Like siblings, we sisters and brothers in Christ can be each other’s best friends or worst, most wretched enemies.
As I’ve experienced it in the past almost-twenty years (seminary plus fifteen years in parish ministry), the hurts ministers deal out to each other aren’t so much the rough-and-tumble turf wars (fighting for our slice of the denominational ideological pie or such other ultimately petty skirmishes) but the deeper, more spiritual disappointments of shallowness and emotional absence. You know how this feels: the pro forma clergy gatherings with carefully non-revealing check-ins, polite chat over a glass of punch in the robing room at the installation when you’re dying for some real connection, frustratingly opaque exchanges with a mentor who is checking her text messages while ostensibly doing theological reflection with you.
The phone calls that stop coming after you land a great job and your closest friend from seminary doesn’t.
The quiet sense of condemnation you feel when your seasonal depression or chemotherapy or a divorce render you unable to serve on the retreat committee and you realize that ministers aren’t nearly the supportive, forgiving people they preach that others should be.
The phone calls that don’t come after you break down in tears at the chapter gathering, confessing your loneliness, or your affair with a parishioner, or your financial anxiety, or your kid’s drug addiction.
The only way to get a trusted colleague is to be one yourself, and the only way to be a trusted colleague is to find some colleagues with whom you can absolutely BE yourself. No fake smiles. No unnecessary pieties. Just your true, most real, most honest and unedited self. The one with the politically incorrect opinions or the need for silent, gentle companionship. The one that loves tackle football and occasionally loudly loses its temper. The one that really likes to sit curled on the couch and eat Fritos with mustard while watching Bette Davis movies. The one who is really scared of presiding over the Eucharist and needs to practice with a supportive friend who won’t laugh or be overly critical. The one who gets choked up and cries every time it prays. The one that is grumpy in the morning but sharp as a tack at 2:00 AM and wants someone to talk to. The one who, some days, just can’t believe in God anymore. The one who, some days, just can’t believe in humanity any more and who wants to be able to fantasize out loud about moving to an island with nothing but monkeys on it.
You’ve got to have your team, dear and reverend friends. They have to be the ones who know how stupid you can be, how scared you can be, how mistaken you can be, how lazy you can be, how angry you can be, how obsessive you can be, how faithful you can be, and what a fraud you can be. And they have to be the ones who love and support you in all those conditions, and who help you get back up every morning and get on the road of ministry once again. These are people you can tell anything to — and should receive your regular confession, which is good for all our souls. These are the comrades who will help you when you can’t figure out the next right thing to do, and they’ll offer you a ride there.
These relationships can’t be forced or coerced by geographic boundaries or denominational affiliations, although regional or community connections can certainly introduce us to our most special clergy buds. The only thing that can make this kind of deep spiritual friendship happen is grace, and the same kind of spark and chemistry that occurs between those who fall in love.
I urge you, in the name of the One who loves you and called you to the work of ministry, to reach out and take a chance in cultivating this kind of intimacy with colleagues if you have not yet dared to do so. The saddest failures I have seen in ministry always go hand in hand with isolation, the pressures of having to maintain an unrealistically perfect ministerial persona in all times and situations of life, and absence of regular, on-going time spent with trusted colleagues.
I talk to or e-mail with colleagues every day of my working life. Wouldn’t it be cool if we all preached at some point this year about our relationships with brothers and sisters in ministry and what they mean to us, to our health, our peace and our joy? I bet our congregations would really like to hear about it. I bet most of them have no idea how much we rely on each other and how much we need each other.
This is a touching message. It gives me hope and courage as I embark (soon) on this journey of being a newly ordained person who will need and want these kinds of relationships. I love reading your stuff, thanks for keeping up with your blog!
This is so gut-wrenchingly true. Every word of it. I’ve been blessed to have a few of the kind of colleagues you’re talking about here, and also deeply hurt when others didn’t quite turn out to be the friends I was hoping for. There is some painful sorting or shifting or restructuring or whatever you want to call it that definitely goes on after seminary. I’m sure that goes on at other points over the years of ministry too.
Thank you so much for expressing this. I’ve recently come through a season where I had to ask myself if I have been ministering to my co-laborers as lovingly as I should. Sometimes it’s easy to forget our humanity-and that’s where the most beautiful ministry takes place.
Thank you for this truth-telling piece! I am lucky to stay connected with my roommate from seminary even 10 years later. We live many miles apart but we schedule regular phone dates and I love that time to connect. She is one of the few who knows all of my struggles (in life, in marriage, in ministry…) I cherish that friendship.
Last year, a colleague moved into the area. We had loads of mutual friends but had never met. So we decided to correct that. Within minutes of meeting a bond was evident. My husband says he can’t get over how alike we are – it’s lovely to have someone nearby to have some of those deep conversations that only another in ministry can understand. We both have declared that this is a friendship for life.
And my other closest ministry colleague – well I married him. He was and is a keeper 🙂
During my first year of seminary I asked all professors and ministers, “What do you now know about ministry that you wish you had known when you began?” – “Tend your colleagial friendships!” was the resounding common answer…I paid attention.
I live in a rural community and serve a liberal beacon of a congregation. Monthly meetings with my local clergy association are downright painful; they never lose a chance to remind me that my services are “secular” (meaning non-Christian); interesting, as not a single one of them has ever attended a UU service (although 2 came to the interfaith Thanksgiving service hosted in our Congregation, and one has attended a child dedication service — and I’ve received appreciative comments about the depth and spirituality of these services).
The local Methodist ministers (one serving a congregation, one serving a college, both women) are becoming friends of mine, and I surely need them — it is lonely here for a UU minister. I also have the blessing of weekly and monthly calls with beloved friends who are UU ministers…we live hours away from with another but are fully present to each other during our phone calls — we’ve made a commitment to have these weekly calls as a spiritual practice for healthy ministry…I would be lost without them…I am a better minister because of them.
Amen.
May I suggest Tending to the Holy, http://www.amazon.com/Tending-Holy-Practice-Presence-Ministry/dp/1566993911, as a resource. I read this a couple of years ago and then asked three of my colleagues to form a group together. It has been such a saving grace for me and my ministry as I can be authentic in my sharing.
Blessing on your ministry, Catherine
Your timing was brilliant, as we had our clergy colleague group just a couple of days ago. It is our safe place to say what we need to say, be affirmed and challenged, cry and guffaw. It’s a place where we are present to each other and the hard work that we do every day. I could not survive without it…
As always Dear PB, you speak only the truth. Three years ago I was invited to a Progressive Clergy group to plan the Pride Worship service. We are represented by many denominations and through that time some of our colleagues have gone and new ones have come. It has become a sacred place of sharing and we feel open to share our hurt, and our joy. We cry with each other, we laugh with each other, we support each other.
It is the only place where I feel truly supported by colleagues of my own and other denominations. There are no judges, only cheerleaders and although our theologies may differ, our love of God and of each other remains.
It is one of the very few meetings that are in pen in my day planner. I honour that commitment every month and give thanks every day for that group.
Thank you for shining a light on something that often goes unsaid.
I used to live with a roommate and noticed that she got a lot of hand addressed letters in the mail. I remarked on this and she said that she had to send out twice as many letters to get the letters she received.
I’m so fortunate to have several colleagues–most from seminary–with whom I can share EVERY thing. I would be lost without them. Also, we have a small lectionary group in our area, which is achingly rural, who meet regularly. It’s the most important part of my ministry at times, and I’m fortunate my congregants (mostly) support it.
Bless you, Peacebang. I am all too familiar with that pain, and also blessed with a few brothers and sisters in Christ who continue to teach me about acceptance, honesty and love. Thank you for the encouragement to appreciate them and tend to them well.
Beautiful. Thank you.
And while it’s especially good advice for those in the often-isolating profession of ministry, it’s also advice that almost everyone could stand to hear. Just replace “colleague” with “friend”.