The story…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

isn’t always what you think it is. Case in point.

I played a show on July 14 and was promised payment for the work. The check didn’t and hasn’t come. Emails went back and forth with the organizer of the group, no results. More frustrated emails were sent. Still nothing. I was starting to feel like I had been played. I was simmering.

Turns out the leader of the band had delegated the money work to another person who was having financial difficulties and kept the check. I don’t like what happened at all, but I understand that these are harder times and the temptations are strong. He’s apologized and we’re on the way to figuring these things out.

I wish I would have known. Everything. Sooner rather than later. It would have been much easier. Yet “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” is the norm, not the exception. He was just too proud to admit his financial difficulties and I  thought the worst first and about forgiveness later.

Live and learn, and, if you can, get paid before the show.

You mess with the bull…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

you get the horns. I think, drunk or sober, that getting into the ring with an angry or wounded animal of this size is just not that bright. It’s probably why they generally stack these “fights” in favor of the human. Regardless, after centuries of watching these animals being tortured for the amusement of the crowd I’m really leaning towards the bull in this one. Now if he could just gore their consciences and not just their bodies…

There are times…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

when I want to forget all the “Christian” stuff and just kick butts and take names. Yet I know that if I do I’ll just descend. Mercy granted is mercy received, and forgiveness as well. Truly the way that leads to Life is narrow.

My mother told me once…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

“The mill of God grinds slow but exceedingly fine”. Everyone has agendas. Everyone has the face they put out to the world and the secret life inside. People accuse and respond. Rumors circulate. Insecurities get masked as religion. Only God exists with omniscience. Only God fully knows the secrets of our hearts. Nothing is hidden to God and there is nothing that one day, some way, will not be made manifest.

Pondering this changes everything.

Sometimes…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

we forget that the older people in our parishes, the ones who struggle to hear or come to the Eucharist with a walker are also often the ones that bequeathed us the gift of our church. Theirs was a time when they paid the bills, sang in the choir, taught the children, and kept the community together through thick and thin. Consider them quaint sometimes, or a relic from another era and we miss the point. They did what they could in the time when they were strong and we owe them at least the thanks of our acknowledgement for how their lives have blessed ours.

Next gig…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

will be this Thursday, August 18, at St. Paul Reformation Lutheran Church. The show starts around 6 p.m. and its support of the Hallie Q. Brown Food Shelf. Reformation Lutheran is on the corner of Dale and I 94 in St. Paul, MN.