Pauly’s Story

Recently, I was asked to share my story during a staff retreat for the church I am currently working for, Waterstone Church in Littleton, CO. Instead of giving my biography, I wrote a story. The following story is what I shared with the staff.

Background:
Before joining the staff at Waterstone, I had been hired occasionally to write and direct creative elements for Easter and Christmas, so I would join the programming team to facilitate creative meetings. I learned that since the Teaching Pastor’s name was also Paul, they had begun distinguishing between us by calling me “Creative Paul.” I was flattered but didn’t like the implication that Paul Joslin was not creative (who is, BTW, remarkably creative). When I joined the staff, I shared my nickname, “Pauly,” with them to avoid confusion. So this is the origin story of Waterstone-Pauly.

I was asked to tell you who “Pauly” is. For the purpose of connection. When I’m asked to share my story, It’s clear that we have reached the “staff retreat” stage of our relationship. 

In the past, this is when I’ve done my level best to weave a story of myself that equally reveals and hides myself in the mix I feel most comfortable about, but this time, I’d like to try something different. 

Before, I’ve tried to remember my story and give you an overview of my history. It’s true that you might learn something interesting about me that way. But instead, I’ve decided to show you what I think is one of the truest parts of me. The part that creates.

So I’ve written it… like a speech… A love letter… An intervention… A monologue… A poem. 1735 words 16.333 minutes

Storytelling is editing.

Because I can’t tell you everything ( I don’t even know everything in my story ), I’ve picked a story to tell, and every story hides as much as it reveals. So you’re likely only going to get a sliver of me. You might remember only one thing from everything I say. That’s OK. Good even… that is good. The rest will come out by accident. 

So here is a little summary of me first: 

I’ve always been trying to make art.
I’ve always been thinking about God. I’m always talking about God.
I’m obsessed with beauty.
I’m allergic to certainty.

Two ideas attract me most: leadership and art.

Christianity is the raw material from which I create art.

My love for people inspires my passion for leadership.

I’ve been a husband for 22 years, A dad for 18. Professionally, I’ve completed about 9,000 hours as musician, actor, writer, director, teacher and youth pastor, site pastor, and worship pastor. 

I co-wrote a book in 2012 and still haven’t finished my 2nd book. 

I’ve also delivered packages for UPS, worked in a costume store, sorted groceries in an Amazon warehouse, and drove strangers to the airport for Lyft. 

Pauly is Paul, and yet Pauly is a variation on Paul that I’m creating. I’ve never been “Waterstone-Pauly,” so Pauly is taking it slow. I’m not worried about putting on different variations of myself. I’ve had a lot of practice. I’m getting better at detecting the real me.

Names are vital to me. And from what I’ve experienced and learned, they are vital to God, who is not shy about changing them.

When God changes a person’s role in the community, They’re often given a new name. Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Isreal, Naomi-Mara ( a name she gave herself). Eunuchs get names better than sons and daughters, according to Isaiah 56. Simon becomes Peter… And me. 

But whether Saul, Paul, or Pauly, the same thorn is wedged in my flesh along with the arrogance of thinking I could be all things to all people. 

So, in order to understand Pauly, you’ve got to know about his mother. Since that is, after all, where he came from. 

Paul’s mother, As in Paul William Leavitt’s mother, is a woman named Maria Carmenza Hoyos, but she is not who I’m talking about today.

Pauly’s mother is The Church, which is why we are siblings. However, since our family is big and we each experienced our mother at different times, our experience of her can be pretty different. 

I’m just telling you this because I don’t want to offend you by saying things about your mom that’ve experienced. I’m talking about my mother.

“My mother is a whore,” Saint Augustine told me years ago… At least, someone said Augustine told me… They heard it from their cousin… who heard it from their grandfather… who was there and saw her… I think. 

… and I believed him.

Because I saw the way she acts… 

I believed him even though I didn’t know what sex was or how desperate, hungry, and worthless she might have been to decide to sell her body… 

I believed without wondering what Augustine knew of whores and mothers.

But my mother. 

My mother. 

She either loved too much and smothered me with affection or demanded devotion and obedience. 

She put me and her other sons on pedestals while her daughters were ignored —running around cleaning up messes, carrying towels worrying if she was okay. 

She fed me with her body and shed for me her blood. 

I wouldn’t be alive if not for her. 

She made my house a home and my people a family.

I loved my mother. And I hated to see her cry. 

So, I vowed to make her proud of me. 

I wouldn’t want too much, 

think too much 

Feel too much 

I would become smaller, and I wouldn’t sin anymore! 

I’d never break her heart again! 

If I succeeded for long enough, who knows, maybe my father would notice and take me with him when he came back to get his things…

… But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself, and she was impossible to please. 

She also seemed like she was always trying to please someone too… 

Maybe afraid they might leave for good instead of just going to the store for milk and honey.

So my mother never wanted me to leave. She gave me a village and a tribe. She gave me belonging. A double-edged sword like my father’s words slicing between my joints and marrow. Cutting without and within. My soul and my spirit. 

She loved to hear me sing the family songs. 

And I loved our family songs too…

“Be of sin the double cure 

  Cleanse me from it’s guilt and power”

I’d perform for all the family functions, Sunday dinners, vacations, weddings, funerals, reunions, and pep rallies. 

That’s when all the old stories would come out. Legends of our family’s origins. 

Our homeland and exile. 

Even though it had all been written down in painstaking detail, 

It has always been passed around by hand and mouth, like manna on the dinner table. 

Relatives would tell me about my father… His face I would only see in my siblings but whose spirit haunts me every day. 

The stories made me feel special. Made me feel right. 

I heard the stories so often that I started telling them, and I got good at telling them, too…. 

But then I started including my observations about the stories, maybe a bit here and there about what I thought was especially beautiful or ugly… 

And I got tired of hiding the family secrets ( every family has secrets ) that made us look bad… 

I shared my anger, sadness, humor, and love, and this doesn’t serve the purposes of good family propaganda. 

As you can imagine, this caused fights with my mother. We’d need to have what she called “come to Jesus” talks a lot, but more often, I’d just get the cold shoulder, and I would blow up or silently leave.

I was drawn to my other siblings, who were also tired of carrying the family’s anxiety. They were letting go of the hope of ever seeing Dad again. They moved on. Focusing more on how to find peace with the people they have here in the time they had left. 

To be honest, I envy them and even pretend to join them from time to time, but it’s not in me… 

No matter how absurd it gets, I think I’ll always have a room in my heart for holy ghosts and Jesus. 

So this is Pauly, the “strong-willed.” The faithful opposition. 

Still calling my mom every week, taking her shopping and setting the table for company… and singing the family songs.

But It’s different than before. 

I can leave now and go to my own place too. When I return, I can bring my new self to the old forms. 

Which is what I think she really wants for me. 

It’s because she really does love me that she wants me to stay all the time. She doesn’t really want to force me. 

She knows I have to go to grow up so we can continue to have a relationship. 

She wants me to be her husband’s son. The one who isn’t totally accepted anymore in his hometown anymore; spends more time on the road but also never leaves home.  

And this is my gift to her, too. 

I’ve held her too much in my eyes on a pedestal. 

I have kept her trapped under my gaze of contempt when she stubbornly clings to her addictions and idols. 

Adding a little distance between us helps me to see her beauty again and allows me to let go of my temptation to control her.

Ilia Delio, in her book "The Unbearable Wholeness of Being” writes, 

“As divine love empties itself into the other, it empowers the other by withdrawing its own power and allowing the other to flourish as other. One can draw an analogy with a parent's love for a child. The parent's love is so great that all that the parent has is given in love. But the very gift of the parent's love is in the withdrawal of control; the parent withdraws so that the child may grow into his or her own unique creation. The greater the love, the greater the gift of freedom to the beloved.”

I don’t think the church is a whore anymore.

But she is still my mother… 

And I want her to be happy. 

Being a parent myself, I see that I parent with everything I have received as a child. It is just how I’ve been shaped, but I don’t have to be my parent or stay committed to old loyalties or family stories. I can acknowledge how things have changed. 

How I have changed. 

I can listen without fear to my rabbi-brother Jesus, who is pushing me to keep moving forward. 

Keep going with him into the unknown. 

He keeps reminding Paul of the old versions of himself he was crucified to. 

Versions of himself that were true and real but have died and now need to be let go.

He has been making a mother out of me the whole time. Showing me how to give my body, give my blood and tears. Give my love and the family stories I love, secrets and all.