Good point. My feeling is that this can be a sticky situation for many clergy. On the one hand, there's a desire to maintain appropriate boundaries, which can hinder relating to others as one human being to another. On the other hand, the most effective clergy I've known are those who aren't afraid to let their emotions show.

Keeping all the emotions in at work also can have unintended consequences, as we probably all have known clergy who are utterly saintly in a church setting, but are mean as a snake in other settings. In these cases, one wonders to what extent pent-up anxiety and anger is simply being transferred to those outside the parish.

Eric Bonetti

Torey,

The comparison with clergy is very apt and a serious problem with priests and and even more serious problem with bishops, at least as we practice episcopacy in our church. (There's wisdom, I think, in Lutheran bishops having a term and so knowing they'll return to be peers and equals with their presbyter colleagues - seems to produce humbler, more open, and better listening people).

We do have some remarkably humble and open bishops, visionary leaders who are first good listeners, but the office or our practice of episcopacy doesn't encourage those characteristics.
So much in our system predisposes and even legitimizes severe isolation.

This Harris poll speaks directly to questions like why some of our bishops feel such profound attachment to the house of bishops and invest such concern in how they're perceived in that house.

But the episcopacy is only the heightened example. With both priestly and episcopal ordination, the watershed is something not in the ordination service. The standard 'wisdom' in our way of talking about dual role teaches that ordination MUST BE isolating. I think that's really damaging. A deliberate commitment to seeking friendship outside the community unnaturally heightens the isolation and contradicts Jesus words, "I call you no longer servants but friends." Anyone who called his followers and junior colleagues "friends," Obviously didn't get good professional training in a proper seminary.

There is a lot of new info from a Lily funded study suggesting that membership in a peer group--I want to say a facilitated peer group, but am not sure of that--is one of the great hedges against clergy burnout. I can't lay my hands on it at the moment, but I think the program is called something like Sustaining Pastoral Excellence.

Jim,

Yours (and the Lily study's) observation is certainly to the point. Further research confirmation comes from Bryk and Schneider's massive study of school change programs "Trust in Schools." What they discovered was that pouring money into school reform has some minimal impact (implementing almost any strategy for achieving positive change), but that almost any effort becomes transformative IF the system has extensive "peer to peer relational trust." In schools that means parent to parent, teacher to teacher, and principal to principal. In our setting, I'd interpret that to mean (as we have it now) layperson to layperson, presbyter to presbyter, and bishop to bishop, but the bishop is an odd problem in that configuration. What if the dynamic we were nurturing were simply extensive trust among laypeople and extensive trust among the ordained (deacons, presbyters, and bishops)?

As long as the ordained run churches like businesses and see themselves as CEO's this problem will exist. Looking to the lessons found in the Bible, instead of to the secular world, will solve this problem. However, there is one lesson from the secular world, which has a biblical foundation, that will be helpful--collaborative leadership. Even St. Benedict speaks of collaborative leadership in his Rule when he admonishes leaders to listen to even the newest member in their midst. The ordained isolate themselves by setting themselves up to be the expert in all things, and as the person that controls all that happens in their parish. The Holy Spirit has distributed many gifts, and no one person has been given all gifts. Consequently, the ordained must identify and use the gifts in their parish, instead of pretending they have all power and authority--they don't. Of course, this will require the ordained to give up power and control and trust in the Holy Spirit as it moves throughout others in the parish. It also requires leadership based on discernment, which requires prayer and reflection, and not Roberts Rules of Order.

Here in Sioux City, though there aren't many Episcopal clergy, there is a substantial link offered to fellowship with many Lutheran clergy. We study the coming Sunday's texts together on Tuesday and on Fridays we get together for pizza and beer.

The best feature of this kind of this arrangement is its regularity and informality. The group is self-sustaining; it has a kind of stratification and elderhood but nothing official. If I walked in to any given meeting feeling lonely or weepy, I'd be asked about it and expected to answer honestly.

Where I live, though, is an area that altogether encompasses about 100,000 people, so the opportunities are more plentiful.

I am also part of a Lily funded venture whose fiscal agent is the College of Pastoral Leaders. CPL funds clergy cohort groups who have a clear vision of how they together would work against burnout in ministry. Burnout certainly isn't always fed by loneliness, but they seem to keep company.

I do other things, too, to keep the mental lights on and the collegial companionship going. I appreciate Donald's comments and will have to consider them further, but for now, while I might not seek to make a significant body of close friends within the parish, I feel I'm doing what I can.

In other words, to the extent clergy can take hold of this issue for themselves and create sustaining contacts in whatever way feeds them, they should do so without apologizing for it.

Torey Lightcap

The psychotherapeutic idea of boundaries isn't helpful. The Buddhist idea of non-attachment is much more useful, immediately helpful, spiritually healthy, and apparently compassionate. The question is not, am I allowed to emote or "let someone in", but rather, what length of time is useful to all to be compassionate, in the literal sense of "suffer with" someone, before the compassionate exercise becomes one of useless self-pity and deepening attachment to emotional states and dramatic flair. It is a mistake to think that, in order to be compassionate to all, one must truly be there for none. But it takes a lot of practice to be compassionate to all, and learning this skill must accompany any teachings about appropriate boundaries or we truly are God's Frozen People.

Maybe it's this obsession with boundaries and an irrational fear of emotional states that is at the heart of some of the interpersonal problems the Episcopal Church has. Emotional states come and go, they do not remain. Understand, teach and practice this to be free of emotion's most damaging consequences.

I'm going to speak about priests, not deacons, here, and why I'm a little skeptical of these CEO comparisons:

To me, what makes a priest a priest is that they are *able* to isolate themselves -- that is, in times of moral crisis, they're able to stand up and say, "I'm going to do the right thing". That's why clergy are often on the front line of service in places like rural third-world communities, or the ones who speak out most strongly in the face of massive political oppression, like Bonhoeffer. CEOs aren't really obligated to do those kinds of things.

I'm not saying that practically, on a day-to-day basis, priests don't need other humans that are sort of their equals to hang around with, without having to sustain some kind of pastoral-type relationship. But nobody has that continuous privilege in life -- we all fall into isolation sooner or later, even if we're surrounded by equals. In the moments before his death, Christ felt completely isolated -- "why have you abandoned me?" If we never fall into isolation, then probably we're not taking the moral risks that Christ calls us to do in the first place.

The personality type of a priest should contain the ability to be courageous when a social support system breaks down. They have to be the kind of people who won't react proudly, by becoming the expert in all things, or by dominating their congregation (and subordinate clergy), but the opposite -- to humbly admit their powerlessness and walk alone with God. When I was a kid and wanted to be a priest, my parents replied, "it takes a very special kind of person to do that." I realized I wasn't; I rely too much on others' support and approval.

If you are not that kind of person, that's not a moral problem or anything. But should you be then acting as an intermediary between humans and God? Because let's not forget, that's what priesthood is ultimately about. It's not the fancy apartments, the social connections, the charity work, or even the prayer. It's the sacraments. 90% of the time, it's you, and you alone, blessing the bread and wine.

A Facebook User- please sign your name next time. Thanks ~ed.

I'm going to speak about priests, not deacons, here, and why I'm a little skeptical of these CEO comparisons:

To me, what makes a priest a priest is that they are *able* to isolate themselves -- that is, in times of moral crisis, they're able to stand up and say, "I'm going to do the right thing". That's why clergy are often on the front line of service in places like rural third-world communities, or the ones who speak out most strongly in the face of massive political oppression, like Bonhoeffer. CEOs aren't really obligated to do those kinds of things.

I'm not saying that practically, on a day-to-day basis, priests don't need other humans that are sort of their equals to hang around with, without having to sustain some kind of pastoral-type relationship. But nobody has that continuous privilege in life -- we all fall into isolation sooner or later, even if we're surrounded by equals. In the moments before his death, Christ felt completely isolated -- "why have you abandoned me?" If we never fall into isolation, then probably we're not taking the moral risks that Christ calls us to do in the first place.

The personality type of a priest should contain the ability to be courageous when a social support system breaks down. They have to be the kind of people who won't react proudly, by becoming the expert in all things, or by dominating their congregation (and subordinate clergy), but the opposite -- to humbly admit their powerlessness and walk alone with God. When I was a kid and wanted to be a priest, my parents replied, "it takes a very special kind of person to do that." I realized I wasn't; I rely too much on others' support and approval.

If you are not that kind of person, that's not a moral problem or anything. But should you be then acting as an intermediary between humans and God? Because let's not forget, that's what priesthood is ultimately about. It's not the fancy apartments, the social connections, the charity work, or even the prayer. It's the sacraments. 90% of the time, it's you, and you alone, blessing the bread and wine.

Erik Campano

Clint,

Really like your comments about compassion and buddhism. Thank you.

Eric Bonetti