paging the reverend emily dickinson

There are a lot of theories out there about the best way to understand, or frame, the work of a pastor. Pastor as CEO; shepherd; prophet; priest; (probably not king); counselor; preacher; teacher; presider; administrator. While in seminary, I read descriptions related to all of these - some very helpful, some not. Some very honest, some very idealistic. Some clearly written by people who had certain expectations of pastors; some written by pastors whose ideals had fallen short.

I have never really found an image for myself, which would help me frame and sift through my own work. I've gone with 'presider' most often: someone who provides gentle guidance, who serves the liturgy (the 'work of the people'), who helps things happen but is not the center or source of the activity. This image falls short pretty often, though.

Today I was in the midst of Pastor As Administrator (embodied in Pastor As Cleaning Off Her Desk) when I ran across the most current issue of Christian Century. (Side note: it's fairly impressive that I'm only one issue behind. I must have been doing Pastor As Reader and Study-er lately.) And in it, I found the first description of a pastor-image which really, thoroughly, and completely works for me: Pastor as Poet. Here's the paragraph that got me:

Pastors are not the only ones working on the kingdom of God. But they don't help by abandoning their specific call to be poets and taking on the work of the realists and the engineers. Someone has to teach people how to dream.

M. Craig Barnes, I salute you. This one, finally, works. (By the way, I don't think pastors have the corner market on being poets. If this image works for you, take it along.)

There are holes in it, like in any image. Pastor-Poets still have to clean off their desks, for example, and that's not particularly poetic. There are administrative tasks to be done, and personalities to be negotiated with, and budgets to be aware of. But behind even these tasks, behind all the tasks, is still the work of the poet. This is what makes the work so interesting to me, the idea that there is a reality behind it all, and my task is to help us all think beyond the obvious, beyond the familiar.

It's what, as Barnes points out, makes it necessary for pastors to recognize that someone who is really angry about the new choir director is actually masking their grief that the old one, a dear friend, left. It's what makes it possible to realize that the person who asks for prayer that they will find a new job is also asking for a new identity and hope. It's what makes it crucial to place the scripture into everyday life and wonder how they meet, where they rub one another raw, how each illuminates the other.

This is probably why I often think of sermons as midrash: a creative re-reading of the texts. Poetry does the same thing, calls for the same skills - and not even skills so much as passion, desire for coming at the old thing in a new way. Looking at it upside down, inside out. Seeing the texts and our lives as gems, held gently and examined in various lights, each facet slightly different than the others.

Read this article. It's great. "Poet in Residence," in the February 10 issue of Christian Century.

There are few things better than reading a description of what you do, and thinking, "Hey! That sounds like great work! I want to do that! How can I do that?" - and then realizing, "Hey! This is what I do!"

I'll take one of his last sentences with me for a long time:

What if, instead of working so hard at omnicompetence, pastors were free to work hard simply at being better poets?