Reverend Ref +

JUST

If you remember, this little job of mine came with a rectory, or vicarage, or parsonage, or whatever you want to call the house that we live in. It's in Sheridan and was built at the same time as the church (around 1870). When we first saw it my statement was, "Thanks, but we'll find something else." This place had been rented and neglected for so long it was, in a word, awful. The floors were trashed, the bedrooms were trashed, the windows were trashed, one bedroom served as not only the trash dump for the place, but the dog's bathroom when nobody wanted to let the thing outside.

After I agreed to come to town, the community got to work on cleaning it up. And I do mean "community." There were several groups that came to help clean up, clean out, refinish and paint that really made the place livable. They also put in new appliances and linoleum in the kitchen. We got carpet in the stairwell and upstairs hallway. And the place looks really good. Mrs. Ref has also spent some time sprucing up the kitchen. One of these groups that came in and helped was the Ruby Valley Men of God. Sort of a non-denominational men's group in the valley.

Being the new "pastor" in town, I've been invited to a few functions that I haven't made it to. Mainly because they do this men's breakfast at o'dark-thirty and I need to get my two women out the door. However, I was invited to a mid-week prayer group. Yesterday was the first. It was, in another word, weird.

Not too many guys showed up; three in fact. But it went something like this: "Jesus, I just pray that the men of this valley will just see that they just need to really have you in their hearts and that they would just that they would become doers of the Word and not just hearers." Followed by a chorus of, "Yes Jesus, thank you Jesus." "We have an election coming up." "Yes Jesus." "And I just pray that you just put it in our hearts to just vote for what's right." "Yes, Jesus." "And that we just realize where our country is headed and that we just be unified and can just put a man in office with the right moral conviction that will just rescue our country from the evil one." "Yes Jesus. Thank you Jesus."

I "just" didn't have a whole lot to say. Kind of fell back on my meditative prayer stuff. I think it's great that there's a group of men willing to meet during the weekday for prayer. Kind of like a mid-week Eucharist, sort of, I guess. But this isn't me. This isn't my tradition. And I had to wonder if these prayers were really about following God and praying for "God's will be done," or if they were about knowing what the right answers were and praying "our will be done." But I also caught myself in that whole judgmental thing and tried to look at it in the most positive light I could.

And, I suppose, it's visibility. It's connections, or networking, or whatever you want to call it. Anything to get the word out that there's an Episcopal priest in town who is willing to be part of the community. But I'm "just" not sure how long I want to be part of that group.