Calling

When I think about the calling to be a pastor, sometimes I am amazed at the blessing and sometimes I am overwhelmed with the impossibility.
How can we hope to do this? We hold in our hands matters of life and of death, of loss and of love, of hope and disappointment, anxiety and despair. We deal with things as powerful and as mysterious as prayer and healing and sacrament. And yet we also must deal with an argument over the bake sale or a flower arrangement. We sit with someone as they prepare to pass from this life to the life beyond, and then, an hour later, we sit through a protracted discussion about replacing a window pane or the price of copier paper.
How can we hope to do this? How can we bear it? And yet, we try to make meaning in all of it, to sense God's Spirit, to name God's presence.
How can we hope to do this? Only through the One whose presence we seek. Jesus, the broken bread, the broken body. Jesus, who, in one moment had a mystical experience on the mountaintop, and in the next moment listened to Peter talk about a building program. Jesus, who taught his friends about the ways of God only to hear them argue about who was most important.
The holy in the ordinary. God, give me eyes to see it. And words to name it. And love to share it.