Copyright: © 1999 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

Pneuma is a journal on spiritual direction and formation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Clement Mehlman is a chaplain at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Neil Orts, M. Div., is an ELCA lay person in Austin, Texas.

The pastor arranged the pens on his desk while he waited for her to speak.

"I'm sorry, Pastor," she said after a silence. "I thought it would be good to share this. It may be. But I can't."

"Sure you can. This is a safe place."

"To an extent." She relaxed into the chair a little, but her fingers still clung to the armrests. "But some secrets might best remain unspoken. Maybe some secrets aren't meant to be shared. Even with your pastor."

"Believe me, I am neither shocked nor repulsed by anything humanity does. I've seen too much, done too much, to sit in judgment. But confession is good for the soul. Don't carry the burden."

She sunk lower in the chair, her chin digging into her collar bone. "If it were just me . . . but if I told you everything that's bothering me . . . it involves other people. People I love. People who I don't want you to think less of. The secrets aren't all mine to tell."

"But the truth will set you free."

She looked up at her pastor. "Jesus said, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' I don't doubt that. Knowing Jesus assures me that this moment doesn't bind me. I have hope of moving beyond this moment." She swallowed. "I know something about being free in Christ."

"What, then?"

"It's the facts that bind me. The facts have consequences. To know the truth behind a situation is freeing, but the facts can imprison. I don't want to imprison anyone else by spouting facts in the name of truth."

The pastor looked out his office window and silently studied the cardinal at the bird feeder there. Finally, he said, "I have written many sermons that I will never preach. They revealed too many facts about me. About my parents. About my friends. I couldn't . . . not even in proclamation of the Gospel. Not even in the name of truth."

Her eyes widened. "Then you understand?"

He looked down at his hands and picked at a hangnail. "Yes." His clichés and quick answers fluttered happily away with the red bird.

She took a deep breath and stood. "Thank you, Pastor." She went to the door. "I'll see you Sunday." Then she flew away also.

Left alone, he smiled. "The awful humanity of it all," he muttered.

He, too, felt lighter.