Elvis has left the building
“ELVIS has left the building”. And as I understand it the announcement was made at the end of Elvis’ concerts to persuade the fans, keen to have another glimpse of The King, to go home.
Frasier also plagiarised the phrase as you will know if you are into that particular sitcom. And I have just retired.
Lots of you have of course. Retired that is. And I am just finding out for myself what you already know. The disorientation of losing the structure to your day, your week, your life. The joy of being able to make choices. Some of you will have taken to it like a duck to water. Others will maybe have struggled until you have found or made your own niche in life again. Elvis has left the building.
One thing I am certain of as I adjust to a life I have never known before (because though every clergyperson gets ribbed about only working one day a week, most of the colleagues I have and know are among the most conscientious, caring and hard grafting of human beings) is that God hasn’t left the building. That God hasn’t walked away from me, from you, or from us, particularly as changes are made or happen in our lives. I don’t mean this in just a bricks and mortar sense, though I have always found when entering a church (building) that God is already there, that He deigns to meet with me while I stay, and He waits around when I exit, presumably for the next lot of visitors.
No I mean it in a whole world sense too. I am a news addict. Sports pages first of all for me. But I wonder sometimes if that’s just an expression of escapism on my part. The front and inside pages can be so awful. Albeit reported as dispassionately as possible the headlines make you wonder how on earth human beings can dream up such enmity towards other people. The TV makes it ever more graphic. Not just words and photos here. Moving pictures so that one is able to see in glorious Technicolor just how rotten this world can be, with those who think they are the pick of humanity sometimes to the forefront of everything that makes you heave.
I tell you the game is up, we are lost altogether if at this point God turns His back and walks away. If The King leaves the building. The fact that He hangs on, and stays around, gives us the glimpse of hope, and those that pursue that glimpse to see hope clearly are amongst the most blessed of all. It is already one of the pleasures of retirement that I am now able to visit other congregations to be inspired by young and old alike making sense of a confusing world by hanging onto Jesus for dear life.
There’s a chap wandering around Hinckley town centre alleging that he is (or was) Reverend Malcolm Clarke. But then again “There’s a guy works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis”. And then again, there’s a Jesus who some say is still alive and can still be met through His Spirit, to bring forgiveness, meaning, direction and love into our lives. That’s worth exploring.
Elvis has left the building! Thank you very much.