Went to a Ministers Meeting this past week, the last of the season before we all go our separate ways for the summer. It was supposed to be a picnic, but a foot of rain here in Massachusetts over the past few days pretty much washed those plans out. Never mind the Noah's Ark allusions -- just goes to show that for clergy even a picnic is no picnic. Or in the words of the Sun King, "Apres nous, le deluge." (sorry this browser doesn't support the accent). In any event, there were nineteen of us in attendance, not counting my dog Parker (who is also female): seventeen women and two men. A pretty dramatic change in demographics from my first ministers meetings 25 years ago, when the gender ratios would have typically been exactly the opposite. But that's only the most obvious difference. Lots more "second career" clergy in the room as well, which means older individuals with less time in the pulpit yet lots of different secular life experience. And the tenor of the meetings is different as well. That old bunch tended to be a pretty hard-drinking crowd, who came to these retreats to let their hair down among trusted colleagues in a very lonely and isolated profession. In this regard the model of collegiality seems to have changed dramatically - the "covenant" between us is more explicit, yet the intensity of the personal loyalties I recall from my youth seems somewhat diminished. This may simply reflect changes in me as much as it does changes in the profession. Or it may merely reflect changes in the larger culture as well. Of course, the hardest adjustment is realizing that, after a quarter-century in the pulpit, I too have become (at least in the eyes of many) an "Old Boy" myself.
I don't really mourn the passing of "the Old Boy's Network" although I do miss many of the Old Boys themselves -- my early mentors in ministry who devoted their entire lives to this strange and ancient profession/vocation/calling we share. Not a one of them was perfect, yet they had learned the hard way how to do this work despite their imperfections, and were very generous to a youngster like myself facing those struggles for the first time. When I arrived at my first settled pulpit in Midland, Texas -- the only settled Unitarian minister between Fort Worth and El Paso, Austin and Albuquerque -- my colleagues in the district informed me that there were only two rules I needed to remember: if another minister asks you to do something, the answer is "Yes" and the only excuse for missing a minister's meeting is a funeral: your own. That may still be the way they do ministry in Texas, but it would sure be a hard sell here in Massachusetts.
I actually participate in a handful of different clergy groups at the moment, at various levels of "involvement." My most faithful participation is in my informal local "cluster" -- a small group of UU clergy who get together once a month for lunch in Chelmsford mostly just to shoot the breeze and share one another's company. Although my church is technically a member of the Clara Barton district (which covers Western Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut), I prefer to attend the Mass Bay district ministers meetings -- both because I have many more friends in that district, and the meetings are a lot more convenient. But I also try to attend the Clara Barton meetings when I can -- generally about half the time, and never (at least not since I've been here) overnight. That's a boundary I've set for myself because of the dog: she's not often invited to the overnight retreats, and I can't really leave her alone in the parsonage overnight. Finally there is the ecumenical Concord Clergy Alliance, which I rarely attend because it tends to conflict with the Mass Bay meetings.
I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for my colleagues in ministry: as a group they possess so many amazing and diverse talents, which they use in such creative ways in the performance of this challenging vocation. There's no such thing as an "ideal" minister, yet ultimately this doesn't really matter; it is simply in the nature of the work of ministry that it will take from you everything you have to give it, and still it won't seem like enough. And yet somehow, it always manages to BE enough... (well, not ALWAYS, but that's a topic for another day). Yet as much as I admire and respect and even love my colleagues, I've also learned an even more important lesson from them over the years -- the lesson that "All Ministry is Local." Ultimately, our loyalty must be not to those who share our profession, but to our congregations: to the people who have invited us to become THEIR minister, and to the Deity we congregate together weekly to serve and worship. Rather than any academic degree or professional credential, it is "our People" who make us ministers by offering to us their trust and respect, and the privilege of serving as *their* minister. It's a privilege we earn one person at a time, and nothing in the world is more precious.
The Adorable Parker, my beloved Boston Terrorist
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