Last week I heard someone ask the question, “How am I supposed to think about this?” That’s a good question. Often we’re asked about what we think about something, but perhaps a more helpful question is “How are you thinking about this?” There are more ways of thinking than we can imagine (imaginative thinking being one of those ways).
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The “new middle age” is said to now start at 65. That’s good news for those of us this side of 50. It can portend that the best is yet to be. S. M. Hutchins, in Touchstone (June 2008) writes:
I have a hard time not laughing at 25-year-olds who are under the impression that they know enough to have become disillusioned and cynical—who mope around quoting Sartisms to whomever is unfortunate enough to be in listening range. This sort of person has been the butt of a good amount of humor over the years, and rightly so.
It doesn’t take much reflection, however, to see that the 80-year-old who thinks age gives him the right to the same attitude is in exactlyi the same boat.
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We all have that painful memory of a moment when our emotions got the better of us during a moment of reactivity. As soon as we said those words we regretted them, or, if not immediately, then eventually, as the full brunt of the consequences of impulsivity and lack of self control came around to pay us back. Experience is a good teacher and along the way we may carry within us a mental list of things we should never say in the presence of certain others.
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A few weeks ago, during a visit to a local church, a deacon at that church cornered me and asked me one of those questions you know immediately is “loaded.†Loaded questions are tricky to respond to honestly given that you never know what local landmine you may be stepping on. One vague or misspoken reference and you may find yourself immediately recruited as an endorser of one or several anxious camps in an ideological battlefield you know nothing about.
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Preparation for Christmas means anticipation, which is, of course, the spirit of Advent. Right around this time I start to get all sorts of kitsch e-mails about Christmas. You know them, you probably see them every year: animated “Christmas cards” with music, Santa jokes, lists of fractured Christmas hymns titles, etc. Sometimes there’s so much of it that at one point my response is ho-hum and bah-humbug. But it’s early in the season and they’re just starting to come in. My sister sent me this version of “fractured hymn titles,” and it gave me a chuckle. We haven’t got enough blog entries under the “humor” category, and that’s a shame. So, here, in jolly anticipation, are “Christmas Carols for the Psychologically Challenged”:
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What would ministry be without a good joke from time to time? I forgot where I found this one, but I thought it was pretty good. I hope it will give you a chuckle for the day.
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Despite the serious and lofty education most of us clergy receive in seminary (theology, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, hermeneutics, philosophy, etc.) ministry has, decidedly, a pragmatic skills component to it. As one person put it, you have to “know stuff†(and she wasn’t referring to “book learnin’â€). Pity the congregational minister who doesn’t develop skills to grease the rails of ministry in the real world. To quote Napoleon Dynamite, “You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.â€
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I often tell people that I’ve never had a bad job, and I can say that honestly. I even enjoyed my years in parish ministry, due in great part to having landed in a great congregation. Although pastoral ministry remains one of the most unique and challenging jobs today (and according to the National Opinion Research Center it is a job that reports a higher level of satisfaction than more “prestigious†careers), like most any job is has its plusses and minuses.
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