The Importance of Competence

When the parishioner who had the job was drafted, I, a teenager, became the part time sexton of our church in Galway village. The church was a 150-year old wooden structure with three large, coal-burning, iron, pot-belly stoves. During the week, I cleaned the church. On Sunday mornings in the winter, I opened the church three hours before the first service and fired up the stoves. I also, with great vigor, rang the single, large bell high in the church spire, letting the long rope pull me off my feet.

Since I thought of myself as working alone in God’s House, I fell into the habit of speaking aloud to God as I worked, prattling on about my seemingly endless adolescent concerns in hope of receiving guidance. God never spoke to me, but in voicing my problems, I found answers. “Perhaps,” I thought, “God doesn’t speak; perhaps he just creates realizations in your mind?” This led me to conclude I had a direct line to God, and needed no priest or institution to intercede for me.

This insight cost me my job, for I took to leaving for home just as soon as I had rung the final, call-to-service bell. One Sunday, a deacon stopped me as I was leaving for home, and said I must attend service and leave with the rest of the congregation. I made the mistake of politely pointing out to the man that I had just spent three hours with God, which was more than the arriving parishioners would spend.

They fired me and replaced me with a more overtly devote adult. Several weeks later, the church burned down. It seems the new sexton was careless when firing up the stoves.

From this experience I learned: That competence is far more important than devotion.