Each week, I carry a small journal with me, filling it with sentences, poems, piano pieces, and passing moments that stay with me and feel worth sharing.
This week I want to share one piano piece and two paragraphs.
The piano piece comes from Luke Faulkner. It’s called “A Little Rain.” It served as my background music while I wrote this past week.
Next, the first paragraph I’d like to share comes from Amma Theodora of Alexandria, a desert mother who led a monastic community of women in . . . wait for it . . . Alexandria (hence her name). In the quote below, Amma Theodora is riffing on the moral qualities needed to be a good teacher, but I think her words apply directly to pastors and church leaders as well:
“A teacher ought to be a stranger to the desire for domination, vain-glory, and pride; one should not be able to fool him by flattery, nor blind him by gifts, nor conquer him by the stomach, nor dominate him by anger; but he should be patient, gentle, and humble as far as possible; he must be tested and without partisanship, full of concern, and a lover of souls” (as quoted in Margaret Guenther’s Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction, 53).
Applying these words to pastoral ministry, here’s how I’d say it: The heart of a pastor must be to serve his people, not use them to bolster his ego or shore up his emotional wounds. Doing this well requires involved detachment.
Pastors must be fully present in their ministry context without needing ministry itself to be what sustains their sense of personal stability. They hold on to their current place of ministry loosely and release control of desired outcomes. As a result of this interior posture, unrighteous anger eludes the pastor because while he’s attuned to the people he serves, he’s not enmeshed with them. He’s relationally present, but not relationally dependent.
Finally for this week, the second paragraph that resonated with me comes from Martin Laird’s book Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation. In the quote below, Laird elaborates on some of the benefits of giving one’s life over to the regular practice of silence, solitude, and prayer:
Many people find that blood pressure decreases or stabilizes, the pulse slows down, and there is greater emotional tone. Life will continue to bring its stresses and strains, but we are more aware of how we are the cause of much of our own suffering and, in any event, can somehow let go with greater facility. We get over things more quickly. . . . There is a certain wisdom that settles into a life that does not attempt to control what everybody else ought to be thinking, saying, doing, or voting on. Wisdom, health, life, and love cannot be found in trying to control the wind, but rather in harnessing the wind in the sails of receptive engagement of the present moment (60–61).
I think all of our lives would be better if we lived in the present moment and stopped replaying the past and trying to anticipate the future. Receive each day (and every moment of each day) as a gift.
That’s all for this week, friends. Happy reading and listening.
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