The Devil Is In The Details

I’ve managed to get bogged down by fact-checking. Because I’m going to become increasingly critical of the characters cast in this autobiography it seems only fair that I strive for accuracy with regard to names, dates, etc. It is indicative of the whirlwind that I and my family got caught up in beginning the spring of 1996 that eventually plopped us down some 1300 miles away in Las Vegas, Nevada. Several aspects of my career in The United Methodist Church are rather unique, not the least of which is that I finagled my way from the Desert Southwest to the Nebraska Annual Conference and then back to the Desert Southwest again! This is nothing to be particularly proud of. Indeed, it is shameful from the perspective of what it forced Mary, Rachel and Rebecca to endure. The good news is that all three of them still love me and don’t seem to hold it against me that I regularly generated such chaos in our family life all for the sake of getting to be an ordained UMC pastor. I’ve said it before and it is appropriate to repeat it now: the ultimate paradox in my pursuit of “success” in The United Methodist Church was that I was pushing God farther and farther into the background.