More church stuff

Had a sit-down with the pastor on Tuesday. It was kind of weird—when he left an answering machine message for me, he actually sounded a bit frightened.

I'm tempted to give one of those reports that diplomats give when they come out of a summit meeting: "It was a productive conversation and both sides got a chance to air their views." Well yeah, but it was more than that. I think Jerry and I actually began a friendship once again.

One really important thing was the discussion of public role versus private friendship. Apparently Jerry (the pastor) often feels that he's got to preserve some sort of persona and to make all sorts of people happy. Thus, he's the fireman and zooming around trying to put out fires. Or maybe policeman is a better analogy. I know that police officers are often compassionate, caring individuals, but when they appear at the door in response to a neighbor's call, they always have a gun. Jerry (and his messenger, Greg) often appears to have a gun. Or at least an agenda that says, "I'm right. You're wrong. Listen now." So we talked about that. He asked whether I could be friends with Greg if Greg were to stop being a church officer. The answer was "Of course!" I actually like Greg when he's not telling me that I've screwed up again.

So we're trying to navigate this territory—trying to forget (for a moment, anyhow) that we have an official relationship with each other. Hope it works.