Friends,

I am consistently embarrassed by the stupid things that I once embodied, and one day I will be embarrassed by the stupid things that I currently hold dear. Ghosts of past hurts and embarrassments once haunted me nightly leading to poor sleep and frustration, but in recent years I have held a more friendly attitude toward these ghosts. If you have them as I do, you should learn to trust your ghosts, because they are often telling you something true of the past. The very fact that they are painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable is evidence that you have grown. Ghosts are uncomfortable, but generally that are a good sign.

Let’s say you are mortified that you blew up at a colleague, spouse or child when you were in the wrong, and you replay the scenario repeatedly in your head trying to figure out what could have been done differently, or how to make it better. The very fact that you are agonizing over this means that you know what you did was wrong, which means that you’ve grown. Congratulations!!! Most people spend their lives justifying their misdeeds, but this ghost is haunting you as a reminder that you are no longer that person that did that nasty thing. The hard part is done, now you must figure out what to do about it. Not an easy task, but so much easier than coming to terms with an error.

These ghosts can follow us for things big and small, sinful or mundane. One particularly persistent ghost I have is about my competencies as a priest. Only recently did I realize that I miss-remembered who ordained the first American Episcopal Bishop (Samuel Seabury of Hamilton fame). For a decade I said it was the Scottish Presbyterian Church, but it was the Scottish Episcopal Church that ordained him after the Revolutionary War. Whoops. You’d think as an Episcopal Priest I would have gotten that one right, but nope. It mortifies me.

Last night, we had our first Lenten Burger Night of the season, and we were literally overwhelmed by the crowd. In the past we’ve had about 100 and we thought that was absolutely huge. Our burger chefs prepped 120 patties to be cooked, and we had to run out for more ground beef when we realized that was even close to enough. A lot of kids didn’t even eat the burgers but opted for the dinosaur chicken nuggets instead. Our guess is that we had about 170 people at the event. The whole evening was joyful, and I am thankful for everyone’s labors and patience.

I was supposed to start my confirmation class at 6:30 and ran to the library straight from trying to get more burgers made for the still long line of people. I think I did an OK job, but it was still a bit meh. Over the course of the past ten years, I’ve gotten pretty good at winging it and keeping people engaged, but I was just off. I felt like I was back as a new priest again not sure of what to do, and insecure in my ability. Considering I am teaching this Sunday and Wednesday, I decided to try to pull up a PowerPoint I did a couple of years ago only to realize that file no longer exists, but one from eight years ago does. That was from the time where a lot of my ghosts were born that remind me that I’ve gotten better and grown. I assumed it would be garbage, but you know what? It’s not that bad. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not genius or anything, but I’m going to use it, and I think it will make me better than the teacher I was last night.

You should trust ghosts, but considering they are just reflections of you, you should only trust them as you would anyone else. Like everyone else, they are innately bias, and unlike real people, they exist for very specific reasons. That one memory that keeps popping into your head at night is probably popping up for some reason as if your subconscious is trying to remind you of an old lesson learned. The version it is showing you of yourself is not entirely accurate and is probably shaped by the lesson it is trying to tell you.

The me from eight years ago seemed to be so incompetent and irresponsible. While there is some truth to that, he was also a better teacher than I remember, and maybe he tried harder, or simply had more time. Regardless, that ghost is not just a sign that I’ve grown, but also that growth does not happen in a straight line. I am more responsible now, and I feel better about what I do, but maybe I’ve let other things slip.

Just as our growth does not follow a straight path, neither does the Church’s growth. The Church began a fragile thing composed of a small group of friends hiding in a locked room. Those friends, according to the Gospels, embodied error and hubris more often than they embodied faith. Despite their rocky, and fragile start the Church grew. Over the course of the last two thousand years, the Church embodied all sort of sins and justified horrendous actions. It also tried to do a lot of good, acted as a repository for learning, and often advocated for the marginalized. The Church has produced some of the most embarrassingly terrible music and it was the inspiration for the best. The ghosts that follow the Church are not that different than the ones that follow you. You should trust them, as they have lessons to teach, like don’t burn people at the stake and avoid projection screens. But, just like the ghosts that follow us, they are not reliable narrators of the past.

When you encounter a ghost, listen to it and take the lessons it shares with you seriously, but don’t forget that the disciples had ghosts too. Peter undoubtedly was haunted from denying Jesus three times, but I wonder if there would have been a Church without him. Don’t forget to extend grace to your neighbor and yourself despite the ghosts. There are only broken people, but the Holy Spirit often thrives in those cracks in our soul.

Blessings,
Nick