Come Before Winter

An Urgent Appeal and a Leader's Transparency

Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash

Have you stopped and wondered what the impact of the COVID pandemic had on you?  In the global shut-down, what are you now realizing really happened in you? Around you? With you? And to others?

I realize we’re on a spectrum of how we lived through those years and not all agreed on what happened. That’s not my point or interest here.  My interest is what was the real emotional costs?  What did it cost you to survive in that kind of isolation and separation?

I’ve spent several months now reflecting on the Apostle Paul’s urgent appeal to Timothy for him to “Do you best to come to me soon…”   He speaks of being deserted. He describes his own aloneness and isolation. He asks for people to come by name and in the flesh to be with him.  Specifically, he asks for his cloak, some books and the parchments.  He loops back to make sure Timothy really grasps how deeply he needs him to drop what he is doing and to “do you best to come before winter.”  (all of this is documented in Paul’s letter to Timothy in II Timothy 4:9-22).

If is as if, Paul is wanting to emerge from his own COVID-like world.  He needed companionship. He needed people in the flesh to come be with him. He wanted  some favorite books and parchments—perhaps journals—future letters he was working on to send to struggling and emerging micro-churches around his world.

I can relate. Can’t you? A little over a year ago now, I began to feel some of what I think old Paul is describing in such an open and vulnerable way. His transparency is inviting—not off putting.  And knowing a bit of the chronology of when this was written helps me know Paul was not a  young man when he penned these words.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here. I am more drawn to the older Paul, than I am the younger Paul.  His second letters to the churches land in my heart in a different way than his first ones.  This is especially true for me of another leader in the early church—Peter. I spent a year with 2 Peter a few years ago, reading his second epistle every day for a solid year. Out of that experience, came my book, INSIDE JOB—a book on how to redefine success and what moral character really looks like.  So, I’ve given this thought.

“Come Before Winter.” That’s more than an invitation.  It’s an honest, urgent, heartfelt, direct  imperative statement.  Paul needed encouragement.

Perhaps, encouragement is what COVID robbed us of and left us bankrupt. Our hearts left empty by the trauma, disease and shut-down of church, stores, restaurants and life as we knew it.  ( By the way, I know COVID is not over).

The word “encouragement” means, “into the heart”. Encouragement is when something happens that’s aim is the bullseye of the human heart.  When encouragement happens, we just somehow know that we’ve been spoken “into”—that our own brittle, dry and famished heart is now feeling soft again—alive again.

In my work with pastors and market leaders in particular, I’ve found this kind of honesty to be rare.

It’s as if there is an algorithm that says, “the larger the church, the thicker the shield grows around the leader’s heart.”  The leader has learned to wear the armor because of betrayal; disappointment; abandonment and loneliness.

No one gets in between the tight spaces of the armor clad heart. No one and no thing. CEO’s are the same. The higher you go on the ladder to “success” the lonelier life gets.  Who can you trust? Whose going to go with you the whole way and not turn their back on you?

Paul tells us that a man named, “Demas” deserted him—so Paul knows the feeling.  But, this did not stop Paul. It should not stop us.

Healthy leaders lead with a limp I believe. The limp is an brutal honesty; a visible wound; an understanding that life cannot be lived alone—not an abundant life at least. Healthy leaders are courageous to ask for what they need because they know the sheer costs of what it’s like to not live or lead with what one needs to live well and lead well.

Over a year ago, I envisioned a gathering of Timothys and Tinas to gather with us in the mountains of North Carolina for a “come before winter” long weekend. It’s going to happen next week and it’s, in a way, a coming out of COVID party—a time of incarnational rubbing of shoulders and hearts. I’m very glad the time is here. (I’m sorry but there is now no room in the Inn for more folks to come.).

For the past few months, underneath the stealth radar of notice, I’ve been at work on writing the lyrics to a song—a song which will be the theme of this particular retreat I’m leading in the Blue Ridge mountains next weekend.   I invited a dear friend to collaborate with me and write the music.  In all the books I’ve written and prose I’ve penned; in all the poems now flowing out of my heart—this song makes me feel the most naked and unsure of myself.  I’m sitting with those feelings—feeling all the feels that go with showing the folks who will come spend a long weekend with me in the woods amidst the raging colors now ablaze within and around me. But, to be honest, I love this song—the tune and they lyrics is my own way of trying to share what I believe is a universal longing we all have.

The song is titled “Come Before Winter.”  It’s based on the Apostle Paul’s urgent plea for Timothy his protégée to join him as soon as possible. It seems that as Paul grew older, he found himself wanting the companionship of someone who knew the music that he knew; knew the story; knew the language and knew the Tie that bound their hearts together.

As the lyrics unfold in the song, you’ll recognize many of my life themes and the some of the great themes of the spiritual journey. I thought I’d go ahead and share the lyrics with you here.  I hope later, that I can post the music and lyrics together.

My desire was for this song to be singable. So many songs these days we sing in church aren’t. Have you noticed, how in church these days, many of us are just there watching someone else sing?  It’s disheartening to reduce worship to performance.  I don’t call my song a worship song. But it casts a wide net around renewing the heart; companionship and going deeper in the faith journey.

So, here’s the lyrics to the new song, Come Before Winter. I’m posting this for my “paid subscribers”—because these people are the ones who both know my heart and want to support me in this new phase of life I’m now in of writing and specifically, poetry.  But as I’ve said, you can get access to all my stuff by just writing, info@pottersinn.com and we’ll add you to the “paid subscriber” list.  I’d invite you to become a full subscriber if you could. You’re encouragement, in this way,  makes it tangible and real and I’m most grateful.

Your Companion on the journey,

Steve