Saturday, May 2, 1998

Jay Casey discovers life beyond the pulpit

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

CORNELIUS, N.C. -- Jay Casey's hands are black from dirt. His brow is soaked with sweat. His back aches from bending over. And he has never felt better.

A year after quitting the ministry to plant flowers for a living, Casey has discovered life beyond the pulpit. It's a life he is growing to love, even if making begonias come alive takes more work than making the gospel come alive.

"It's a damn lot harder than being in the ministry," said Casey, 44. "All that whining I did and other ministers did is unfounded. The real world is a lot harder than the ministry."

About all that remains of Casey's career in the pulpit is the bitterness that followed him out of church.

He quit the ministry after 18 years, hurt at not being able to land a job as senior pastor of a moderate Baptist church. He sought a dozen jobs, and a dozen times he was passed over for another candidate. One church told him he was too businesslike. The others never explained why they decided to go with someone else.

It wasn't that he no longer wanted the ministry, Casey said. He felt that the ministry didn't want him. So he resigned as associate pastor of Providence Baptist on Randolph Road, studied horticulture at Central Piedmont Community College and opened Bloom Carolina! in a warehouse in downtown Cornelius.

I shared the start of Casey's midlife crisis with readers this time last year. Today, he works seven days a week. Evenings consist of supper, The Weather Channel and bed. He lost $600 in his first year -- not bad for a new business -- and relies on his wife's BellSouth salary to support their two teen-age daughters.

Despite the lack of material rewards, though, Casey has discovered spiritual rewards to rival those found in church work.

He savors the joy of helping make the world a prettier place. "If you can't enjoy planting flowers," he said, "there's something wrong with you, my goodness."

He is excited about the challenge of building a business from the ground up -- of turning a dream into a crusade. He can barely hide his glee as he talks of landing a job planting $10,000 worth of flowers.

He is proud to comfort elderly widows by keeping up the gardens their late husbands started. If that's not ministering, nothing is.

He is happy to tote 75-pound bags of manure from his pickup to the garden. It reminds him of the wholeness of life: physical, mental and spiritual.

Gardening also has opened his eyes to see that maybe ministers don't work as hard as he used to think. Preachers have flexible hours, a fixed salary and the people's respect, Casey said. Small business owners work around the clock for unpredictable pay, and for clients who don't hesitate to point out your slightest mistake.

"I know the (minister's) phone rings at night occasionally," Casey said. "Hell, mine does, too."

Gardening has even given him a chance to appreciate in a new way the Easter story -- you often must walk through darkness to see the light. In his case, he has learned that you have to do a lot of tilling before the day lilies can bloom.

Church or flowers?

There are sides to ministry that Casey misses: Being with people at the most pivotal moments in their lives, whether it's a baptism or funeral. Teaching Bible study. Sharing fellowship with church friends.

But as we sipped coffee late one rainy afternoon and talked about church and flowers, it was obvious which part of his life Casey prefers to dwell on now.

So we talked about flowers.

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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