Mar 24

Mar 24 Spiritual Friendship

For Reflection Roundup each week, we gather news stories, notable pieces, and other important items for Christian leaders today. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but may not concur. Here are 10 things worth sharing this week.

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The truth of God’s saving grace through faith becomes realer than real when experienced in life, interacting with those who wear skin. We need to have, to be, a friend.

1. Locating oneself within church tradition helps shape our identities as children of God, and scripts how we live into this truth. Protestants often shy away from Catholic traditions and values, forgetting the universality – the true catholicity – expressed within the great tradition that unites the church as a whole. Aelred of Rievaulx, gifted in spiritual friendship, has something to say to all ministers, to all Christians. We need each other. Essential relationships take specific forms and serve intentional roles in the life of the Christian. A review of Aelred’s priorities serves the church well, especially those leaders who feel they are on an island of isolation, surrounded by ministry confidences.

2. In “Is a Great Resignation brewing for pastors?” for Religion News Service, Scott Thumma shares an encouraging interpretation of recent data. While pastors and ministers confess 2021 was even more challenging than 2020 in many ways, only a few are contemplating actually leaving ministry. Those experiencing such thoughts reflect struggles exacerbated by the pandemic but not incited by the strain of the past two years. Thumma’s piece invites the reader to focus on the way new challenges have been addressed with success, while acknowledging the fact that positive stress is taxing.

3. Bread for the World president Eugene Cho speaks with Bob Smietana, Religion News Service reporter, about the implications the war in the Ukraine has toward food insecurity. Of course Cho encourages donating to trusted organizations in support of the cause, yet he places even greater emphasis on prayer as the daily bread that will unite all people amid this world crisis. Prayer unites those not experiencing the war directly with those who are, and enables a sustained solidarity. Together we are reminded that we are all throwing ourselves on Christ’s mercies for all that we need for life and breath. This prayer action creates mindfulness toward those for whom life and breath are imminent, yielding action in both the physical and spiritual realm. For more, visit “Hunger and Hope: Ministry in Times of Food Crisis,” an interview with Cho and Jeremy Everett offered by the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry and ACU’s Baptist Studies Center.

4. For Duke Divinity’s Faith & Leadership, Dominique D. Gilliard writes “Reclaiming the power of lament.” What we often avoid or assign to a list of “optional practices” is lament, or that which keeps us in touch with our humanity. Gilliard argues lament requires a “slowing,” which facilitates our memory toward realities of this world and the differences we can anticipate in the next. Lament grounds us in the implications of our baptism: that parts of us and the world are crucified and yet need to be addressed again and again. Lament offers a vehicle to claim eschatological victory as a present reality.

5. A close reading of Esther, combined with a little Hebrew facility, offers a dawning realization in “Can clergy avoid burnout?” Turns out even those who save their people might only win the favor of most of them, and our downfall as pastors is the striving to please all, according to Jeffrey Salkin for Religion News Service. The challenge becomes even greater when we throw ourselves into the mix – we’re our own worst critics, you know. Choosing a focus or priority means something else automatically gets downgraded, and it’s sure to be something important. According to Salkin, Esther preaches to the leaders of every generation. We are created for such times as these, created in the image and for the pleasure of God.

6. It seems even Jesus had trouble pleasing everybody. You’ll see what I mean when you read Amanda Lehr’s “Selected Negative Teaching Evaluations of Jesus Christ” as she writes for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Warning: you might laugh out loud.

7. Check out “Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - March 22, 2022” when you have the most regular of moments – even the sparsest of spare minutes. I ask you, what is Fr. Don seeking to accomplish in writing such a piece? In concluding as he does, or doesn’t? And what might we take from this peek into the world through his eyes that might transfer to our own contexts?

8. Gratefulness offers a prayerful set of practices in “Caring for Self and Others in Times of Trouble: Some Spiritual Tools and Tips.” May these words meet you where you are today, as does the love of God.

9. I hope that this short interview with Brother David Steindl-Rast on Gratefulness will invigorate in each of us the sharpest of spiritual weapons. I pray that something in it connects with your personal experiences of living faithfully, and that it enlivens the communities of which we are all a part.

10. My greatest prayer for all of us is that our hearts remain soft and tender to the voice of the Lord. Once more, Gratefulness shares something that may come to our assistance in this effort. Consider “Poems for Soft Hearts in Hard Times,” possibly at the digestible pace of one each day.