Stuff I Shoulda Known Sooner...and Said More Often

For 41 years I delivered sermons from pulpits and spoke in leadership roles of various sorts...leading workshops and training events , addressing district and conference meetings, answering questions in official settings, etc.

It came with the job.  Pastor/Preacher.  Executive Director of an Urban Ministry agency. District Superintendent.

There are some stories to tell.  I made some genuine flubs.  I said some funny stuff (not always meaning it to be funny...it just came out that way).  I might have spoken some wise words on occasion. 

These last six years of serving a local church...after serving in administrative roles for the previous 16 years...have left me with some regrets that I could have spoken more wisely and more directly in my younger years.  In fact I now find that there was Stuff I Should Known Sooner...and Said More Often.

But, I didn't know it sooner and did not say it often enough.

With age comes wisdom.  Here is some of the stuff I shoulda known sooner...and said more often:

-Don't settle for skimming the surface of life...all the Good Stuff is below that.
-This world is a very tough place...tougher than you think.
-Each of us is pretty much like all the rest of us...in some very significant ways.
-That Kingdom Jesus spoke about is now (and always was) within us.
-God is a living mystery...never anything less.
-If it ain't patient, it ain't love.
-From Here-to-There just may be the longest, hardest journey we will ever take.
-Serendipity could turn spiritual in unguarded moments.
-"In-Between" is one of the most gnarly, dark places in life.
-God is always...or at the very least, almost always...at work among us.
-Our ideas about God and Life are too small...seriously, way too small.
-Our doubts and fears about God and Life are too big...seriously, way too big.
-We must love like our lives depend on it...because they do.
-Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
-If we take new paths, there will be new possibilities.
-The four actions of God that may best describe the Divine One are these: God Creates, God Loves, God Redeems, God Continues.

There's other Stuff...I may get to a recounting of that at another time.