Confessions of a pancreas

We had a party the night after Christmas, and dozens of people came, mostly from our church. If you are a member of my church and did not get invited, it's my wife's fault. This is because she left me in charge of invitations. My wife is an extrovert, which means that parties are her forte. I am an introvert, which means that when the party is over I have to curl up in a fetal position under the bed. Sometimes we exasperate one another, because after being surrounded by children all day she wants a meaningful grown-up conversation when I get home, whereas I would be content for days to pass with no talking.

I am more content to write than speak, and I could make a case for the superiority of that means of communication. You can make your statements precise (in theory, that is, though not judging by what passes for a typical college student's essay these days). You can separate strands of an argument and deal with each in turn. You can walk away from the exchange for a bit, collect your thoughts, and compose a reasoned response.

The talkers-like extroverts and morning people-are convinced that their method is superior, and my experience is that they usually win the argument about how communication will happen. This is why my wife and I argue in person rather than email. I suppose that's for the best, just as it's good every once in a while to have a big shindig despite the wear and tear on my introverted psyche. It's good to be face-to-face, or in the case of a party, face-to-face-to-face, because this is, if nothing else, a physical reminder that we are members of a body, and not simply a collection of pilgrims each grappling his way alone toward heaven.

Each of us is part of a church and hopefully the Church, and in these gatherings I find myself wondering just what my place is in the body of Christ. I decided some time ago that I am the pancreas-or more realistically, a cell in the pancreas. If things get too saccharine, I am the person to inject a counter-balancing influence. The body-especially the American body-desperately needs the pancreas. At least that's what I tell myself. We don't often like the way the pancreas makes us feel, but it can serve a useful function all the same.

The problem with that analogy is that whereas the body has no choice about the effects of its pancreas, we would-be pancreatic cells are easily ignored. We are the killjoys and naysayers, the doom-and-gloomers, the absolute bane of team players and country-clubbers. I've been giving some thought, then, to how I present myself, because someone like me is easily pleased with being right rather than helpful. In other words, how do you engage someone about something very important to him-and which you disagree-without turning him against you from the outset? A lot of us would-be pancreatic cells aren't doing our jobs very well, because we are more interested in being right than relevant.

Since this is the time of year for resolutions, I'm happy to have stumbled over mine. I will endeavor in this coming year to draw closer to what is true, but to do a better job of helping others draw closer as well, rather than becoming so caught up in my rightness that I lose them in the first sentence. That's probably good advice for all we people of the pancreas, and perhaps for other parts of the Christian body, as well.

So what are you resolved to do this year?