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The Grass Isn't Always Greener on the Other Side

By William Ruddle.

I remember the day well - I think I always will. It was a Wednesday lunchtime and I was down the gym doing my usual workout when I fell apart - although not literally, emotionally it might as well have been. The pain in my chest and the tears that I could not stop flowing meant I knew something serious was up. The doctor called it ‘impact stress’, which sounded more acute than the reality. The truth was I had been slowly bludgeoned to death by repeated deacons meetings, church meetings, pastoral meetings, crisis meetings all seeking to resolve the unsolvable. Looking back, much of the pain was self-inflicted either by design or naivety. But when I came back from a couple of weeks sick leave, I knew the writing was on the wall and the pastorate was coming to a close.

THE pastorate or THIS pastorate? That was the question. I didn’t know the answer. All I knew was that every time I met a diaconate in the settlement process, the pain returned. Every diaconate was met with suspicion and inquisition. Every church meeting was precipitated by bouts of nausea and other such symptoms.

And then I saw the grass on the other side. Lush, green and fertile. Lush with the dewiness that came with the promise of no more diaconates and church meetings. Green with the promise of a liveable wage and humane working practices, fertile with the promise that I would really be ‘making a difference’ and ‘community embedded’. Flowing with the milk of human kindness and the honey that comes with real world salaries. The name of this halcyon new land, this rare and undiscovered country? Hospital chaplaincy!

So I gathered up my things (a somewhat unkind euphemism for wife and twin babes-in-arms) and we leapt over to ‘the other side’. We ignored the quiet whispers of how we were “leaving ministry” and “what a terrible loss this was”, and instead set our eyes on the bounty that lay before us.

And I would do you, fellow sojourners, an injustice if I were not to admit that indeed the land was - nay, is - indeed veritably green on this side. I would do those of you who yearn to join me on the plush side of life a disservice if I did not warrant the bountifulness of this new land called `sector ministry’. You may hear the complaints about the pitiful salaries of public sector workers, but perspective is everything - they haven’t tried the Baptist Union Minimum Stipend. And the hours? Suffice to say I remember at interview being asked how I would cope with the strain of being on-call up to two nights a week and a whole weekend a month. In hindsight, my comment that a 37.5 hour week took me up to about Wednesday tea-time in my then-current regime was perhaps not the most tactful - but the point was well made. Did I mention the 1-day-a-week release for ongoing training - both tuition and salary paid for?  This meadow of jade is indeed as luscious and plentiful as it looked from way over yonder.

And the abundance is not only material. For married with such gifts bestowed by our National Health Service is also the immeasurable privilege of being able to sit with the dying, the bereaved, the crisis-ridden and the desolate. The broken-hearted are with me on an almost hourly basis in my God-given ministry within the hospital. The permission  granted to me of trying to somehow live the incarnational presence of Jesus in these apparently hopeless situations is not lost on me. Most days I go home, not hoping that I made a difference, but knowing from experience that in some small, relational way, I did - to the widow, to the orphaned child, to the fearful patient or the harassed care-giver.  Occasionally, just occasionally, that intangible knowledge bears green shoots in the form of a card, a letter, a return visit with a bottle of wine (yes, occasionally back-from-the-brink patients even remember the chaplain!). Whatever time the chaplain arrives, day or night, in times of hope or despair I am often greeted with warmth, appreciation and kindness that continues to amaze me. This pasture remains in so many ways full and fertile and abundant.

But...(My primary school teacher once told me that when listening to someone’s cogent position to remember that when you hear the `but’ it is the signal to ignore all that has gone before)...

As I laze on this bed of herbage, enjoying all that it has to offer, I find myself riddled with a disease that no-one had warned me of. It is a disease that is eating away at me - slowly but surely, unintentionally indeed, and without malice. Yet with the certainty that night follows day, this disease is gradually diminishing me. On the occasions I turn to Scripture, I find myself led to the words of Jesus, giving a fresh revelation that, while not its primary interpretation, speaks to my soul as only Scripture can. Matthew 16:25 (The Message):  “What kind of deal is it to get everything you want, but lose yourself?”

γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know Thy Self.

You see, all this talk of greener lands, abundant pastures and furtile herbage are all double-edged swords to me, loaded with a significance that I hope will resonate with some. For while the land is greener in so many, many ways, it is not the land I am called to inhabit. I was called to be a pastor - to be a shepherd to the sheep, to feed the flock, to feed His lambs.

Before I became a chaplain, before I became a father, before I became a husband, back before I became a minister - way back before I became a insolent follower of Jesus, before I was even a babe in my father’s arm - God knew me and formed me. And in that knowing and forming of me he set me apart to be a pastor of his people. And it is only now, three years on into chaplaincy that I realise that, when he formed me those 31 years ago, in his creative genius he chose to form me with a profoundly shocking and chronic need.

I need to be in the body of Christ.

I am shaped to be in the middle of the flock.

I need to be a pastor.

Now in God’s good grace I currently believe that these last 3 years on the ‘other side’ have been part of his plan. I was broken and damaged and I needed to be led beside still waters for a period for restoration and recuperation. I hope that my hospital will see my time with them as being as beneficial for them as it has been for me.

But why am I sharing this inner journey with you, dear reader of ‘Ministry Today’?

Because in my three years of Chaplaincy, I have lost count on the number of phone calls I received from ministers who wanted to just come in and ‘have a chat’ - at least a dozen. Ministers from all denominations, backgrounds and experiences of ministry. The conversations, while unique, all had a certain common mapping to them. We started discussing my work and soon we came round to their own struggles and frustrations with the pastorate. A desire to ‘do more for God’. A passion to be ‘out in the real world’. A hope of ‘making a difference’. Some would also be honest enough to admit that alongside these noble aspirations were feelings of exhaustion, of unmanageable expectations and a complete loss of boundaries which had culminated in a very unpleasant, dry and barren land. From such a place I had come and in no way should this be read as a judgement or indictment upon you if you feel such a way today and are looking for the green, green grass of chaplaincy (et al).

I simple conclude by sharing this with you - no matter how green, pleasant and luscious the grass may look on the other side, if it is not where you were made to be, it will I promise be ultimately unfullfilling. Not because of any inherent faults with the land, but simply because it is not the particular patch of grass you were made to inhabit.

God willing, one day, I will be return to the pastorate. I am under no illusions - deacons haven’t changed (just like me), churches are still full of difficult people (just like me) and the ground will remain a veritable mixture according to the passing seasons.

The grass may well be greener - just don’t assume it is more fulfilling.