Several times in my ministry, someone has shared a Big Secret and then vanished. Maybe this is why people share them with strangers on airplanes that they'll never see again. And maybe this is why certain websites are so popular. People need to disclose their secrets to be whole or to move on in some cases. But many don't want their closest friends in on the realities of their lives. Maybe this is somewhat a generational phenomenon. Or maybe not.
I've observed women "of a certain age" in my community who have been Best Friends Forever - raising their children together, playing bridge or going out "to the club" or having coffee together each week. They know each others favorite recipes and hometowns and shoe sizes. But they don't know that R.'s son was hospitalized after trying to commit suicide, or that A's father went to prison, or that at least three of them were victims of incest long, long ago.
I think this is weird. If they are truly friends, why would they withhold such things? I'm not interested in baring the darkest corners of my soul on Jerry Springer - or even in a sermon - but there are definitely people who know my stuff.
And so, as a pastor, every once in a while, someone will get up the nerve to confess that he is a sex addict or she is sleeping with her married boss or he has a child with his grown daughter's college roommate's sister. And then they vanish, perhaps too mortified to face the one who knows, which is harder than praying to The One who knows. But nothing changes without letting someone in on The Secret - whether it's a secret habit that we'd like to shake or a secret burden that's crushing us or a secret hurt that makes everything hard.
This is what the church is supposed to be about. A hospital for sinners. A community in which friends are willing to drop you through the roof if it would give you the chance to be healed. A gathering that welcomes even the scuzzy and the shady and the secret sufferers.
Slowly dying - I hope - is the church that requires everybody to be shiny and problem-free. Slowly dying is the church that expects everyone to look good whether or not you are good. Until we form true spiritual communities - instead of spiritul clubs - it won't be easy to be transformed from hurting/broken/sick people into the people God made us to be. At least, that's what I think as I got stood up yesterday by someone who told me she needed to share a personal secret. It must have been too scary.
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Since the world is constantly telling us that we need to be new, improved, better, cleaner, shinier, younger... I don't think my mainline denomination... in the area I live... will ever be open to non-people like us.
While I'd love to say "when"... it's better for me to say... if we are brave enough to start new congregatgions with pastors that have been taught new ways of communicating... perhaps... we have a chance of reaching out to anyone seeking solace in Christ.
This is a very provocative topic. It touches on so many areas of human life that in many ways only Jesus can address. I think it goes to the deepest question of intimacy and personal identity. I too have had people share something deeply secretive, and then vanish from my life. Some were, I say, were close friends. No longer.
Aristotle sees three levels of friendship. First, a utilitarian level where our companionship is mutually beneficial. Second, the level of pleasure, where we truly enjoy the other person. The third is one of completeness. It is here where the secrets are shared and kept, I suspect. That third level is increasingly difficult to establish as relationship become increasing virtual, and therefore utilitarian. It leads me back to what I knew thirty plus years ago, that only through the transforming power of Christ can we be whole people. Thanks for linking to PostSecrets site. It describes many of the people I encounter everyday.
Secret sharing is harder now than ever before, I think, because our society is so obsessive with knowing others' mistakes. Like Senator Edwards' affair. One of his dark secrets got out and now there are television pundits are calling him a monster. When we constantly see celebrity and public servants' mistakes constantly publicized, and the inherent commentary, I think it makes people instinctively hold on to their own personal secrets even tighter. I mean, if you hear someone, maybe even at a church, rip into a senator for having an affair while his wife has cancer, what might they think of a fellow parishioner who ended his marriage when he gave his wife an STD from an affair he was having.
To add to what PK observed, society also encourages us to shun or, worse, laugh at and publicly deride, those who share their secrets.
I think people run away because after they've "shown you theirs" as it were, every time they look at you they are different in their own eyes. Whether or not they are different to you.
Slowly dying - I hope - is the church that requires everybody to be shiny and problem-free.
the trouble is we are so unforgiving and so judgemental. there but for the grace of God means that we are ok -and they poor sinner -are not
Jesus weeps today because we still haven't got it!
I've had the same experiences on a few occasions. I kept thinking that I must have said soemthing wrong until I mentioned this 'tell and run away' phenomena to a few other pastors. Like you, they all confirmed that it is a sad part of pastoral life.
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