That's what my friend wrote to me almost 20 months ago in a very brief e-mail at the very beginning of my ordained ministry. Actually, this was the sum total of his advice to me:

"Enjoy it and pay close attention to them. Take notes. Wonder about their souls. Affirm the beauty you see. Tell them about the wonderful beauty and the deep places you see in and among them. And keep paying attention."

But it was that third sentence that puzzled me--almost irritated me, if I'm being honest. At a time when I was desperate to remember their names, and to figure out the very complicated family system that had developed over 165 years, here I was supposed to wonder about their souls, too?

That single four-word expectation has hung over my head since the day I first read it. Every once on a while I would ask myself, "Do I know them well enough to wonder about their souls yet?" During the really low moments that naturally occur in the getting-to-know-you process, the days when I wanted to bang my head on the desk, the days when I really wondered if I had made a very poor choice of careers, I worried plenty about my own soul. I worried that getting into ordained ministry would be the beginning of the end of my relationship with God. But theirs? Well, that felt a bit presumptuous.

But luckily God has God’s own timing. The honest wondering has begun—no credit goes to me for this, of course. I understand now that it is part of the process. I’m lucky, so very lucky that I had someone point out to me what it was, or I might have missed it. I might have mistaken it for worrying, or kvetching, or feeling like its time to move on.

I recently overheard someone talking about the interim (between pastors) period for St. Stoic—which turned out to be longer than most. They were listing all of the folks who filled the pulpit during that time. Every single interim pastor they hired left as soon as something better came along. Nobody kept his or her commitment.

I wondered what that does to a church’s soul. Actually I didn’t have to wonder very long because I know quite a bit about the theological and spiritual implications of Abandonment. So many things are starting to make sense.

I think I’m going to be here a while.