who you are, and in what or Whom you find your deepest faith. At least I did.
And you know what I began discovering as I went nowhere trying to speak to people who didn’t want to hear from me?
I learned that speaking was not my most fundamental gift.
Sure, occasionally people have appreciated my vocal cadence or the sound of my voice (over which I have zero control). Occasionally people have appreciated a speaking skill or two I honed. But mostly, I realized that the people who connected to my speaking would say it this way:
“Bobby, I felt like you were talking directly to me.”
And why is it that any of us would ever feel that way in the presence of a speaker?
It’s never because of their vocal cadence or skill.
It’s never because of the shiny glow of their perfect social media and their international reputation for amazing business/marketing/life hacks.
If we feel that level of connection to a speaker it is because we feel that somehow that speaker has heard us deeply - and responded.
In fact, during all those days stuck in the mud, the thing I began to see is that the secret sauce to the sermon-writing process was almost entirely about attentive listening:
Listening to…
The Voice of God speaking through a Bible passage.
The collective voice of the congregation and all that was going on in and through and around that system.
The collective voice of the local community.
The collective voice of society, the nation, and the world.
And, quite centrally, the voice of the Spirit speaking in me.
Cumulatively, my sermons were 10-14 hours of active listening each week followed by 16-18 minutes of speaking on Sunday. That’s about 720 minutes of listening and 17 minutes of speaking, and my math says that means 98% of speaking is listening.
(A moment in that brief window of speaking, 15 years ago)
In short, no listening = no (effective) speaking.
The mud forced me to see that. Actually, that kind of fresh insight-and-growth is often what the mud of life is for.
And the clarity I gained in seeing that 98% truth powered my first real step toward the most essential aspect of the call, the nudge, the pull, the ache.
Coaching, of course.
The kind of coaching, in particular, that is all about listening to others in such a way that they begin to (re)discover the depth and gift of who they are, what is blocking them, and where their soul is calling them to go, grow, and flourish in this season of life.1
—
Have a call? Nudge? Pull? Ache?
Great! And… if clear is kind, as they say, then let me be super kind to you right now: the road ahead is far icier, muddier, and slower than you might imagine.
But also, three questions that deserve due consideration:
What if - below all of the fears you have about heeding the call - the peril of comfort is greater?
What is your lawn’s trajectory if what is currently growing keeps growing?
When your eulogy is given, how do you hope this upcoming season informs the sentiment shared in that moment?
Oppositely, we might also want to ask these questions:
What are the heights your soul may soar and your life might sing if you risk the call?
What strange, wild, and fulsome oak might be planted and grown because you hacked at the weeds and attended to the soil?
How many generations beyond yourself will find shade and nourishment because of what you cleared and what you cultivated?
Now I know, I know. How can you trust a guy who’s been trudging in mud with no obvious oaks flourishing around him? Fair enough.
But… if not my voice, what about trusting one far more Ancient and True?
One who sent his followers empty-handed into the world to discover an impact of unimaginable proportions.2
One who spoke of a seed needing to die before it bears much fruit.3
One who went through three days of Total Dark to rise to heights of Life that - to this very day - still nourish the multitudes.
The mud has more to commend than we’d ever guess.
And to be sure, coaching is also speaking. But primarily by way of questions and then, eventually, by way of a handful of statements here and there - though even those are only given in light of a great deal of soul-attentive listening. And, to be sure, I’d still enjoy speaking to/with more than one person at a time! I am quite at peace, however, to let that emerge as it needs and coincides with the call.
Luke 10:1-4; 17
John 12:24.
As so many below have said - welcome back. You were and are missed. This was a very courageous blog. Blessings
Use your gifts and you will continue to enrich others’ lives! You create joy for others!