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Category Archives: Life
A Must Read for Priests…
As a person who served two toxic Baptist parishes and two good Orthodox churches I found this article compelling. Those two toxic parishes have definitely affected my own willingness to take on a parish full-time. They lurk in the back of my mind every time I think about stepping out and asking for an assignment.
A sample…
They are called “clergy killers” — congregations where a small group of members are so disruptive that no pastor is able to maintain spiritual leadership for long.
And yet ministers often endure the stresses of these dysfunctional relationships for months, or even years, before eventually being forced out or giving up.
Adding to the strain is the process, which is often shrouded in secrecy. No one — from denominational officials to church members to the clerics themselves — wants to acknowledge the failure of a relationship designed to be a sign to the world of mutual love and support.
But new research is providing insights into just how widespread — and damaging — these forced terminations can be to clergy.
An online study published in the March issue of the Review of Religious Research found 28 percent of ministers said they had at one time been forced to leave their jobs due to personal attacks and criticism from a small faction of their congregations.
The researchers from Texas Tech University and Virginia Tech University also found that the clergy who had been forced out were more likely to report lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression, stress and physical health problems.
It’s True…
God loves you no matter who you are and what you’ve done.
But why?
God’s love has purpose. The purpose is to draw us up and out of wherever we are, even if that appears to be a good place, and draw us to closer to that which is truly good, a living and vital union with our Creator.
That might entail some difficulty, some transformation and change on our part. We, though we are created in God’s image, still have been made sick by sin and death. Our judgement is not always true. Our insight is not always keen. Our chosen paths, even the pleasurable ones, are not always right.
It is ever so much easier to say “God loves me just as I am” because there is a fragment of truth in that and that fragment can help us keep up the charade while avoiding the possibility of our little worlds being upset. God loves us as we are but the end of that love is not affirming our sicknesses and struggles but rather to work for our healing, our betterment, and perhaps, one day, shine in his uncreated light. Anything less sells both God’s love and ourselves short.
Like this:
We’re Taking a Car…
down to Nashville this next week, the plane is just too much and sometimes its good to take some time on the road.
You see things in a different way along the road. Things are as they are, not just little squares of land or city lights 30,000 feet below. You realize that wherever you go is home to someone, the place where they are making their lives. In a certain way you get to be their guest and even if its just for a passing moment you share what they see every day.
Wecause they’re not taking the fast road either. We’ll miss Chicago, on purpose, and head down the middle of Illinois and through the south of the state. I lived in Illinois for two years but never left Chicago and I’m really interested in seeing what life is like in the real world.
Somewhere along the line we’ll make a big left turn and head towards Nashville, Murfreesboro, to be exact. It’s a business trip for one of us but for me its all about the ride. I plan on driving to Mississippi and Alabama just because they’re there and I have a friend I’d like to see if time works out. Or maybe I’ll cancel it all and just lay around the hotel. I’ll make up my mind when I get there.
That’s why, after all, you take a car, make the ride, and live on your own schedule. That and you won’t be treated by your own government like a potential terrorist. Oh, and don’t forget the sheer pleasure of being able to roll down your window.
Like this:
Pascha…
When I Get Rich…
Whenever…
you notice a politician, a preacher, the media, a salesperson, a celebrity, anyone in fact, start shouting about a crisis that requires immediate and drastic action do just three things.
Step back.
Take a breath.
Then ask, who gets something out of this? If you do you’ll find that nine times out of ten the whole thing is manufactured and somebody is making money, gaining power and influence, or somehow getting a “taste” from your panic; if you let them.
Example. What happened in Florida with Trayvon Martin is a tragedy no matter how the situation pans out. Notice, though, that a whole industry has sprung up out of nowhere, or so it seems, to get TV time, influence, even to sell products all based on an emotional response to an investigation not yet completed. The dead young man has almost become an afterthought, a tool in a larger campaign for whatever the people agitating about this feel they need.
This kind of thing, sadly, happens all the time, across the political and social spectrum, and sometimes it seems the only way people try to get our attention these days. Just follow the money, follow the power, follow the flow chart to see who gets what out of the panic and you’ll gain wisdom. You’ll be able to separate truth from fiction, make solid decisions in the face of loose emotions, and know how to direct your energies towards good things.
Like this:
He was an older man…
slim in build with a kind face. I had never met him before, perhaps I will some day, but his face was on a picture in front of the cross and between the candied wheat and sweet breads on the table.
He was gone from us for now and we were praying for him 40 days after his death. We Orthodox pray even for those who are departed because in a very special way they’re still with us and we are with them. The Church, the life of Christ, it’s all bigger than even a cemetery. And as I was praying I was thinking.
This is the kind of person my government and culture tells me I need to be careful for, the kind of person who, with his rumpled suit and head gear, would be stared at in the airport. Amazing how the forces around us help us decide who people may be.
Yet in truth he was just a grandpa, a father, and man who lived in the area of Nazareth. He was a soul, too, a being made in the image of God. A person with children and a house and friends and maybe some kind of hobby when the work was done. His family was just a few rows back from where we were praying, the kind of folks you’d like to have next door.
Jesus tells us to “judge not lest we be judged…” and more than a few people trying to justify their own behavior fling that verse (perhaps the only one they know from the Scriptures) into Christian faces. There’s more to it, though, than that.
I think it’s about having wisdom, the kind of wisdom that looks below the surface and tries to make sense of the other not just from the superficial but from the true heart and soul. It’s also about withholding a final opinion on anyone based solely on how they immediately present themselves to us. It’s the knowledge that we are all fallible humans in a process called life.
The image may say “Man from Palestine wearing Arab clothing” with all that my culture tells me about what that means. The truth is he’s grandpa Shafik from Nazareth and one day I hope to meet him in heaven.
Lord always give me the eyes to see things this way.
I Prefer…
the sounds of birds to TV,
the sounds of cars passing by in the night as well.
Distant trains,
moving water,
woodpeckers rapping,
and the sound of nothing in particular is just fine.
Singing in the kitchen,
the hum of a basement furnace,
wind in the trees,
anything not plugged in to something.
It’s all better than TV,
even the TV I like,
and the only ads are for the
handiwork of God.
Like this:
It’s Been Grey and Raining…
here in Minnesota the past week. The clouds have prevailed this week and there’s even a bit of fog floating down the street in front of my house.
Around here whenever it rains or snows, even when its a deluge, we always seem to say “We could use the moisture.” Part of it, I think, is that Scandinavian stoicism that has bled into the larger culture. Part of it, too, is that many of us are one, maybe two, generations off the farm. We still thinking like farmers even when we live in the suburbs. We must have space. We must have green living things around us. We still look to the sky with knowing eyes to determine the weather.
It’s the price we pay, I suppose, for living on this land. There is a harshness to it, extremes of one sort or another. Yet there is a life to be made if you know how to do it and have the will to flow with the changes. The whole world around you is always vivid with color. White as white can be in winter. Green that Saint Patrick would envy in spring and summer. Fall is when everything explodes in colors from yellow to brown. If you learn how to live in this place you can be alive in ways that are never possible stacked on top of each other in a far away eastern big city.
So for now we wait. We could use some sun. We would prefer it if you actually got our honest response. Until it comes, though, we can still use the moisture.
