My Wonderings

In my last post I introduced my experience of feeling disconnected to the church. I have received many responses from others who have had similar struggles. Many of these comments came from lay persons. What I am hearing in these comments is that the feeling of alienation from Mother Church is not a condition unique to the ordained. I hope those of you, lay or ordained, church or unchurched, who have a story of disconnection or alienation will share it with me and others on this blog. I welcome you as a guest writer. Please send me an email letting me know of your interest. If you would like be published anonymously, that is fine with me. Sometimes, especially in the church, it is wise to be discreet. I only hope one would make anonymity an exception rather than the rule. After all, ‘we’re only as sick as our secrets.’ As for me, I am going to continue to share my personal experiences of alienation from my own perspective; one that I have found some understanding of it through the “setting apart” that occurs with ordination.

As I stated in “Houston, We Have A Problem,” I believe that the status quo of traditional communication does not enable deep or consistent connections. The irony, of course, is that the extraordinary way that the Episcopal Church, with her liturgies and sacraments, had sustained my connection to God, was one of the main reasons I accepted the call to ordained ministry. When my family and I left home for seminary, we became enveloped in a new but temporary community — that of the student body. But forces were in play that would inevitably alter my connectedness to a local community of faith.

Seminarians typically feel alienated from their home parishes and dioceses because they are geographically estranged for the three years they are attending divinity school. They often experience theological estrangement because they are being exposed to a level of critical thinking that shatters previously held worldviews. Most have had to sever the financial security of former careers. And as anyone who has left behind a former professional role to return to school as a student knows, all too well, one easily loses a sense of one’s own competence and “sense of adulthood.”

My diocese recognized parts of this pattern and attempted to alleviate the problem by developing programs and policies to stay connected and supportive to their “ordinands.” None of them worked. For example, we were assigned to one of the three bishops so we could have a point of contact with a “chief pastor” of the diocese. Even though I was lucky enough to be assigned to the warmest, friendliest bishop I have ever known, the late Leo Alard, I only saw him on an informal, personal basis a few times. At some point, the Commission on Ministry (a group of people who charged to evaluate and then recommend to the bishop whether a person should continue to the next stage of the ordination process) decided they needed to stay more closely connected to the candidates. So the commission assigned one of its members to be a “special buddy” to every student. There were lots of reasons this connection was ineffective. One, most didn’t take the time to develop authentic trusting relationships with their ‘protege.’ Second, the foundation of the relationship was based on evaluation and, ultimately, judgment. It was a power relationship that did not endear the seminarian to be forth-coming with much.

At another point, the Standing Committee (a totally separate group of people from the Commission on Ministry, but also charged with evaluating and making judgment on ordination) decided that they too needed to be more connected to each individual “in their care.” I was told of my new “friend” via a form letter. Needless to say, this didn’t alleviate any sense of disconnection from my standpoint as a seminarian. In fact, by this point, I started to wonder if it was better for me to feel disconnected to ‘Mother‘ and stay as far away from her dangerously clueless ways. So I became determined to stick out this time of free-falling alone, under the radar of base camp.

Finally, graduation arrived and soon to follow, the day of ordination. I was looking forward to reconnecting with my faith family of origin. I imagined a return to the hearth, reuniting to the mutuality of former relations, to the community where I could trust the connections to be strong, safe and supportive. Little did I know, that the evaluation process was not over by any stretch of the imagination. Thus the power differential with representatives of the diocese would continue to create uneasy connections. And my connections with my former faith family — well there’s no such thing as going home.

I’ve become a social media evangelist. Like any good evangelist, I’m passionate about the message. I testify every where I go — to everyone I meet — about the life changing power of new media. Many don’t take my message very seriously. They don’t understand that it will change the way we communicate. Some do ‘get it’ but are invested in keeping the status quo of old media methods. Some don’t understand why we need to change the way we communicate. They don’t see anything broken. They don’t see any problem that needs to be fixed.

So I’m going to explain my own problem with the status quo. “Old” media doesn’t enable easy, strong connections. Ever since I became “officially” connected to the diocese of Texas via my ordination (and prior to that, the process leading up to it,) I have experienced a profoundly alienated condition of being disconnected to “the Church.” In a way that is difficult for me to fully understand, much less to articulate, once I became a ‘professional religious’ person, the locus of “the Church” shifted from the parish level to the diocesan and national levels. As a clergy of the parish I had become an ‘other’ of my local faith community; it wasn’t a location where I could let my hair down, put my feet on the coffee table, share my most difficult struggles and receive support and encouragement from peers.

In this context  I am defining “peers” as those people who have no psychological need to project their faith struggles on me because I am not fulfilling the role of the priest for them (little transference). I am in no way implying different levels of faith development. This is strictly defined in relation to my ‘role’ as a priest. So, peers are those who connect to me primarily as “Sarah,” the person behind the collar. These are the people who don’t hesitate telling an irreverent story in my presence because they don’t “see” a priest. These are the people who don’t delight in telling an irreverent story in my presence just to see the reaction of a priest.

Peers in my faith community are able to listen to my doubts about prayer or the resurrection or the presence of God and hear the voice of a fellow believer and not lose confidence in a spiritual authority. Peers in my faith community are able to listen to my difficulty to like, much less love, certain people in my parish, and hear the voice of a fellow human and not feel betrayed by a pastoral authority. The compelling need for clergy to find a peer faith community has led to the popularity of clergy support groups.

Paradoxically, those who are sufficiently detached from one’s role as a priest that they are capable of providing this supportive connection, are often people with whom it is very difficult to connect. Most clergy don’t live or work in close proximity to one another. And working in the church breeds an institutionalism that becomes all-consuming and challenging for clergy to turn outward, outside the parish where one would have the greatest opportunity to find the connection of their peers. In other words, as important as clergy support is to the spiritual health of the minister, developing and maintaining those relationships is difficult. It takes a lot of effort — of a lot of communication.

Once-a-month clericus gatherings (clergy within a region of the diocese) are not enough. For many, these gatherings are so “forced” and “unnatural” that they feel dread, not comfort at attending. The establishment of mutual trust and bonding that is required for effectively supportive groupings are beyond the current system’s ability. Bi-annual clergy conferences are not enough. There are too many competing agendas during these meetings anyway to set aside time for quality fellowship.

I’ve experienced several powerful support groups where there was mutual trust and bonding. One of the first was as a pilgrim on Cursillo, a unique and intense spiritual 3-day retreat. Other experiences include staffing Cursillo, Happening and Kairos. These weekends are carefully designed to create these bonds. I’ve known this level of community in Clinical Pastoral Education groups as an intern and as a resident and through leading youth mission trips to the Appalachia with Mountain T.O.P. One of strongest experiences I had with support groups was during my 30-day stint at Hazeldon Treatment Center. The common denominator among all these experiences is an environment that deliberately (manipulatively?) forces such stress and pressure on the participants that they are forced to drop their natural defenses and cling to one another regardless of unnatural groupings. It’s a cheater’s method of group dynamics. This is NOT the kind of environment I am desiring. For one thing, I am advocating for connections that take the edge off stress, not add to it. Secondly, these easy-bake groups don’t live long outside the environment. Unless, there is a natural affinity that coincides in the group assignment.

To summarize so far:

• The problem with the status quo of the way we communicate is that it doesn’t enable easy, strong connections.
• I am one clergy person who feels disconnected from the Church.
• Church “work” makes it difficult to connect outside the parish life.
• Half-hearted attempts to enable support groups have been lame and ineffective.
• Manipulating stress environment produces quick but short-term bonds that do not last.

The advent of social media technology provides an opportunity to enable these connections. Groups are now able to form easily, along affinity lines. The Church at the diocesan and national level should facilitate these connections because that is part of the job. Just as the parish priest has a pastoral responsibility to create a community that supports a parishioner’s spiritual growth, so does the bishop and presiding bishop have a pastoral responsibility toward the clergy.

As easy as group-forming has become, I believe that the process should be initiated at the diocesan and national level because so many leaders in the church are unaware of the possibilities that now exist. These applications are so new that there is a learning curve  for non-techies that without a resource might thwart the motivation to adopt new methods.  And finally, the very institutional processes that make maintaining the status quo so sticky require strong leadership to become ‘unstuck.’

Chris Brogan, co-author of Trust Agents and one of few “true” social media gurus, recently spoke to New Media Atlanta. He shared the following video online for our viewing pleasure:

Some of the things I find most significant in this talk are:

• The large screen showing people’s Twitter thoughts during his speech demonstrates how much he values listening to other’s opinions even during his Keynote.
• Many people “think” they’re listening, but how many bother to reach out and engage the conversations online?
• I love the concept of the social phone is ringing and his challenge “Will you answer it?”

I just finished reading his book, Trust Agents, and I think it’s vital reading for everyone interested in influencing people, whether it is as a business person, church, church leader or Joe the Plumber with an opinion.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Blog Wordle

A friend of mine is a small business owner; she designs and creates jewelry, mostly spiritual. It is more than just a “job” that produces income, it is her vocation. She is an artist and her art/work reflects her spiritual life. She asked me recently if she should start a blog. She is very busy and doesn’t have time for another “hobby” or a burdensome commitment that doesn’t have substantial personal or economic benefit. And she already writes about faith and art so she doesn’t need to blog for the purpose of a spiritual discipline. So, how shall I answer her? First, I would say she needs to spend time listening online to see what others are saying about the art of religious jewelry. Are there any good examples of jewelry artists who are finding blogs as a means toward profit? I suggest she go to http://technorati.com/ the “mother lode” of blog directories.

First, she should check out her own name and company and see if anyone is talking about her. If so, I’d say she has the only reason she needs right there to begin blogging. If people are talking about you, you want to be in that conversation! She should also search for her products and her competitors. Then, she needs to search keywords for her industry (”jewelry,” “artist,” “religious” no quotes) and see if there are other business owners/artist blogging about that niche. She will find an extensive list to search through since Technorati currently searches through 22 million sites and over a billion links. But she can narrow her search by only sorting those with “a lot of authority.” High authority (like a “grade” given by Technorati) means the site is very popular. I didn’t find anything when I searched using these three tags: jewelry artist religious and clicked it to narrow the search to “with a lot of authority” (opportunity, Nancy!) So I took off “religious” and searched “with any authority.” I found three appealing blogs right off the bat, at the very top of the list. They weren’t high on the list because of their authority rank; they were listed on top because these three writers had recently published posts. Tip: fresh content is uber important!

Let’s check them out and see what we think: First up is Make Me, a blog at blog.simonewalsh.com. Immediately, I feel attracted to Simone and her weblog because her latest post is filled with bright colorful pictures of the flowerbed in her front yard and I usually like people who garden. Then I am surprised to see she’s from Australia and I think “Holy Dooley! What’s that sheila from down under doing trying to make a quid right here in my living room? Good onya!” Scanning just a bit more I find out I also like her jewelry, just not as much as my friend’s! Next, I check out http://www.roseofsharonjewelry.com/blog/ because the title of her blog is fantastic. But upon clicking, I’m almost knocked over by how “lavender” everything is and I imagine her to be old and passe  and smell of moth balls. I’m not encouraged when I see she’s talking about broken ankles and sprained body parts in her first post. but I have to smile when I read further on and she tells herself to give up the roller derby. That’s my kind of sense of humor so I decide to scroll down a bit more.  But, oh my(!) … her jewelry, like her lavender and lacey web design is too fussy for my taste. I take my exit and go to my third site The Magpie’s Treasure and once again, I find myself drawn to the artist/business owner because of her most recent post.  The artist, Jodi, tells us she’s listening to an audio book of Sue Monk Kidd on her IPod while she works in her studio and I heart Sue Monk Kidd! Jodi and I have a lot in common, I imagine. Her previous post has a picture of her sketches and she describes a bit of her creative process.

This is very fascinating but I’ve run out of time and I can’t even check out her jewelry. But I see she has lots of other social media accounts so I assume she must be very friendly and amenable. I click on her RSS feed button because I know I won’t remember to go back and check out her blog so I’ll let her RSS bring her blog to my Google Reader every time she updates! Great; good session I’ve imagined having with my friend.  But before she leaves the Technorati site, I’d also she suggest she search my blog: sarahgbennett.com/MyWonderings and click that little heart icon that says favorite it! if for no other reason than out of pity that my blog has such low authority. Favoriting will help increase my authority at Technorati. And, btw, I have substantially helped out the authority status of Simone, Sharon and Jodi because I have given them unreciprocated ”inbound links” in this blog — that’s very valuable currency in the blogosphere! I would so be your BFF if you ever gave me some link love.

Nancy Denmark 14k Ring with Diamond

If I were F2F (that’s ‘face-to-face, Mom!) with my artist friend, we’d probably take a latte break right now because I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy in friendship fever. Then I’d suggest she continue to look for possible competitors friends by doing the same type of searches at http://blogsearch.google.com/ and http://search.twitter.com. While I was surfing to see other “must search” sites, I came across this article in the Search Engine Journal and I started feeling guilty that I have neglected my own blog so much! She should probably check out this list, too; I know I am. Anyway, back to Nancy, that’s my artist friend. Nancy and I met too many years ago to politely admit (I think we staffed a Happening together) but then lost touch when I lost touch with … well, anyway. We recently reconnected on Facebook and have developed a very nice, significant relationship.

If I were in the market for a piece of a religious jewelry, prior to this reconnection, I probably would have headed over to one of the malls in Austin and grabbed something from James Avery. I wouldn’t have even thought of Nancy because I didn’t have her in my brain’s RAM. But now, because of our social networking, I wouldn’t consider going to another jeweler.  Because unlike generic jewelry, religious jewelry is bought to be an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. To have the opportunity to add an even richer level of  meaning to that investment by actually knowing the artist and knowing what she was thinking while she was creating it — well, that would make the piece even more precious than I could have imagined. And that, at the end of the day, is why I think Nancy should have a blog, for the personal connection; to connect to people online like she has me.

In today’s market, one needs to be online. One needs to have a personal brand and a business brand online and needs to engage in online conversations. I think the extraordinary personal nature that is now so popular with social media sites is due, in part, to society’s knee-jerk reaction to the business ethos of the previous decades. As the Mom and Pop Shops got run out of business, the commercial world became so “professional” and starched. It became distant, impersonal and corporate. Any concern over market aloofness was exacerbated as more and more of the marketplace disappeared into cyberspace. You couldn’t even talk to a person on the phone; it was all automated! But recently, the internet has moved into a second stage of life, called “2.0,” and smart technology tools are enabling easy and comfortable conversations (many in real-time) for those of us who aren’t that technologically smart.  And that is changing expectations. We expect to see the human face of the marketplace because we can! Many, many people are slow to see the tectonic shift that is occurring. And that is to Nancy’s advantage. Because the early adopter gets the worm. Fortunately, there are some who have already adopted this new media way; so there are many people out there on whom to “eavesdrop.”  We need to lurk around these sites. We need to hear what’s being said, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what others are doing so right.

Oh, by the way, don’t tell my mother how rude I was not to introduce Nancy to you properly at the very beginning of our conversation. Everyone, this is Nancy. This is her Facebook Page. Let me get Nancy to tell us about her work and (I copied it off her Facebook Page info):

I am an artist with a primary interest in creating jewelry to help the wearer communicate the love of God. I received a BFA with a specialization in Jewelry and Metalsmithing, from the University of Houston in 1976. I started my own business in 1980 and have since been designing and crafting jewelry as a full time vocation. I mainly work in precious metals, sterling, and 14K gold and often incorporate gemstones. I am a one person business. “I am the company and the company is me!”

In the late 80’s, after hearing a stewardship sermon, I felt called to communicate the love of God through my jewelry work. I understood it to be my responsibility, as a good steward of my artistic gifts, to create a body of work for the Glory of God. Through the years, I have continued to add to that original body of work, which is now over 60 designs strong. My ministry is sharing the love and glory of God through my design work, offering the wearer a “love story” to visibly wear and verbally share.

I also make many other things besides fine jewelry. I create jewelry beads, wall and hand crosses with polymer clay. One of my newer creative expressions is knitting scarves and belts (not yet on the website) (sarah’s edit: because it got uploaded a few days ago!). I consider my fine jewelry making my 40 hour work week and the rest is fun art therapy to keep my creative juices flowing and fresh. All my extra avenues of creative expression seem to be an endless play and experimentation with color and texture.

Don’t you just love her? I knew you would. And I’m so glad you got to know her today! Come back anytime and meet some other friends of mine. Oh, and by the way, see that RSS feed button up at the top right? Click it and I’ll bring my blog to your reader in case you forget to check in for a while. If you don’t know what a reader is, I’ll tell you in another post. In the meantime, see that email form right below the RSS feed? Fill out your email and I’ll send you my blog updates right to your inbox! Love chatting with you all and I really enjoyed the latte!