Lies

Committing adultery is hard work.

Let me explain.

Right now I'm in Chicago, where I met yesterday with the bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod. I'm here exploring the possibility of a new call in Chicago. In other words, I'm here cheating on my current congregation. The idea was that I would be able to fly out of Grand Forks undetected, spend two or three days away, meet with the bishop and be back without anyone knowing it. I thought it would be easy. But no sooner had I gotten into the gate area of the Grand Forks Airport (which has all of 2 gates) than a woman from my Pilates class and her husband, the local funeral director, came and sat down next to me. "Jennie!" she said. "Where are you going?" I told the truth. "Oh, I'm going home for a few days." "Really?" she continued, "wasn't your mom just in town last week?" Ah yes, my mom had indeed been in town and had even visited the Pilates class. "Yes. Well." The rest came all in a rush, "My friends have some fun things planned this week-end. They always let me know what they're doing. So, I figured I have a few days free, I had some frequent flier miles, why not head home for a couple of days?" All true statements. Yet as my mother made clear to me in my teenage years, telling true statements with the intent to deceive is the same as telling a lie. So, there I was, at Gate 1, lying to the funeral director's wife. And if only that had been the end of it. Immediately after this conversation a well connected family from the church (in fact the dad had helped me with my sermon the week before) came and sat on the other side of me and we had the same conversation. Then the names of the standby passengers came over the intercom and they might as well have been taking roll at the 11:00 worship service. Oh brother. I ran into another Calvary member in the ladies room...told my same story -- friends getting together, frequent flier miles, good to get away. When it came time to board I was desperate to just get into my seat when I noticed that the kid sitting behind me was the same kid who had sat next to me two months ago when I was flying to Minneapolis for my second interview with Central Lutheran. I just sank down in my seat and prayed, "please Lord, don't let the kid in row 7 see me in row 6 because the people in row 8 can't know how much I've been flying lately."

Committing adultery is hard work.

My general life policy is to live my life in a way where I am not worried about people discovering where I've been or what I have been up to. Deception and dishonesty just are too stressful and, besides, if I feel I need to keep something a secret, I probably shouldn't be doing it. But in this case it seems like my little white airport lies were necessary. I know they were...and yet. And yet. It's that age old question of when is a lie just plain dishonest and when is it needful? Wouldn't it be best for my congregation to know that I am considering a move so that they can begin to think about the future? Well, no. But yet.

I will say this -- the scale I stepped on yesterday was brutally honest. Seriously, why couldn't it have been a little more mindful of my feelings? Of course, if it had given me a more gentle "truth", who knows if I would have gone for that long run.

This I do know, the next time I cheat on my congregation, I'm driving.