This process of creating my own home, separate and distinct from my role as pastor, is a strange and wondrous territory. Born and raised in the Pastor's house, a certified PK (preacher's kid), I've never lived in a house that didn't belong to the church, let alone was separate from the systole and diastole of church life. Our life here is our own. A few people have told me that I would miss the relationships and responsibility that have to do with the pastor's role. I would say not. Any more than I missed college or graduate school, and the roles and relationships that were engendered by that time of my life.
I do think that I have detected in myself some of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress. Years of hyper vigilance, confronting and managing conflict, death, mental issues, and loss begin to create a callus on the psyche that is hard to dump. It creates emotional habits that don't necessarily match the time and the day and situation. Trained to identify such tendencies and helping others to cope and climb past them, it has been fascinating to see them in myself and come to grips with them and their sources.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to embrace a devotional life in its new context.
This I consider a challenge that will help me as I live my life in this new world.
This ain't Kansas anymore, Toto.
Welcome to OZ.
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