|
|
||
|
Consider the Lilies Vacation. We had stopped in a beautiful area on Tioga Pass in Yosemite. Granite peaks. A lake. Meadows. I noticed a young woman bent low to the ground. She was holding up a cell phone to a wildflower. I knew this was California. I’ve known people who talked to plants. However, phoning them seemed excessive even for California. Of course, eventually I realized that what she was actually doing was using her cell phone as a camera. It was, though, an image that seemed emblematic. Jesus said, “Consider the lilies.” Does cell-phoning them qualify? I will admit to not liking cell phones. It irritates me when people loudly carry on conversations in public places with an invisible person (didn’t we used to consider that a sign of insanity?). It irritates me even more when the “invisible person”---as I observed just the other day---turns out to be just two aisles away. There are levels of rudeness. A certain level of devaluation as a person occurs when others avert their eyes from you. The descent into invisibility, however, reaches new levels when cell phone conversations in public places create alternative universes where you don’t even exist. But that is not the only reason I dislike cell phones. I suspect that mobile phones and the sense they provide of being always “in touch” has contributed significantly to the stress of contemporary life. Their ability to interrupt at any moment instills a sense of urgency to even the most ordinary of matters. Not long ago I attended a meeting where a judicatory official was talking with a group of pastors about the state of the church. Though the various topics that were discussed were perhaps slightly different than what they may have been in a similar setting 10 or even 20 years ago, they seemed in many ways merely different facets of subjects that had been around for years. The one thing that was remarkably different and that struck me as marking a significant ecclesiastical change, at least among clergy, was that during this discussion, no fewer than five different pastors at one time or another got up to leave to answer their phones, beginning their conversation on the way out. I could not have imagined anything like that happening even four or five years ago. Cellphones have transformed pastors into such busy and important people! Which leads me back to why the image of photographing a flower with a cell phone seemed emblematic. There is certainly nothing wrong or unusual about taking pictures. (I will admit to also taking pictures of wildflowers, some of which are on this page---though I used a more traditional camera). A cell phone’s ability not only to take a picture but also to immediately transmit it to others for viewing is an awesome capability. But while our abilities to look, examine, observe, and communicate have grown exponentially, the corresponding ability to “consider”, to reflect on, understand, and derive meaning from has lagged far behind. Americans are allotted fewer vacation days (an average of 14 days) than any of the other industrialized countries. Ironically, Americans don’t even take all of those, leaving on average four vacation days unused. Clergy are no different. Only 61% use all of the vacation time that they are given. And you know the reason: vacations are too much work. It takes too much planning before and too much catch up after to make it worth while. So, in America, the home of fast food, we’ve also invented the fast vacation. Starbucks and similar franchises have transformed the coffee break into the coffee jolt. While the “lunch hour” for the average worker has shrunk to an average of only 31 minutes, the average American worker compensates by engaging in “goofing off” for just over two hours a day. And while clergy boast of the sixty and seventy hour weeks, one wonders how much of that time is spent “spacing out”, surfing the net, or simply rearranging the items on our desk. Not all of that is bad. It is a reasonable adaptation to a stress-filled world. It would be a mistake, however, to believe that a few minutes escape here and there can substitute for the longer periods of time needed for reflection. Some things to think about:
Finding Your Congregation’s Identity---
Much like people, congregations have individual identities. If you were to think of your congregation as a person, what would that person be like? Sometimes congregations live with an identity of what the were formerly like (and feel like they are failing because they can no longer live up to it). Others try to emulate other congregations they know about (and again feel like a failure since the “new” things they have tried don’t seem to work for them). But God brings into being different kinds of congregations just as he creates individuals with different gifts. Statistics, mission statement, and community studies all help a congregation to understand its identity, but being able to picture themselves as a unique person of God’s creation helps people to visualize and imagine the range of options that are open to them. If you are interested in leading your congregation in a process that helps them to a clearer understanding of their identity and focuses on their strengths and uniqueness, give me a call. Pastoral Care Specialist Class A Pastoral Care Specialist Class offering training in pastoral care skills will be held in Kearney beginning in September. The class will meet once a month for two years over a two-year period. If you are interested or would like additional information, please contact me as soon as possible. Quote
Lynn Baab “Stopping: the Gift of the Sabbath” Congregations Summer 2005
Help us promote the many services provided to families across the state of Nebraska by encouraging your congregation’s support of Lutherans Family Walk on Sunday, August 27. Clicking on the logo for Lutheran Families Walk at the LFS website, www.lfsneb.org, will provide you with all the information you need. If you would like to pledge your support directly to Partners in Caring, go to www.lfs.kintera.org/walk/Kruger.
Sometimes it’s possible to be very busy and still not get anything done. It even has a diagnosis: AAADD - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it goes..... “I decide to wash the car, start toward the garage and notice the mail on the table. OK, I'm going to wash the car... BUT FIRST I'm going to go through the mail. Lay car keys down on desk. After discarding the junk mail, I notice the trash can is full. OK, I'll just put the bills on my desk.... BUT FIRST I'll take the trash out, but since I'm going to be near the mailbox, I'll address a few bills.... Yes, Now where is the checkbook? Oops... there's only one check left. Where did I put the extra checks? Oh, there's my empty plastic cup from last night on my desk. I'm going to look for those checks... BUT FIRST I need to put the cup back in the kitchen. I head for the kitchen, look out the window, notice the flowers need a drink of water, I put the cup on the counter and there's my extra pair of glasses on the kitchen counter. What are they doing here? I'll just put them away... BUT FIRST need to water those plants. I head for the door and... Aaaagh! Someone left the TV remote in the wrong spot. Okay, I'll put the remote away and water the plants... BUT FIRST I need to find those checks. END OF DAY: car not washed, bills still unpaid, cup still in the sink, checkbook still has only one check left, lost my car keys; and, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm baffled because... I KNOW I WAS BUSY ALL DAY! I realize this condition is serious... I'd get help... BUT FIRST... I think I'll check my e-mail.” ---Source unknown. Either they forgot to provide it when they sent it to me or I forgot to record it--- In Christ's Service, Roger Kruger (402) 978-5670 (direct line and confidential voice mail) This e-mail newsletter is an endeavor of Partners in Caring, Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, Inc. I envision it as a way to share ideas, resources, and conversation about the joys and struggles of ministry. I welcome your input. Feel free to pass it on to friends. If you wish no longer to receive copies of this newsletter, please reply with “unsubscribe.”
|
In the Sermon on Mount, Jesus contrasts μεριμνατε “worry”---feel stressed, rushed, pressed, anxious---with καταμαθετε (a cognate of the word for disciple) “consider”---reflect, think over, learn from, understand. The former squeezes time. The latter expands it. Technology, by vastly increasing our potential, has vastly contributed to the former. There is no technology that I know of that can make the latter, the process of meditation, more efficient. William James, observing how inner integration of experience takes place slowly and during inactivity, wrote, “We learn to skate in summer and play tennis in winter.” What is true of motor skills is even more applicable to matters of the heart and of the soul. There is no substitute for time and no substitute for Sabbath. 
A New Service from Partners in Caring
“During six days of work, we acknowledge by our actions that we are called to be God’s hands and feet in the world, that God’s love does need a riverbed to flow in, and that our work is indeed vitally important and significant. On the one day of rest, we live out the equally important reality that we are superfluous. God has no need at all of anything we can do or say or create or imagine. On that day, we live in the joy of knowing we are beloved because God’s love comes to us as plain bounty.”
Healthy Families Walk
AAADD