I think I
overdressed Jim, but I usually,
when I know you have an event, I
usually over dressed to
compensate for the way he's
going to look, but I hope I
didn't do it too much. Someone
asked me if I ever wore Bermuda
shorts. I am wearing Bermuda
shorts.
It's good to see you
I congratulate you
and I commend you for this event
This is extraordinary
nothing like it in the country and provides
clarification, and for some of
you I suppose confirmation
regarding your call to ministry.
I know some of you are exploring
it, considering it. Some of you
have already been one year to
seminary and may be
reconsidering it after that. I
don't know, but I commend you
for the exciting point you are
in your life. In preparation for
this event, of course, I
recalled my own early days of
considering call to ministry,
and what I liked, I think, in
those days, and I was not alone
in it, but what I liked mostly
was conversation partners,
because however strongly we feel
the call of God, which I did, I
needed some conversation with
others. What are the criteria?
How do you know? Is this just a
feeling you have? Will it go
away? Will it sustain you for a
lifetime? And I liked those
partners. I was in the second
year of seminary and finally
went to a psychologist, a
counselor, to get some
confirmation. Didn't get any. I
got a big bill and comments
about, well, you probably are
thinking about the ministry to
compensate for some, you know,
and here it went, and it was
very discouraging to me. I
didn't have people at my same
point in life, and I didn't have
it in the family. I was not
fully satisfied in the search
for confirmation within whatever
gifts or graces or abilities I
might have. In fact, I was very
much discouraged about going
into the ministry. By my pastor,
my advisor in high school, the
leader of the youth program and
the church where I attended,
they all suggested other things.
My minister suggested that I go
into library work. You can find
that fulfilling and all, and it
was discouraging. Of course,
understand why they did it. I
had no voice. I had poor health,
and I was, in those days, rather
short. They said, you won't even
be able to see over the pope.
Try something else. It was a
difficult and discouraging time,
and I did not, unlike many of
you, I did not have a
conversation in my own family
about it. Everybody wishes that
God would call us to the
ministry in a voice loud enough
for the whole family to hear,
but that seems never to occur.
And so sometimes it even creates
a rift or a gulf, but the desire
for clarification and
confirmation is more nearly
satisfied in events like this
than in anything I know. And I
envy the opportunity you have,
however tough it is on you
physically being bussed about as
you are. Years ago, I
participated in the ordination
of a young man who had been
serving, working with youth in
an outdoor program in Greeley,
Colorado. And the preordination
conversation, I asked him, how
can you be so sure? He said,
well, after some program with
young people one Sunday evening,
I was not sure, didn't know what
to do, and so I reached down and
pulled up a bunch of grass and
put it on the car and said to
God, if you want me to be a
minister, blow that grass off
the car.
And I said, well, since you're
here, I assume God blew the
grass off the car. And he said,
no.
I said, you never know. Well, I
want to talk to you about a
disease to which you might be
subject somewhere along the way,
not everyone but some. But it is
a very real, though poorly
deviant, hard to diagnose
disease. But as I understand in
the reading of the history of
this disease, you can be subject
to it.
I hate to spend my time with you
talking about a disease, but I
will get to preach tonight. And
if some of you come, I'll try to
be positive at that time. The
first person that I know of in
my research that talked about
this disease was Socrates.
Socrates observed in many
communities a kind of lethargy
or loss of interest among
leaders in various fields, in
various cities and communities.
It was not a lethargy that was
normal or expected. It was not
the kind of disinterest that you
would find in the general
population. It was peculiar to
the leaders.
This observation he made, why
this lethargy, why this inertia,
he investigated and said, it
seems to be unrelated to any
infirmity. It's unrelated to any
misfortune. It frequently comes
at the very zenith of a person's
career and seems to come to
people who are quite gifted and
capable,
profound and pervasive.
Whether or not it was he or
someone else, but the analogy
was this, having limp sails in a
stiff breeze.
Now, later on, this particular
ill-defined disease was given a
name, ennui.
Ennui, if you're a little behind
on your French, ennui. Now,
ennui is not the usual decline
of zeal that one finds in the
aging process, as the writer of
Ecclesiastes says. Remember,
you're created in the days of
your youth, before the evil days
come, that's old age.
When desire fails, appetite is
lost, and clouds return after
the rain. It's not that. It is
not that temporary, I'd rather
be doing something else, feeling
that everybody, success or
failure, feels at some time,
regardless of the importance of
what they're doing. I recall
reading the autobiography of
Pablo Casals, greatest cellist
in the history of publicly
performed music, from the age of
12 to well into his nineties,
world over Pablo Casals cellist.
He loved to climb mountains. He
was a guest in this country at
one time, and in the western
states, was taken on a mountain
hike. He enjoyed it very much.
He lost his footing. He fell and
badly damaged his hand. He was
rushed to an emergency room. His
hand was bleeding. At that time,
they didn't know whether it
could be repaired. But he said
in his autobiography, I recall
looking down at my bleeding hand
and saying, oh boy, now I don't
have to play the cello.
This was his life.
But even when it's your life,
their days, you'd rather be
somewhere else, doing something
else. Now, on we is not that.
That comes and goes. I probably
will have a day like that
myself, one of these days.
It's much more profound, much
more pervasive. Some of the
great figures in literary world
had this disease, Victor Hugo,
had it. For all of his grand
literary production, Victor Hugo
said, I go every morning and tip
the urns of my life to see if
there is one drop of interest.
Lord Barron said, I search and
search myself to find a pain, a
joy, a hope, a threat, a dread,
but nothing. That's on we. For a
long period in his life, C.S.
Lewis had it. He said, it is not
as though my life were in the
rain. That would be refreshing.
But my life is spent in a
general dampness.
Hmm.
You could compare the condition,
I think, to a sort of thrown
-together analogy. Picture an
old hotel. It's a resort hotel,
and it's the end of the season,
and the guests are gone. The
leaves of autumn are blown
across the parking lot now
empty.
The early frost has gotten the
chrysanthemums around the front
door, and their heads are
drooped. You don't see anybody
stirring. You walk by the main
building, and the chairs have
already been turned up on top of
the tables in the dining hall.
But at the office, the blinking
neon light, open, is still on.
Open, open, open, but it's not
open. It's closed. That's on we.
In the fourth century, a monk by
the name of Vagrius, you know
the monks had time to do
scholarly work, and he did
research on this disease.
He said that the people most
subject to this disease are
ministers. Now that threw me,
because if anybody should have
the resources to provide
exemption from or ward off this
difficulty, it would be the
reverend equipped to shake that
off and fight it off. He said
ministers are more subject than
anyone else, and the name he
gave for it on We Came Later,
the name he gave it was from
Psalm 91 verse 6, the terror
that strikes at noon.
Now the reason he chose that,
the terror that strikes at noon,
is he said, it comes upon a
person when they seem to be the
envy of the community, for their
leadership, their public favor,
for their statue, for their
gifts. It's like noontime. Noon
is that one time of day when
there is not a cloud. You don't
cast a shadow. And he said
that's when the terror strikes.
When you're in that blissful
circumstance of being the envy
of everybody and the appetite
for all that you do fails.
Now in his day the church did
all it knew to do to handle a
problem like that. They labeled
it a sin. Well, what else can a
church do? The church gave it a
name from the Greek language,
akēdia. It's translated in the
list Seven Deadly Sins. It's
translated as sloth, not a good
translation. Sloth is not bad.
Sloth is lying too long in the
bathwater. That's good, kicking
back. That's not a good
translation. Akēdia simply
means I don't care.
You can walk by the old man
feeding the pigeons in the park
and say he's not my dad. I don't
care.
Now there have been a lot of
theories as to why this
particular problem afflicts
ministers. I want to share a few
of them. You can choose one.
This is multiple choice or throw
them all out. But here are
theories as to why ministers
would be so afflicted. The
first, as you would anticipate,
is this, that ministry is born
in idealism.
Ministers are those persons in
the community who feel most
keenly the difference between
what is and what ought to be,
who feel greatly the gulf
between the sky of intention and
the earth of performance, and
throws herself, throws himself
into the breach. I want to help
everybody. I want to cure
everything. I want to fix
everything. And then finding
that that cannot be done. And
this content with proximate
possibilities of good, the
person is immobilized
like a doctor going into a room
full of sick people. If I turn
to help this one, I have by that
very fact turned my back on
someone else. And I'm a doctor.
I don't want to turn my back on
anybody. So I'll turn to help
this one. I've turned my back on
that one. So what does the good
doctor do? Stands in a pool of
pity unable to help anybody.
That's unweak.
A second theory.
For those who are pastors of
churches, it is easy to
understand this, say some
people, because of the complex
relationship between a pastor
and a church. Given all the
differences in any average
congregation, given the
incendiary nature of religion,
people blow their stack in
church, because this is
profoundly important. And here's
a minister, sometimes out front
leading, sometimes behind
pushing, sometimes standing
beside comforting and assuring.
Very complex relationship. No
wonder it breaks down, says this
theory.
Number three.
Ministers lose interest in their
work regardless of its
importance, rather simply
because of its importance,
because there is not much social
approval. I would like for the
community where I live to
respect my work at a level that
approaches the importance of my
work. If ministry is
significant, why should I not be
recognized as one engaged in
significant work? But there is a
lot of social indifference. You
watch television and movies, and
who plays the minister? Some
watery-eyed, chinless dork,
mumbling a lot of stuff, and
there you are. And now I'm going
into the ministry, you know,
sitting next to someone on the
plane. What do you do? Well, I'm
in communication,
because you've just watched this
film.
In the city of Atlanta in 1955,
there was a time, there was a
time, and there will be a time
again when ministers are
recognized as contributors to
society. In 1955, there was
published in the Atlanta Journal
-Constitution list of the ten
most influential citizens in the
city of Atlanta, 1955. Three of
them were ministers. Wow. In
1995,
a hundred lists, this was for
the state of Georgia, 100 most
influential citizens in the
state of Georgia, no minister.
1995.
It comes and goes, mostly it
goes.
A fourth theory. Since we
minister in the presence of God,
the refreshing presence of God,
why don't we stay at a crest of
enthusiasm and excitement all
the time? If not at the altar,
then where?
And when someone feels a
slackening of interest, a drop
in enthusiasm, doubt sets in.
Maybe I need to see a career
counselor. I don't know about
this.
I should guess you're wondering
how many there are. I'm going to
give you only six. This, as you
wouldn't guess, is the
recognition, finally, that the
task is absolutely impossible. I
was in pain when I listened to a
reporter interview Billy Graham,
three or four years ago, at
Graham's home in Monterey, North
Carolina, and the reporter said,
for over 50 years you've been
doing this now. What difference
do you see in the world after 50
years of giving your life to
ministry? And Mr. Graham said,
it's much worse than it was when
I started.
Like being given a candle in the
middle of a tornado with the
advice, now don't let it go out.
Being given a teaspoon and led
to the Atlantic Ocean, call me
when you're through. And when
the impossibility of it sets in,
coupled with idealism, on we.
The final theory is that
ministers as a lot have too low
opinion of duty and obligation.
Somehow there has crept into the
ministry, and perhaps into the
church in general, a sense that
we ought to feel like doing
everything all the time. Just go
dancing to the office to work
every day.
Now, Paul said, as you know, if
I preach the gospel, I have
nothing to brag about, I have to
preach. And that statement has
had low press, very poor press,
especially the last three, two
or three generations in which
you encourage people not to do
anything that they had to do. Do
you want to go to church today?
No. Well, it won't do you any
good if you don't have to.
Everything has to proceed from a
good feeling. I feel really good
about this. I'm all a flutter
about this. If the fluttering is
not there, then you don't do it.
Otherwise, you're involved in a
lot of hypocrisy and this and
that. So we have two or three
generations of kids that have
been reared on that. Whatever
you want to do, burn down the
living room, saw the family dog
in half, express yourself, but
certainly don't do something
because you have to do it. I
was, before moving out of
Atlanta, in a neighborhood
meeting held in a public school
in which we tried and did
achieve the stopping of putting
in a nude dance, a nude strip,
whatever, plays in our
community. And we were able, by
sheer force of numbers and
having some lawyers with us and
all, to get it stopped. The
gathering there was large,
several hundred people, a lot of
angry people, a lot of bad
language going on and all. I
wandered around. I didn't know
many of the folk, two or three.
The woman in charge, the
moderator of the meeting,
apparently knew me because in
order to get it started with all
the noise going on, she came to
the podium and said into the
microphone, I see Dr. Craddock
is here. We'll have him begin
our meeting with a prayer. Well,
she hadn't told me ahead of time
and I don't really go for that.
Well, I see the ministers here.
Let's have a prayer.
And besides that, I was just as
upset as other people and I
wasn't really praying my way
around the room when we were
talking. And I think most of
all, I resent using prayer for
crowd control. But what am I
going to do? I'm sitting near
the front. She calls on me. What
do I do? Just stay there. No, I
got up. But I changed the
pronouns from I to we and prayed
the prayer that I have prayed
every morning for over 35 years.
Gracious God, we are grateful
for work more important than how
we happen to feel about it on
any given day. I sat down. The
program continued. It was long.
So there was a recess at the
recess with some refreshments at
the back. I fell into
conversation with a young man,
looked to be in late 30s,
professional looking man. He
said, Are you the one who had
that prayer? I said, Yes, sir.
He said, Well, thank you. I like
short prayer. I said, Well,
thank you very much. He said,
But I don't agree with your
prayer. And I said, Well, I've
never had to debate my prayer.
What's wrong with my prayer? And
he said, You said, We're
grateful for work more important
than how we happen to feel about
it on any given day. I said,
Yeah, what's what's wrong? He
said, Nothing is more important
than how I feel about it. It is
how I feel about it that gives
us an importance. If I don't
feel that it's important, it is
not important. If I feel it's
important, it's important. It's
how I feel that makes it
important. There is nothing
else. I said, There's
obligation. He said, Not with
me. He said, I hate to go to the
wedding and my friends and hear
the minister talk about till
death do us part. I can hear the
windows and doors slamming
everywhere. You have to go with
how you feel. I said, There'd be
a lot of fires not put out. If
the fireman stands in the street
in front of a burning house and
said, Well, my heart wasn't in
this one.
Well, we have a classroom of
students, but no teacher and
teacher said, I don't know. I
just felt like sleeping in. A
lot of sermons not preached
because the minister didn't want
to climb into the pulpit wearing
iron shoes, had a little
headache. Not today. Thanks.
That's just not the way the
world is run. I said to him, We
got into it. I said, Would the
floor ever be cleaned if the
housekeeper looked at the vacuum
cleaner and said, I'm not
interested. Does she have to
say, I'm deeply moved every time
I see a vacuum cleaner.
When I taught at Emory,
sometimes you'd see me up in my
home upstairs in the loft where
I had my office grading papers
three o'clock in the morning. I
was not all twitty.
It's just that Gerald Lord said
the grades are due at eight.
That's the way the world runs.
The man who opens the store on a
cold morning, grinds down the
green awning, picks up the Dixie
cups and leaves out the doorway.
This cold, only person there on
that wintry sidewalk. What are
you doing down here, Mr. Grocer
man? Oh, I was so anxious to
come this Monday morning. So
excited. And no, no, I'm in
business. I announced this is my
opening hour. That's the way the
world
He said, Well, not for me. Not
for me. And I said, It's not
only in my judgment the way the
world runs, but the person who
has the sense of have to do it
has the highest motivation there
is. That is the highest, not the
lowest, the highest. And the
person who has a sense of have
to is the one who achieves a
great deal. How could she do
that? How did that church do
that? How did those young people
do that? They had to do it. We
had a friend some years ago, the
woman late sixties, lived on a
farm, prepared the supper, but
her husband came in from the
field at uncertain times. She
put in the warming part of the
stove, went into the living room
doing some needlework, sitting
there with the needle and thread
working away, looked up and saw
the big, burly face of a strange
man looking in the window. She
chilled for a moment, but
casually appearing, laid aside
the needlework, went over and
moved the piano across against
the door. When her husband came
in, he got the neighbor and
helped him move it back.
She said, For years, he asked me
every once in a while, Who
helped you move that piano? The
answer, you know, she had to
move. He didn't have to move it
back. Now you can talk
adrenaline all you want to. If
you'll convert that over into
ministry, you're talking about
the Holy Spirit. There is a
resource, a power of God
available. Only put it in your
everything is optional, that
resource is not for you.
Now, I don't have an antidote
for this, and I know you're
going to have your picture made,
but let me make a few
suggestions about dealing with
it. Just in case somebody in
this group has this disease,
I would urge you to trust habit
as a good friend. You see,
habits are the life formations
of conviction. The reason we
form those habits is that there
are certain convictions about
life and value and work and
discipline, and we want to
achieve it. So we form these
habits. There'll be a lot of
times when the conviction stays
at home. Go with a habit anyway,
and that habit will carry you
until the conviction comes back.
Habit is good. Habit gets bad
press. Habit is good. Don't let
anybody practice the word habit
with the word just. Just a
habit. There are some folks who
don't have any habit yet, and
they spend all their time
figuring out, sharpen the pencil
again. Shall I sit here? Shall I
sit there? Shall I use this
lamp? I need to run to the
store. I hope the phone rings,
this and that. Oh, what
happened? Oh, I was busy all
morning. You didn't do a form
thing. Sit at the same chair, at
the same time, in the same
place, every day, and the amount
of work you produce in an hour
and a half every morning will be
absolutely unbelievable.
Secondly, as I was saying a
while ago, please don't expect
everything to be confirmed by
your pulse.
There are a lot of things more
important than how we feel, and
how we feel is not a clear
register of the value or
importance of what's happening.
There are some things very
important that go on while we're
asleep. It had nothing to do
with our feeling.
May I suggest that you keep in
mind what you've already been
told, I'm sure, and that is
there are few clues as to your
effectiveness as a minister. Not
popularity. You can buy that.
Not unpopularity. You can create
that.
In my early days, in the 60s,
being unpopular was called
prophetic.
When I came here, this church
had 400 members. Now we're down
to 83, but I'm working on them.
Oh, a profanity. It could be,
you know, we learned gradually.
It could be, we were just
obnoxious, but that's what we
call it. Popularity and
unpopularity, neither one,
really register the significance
of what we do. Another
suggestion, in attending to the
problems of others which take
day and night, do not neglect
your own. The only thing,
finally, that authorizes your
conversations and your lessons
and your sermons and your work
about God. The only thing that
really gives it authority is
that the person talking about
God has spent some time talking
to God. Everything else will be
seconded.
A suggestion. When you have a
crisis of faith, let the church
believe for you until yours
comes back. And you'll have
those. I've had those. We all
have those. But that's one of
the values of a community of
faith is they'll believe for you
while yours is absent. This is
not Lone Ranger stuff.
A suggestion. Find something
very important to do, not piddle
away and trivialize life,
because major work, major task,
not only consume energy, but
they generate energy. It's doing
little, don't amount to
anything, things that just wear
you out, but have a major
project, a major task, something
that burns me every day. And it
generates energy. When Gustav
Flaubert, who wrote that
marvelous classic Madame Bovary,
here was a man of great skills
who didn't answer his mail,
didn't write an article, did not
write book reviews, he just
didn't do anything. And he
started to work on this
masterful novel, Madame Bovary.
When he got into that novel,
which took him years to write,
that's when he wrote book
reviews, critical articles, had
his greatest period of
correspondence with other
writers, he was most productive
when he was most occupied. It
doesn't make sense, except it
makes sense.
A suggestion. Seriousness of
purpose does not require
heaviness of manner. Be light on
your feet. You're not God, I'm
not God. It'll be there, was
there before we were born, be
there after we're gone, ease up.
You don't have to go around
humming till midnight and on
Olive's brow all the time. There
is pleasure in it, there is
pleasure in it, and I hope
you're not in a church tradition
that is highly suspicious of
pleasure.
Pleasure is at the heart of
things. Stay light on your feet.
May I make one other suggestion?
If you have a real quarrel about
the ministry, quarrel with God.
God can handle it. I imagine God
enjoys it when somebody calls
God's hand. Just make an
appointment and walk in there
and say, look, you said, and so
I said, now what's that? That's
what Moses did. Moses went into
God, kept the appointment, said,
so this is the way it works,
huh? You pull everybody out of
Egypt, said, everybody free,
bring us out here in the desert,
and then you tip your hat and
say, you're on your own. We
don't have any food, we don't
have any water. All the other
gods around here are laughing
saying, Israel's God doesn't
really have it. Is that the way
it is? Just say so. And God
said, okay, Moses, okay.
Sarah, Abraham's wife, she kept
her appointment. She said, okay,
I've wanted children all my
life. Now that I'm nearly a
hundred and wrinkled as just as
wrinkled as a washboard, you
say, hey, you're going to have a
child. Do you see me laughing?
I'm laughing.
Jonah, Jonah went to preach. He
thought he was to give the
countdown over a city of Arabs.
He preached a sermon, said this
thing is coming down. And God
looked at all the repentance and
all the life in that city and
God repented. What's that? And
God repented and God spared the
city and Jonah was as mad as a
bald owl. And he made an
appointment and he went in and
he said, look, you're always
loving kindness and mercy and
forgiveness and generosity. I
knew this would happen. Do you
understand? These are Arabs.
And God listened to Jonah.
Teresa of Abelah, I'll never
find anything more moving than
her confronting God after she
begged pennies on the street to
build an orphanage and the flood
took it away. And she begged on
the street to build the
orphanage back and a fire
destroyed it. And she begged on
the street to build it back and
a strong windstorm took it down.
She made an appointment and she
went in and said, so this is how
you treat your friends. No
wonder you have so few.
And God blessed her. So instead
of just wearing out the ears and
the patience of your colleagues
in ministry with complaints and
gripes and all, isn't it with
God? Just go in, make an
appointment, talk it over.
You'll be surprised how welcome
you are in that format. I recall
reading years ago, I'm quitting.
I recall reading years ago, I
loved to read George Elliot. I'm
sorry she had to take a man's
name to get her stuff published.
Her name was Marianne, but she
published under George Elliot.
She had a little piece in which
she said, yesterday I was the
sole mourner at McCarthy's
grave. McCarthy was in our
social circle and I knew him
fairly well. He was a sensitive
and discerning man, but a rare
spirit. He was in search of the
pearl of great price in a group
of people his age who were
absolutely fascinated with fake
jewelry, which they wore with
exaggeration.
He could have been cynical, he
could have been negative, he
could have been bitter, but he
wasn't. As I remember him, he
would have given his life for
people that would not give him
the time of day.
She didn't say who McCarthy was.
My guess is McCarthy was a
minister, but I don't know.
I appreciate your attention. I
was asked by Melissa or someone
if I would answer questions, and
I have skillfully used all the
time talking, but there are a
few minutes, you said five till
they got to get out of here. Alright
does anybody want to ask a
question or say anything?
[inaudible]
Yes, they are related. I think
we're talking about language
really here. The experience is
essentially the same, but here
again it's a matter of faith as
to whether God is absent, God is
concealed, or whether or not God
is in the desert places.
My own conviction is that God is
in the desert places and I have
a problem of experiencing it or
appreciating it, and I do, I
think, with justification
sometimes complain about it. I'm
here, where are you? But in that
absence, the movement to claim
again resources that I hadn't
been using and a lot of other
extraordinary things happen, but
that's in reflection. When I get
on the other side of the river,
I look back on it and say,
refreshing swim. At the time I
thought I was drowning, but the
only real way to see the truth
of anything is by looking back
on it. It's like a trip to
Israel, you take pictures
because you're not there, you've
got upset stomach, you've lost
your luggage and they're out of
film, but when you come home and
the films are developed and you
show them to your friends, then
you're in Israel. That's the way
life is. I hate to say that, but
that's my vantage point now.
[inaudible]
Well, that's a decision you make
every day. It is a spiritual
discipline to say I don't have
to because there are some things
you will not have to because
there are some things you have
to. Not all of what you have to
do and what you want to do stand
at any distance from each other.
Sometimes they coincide, but
sometimes when I say yes to
this, I just can't. That's
important, that's great. I hope
there will be people that will
pick up that job and do it, but
I don't have to do it. I think
it is very important for the
health of ministers not always
to go to everything or be
everywhere or say everything.
Let your words come out of
silence, let your presence come
out of absence. That's a way of
saying I don't have to do this
or that, but the canons or the
criteria by which you say that
will be out of your own
convictions as to what call and
ministry are, but your point is
a good one. There are times you
will say that.
Yes, sir.
[inaudible]
Yes, that's quite true. This is
why I think the church was an
era in labeling A as sin and
translating it as akēdia. I
don't care because you're quite
right to go out and turn the
urn over to produce Les
Miserables, to have a productive
life, dragging myself as I do. I
do care. I think the church is
putting it in that category was
an era, and you're discerning
the difference there is.
[inaudible]
Yes. Yes.
[inaudible]
Of ennui, a vague disinterest,
[inaudible]
a loss of appetite, decline in
zeal. As I said at the
beginning, it's hard to define,
hard to diagnose. It lies very
close to other kinds of things
that happen to us. What
concerned me most is that it
strikes people of great
capacity, and Jim has told me
that this is the gathering of
the brightest and the best, so I
thought I ought to alert you to
something that the general
population will never
experience. One more, and I'm
one, yes.
[inaudible]
Well, thank you very much.
That's the note to end on.