Stories that Changed My Life: A Buzz Session

Of all the stories in this series this may well be the one that made the greatest difference in my life.

In the mid-nineteen sixties I was asked to speak for a religious focus week at a college in Oklahoma. I am not sure these kinds of things are still done on State campuses, but they were done quite often at that time. The format was for me to speak in a chapel type of service each day and then speak in a class or so if the professor requested me to do so. The big event was what they called “Buzz Sessions” in the dorms at night. A pastor and a lay person would be available for the students to ask questions.

The problem with the buzz session idea was that people talk to clergy differently than to anyone else and the students were kind enough or smart enough to ask questions they knew the clergy wanted to answer and thus do their duty without having to really deal with anything of importance. I had spent the week answering such profound questions as “what is wrong with dancing, and why should we marry someone of our same faith?”

The last night of the week I was to be in the woman’s dorm and a group of about twenty-five very normal college-aged women gathered for the event.

We all sat on a large area rug, and I announced that I had checked and found out they had asked the same questions each night that week and that since I did not have any better answers that what they had already been told I suggested we just drop the questions and talk about what was really bugging us.

We dwelt in silence and boyfriends for a while and I had about decided the night was wasted until I spotted a girl sitting on the outskirts of the group and I said, “You look like you want to say something.” She said she did but before she could speak a girl sitting near the front said, “That’s our hippie.” I remarked that she did not look like a hippie and the girl said, “Oh no, she’s fine, she is just always in trouble, but she is really great, she just can’t say no to anyone. If someone came along right now and said let’s jump off of this building, she would say OK.”

Finally, that girl stopped talking and the fist girl was able to speak. She said, “When I was nine my mother began telling me that she did not love me. There must be something wrong with you if your own mother doesn’t love you. Now she is telling my little brother the same thing and it just kills me to see that.” The girl who had said she was a hippie said, “Wait a minute that’s why you are so nice, you are trying to get us to love you aren’t you?” By then the girl was crying but nodded her head yes and the other girl went to her, hugged her and said, “you don’t have to try any more, I love you.” and suddenly I was in the first honest share group of my life.

I had never even heard of people being that honest with one another and here I was in the middle of brutal honesty.

If I wrote all of the things that were shared that night this would be a full book. A couple of them just have to be told.

One person said her best friend was married to her bother who was overseas in the army. While he was gone his wife, the best friend, was having an affair and kept her informed of all of the details. She was torn between loyalties to her best friend who swore her to secrecy and her brother whom she loved. No one had any answer for her, but she felt like a burden had been lifted just being able to say it out loud and having friends understand and care.

The last to share was a cheerleader at the college. A bundle of energy and charm who seemed to not have a problem in the world, but she said:

“I want to say something. My father was an alcoholic. You can’t imagine what it was like having your mother take you across the street to a neighbors’ house because your father is threatening to kill the whole family, and to never be able to have friends over for fear of what he might do. Finally, my mother divorced him and later remarried. I thought the man she married was just what I needed but he has turned out to be weird. Then I came to school, met a guy, fell in love and now I find he loves someone else. What is bugging me is my sister is lesbian. She is much prettier than I am, but she lives with a woman. As long as I live, I will never forget my real father pointing his finger in my face and saying, ‘you’re going to be a queer just like your sister.’ I don’t want to be, and I don’t believe I am but every man I have encountered has hurt me and I am afraid.”

We hugged each other and set a time for me to come back to that campus and meet with them again. I thought I had to follow up if nothing else to see what they did with knowing what was going on in the lives of their friends.

There was a layperson with me, and I had totally forgotten he was there. He was sitting behind me and did not say a word all evening. I realized I must have given him the shock of his life. He had a huge Bible in his hands with all kinds of ribbons and markers showing how he came prepared for the event but not this event.

When I saw him, his eyes were glazed over and he said, “I’ve never heard anything like that before.” I said that I had not done so either and he said it again. I decided I needed to debrief him. We got some coffee and drove around a while talking it out. In the process I debriefed myself and learned three things that changed my life.

First: Anytime there is a gathering of twenty-five or more people no matter where or what the purpose of the meeting might be almost every problem known to man will be sitting in that gathering.

Second: We cannot help people until we know where they are and what they are facing and feeling.

Third: We cannot know where they are until we hear them.

After that night my role as a pastor changed. I no longer saw the audience as empty vessels to be filled with brilliant expositions of what Jesus did or said to someone else, nor as church members who needed to be motivated to serve more and give more time and money. Nor as folks who needed to be straightened out and, if needed, forced to live better Christian lives.

I now saw them as a gathering of flawed human beings struggling to find self-worth, significance in their lives, and dealing with fears, hurts, grief and rejection needing to find a way for God’s love and the love of others to make a difference in their lives.

I had a very strange reaction to all of the changes in me. I took the pulpit off the platform. Somehow it seemed to symbolize authority, rules and guilt. I replaced it with a lone mike stand. I wanted to be fully exposed, an open, honest, imperfect fellow struggler trying to be one beggar telling other beggars where to find bread.