Gem

A break from filing.  Lunchtime anyway.  Had planned to go to an art session (I have an abstract pastel to finish and it's a great chance to blether)  but there is no sign of transport (partner due back from Elgin...) so to my blog.  News:  the Leith job is still open.  Moments like this I think there could be a God.  I am waiting for the particulars to arrive - if it looks on paper a quarter as interesting as my research suggests - its a gem.  Theologically and spiritually mature and a progressive, seeking community with a burn for justice. 

I've often wondered how I would set up/improve the selection of clergy so that communities of faith retain few illusions about what they are getting before they appoint and the clergy themselves have a chance to show who they are spiritually and theologically.  In my work over the years as a spiritual director I have come across individuals and communities where the stress point is the lack of correlation (meaningful dialogue and similarity of basic values) between the individual person acredited to exercise some form of oversight/facilitation and the emerging needs, wants and narrative of the community he or she serves.  Sometimes it is a matter of unrealistic expectations, which over time can be honed as each experiences a shared life together.  On other occasions it is a deeper mismatch which happens because both parties during the appointing process have the best overwelmed pragmatism and detached assessment with a wave of the very best intentions to please; be found acceptable; and succeed.  It's especilly hard for a community of faith, who will hold disparate views of "what is for the best" within their own numbers before the.  For a potential candidate, the well-trodden platitude of "be yourself" is good as far as it goes.  A priest has been called to a sanctified life as a servant of Christ.  At it's essence s/he needs to know themselves and enjoy being themselves in order to be present for others.  There is nothing more infectious than a person comfortable in their own skin whose only demand is that you be yourself.  The Leith process looks challenging and the most in depth I have seen.  It is more rigorous than applications to teach in theological education - which is impressive.

Now - lunch.  Shreddies.  Then off to Cromarty to meet with friends and put the entire world to rights.  (It doesn't take long once we get started).  If only we could be wired up to the T.A.R.D.I.S and our eminently sensible suggestions for justice, equality and distribution of power could be implemented throughout the world.  Who said meglamania is dead?  Just planning world domination ...