It was “Children’s Story Time” and I sat on the edge of the platform with a beautiful red rose in my hand.  The children were scattered down the steps and across the front of the church, looking up with bright, expectant faces.  I had told them a story every Sunday morning for years, but this was special.  It was our last time together.  I wanted to help them, and their parents, remember me in the proper way.  The rose was to help me explain what was in my heart.

    I showed them the beauty of the blossom, and let some of them smell the heady fragrance, as I talked to them about the way we usually think of roses.  Then I showed them the sharp thorns along the stem.  Thorns that could pierce and hurt.  And I mentioned how we need to see the rose in its entirety - blossom and thorns - if we want the picture to be correct.

    The point I tried to make to them that long ago morning, is that none of us is perfect.  We all have some good points, like the bloom.  But we also have some bad points, like the thorns.  And I asked them to let me be real.  I did not want to be remembered as some holier-than-thou man.  I wanted to be remembered as a real human being, sometimes good and sometimes not.

    I have thought about that quite a bit lately, because I have seen how we tend to focus on one part of a person, while ignoring the other parts.  This is especially true in the area of preachers.  So many remember former pastors as all blossom.  When that is the case, the current pastor has a hard time measuring up.  Sometimes he is remembered as all thorns  When that is the case, the current pastor may be seen as all blossom.  But neither is an accurate remembrance, for preachers or for others.

    No one is all blossom.  No one is all thorns.  Each of us is a mixture.  That is a part of our humanity.  And we deserve to be regarded now and remembered later as a whole person. 

    I think I speak for many when I say, “Let me be real.”