Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.  (1 Thessalonians 5: 11)

A couple of weeks ago I was on the phone with a family member and we were talking about some of my childhood friends.  One of them that we discussed quite a bit was a person older enough than me that I didn’t really know him very well, but knew his younger siblings.  Turns out that this guy, who had finished all sorts of higher education and had landed himself quite a prestigious career, had kind of made a bit of a 360 in the last few years; had left his career, his marriage had split up, and he was now playing in some kind of band for the last couple of years.  “You wouldn’t recognize him, he went crazy”.   I was told.  “He had a midlife crisis and now he has all sorts of tattoos”.

Which, if you think about it, is a very funny statement.  After all, I’m 58.  He’s probably 65ish?  I’m not sure how much older he is than me.  I think whether or not he had tattoos would not make or break my recognition of him.  But there we have it.  Apparently making some lifestyle changes means that not only are you “crazy” (as in, not in full possession of capable decision making), but that the indication of this is a proliferation of tattoos.

When I was teaching at St. Lawrence, one of the things that I noticed was that it was far more common for young people to have tattoos than not to.  Not only that, none of them had tattoos so that all of us would judge them about having a mental illness.  I also did a whole lot of reading on what a “mid-life” crisis was since that conversation, and it turns out that it doesn’t exist.  Never did exist.  Not sure how it became a ‘thing’ that when people between the age of 40-60 (technically mid-life) would make massive lifestyle changes that were foolish and unacceptable that this was an indication of mental illness.

Which all I can say is “phew” – ‘cause, you know,  I’m middle aged and all.

But all of this, of course, got me thinking, about how we packaged up and judged people who make lifestyle changes that we don’t understand.  Or who make choices that we don’t understand.  In this case, my childhood friend was judged because he left a job and his marriage split up.  Instead of offering him sympathy and support for what would’ve been incredibly horrendous decisions, he was considered ‘less than’ and unrecognizable.  His decisions were seen as suspect, or crazy rather than what must’ve been years of thinking and anguish.

And as someone who left a prestigious career at 46 to go into ministry, I have a whole lot of empathy and sensitivity for those who also make major lifestyle changes at times that seem to not make sense.

So, all of this is leading me to consider; why is it easier to assume terrible things about people when they make changes in their lives than it is to just provide a non-judgemental acceptance of who they are?  I wonder if some of it is this slight tinge of envy and regret that we haven’t made changes to put ourselves in a place that is better for our own growth and development?  After all, change is hard.  Its not something that we do on a whim.  The loss of relationships or material goods is really tough and if both of those are a hazard in the lifestyle changes then I imagine things are even harder.

Now, to be fair, I didn’t call out the person I was talking to about my childhood friend.  I was pretty content with just letting the conversation go by the wayside and watching from a distance as someone I knew was going down in flames.  So, I’m not completely innocent here in my reflections, and I do need to seek out forgiveness and another way of being.

But the bottom line is, that as followers of Jesus, we are called to offer an alternative to the gossip and mudslinging all around us.  We are called to be people who “encourage and build each other up”.  That simple.

My dad used to say to me “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”.  I have worked hard to do that most of my life.  But I think we as a people of faith are actually called to something more.  Instead of the passive thing of ‘not saying anything’ we need to be far more active in the building and encouraging of the people around us.

So, I hope you all will hang in with me this week and consider what it means to be in God’s business of building and encouraging.  It can be a tough slog, but you know – we have each other, and we have our God.

Blessings today and remember you are loved.

~Rev. Lynne