Re-Launch

I wonder if I am a blogger. This afternoon I was spending my requisite (i.e. too much) time surfing other peoples blogs and felt again the pull to blog more regularly. My motivation is to be a better writer. And I realize the only way to improve as a writer is to, rather obviously, write. I could “journal.” That’s a Christian kind of thing to do. It’s also very “artist way” is it not? I suppose there is value in writing pages and pages and pages that no one but I will ever read. But I have always found myself irritatingly narcissistic when I write for my eyes only.

Of course there is no guarantee that anyone will read my blog. Especially if I don’t spread it around that I am writing again. I imagine only those desperately bored souls who return to check a blog eight months dormant will be the lucky few to see my posts. I suppose as a preacher it is simply easier for me to write presuming an audience, however small.

Those are the re-launch paragraphs. Take them for what you will. I do realize my ambivalence might foreshadow the life span of this commitment to the blog-o-sphere. And that the previous sentence shows I need an editor.

For today: Pastor as parent.

I was in clergy coaching group on Tuesday and somehow the conversation turned toward the parental. In the midst of a comment I was making I said, off-handedly, “though I’m not a parent so I don’t exactly know.” I didn’t mean it disparagingly, I was only stating the obvious fact that I was the only non-parent in the room. But in a flash several colleagues were reassuring me that I had plenty of parental knowledge, despite the glaring lack of children. One told me that caring for my dog was the same, instinctually, as caring for a child. He has never met my incredibly low-maintenance pet. Another almost whispered to me, “you’re the momma of the church.”

I looked askance. We moved on.

Over lunch I asked him, “Do you consider yourself the daddy of the church?”

“Most definitely” he said. “It’s a natural part of the way people relate to the pastor.”

“Oh.”

Do I have mothering as a part of my pastoral identity? I’m uncertain. The maker of the comment is a grandfather several times over. He has had “father” as a part of his identity for longer than I have been alive. I realize he is playing into a long Christian tradition to see priest as “father” or even the head of the monastery as “father” or “mother” or “abba/amma” But I can’t think of a single person I “mother” in my church. Or anyone I would want to.

Perhaps the problem is that to me “mothering” implies coddling. I don’t coddle. I would my child, that’s appropriate. I won’t coddle adults. Plus there is a tremendous power differential implied in the parent/child relationship. I want to empower, not parent.

Nope, won’t work. Can’t do it. Woodland, you’re going to have to find another mother. Might I suggest God.