Pastor’s Corner: Disappointment

July 28, 2021

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. During the duel between Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) and the masked Westley (Cary Elwes), Inigo asks his mysterious opponent for his name. “I must know,” he says. Westley replies, “Get used to disappointment.”

Inigo shrugs and, with a breathless “OK,” renews the duel.

“Get used to disappointment.” “OK.”

In the last two weeks, it has become sadly clear that the pandemic has not ended for us in Hawai’i. As I write this, the new daily case count on this island is higher than it’s ever been, even in the terrible days the disease swept through the Yukio Okutsu Veterans’ Home, even when it infected inmates and staff at the Hilo Community Correctional Center.

As a result, I arrived at Sunday’s meeting of the Board of Deacons prepared to argue against gathering for worship. I did not have to. Board members had seen these numbers and reached the same conclusion. They’d heard from members and worshipers. They decided that we will wait for a safer day.

The Deacons, our members, our worshipers, and myself will have to get used to disappointment.

Disappointment is hardly new to any of us. From the very first birthday when we didn’t receive the cherished pony (why is it always a pony?) to the romantic trials of adolescence to the creeping careers of adulthood to the fragile health which may come to stay, we have had to “get used to disappointment.” We have, and we haven’t liked it. Nothing ever stops us from feeling it.

We do get more accustomed to sighing, “OK,” and getting on with it.

Unlike a movie, however, we are held in God’s hands in success and in disappointment. God is with us whether we gather for worship in a sanctuary or around a screen. God is with us so that we can be more than just, “OK.”

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

The image is of costumes from the film The Princess Bride displayed at Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic, Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Seattle. From left to right: Inigo Montoya costume, Buttercup wedding gown and Dread Pirate Roberts costume. Photo by Theresa Arzadon-Labajo – IMG_2051, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38107771.