Disappointment, Reflection, Forgiveness, Acceptance

If there's one thing you learn in seminary (or at least at Starr King School for the Ministry), it's how to write reflection papers. And this is a good thing. Ministers and candidates for ministry benefit from reflection.

There have been many disappointments on the road to ministry. I naively thought that the journey would be about deepening my relationships with the sacred, people, and things. Instead, when I entered seminary in 2003, it felt like being in the center of a mined battlefield. You could see the verbal bullets whiz by. Sometimes you and others were hit by them. You had to be careful where you stepped--the ground could explosively open beneath you.

Many were wounded. Some left the field.

Starr King has settled down a lot since those tumultuous school years of 03-04 and 04-05. However, UUA Board member Linda Laskowski's recent post "OK at the Deer Valley Corral" reminds me what a contentious and suspicious community we UUs can be.

I opened up this post with praise for the value of reflection. My dreams for seminary were not fulfilled; however, I did learn that my disappointments called for reflection, acceptance, and forgiveness--both for myself and others. Had I been more skillful and compassionate, I could have helped channel the passions that armed the adversaries and planted the mines. Had I been more compassionate and skillful, I could have contributed more to healing the wounds--wounds I am closer and closer to accepting as inevitable.

I write this post with some trepidation. As a minister, it is my job to be a bringer of hope and inspiration. Yet I also believe that acknowledgment, acceptance, and forgiveness provide a firmer foundation for hope and inspiration than the pretense that "all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

What does all this have to do with examining for ministry? The answer lies in the question of how our seminary experiences prepare us for ministerial examinations. As the UUA considers excellence in ministry, it would benefit from studying the cultures of its seminaries, congregations, and association and the impact of those cultures on ministerial formation and development.

Washitarians & Other Strange Creatures

A wise friend from Charlottesville, VA, home of the University of Virginia (founded by that quasi-Unitarian Thomas Jefferson), once told me that all university towns exist in invisible bubbles that separate them from the rest of the planet.  Now that I've lived in the Berkeley bubble for several years, I better appreciate what he said and the opportunity to get out of town every once in a while to breathe the air outside the bubble.

I am a Washitarian, i.e., a Unitarian (now UU) from Washington, DC.  There are over 20 UU congregations in the Baltimore-Washington metro area.  To be a UU at the Fairfax, VA, congregation, for example, may be different than being a UU at Arlington, All Souls, or Bull Run.

Before I moved to Berkeley, I knew what it was like being this UU in DC; Northern Virginia; Madison, WI; and Tampa, FL.  However, being UU at the Starr King School for the Ministry was honest to God culture shock.  I found this link on the subject and started checking out my symptoms.

What is the relevance of all this for examining for UU ministry?  For me, it speaks to the question of "fit."  A minister might "fit" wonderfully well at the Berkeley Fellowship and bomb at the Tampa Church.   A minister might fit the needs of a church in 1995 and bomb at that same church (of course, it wouldn't be the same church) in 2009.

How do we examine for ministry in a way that recognizes the wide range of cultures, needs, and environments in which our successful candidates will find themselves?  What are the lessons learned from successful ministers who've had to grow into positions in cultures unlike their own?

Resistance is Futile (and Unwise): Excellence & Oppression

Often people are wisely concerned about the relationship between examining and oppression. A powerful historical example of oppressive examining is the "literacy tests" that were used to deny the vote to African Americans in the South from the 1890s through the 1960s.

The other side of the examining coin is presented in this history of the relationship between barbers and surgeons. Suffice it to say that we all may be thankful that the examining of surgeons is much more rigorous than it once was.

A third interesting example comes from the film Jazz. Listening to Wynton Marsalis wax poetic about Louis Armstrong, we are reminded of the roles that genius can play.

Incompetence in the professions is dangerous. People do not die on the operating table because of an incompetent chaplain, but incompetent and unethical ministers have done much damage.

Ministers have also inspired. While not every minister may have the genius of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we may all--ministers and laity--be inspired by his example.

Resistance to examining is futile and unwise. It's important to make judgments about competency, excellence, and genius. However, it's also important that such judgments and the processes by which they are reached are congruent with the first (the inherent worth and dignity of every person) and second (justice, equity, and compassion in human relations) principles of UUism.