i am relationally exhausted. between my beautiful family, 40 hours of job placement work, 24 of customer service, home church and regular connections with kindred far and near i have precious time to stop, listen, learn and pray.
don't get me wrong, i'm not turning into dante hicks* or anything. this week i've had (personally) unparalleled success at placing clients in jobs, my wife and child are utterly remarkable and just last night alex and aime lavished us with the most amazing steak and wine dinner. however, i am realizing how relationally exhausting full time accompaniment and advocacy can really be.
the latter realization makes me appreciate the work of full-time professional christians all the more. as a child and, okay, occasionally as an adult i have been hyper-critical of the way particular full-time pastors and ministry leaders conduct their daily lives. but the relatively short amount of time i have spent in equipping ministry here at rectangle has taught me to appreciate and respect the incredible choice that pastors make to love, listen and entangle themselves in people's beautiful but confounded lives on a daily basis.
so here's to you professional christians! we often cannot conceive of, and (probably) far too often criticize, the sacramental lives you lead. i appreciate (most) of what you do.
* pop quiz: who's a whinier little b*tch: luke skywalker or dante hicks?
3 comments:
i.love.youtube. God bless your little surprise link leaving heart jeff. God bless it.
Dante Hicks is way whinier than Luke Skywalker. Think about it: Skywalker lived a simple life on a farm in the middle of a desert, with no hope of achieving anything important, never knowing his history. Then one day that all changes when he picks up two cheap robots and comes to find his family (aunt and uncle) dead and the farm destroyed, ironically by the same people he will come to fight against and help defeat and find out his destiny. I think he's allowed a tiny bit of whining.
Dante Hicks is a spoiled 20-something still living at home in a nice lush suburb and no interest in doing anything else except whine about his lot in life-working at a convenience store. No desert, no one trying to kill him, no father in one of the top positions of the enemy.
krista, you're probably right. luke did have to deal with a dual homicide, questions concerning his origins and a simple, berry-esque agrarian lifestyle.
however, dante had to deal with women, which was one major stress inducing factor that luke never seemed to have time for and/or an inclination towards. as a person who also has significant questions concerning his origins AND has had significant entanglements with women over the years (see: airport girl), i'd have to say that dante's life circumstance is at least as precarious as luke's. i think that i would rather endure the berry life than be saddled by caitlin bree. moreover, i'd rather weather a dual homicide than have to deal with veronica's clingy, fire code violating, snow-ball blowing ass.
but that's just my opinion. i could be wrong.
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