Wandering with Reckless Abandon

Since my “career change”, and becoming a Sales Consultant (as my business cards call me) I have many reactions from people when they hear my story. There are those whose faces squinch up in disgust and ask me how I could go from ministry to car sales, and then there are those who ask me, “what’s the difference?

I used to define the difference as being in my former role I got to listen to people’s stories, in my present one I get to listen to people’s story, and sell them a car. The truth is that I am beginning to discover that while there are differences, they may not be as drastic as they should be.

Those who know me know that I can not stand pretense… the idea that someone is putting up a false front in order to make everyone believe that they are all together turns my stomach. Normally pretension ends in disaster.

Yesterday my father took delivery of his new van. He purchased an E-250 Super Cargo Van to replace his old work van. I sold it to him (he was the toughest customer ever), but since we did not have the vehicle in our inventory, we had it sent to use from another dealership about a hundred miles away. When the van arrived, I was pretty upset to discover that the rear bumper was scratched up, and had a small ding on it… One of our managers was talking about how to fix the problem, and one of the suggestions was to touch up the scratches, fill the dent with body putty, and send it out. My dad eventually told them to forget about it (the dealership gave him three years of oil changes instead), and he is happily driving the truck right now…

I tell this story because as my dad and I were talking about it last night, he asked “what happens when the bondo falls out in three months? Then it will look worse… and besides, the bumper is going to be all torn up next week after I start using it at work…” The truth is that the bondo wouldnt last on the bumper… it would fall off, and the spot left behind would look far worse than it does now…

I was reading a post at internet monk this morning that talks about visible disabilities, and the unique struggles that come with them. Early in his post he talks about the desire of our culture to be flawless… as I read through this, I could not help but think about church life. How often does the church pressure the body to be flawless? How often do we encourage dysfunction to continue because to call it dysfunction would be to admit imperfection?

Toward the end of time as a youth pastor I began to feel like a hypocrite. I felt as though there was huge dysfunction that was going on… both in my life, and the life of our body… yet I could not voice my concearns. Ultimately it lead to my moving on, but I will never forget those last few months there, and the constant wrestling that went on internally.

As I look forward, both in my immediate future in car sales, and my long term future doing whatever (Eugene???) I pray that I can live without pretense, but more importantly, I pray that I can live my life in a way that others can feel free to be themselves, flaws and all, and live life authentically as possibly with me.