Prima Verba – Part 4

I love the Gulf of Mexico.

And yes, I’m going to continue to call it by that name. I’m too much of a fan of Trop Rock music, and there are too many cherished songs in my memory that refer to the Gulf by that name, for me to change at this point in my life. Just know that I’m not trying to make a political statement. I don’t think I’m making any statement. I’m just holding on to good music and my favorite vacation spot.

Anyway…

I love the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, I love the Gulf as it is experienced in Southwest Florida. Even more specifically, I love the Gulf as it is experienced on Sanibel Island. In that location, the Gulf isn’t particularly known for its impressive waves. You will not find any surfers there riding the waves on their surfboards. You may find some belly boarders. But they even struggle to catch their small waves.

Nevertheless, there are waves and currents there that can sweep you along against your will. Often, it’s a subtle sweeping along. Cami and I once visited a nearby island. I was fifty or sixty yards out in the Gulf, and she was walking along the beach looking for seashell treasures. I was diving for treasures of my own—sand dollars—and I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was, relative to where she was. We were both heading in the same direction, but within fifteen minutes, she could no longer see me. I had been swept along in the water at a much more rapid pace than she had been walking. She prayed I hadn’t drowned, and she just kept walking.

Waves and currents do their thing, and there’s not much you can do about it. Whether you try to ride them or resist them, they just happen to you. This is what the period from the spring of 2020 to the fall of 2024 feels like to me now, as I look back on it with a clearer head than I had then. Waves and currents were sweeping me along on a trajectory that I wasn’t able to discern at the time. Some of them I rode, some of them I resisted. All of them led to what I’m calling, for lack of a better word, burnout.

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As I write this introduction to the story of how I became burned out as a pastor, I imagine there will be four parts to the story itself (though that could change, I suppose). This doesn’t mean, however, that these waves and currents occurred strictly sequentially. There were overlaps. But separating them into different installments here will help me give my mind and memory more fully to each one. Hopefully, this will result in greater clarity—for you and for me—and will prevent me from trying to force too much of the story into one post.

So, although you can expect my next several posts to be briefer than the previous ones, together they will tell a four-and-a-half-year-long story. The story of how burnout led to my resignation as a pastor.

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As always, thank you for your interest in my story. The outpouring of support we’ve received has been humbling and gratifying. For those of you whose interest in all this can’t really be characterized as support, I understand. But please know that my posture isn’t one of rejection or hostility. It is one of peace. My only intention is to tell my story, as I experienced it.

May the Lord bless and keep you all.

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Aaron