Dill: I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown. Yes sir, a clown. There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.
Jem: You got it backwards, Dill. Clowns are sad; it’s folks that laugh at them.
Dill: Well I’m gonna be a new kinda clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at folks.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has had a profound influence on me since the first time that I read it. I remember wanting to be as good of a man as Atticus Finch was: A man who stood up for those who are forced to sit down. However, I often find myself more like Dill, throwing my hands up in the air and making a cynical comment about life.

As I have prepared to move I have been thinking about the pain and frustrations, joys and triumphs, great people and the not-so great, patterns of conflicts, organizational habits and overal ministry ethos that I have experienced in my first full time ministry. What am I going to take with me to Texas?

No doubt I will take the memories of the students who have shared their lives with me but what else will make that 10hr journey?

I Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

In the long marathon that is ministry the wisdom, resolve, discernment, and courage of someone like Atticus Finch will keep you in the race. Dill’s cynasism in a recipe for burnout.