Real Live Preacher Speaks
Listen, Gordon went out of town for a couple of days to hang out with this bunch of rogue Baptist preachers he knows. Jesus, these guys are all just like him. They think they're barely hanging onto The Church, as if The Church Universal were something anyone could hang onto. They think they're unknown, marginalized, all that shit. He’s calling it a retreat. I guess if you call drinking beer, playing pool, and talking late into the night a retreat, he’s on one.
Anyway, while he’s gone I thought maybe you and I ought to have a little talk about what happened on Sunday when he panicked and pulled his essay offline.
First, let me tell you that no one understands Gordon better than I do. I am the presence he called into being from the depths of his soul in December of 2002. I am Real Live Preacher. He did not know what he was doing back then, but there is no putting this genie back into the bottle.
Let me see if I can explain it to you. It’s hard to be the preacher sometimes. It’s not as hard as being a single mother raising her children in poverty. It’s not as hard as when a tsunami hits your village. It’s not as hard as losing your parents when you are young. It’s not that kind of hard.
It’s hard because he’s trying to let everyone matter to him, and that makes his boundaries fuzzy and hard to keep. Right now a lot of people have a little piece of his heart. The people in his church matter, his family matters, and every person behind every email that comes from readers of Real Live Preacher matters. He’s determined to hang onto the idea that he lives in a community, and that we all matter to each other.
I tried to tell him once that this is crazy. I told him, “Hell, you ain’t Jesus, preacher!” and I think he kind of heard me back then, but he keeps forgetting and trying to be Jesus again. There is a kind of wonderful but sad sickness in the hearts of many ministers. They try to let everyone matter to them. They let people inside their hearts, down on the inside where they feel things. They can’t do this, of course. Things have a way of unraveling and falling apart when you try to be all things to all people.
God love him, he keeps trying and having to learn this same lesson over and over again.
On Saturday he wrote some dumb thing about bumping into a woman. It was sort of funny and embarrassing when it happened. Then he turned it over to me, and I put my own spin on it and even said a couple of personal things about him. Hey, I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. That’s part of why he needs me.
But he came home Sunday after church and read the comments, and they got to him. You can try to tell him they shouldn't have gotten to him, but really what good is it to say something like that? They DID get to him. And Sunday is the day, by the way, when he is the most vulnerable. Sunday after church. He has nothing left, no protection, no sense of reality, no defenses.
Look, this guy can bear things that most people could never bear, but he is also wounded by things that probably wouldn’t bother a lot of folks. His friend Cynthia says he is strong, but not like steel. It’s more like…silk. I don't think this is good or bad. It is what it is, you know?
And when he read that stuff on Sunday, something came unraveled inside. It was paranoid, weird, and maybe even childish, but none of that matters. It happened. That’s what happens on some Sundays. Worship is a powerful and elemental force. No one engages in it honestly and comes away unscathed. Sundays leave him weak. I know this. I think all he wanted to do was leave town and be with people who are safe and drink a beer and laugh and not worry about anything.
So he pulled the piece, and when he was throwing his bags into his old Honda and about to leave for Austin, he told me it felt so good to do it. It felt good to just make it go away. It made him feel like he had power over this sadness. He felt good and in that moment, feeling good was all he cared about.
He’s gonna shit when he gets back in town and sees all these comments. And there’s like 200 emails in his inbox too. He’ll be embarrassed about the fuss and a little thrilled by the attention. Like I said, no one knows him quite like I do.
Okay, this is important. I have the power to keep him from reading this. Don’t ask how; it’s just something I can do. I’m going to ask that we just keep this little conversation to ourselves, okay? Gordon will come back in town tomorrow and probably post something. He’ll probably say, “What happened Sunday was no big deal,” and “Let’s just move on and forget it.” He thinks that if he was a real and professional kind of writer then nothing would ever get to him. I have no idea where he got such a stupid idea.
You just smile and nod and pretend that you believe his bullshit. He is a preacher, so he needs to think that people believe his B.S.
And because you guys love him so much, I want to give you some good news. I want to lay some gospel on you. Hey, I am the Real Live Preacher. That’s what I do.
And here it is: You don’t need to worry about Gordon. He’s going to be fine, of course. Yes, it’s hard to be the preacher sometimes, but he’s not doing this alone. I’m with him. My voice sustains him, brings his long lost feelings to the surface for him, and gives him what he needs.
Want to know something funny? He still doesn’t know who I am.
And he calls himself a preacher! Ain’t that a hoot?
rlp
You ain't Jesus Preacher
1:52:50 PM 
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