Terrapin Station

Support your local clergyperson

Most of you know I'm on the board of RevGalBlogPals, a non-profit that started as a blog-ring. The ring grew out of a group of bloggers who had gotten together on the internet in the early 2000's, and most of them were women in or headed for ordained ministry.

I'm not in or headed for that. But I love these folks and what they talk about, and I count some of them as my best friends...even if we have never met. You can read more about the diversity of the group here.  I've spent a lot of time in the last several years supporting clergy, and also hearing about some of the things that make their calls difficult, painful, draining. 

In discerning that I was NOT called to ordained ministry, I started saying, "I'm called to be a faithful and involved layperson, and to support my own clergy and other clergy as much as I can."

What does that really mean, to support clergy? Do they need special support?

Today there's a heartbreaking story online about a pastor who ended his life by suicide. I have no idea what happened with that person and his congregation. But, for whatever it's worth, I present here my promises to the clergy at my own parish:

1. If I have a question for or a problem with you, I will take it directly to you. I might run it by my spiritual director, but no one in my own congregation. 

2. I won't hear or participate in gossip or complaining about you. If I am approached with that sort of thing, I will always say, "you know, we don't really know the whole story on that, and I don't think our talking about it will help."

3. If someone comes to me with a personal complaint about you, I'm going to tell them to talk with you directly. 

4. I will not expect you to be perfect, nor to be the Beloved Former Pastor (or even to be like him/her).

5. I will not expect you to be my best friend, or to confide in me about anyone else at this church.

6. I will remember that you have a personal life and it's not all about this place. I will support your setting healthy boundaries. 

7. I will always be praying for you, for your work in our parish and for things I know nothing about. 

8. This is my church, and that of the others in the congregation. I am, we are, responsible for its growth, support, and success. You will leave us eventually, and that is right and proper. Even if I don't love everything about a particular clergyperson, I'm not huffing off mad. This is my church, my community, my spiritual home. 

I hasten to add that I have taken several Safe Church trainings, and I know that there are some times to speak up...to a vestry member, diocesan official, etc. But those times are the exceptions.  

We tend to think of clergy as larger than life, and we also often ascribe our own issues to them. In the Episcopal church, where clergy are often referred to as "Father X" and "Mother X," that is especially tricky. I found recently that when my rector requested something of me as an altar server, I was coming back crisply with, "Yes, sir!" Um, really? Just because the way he addresses me reminds me of my dad in those situations does not mean that I have to respond as if I am nine years old. (I'm working on that.) "Pastor" might be an easier honorific, but we don't use that term. 

I personally address clergy by their first names unless I am speaking to or in front of youth, where I use those titles as a courtesy. I need to remember that my clergy are people...people who have joys and sorrows and foibles and who serve alongside me, with special obligations and responsibilities. 

What do you think? How do you support your clergy? 

 

Friday Five: Back to School

Monica posts these five questions about school.

1. What was your favorite thing about school? The things I was good at, I was REALLY Good at. Those were: English. I loved English.
2. Who was your most memorable teacher? Well, obviously, Mr. Dixon, our choir director in high school. 
3. With whom did you sit at lunch? Chris and Katherine and ? I can't remember. In elementary school, Anna, Allison...
4. What is/was your favorite school supply? Notebooks. Just think of the possibilities!
5. What do you think “kids these days” are missing out on? Writing and passing NOTES. :) 

How can the Truth set us free if we can't find it?

Have you seen the recent article about the New Jersey man whose wife and girlfriend each published an obituary for him? They ran side by side in the local paper. You can read about it at this link. 

It's clear that Leroy Black was greatly loved by a lot of people and that they had different truths and different stories they want (and need) to tell about that. I'm praying for those people, who lost a man just four years older than me to lung cancer. 

The story particularly struck me because in my new retirement I've been spending time on Ancestry.com, and it's absolutely stunning how much is there now, compared to about five years ago, especially in terms of records and photos. I found a picture of my maternal great-grandfather. This is Charles Culbreath, 1871 - 1943. He has a very look of my grandmother in his eyes and mouth. 

  

I also found a Word document uploaded by someone (perhaps a relative of mine) that included an undated story from the Sumter County (FL) Times about his service on the Board of County Commissioners:

He was married in this county (few words are not legible) to Hattie Barren and they have made a comfortable and happy home about halfway between Sumterville and Bushnell. Charlie is a factor in politics in Sumter County, he never hesitates to roll up his sleeves and work with vim for whatever cause he believes to be right. 

In the same document, his obituary is reproduced, which reads in part: 

Due to the fact that he has lived in this county for nearly 60 years, he was known by many people and had many friends in all sections of this county and over the state.

Mr. Culbreath will be greatly missed by his many friends, as he was always very lively and had a word for every one. He was a kind and big hearted man, always ready to do anything, anytime or a friend in need.

The obituary goes on to list his surviving widow and six grown children, including my grandmother, and the entry finishes: "Our sympathy is extended to the bereaved family in their hour of sorrow."

Sounds standard. But when I read it, I gasped because: Charles Culbreath did not live with his family at the time of his death, and I don't think any of them were sorry for his passing. His wife had put him out many years before. My grandmother despised him. She hadn't seen him for years when he died, and she didn't want to go to his funeral or have anything to do with it; my grandfather insisted. My grandmother would never talk about it, but it's obvious that some very bad things happened to her in association with the man. She was a deeply scarred person.

I called my grandmother "Meme." She loved family history and made huge scrapbooks for her daughters with copies of family records. Her father is listed and pictured, as a fact. You would not know, if you looked at the scrapbook, that things were any different from the normal in that family, just as you would not know it from the obituary. 

*

And this is the story that I know about it, which I know from my mother, who is now 84. She knows a different version of this story, and so did my grandmother and her siblings, and so did Charles. 

It points out to me how the truth is an absolute, but the stories we tell and hear and remember about it vary infinitely because we all own some part of it: our own truth. 

In a world that (it seems to me) has clearly gone mad, where calling someone "evil" or "Lucifer" or worse has become part of daily national discourse, how can we discern the truth? The media has its own story to tell, and its own purposes for telling it so. An infinity of internet sources contribute to the confusion: "if I read it, it must be true." 

I don't know the answer. I don't. I wish I did.