Urban Parish Summit, July 16-17, St Theodosius Cathedral, Cleveland OH

The OCA Diocese of the Midwest will hold an Urban Parish Summit on July 16-17 at St Theodosius Cathedral in Cleveland OH. The summit will gather clergy and lay representatives from 17 urban parishes to discuss the possibilities for parish growth and spiritual renewal. My parish is hoping to send at least three lay representatives. I'll be attending as well and will lead a workshop on the second day of the conference. My topic will be the importance of storytelling in parish renewal. 

More information about the summit is available here.

God willing, and if you are able, do consider attending the Urban Parish Summit this July.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Mourning, Melancholia and the Clergy

Image via Wikipedia

One of the things I come to understand over the years is that depression is simply part of the background noise for many clergy. And this holds true whether the individual in question is Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical Christian, male or female. This isn't to say that the cleric in question is incapacitated. Far from it in fact. Many of the clergy I know who are depressed are rather high functioning and often considered to be successful and even exemplary examples of pastoral ministry in their tradition.

But depressed they are nevertheless.

Freud somewhere argued that depression is a result of the loss of one's love object. In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the love object is that person or project in which I invested my libidinous energies. While the term libido now has sexual connotations, this was not the case for Freud. Rather libido, was more a generic term for psychic energy (though granted, this energy can, and often is, in Freud's view sexual in character).

When that love object is lost, whether literally or figuratively, I experience depression, or (to use Freud's term) melancholia. Robert Clark, a Reader in English at the University of East Anglia​, in his brief essay on Freud's essay on depression, “Mourning and Melancholia”> (1917), writes that Freud thinks of depression or

melancholia as a “profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment.” (Penguin Freud Library, Vol. 11, p. 248).

And again, as I said a moment ago, while melancholia results from “the death of a loved person, but it might also occur when something has been lost as an object of love, or even when 'one cannot see clearly what has been lost. (254).”

Mourning, on the other hand, has a slightly different content. Again, as Clark writes, “In mourning 'it is the world that has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself' (254).” Clinically, “Freud noted that melancholics were inclined to accuse themselves of many failings in an entirely unjustified way, and noted that the accusations were such as should have been more correctly directed against someone whom the patient loves or has loved.”

Freud's description of depression then is of loss and anger turned inward against the ego or the “I” that should, more reasonably, be directed outward at those who have abandoned or failed me (and again, this might be literally or symbolically). While there is much that I would reject in Freud, it seems to me that his insight into depression is profound. It is all the more profound as I think about my own, and other's, experiences in ministry.

Loss is inseparable from ministry because it is inseparable from human life in general and the Christian life in particular. It is hard, for example, to read the sayings of the desert fathers and not come away with the realization that mourning is essential to the Christian life. For example, Abba Poeman says that “He who wishes to purify his faults purifies them with tears. . . . ; for weeping is the way the Scriptures and our fathers give us, when they say, 'Weep!' Truly, there is no other way than this.” And Isaac the Syrian goes so far as to say “The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.”

But if mourning is essential to the spiritual life, melancholia/depression has no place and reflects mourning that has gone terribly wrong. Again, as Freud reminds us, in mourning, I come to sense the poverty of the world—m ourning (to transpose Freud into an anthropology more consonant with the fathers) is the realization that though this world is a great and beautiful gift, it is nevertheless “transitory.” It is only to the degree that I realize this that, as St Gregory the Great somewhere says, I am able “to stretch out the mind in humility to God and [my] neighbor.” Mourning is what helps “preserve patience against offered insults and, with patience guarded, to repel the pain of malice from the heart.” Mourning is to foundation of my love of the poor and makes it possible for me to “give [my] property to the poor, not to covet that of others, to esteem the friend in God, on God's account to love even those who are hostile.” It is through mourning that I am able to be and lead others to become evermore that “new creature whom the Master of the nations seeks with watchful eye amid the other disciples, saying: 'If, then, any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away. Behold all things are made new' (2 Cor. 5:17).”

While mourning and melancholia are similar, they are not the same. Worse, if we are not careful we can easily confuse mourning and melancholia. It is unwise to expect clergy, or for clergy to expect from ourselves, a life of selfless service if we are not also clear that such service is different in tone and content from depression. I think rather too easily we all of us—whether clergy or not—allow ourselves to confuse mourning and melancholia; too easily when we ought to counsel detachment we are instead fostering depression.

Too simply be angry with myself, to see my own failings and shortcomings in isolation from any larger content that realizes my own (and other's) weakness is a way of life that is psychologically and spiritually unsustainable.

I am very much taken by St Gregory the Great's notion that the mournful person is able to stretch out, in humility, his mind to God and neighbor. To understand humility as if it were some species of melancholia is, I think, to misunderstand humility. Yes because of my manifold sins and transgressions, I fall short of the glory of God (see Rms 3.12). But do I realize that even if I were not sinful, I would—; as a creature—fall short of the Divine Glory?

Real mourning—as opposed to its counterfeit, melancholia—gives birth to real humility. And what is this real humility? I think St Gregory Nyssa offers a good a description as any I've read:

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because like slaves we severely fear punishment, not to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God's friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life.

To befriend God and neighbor is, it seems to me, the fruit of humility and a heart that mourns for its own sins and the sins of the world.

Many clergy struggle valiantly to be friends with God and neighbor But their struggles are often undermined by their own, and others, confusion of melancholia and depression. Thinking about this I wonder if it might not be helpful for clergy, but also for all of us who love Christ, if we made a bit more room in our communities for saying goodbye and seeing all the little (and great) losses of life as blessings and not curses?

Nicholas Ray in his essay (“ Trauer und Melancholie”) on Freud's theory of depresstiont, writes that for Freud, mourning is “not – or at least is not only – a process of remembrance; it is a labour of severance, of slowly cutting ties with what has gone. The painful re-traversal of memories and expectations connected to the lost object is undertaken by the psyche with a separative aim in view.”

Watching the different disagreements and divisions that seem to be inflicting the Orthodox Church in the States, as well as the suffering of my fellow clergy, I wonder, if in fact we have not in someway undercut the hard work of mourning that Freud and the fathers describe? And, if we have, I wonder, what is the way back?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Erikson and Orthodox Pastoral Care

(This is a re-write of an earlier post that had a number of errors.  I'm using a new netbook with a smaller key board and screen, so my already minimal editing skills are being rather stretched.)

I'm sitting in the airport (my flights been delayed 1 hour and 20 minutes) on my way home from to the CAPS International Conference in Orlando, FL. Yes, I know, I've got a tough life—actually what I have is an incredibly supportive wife who encourages me in my undeniable eccentric priestly ministry.
In addition to being able to speak with colleagues, I did a poster presentation this year. My presentation—based based on a paper I presented at a conference last year—is a comparison of the. work of Erik Erikson and St Maximos the Confessor. Specifically, I'm looking at how they both look at the experience of failure.
While I say more on the content of my presentation later, as with most my academic work in psychology, the paper my presentation is based is more theoretical than applicative in orientation. My goal is to try and deepen how we in psychology understand the human person. So, my concern is not with St Maximos as such, but with (in the present case) the developmental theory of articulated by the psychologist Erik Erikson.
For those who know me, my interest in doing this is no particular mystery—this is simply a matter of transposing my own spiritual journey from the personal to the theoretical. In other words, my own spiritual life, my own faith as an Orthodox Christian, and my own admittedly eccentric ministry as a priest for that matter, grew out of my interest in psychology. For me, reflecting on Erikson (in the present case) is what inspired me to draw closer to Christ and His Church. Sort of like what the fathers call “natural contemplation,” or a reflection on creation that points the soul beyond creation to the Creator.
So why am I interested in Erikson's work?
One of the most interesting things about Erikson's development theory is that it is teleological. Human growth and development is not a matter of the blind working out of our genetic inheritance in response to environmental stimulus. To be sure as a disciple of Freud, the body (and thus later genetic research) has a role to play in Erikson's theory, but (unlike Freud) Erikson does not limit human development to simply the deterministic working out of bodily needs.
For Erikson human development not only has an identifiable goal it proceeds along following identifiable benchmarks. And not only that, there in Erikson's view of the matter there are also the possibility for missteps. These missteps are possible throughout life and while not necessarily fatal to our consonant development, neither are they inconsequential. At any point along the way, I can at any step off the path of wholesome development that would ordinarily lead from birth to death.
This potential for failure begins in infancy when the new born and is my constant companion throughout my life. It is this possibility of failure that I find most interesting in Erikson's work. Like other, more humanistic psychologists, Erikson has a generally optimistic view of potential. Unlike these other thinkers, however, he is clear about the possibility of failure—and this failure is one that increasingly is a consequence of the misuse of my own freedom.
The summit of human development is ego integrity. At this stage I come (or not) to embrace the totality of my life with all its successes and failures. Part of this embrace is the appreciative acceptance of my own contingency, that my life is the product not only on my genetic inheritance and free decisions, but also of factors over which I have no control (like the culture in which I am born and raised) and which could in fact have been different.
But I can also come to a point in which I refuse to be thankful for my life; I can deny or resent my failures just as I can overvalue or minimize my successes. Whatever the concrete form my lack of acceptance takes, it is grounded in a refusal of my own contingency as the condition of possibility for my own life. It is here, in my exercise (or not) of what Erikson calls the virtue of wisdom, that I have the opportunity to find not only myself, but also to reach out in beyond the limits of my own life and embrace others in compassion.
While Erikson's work fall short of the Church's understanding of theosis (deification) as the goal of human life, his work nevertheless articulates much of the human dimension of this process. In doing so, I think, Erikson's work has a valuable contribution to make to Orthodox pastoral care.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory

Job and the Defense of the Weak

In his anger, he overturns the weak;

Therefore when he rise up,

No one believes his own life is safe.

(Job 24.22, LXX)

Having just been slandered by Eliphaz in chapter 22, Job responds with his own mediation on the both God's will and the lot of the wicked in chapter 23-24.

In reflecting on God's way of relation to him, Job implicitly rebukes Eliphaz and the rest of those who seeing Job's situation accuse him of wrong doing:

Who then would know, that I might find Him,

And might bring this matter to an end?

I would state my case before Him

And fill my mouth with arguments.

Would that I knew the words He would answer me A

And could understand what He would tell me. (23.3-5, LXX)

Job knows what he doesn't know, what he doesn't understand; he doesn't know or understand the will of God. And yet, unlike his accusers, Job is not afraid to acknowledge his poverty before God (and implicitly the human community represented by Eliphaz and the others).

Why? Job says that while God is a God of strength, He—unlike Job's critics—does not use His strength against humanity. God will always speak the truth, He will even rebuke us (and Job expects to be rebuked) but He does so with exceeding gentleness.

Like a warrior, it is His own strength and love of truth that restrains God in the presence of frail humanity. And not only that, God limit's Himself not out of any human insecurity as if God were somehow, as fathers reminds us, subject to human passions, but in the service of liberating Job from his suffering at the hands of both Satan and his human opponents:

Though He would come on me in His great strength,

He would not use the occasion to threaten me.

For truth and rebuke are from Him.

And He would bring my judgment to an end. (vv. 6-7, LXX)

This passage brings into sharp focus the intent of words in the epigraph. Job's accusers—both human and demonic—are motivated by anger; they threaten and bully and humiliate others in order to raises themselves up over others. In the words and actions, Eliphaz and the others stand in sharp contrast to God.

Reflecting on these verses, St Gregory the Great sees in Job's words about God a veiled revelation of the coming of Christ. The saint writes, it is “the only begotten Son of God” Who remains “invisible in the strength of the divine nature.” Why does the Son do this? Following the letter to the Hebrews (2.11-19), Gregory says that God assumes “our weakness, that He might elevate us to his own abiding strength.” (“ Morals on Job,” 16.36-37, quoted in ACCS , vol VI, p. 125)

In the divine economy, my strength is at the service of your weakness. Strength, power, authority are all at the service of the good of others.

But as we see in the example of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, it is not enough to simply be formally correct in our words and actions toward each other. Our words and actions must be truthful, yes certainly, but they must also be applicable to the truth of the situation of the person to whom we are responding.

While I must “speak the truth in love,” (see Eph 4:15) I must be at least as certain I am loving as I am that I am right. As has become clear by Eliphaz's words in chapter 22—and Job's retort to him in 24.22—this is not how things are in his case. Truth has trumped love. Or maybe more accurately, having forsaken love, Eliphaz cannot speak the truth and instead resorts to unjust accusations against his suffering friend.

As I think about all of this, I come to see a different facet of Job's response to his critics. Yes, Job is more than a little frustrated with his circumstances. And yes, I imagine that Job is hurt that he has been so misunderstood by his family and friends.

For all this his external circumstances have changed, and changed radically to be sure, Job is still, well, Job. He is still the man we meet at the beginning of the book.

And if he is no longer able to care for naked (22.6), give water to the thirst, provide food for the hungry (v. 7), care for widows and orphans (v 9) because of his impoverishment, this does not mean that he has forgotten the poor and the outcast. Job still cares for those who have no one to care for them.

Where once that care was material, and so external in some ways to him, his care for them is now more internal. Where once he offered clothing, water and food, now he offers words. Not sweet words or easy words to be sure. Job's words are powerful and directed at those who abuse their power through their neglect of the weak.

That Job does this by referring to himself, to the injustice of his own circumstances, does not make his witness any less effective. Like Christ, Job offers the poor, the weak and the forgotten among us the only thing he has, the witness of his own life. And his witness is a witness on behalf of the poor,the weak and the forgotten is this: Job stands, weak and crushed as his is, in opposition to those who would neglect and oppress those who cannot defend themselves. Having himself been stripped of everything, Job nevertheless finds in his own poverty and suffering the strength to defend others.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Tricksters, Con Men & Priests: More Thoughts on the Book of Job

Thanks to the most excellent inter-library loan services of my local library, I have just started reading The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man, a popular, and classic, sociological study of con men by the David Maurer. Until his death in 1981 Maurer was a linguist and professor of English at the University of Louisville.

Maurer argues that confidence men “are hardly criminals in the usual sense of the word, for they prosper through superior knowledge of human nature.” (p. 3) He continues that unlike violent criminals or common thieves, the con man is “sauve, slick, and capable” who “prospers only because of the fundamental dishonesty of his victim. . . . Thus arises the trite but none the less sage maxim: 'You can't cheat an honest man.'” (pp. 1-2)

What I find most arresting in Maurer's take on the con man, however, and where his work converges with what we read in Job, is his assertion that in their methods, confidence men “differ more in degree than in kind from those employed by more legitimate forms of business.” (p. 3)

It has always seem to me that there is something very much like the con man in every priest. Or if not exactly a con man, then that more archetypal figure, theTrickster. While sometimes malicious—even if unintentionally so—the trickster breaks the rules of conventional behavior and socially constructed morality in the service of a greater good. Within the tradition of the Orthodox Church there is I think a parallel between the various mythological figures of the trickster and the “fool for Christ.”

The fool for Christ is a class of saints whose ascetical witness includes the performance of odd, even bizarre, actions.

One form of the ascetic Christian life is called foolishness for the sake of Christ. The fool-for-Christ set for himself the task of battling within himself the root of all sin, pride. In order to accomplish this he took on an unusual style of life, appearing as someone bereft of his mental faculties, thus bringing upon himself the ridicule of others. In addition he exposed the evil in the world through metaphorical and symbolic words and actions. He took this ascetic endeavor upon himself in order to humble himself and to also more effectively influence others, since most people respond to the usual ordinary sermon with indifference. The spiritual feat of foolishness for Christ was especially widespread in Russia. --(Excerpted from The Law of God, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, NY: 1993)

But there is in the Fool, the constant temptation to the very sin of pride he is trying to root out. While demonstrating the limits of this world and of mere social conventionality, the Fool is always at risk of serving his own ego under the guise of something greater.

In a similar fashion, I think, the priest always risks becoming merely a con man. Our tools are primarily persuasion and a working knowledge of human nature. The confidence man appeals to my basic dishonesty to “inspire” me to do the evil I do not have in myself the courage to do. The priest, on the other hand, appeals to my basic goodness and again to inspire me to do the good thing that I do not have in myself the courage to do. In both cases though, I am “conned” or “tricked” in to doing or being something that is just outside the limits of my everyday way of being.

The difference between the confidence man and the priest is found in Zophar's words to Job that I quoted at the head of this post. Both the priest and the con man are tricksters, they do their best work by flipping our ordinary ways of thinking and acting. And while both use words and ideas as their stock and trade, for the later, his words conceal what is evil and base in him even as it evokes what is evil and base in me.

Commenting on the book of Job, Origen says of heretics (another form of the trickster), “They have theories that are not sweet but as the gall of asps, that is, evil” He continues, “The gall of asps is in the belly of the heretics and those who declare impious dogmas contrary to truth.” (“Fragments on Job,” 14.41, quoted in ACCS, vol VI, p. 109) While Origen is certainly correct in his assertion, if the priest is doing what Christ requires of him, his words will sometimes sting and leave a bitter taste.

The confidence man, the heretics, and the negligent priest, all play on our initial distaste for the truth and our preference for, well, heresy (that is, our own will). It is somewhat sobering to me to realize that just as the difference between the honest business man and the con man is one of degrees (or I maybe better, goal) so too the difference between the priest and the con man, between the sermon and the con, is narrower than I might like to think. How easily the skills of one can serve the goal of the other even as, again and again in Job, his accusers speak the truth, but not in love to liberate, but in envy to condemn.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

The Psychology of Leadership I: Looking at the Research

Here is the information for my upcoming webinars, "The Psychology of Leadership I: Looking at the Research"  (Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 2:00 PM CDT/ 3:00PM EDT/7:00 PM GMT) and "Psychology of Leadership II: Applying the Research to the Parish" (Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 2:00 PM CDT/ 3:00PM EDT/7:00 PM GMT).  The  event is sponsored by the Diocese of the Midwest of the Orthodox Church in America.

A couple of things to note. I'll be doing live PowerPoint presentations both days.  While participants will be able to ask questions and make comments via instant messaging, you will not be able to speak directly to or IM the other  participants.  Most users who have computers equipped with speakers and running some version of Windows, Linux or Mac OS and running IE, Firefox, or Safari should have no trouble. 

I have reproduced below information about the webinar's from the Parish Health Ministry web page.

Look forward to meeting some of you online next week!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Background

When we say that someone is "a strong leader" we often mean that we see in the person particular skills (e.g., being a good communicator, or a good organizer) or personality traits (e.g., forceful and directive) that we value.  Just as frequently, we evaluate another as a "weak leader" because of the perceived absence of these valued skills and traits or the presence of skills and talents we don't value.   In either case, we tend to think of leadership in very abstract terms and without reference to the whole social and organizational context within which the person functions in a leadership role.

Recent empirical research into the psychology of leadership, however, argues that context is a key element in understanding leadership.  Leadership, it is argued, emerges from social situations and what is effective style of leadership in one context might be harmful in another.

Organizationally, any individual is a leader only within the context of personal and administrative relationships.  Being a leader implies not only the presence of followers, but also that one is interacting with those who are peers/colleagues and supervisors.  Among other things, how I evaluate an individual as a leader depends on my organizational relationship with that person and in the community.

For example, in looking at the priest as the leader of a parish what relationship do we see?  Most immediately the priest relates on a daily basis with parishioners (i.e., "followers").  But he also relates to his brother clergy ("peers" and/or "colleagues", and his bishop ("supervisor").  All of these people are reasonably concerned with different skills, personality traits and outcomes.  For this reason the standard for what makes a successful leader is not necessarily a shared standard.  It is more accurate to say that in the Church (as with any other human community, religious or secular), there are multiple standards and outcomes that serve as the standards by which we determine who is, and who isn't an effective leader.  While these standards and outcomes are often complimentary, they are not necessarily so.  Sometimes they are unrelated, but they may also be contradictory and even mutually exclusive.

Overview
In this, the first of two webinars, we will look together at lay and clerical leadership within, and for, the parish in light of the current psychology research.  We will begin by brief summarizing this research on the psychology of leadership and followership.  What we will see is that leaders not only need followers, in a different context a leader can be, and often is, also a follower. 
We will conclude by looking at two dysfunctional of parish organization:  collusion and competition.  We will see that not only are these self-defeating forms of parish administration they are contrary to the biblical witness of the Church as "one body with many members"


Speaker
Rev. Fr. Gregory Jensen, Ph.D. Priest-in-charge, Holy Assumption Orthodox Church (OCA), Canton, OH.

A native Texan, after finishing his doctorate in counseling, ministry and spirituality at Duquesne University's Institute of Formative Spirituality in 1995, Fr. Gregory was ordained to the holy priesthood 1996.  Together with his wife Mary he served for 7 years as missionary in rural northern California where he also taught psychology and served as a consultant and trainer for area social service agencies. From 2003-2007, he was the Orthodox chaplain for the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. 

A psychologist by profession, his research focuses on the relationship between classical and contemporary psychology theories of personality and Christian spirituality.   His conference and published work focus on theoretical and applied issues in clinical and developmental psychologies, pastoral theology, and Christian spirituality.  An avid blogger he maintains the blog Koinonia (www.palamas.info), is active in the Youngstown, OH chapter of the Society St John Chrysostom (an ecumenical group devoted to Catholic/ Orthodox reconciliation) and is a frequent speaker at retreats.

Learning Objectives

1. Participants will be introduced to the current social psychological research on leadership and followership.
2. Participants will have a better understanding of the different facets of lay and clerical parish leadership.
3. Participants will come to understand why effective leadership within the parish must take into account the role of the parish in the deanery, the diocese and the national Church.
4. While not directly concerned with outreach and evangelism, religious education, the philanthropic ministry of the parish, or stewardship, this webinar offers the parish a more effective, empirically based, foundation for the planning and implementation of these and other critical parish ministries and programs.


The Details

• Date: Tuesday, March 24/31 2009
  
• Time: 2:00 PM CDT/ 3:00PM EDT/7:00 PM GMT
• Registration: Click here for Part I and here for Part II.si
  

Game Theory and Trust

Besides the beginning of the Great Fast, my time these last two weeks have been has been taken up preparing for several presentations I'll be making between now and the beginning of April.

Currently, I am finishing the research for a two part online seminar on parish leadership (a webinar). In addition to reviewing the psychological literature on leadership, I've had the chance to look at some VERY introductory material in game theory (Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, by Len Fisher and Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions), by Ken Binmore)

"Game theory?" you ask, "what is game theory?"

Glad you asked. I'll tell you.

Game theory, according to the Wikipedia (that online repository of everything) article on the subject, is a branch of applied mathematics that "attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others." In addition to its application in the social sciences (especially economics), the theory and insights of game theory have be applied to disciples as diverse as "biology, engineering, political science, international relations, computer science (mainly for artificial intelligence), and philosophy."

While there's a great in game theory that I find interest—and useful—one of the things that has caught my attention as a I prepare for my parish leadership seminar is what game theory says about fostering trust in interpersonal relationship.

When trust is lost, when I offend or hurt you, if I'm a descent person, my natural inclination is to apologize and try and win back your trust. While the first half of my response—the apology—is a good thing, my second step, my attempt to win your trust, is (assuming I've understood what I've read) is likely to have a result opposite that for which I hope (that you trust me). So the question now becomes why? Why do I so often fail when I try and win back your trust?

Game theory is concerned with "strategic situations." In somewhat simplistic terms, strategy is about acting to achieve a particular goal. A strategic situation is one in which the participants are each trying to accomplish a goal relative to each other. They might, for example, be in competition with each other, or they might cooperate with each other. The riding on a seesaw is an example of the later, game of chess is an example of the former.

"But what about restoring trust Father Gregory?! How do I do that?" I'll tell you.

The best way to foster trust or cooperation, or so some game theorists argue, is not to ask for it, but to offer it. That's why apologizing when I've caused you harm is a good thing and often brings a good response from you. And it is also why asking (or trying) to win your trust often fails. Let me explain.

When I, or anyone for that matter, apologizes I'm making myself vulnerable to you. My vulnerability, my willingness to be rejected or in some way hurt by you, demonstrates my trust in you to treat me with respect and to not take advantage of me. When, however, I follow my apology up with the request, "How can I earn your trust back," I am asking you to be vulnerable to me—to let your guard down by asking you to reveal to me (a self-acknowledge untrustworthy person) the ways in which I can hurt you.

Let me try and explain this a bit better.

My wife and I have begun house hunting in anticipation of our upcoming move to Madison, WI. Like most home buyers, we will apply for a mortgage to help us purchase our new house. Now in addition to a credit check (i.e., our character in financial matters) and a check on our income (i.e., how much money we've got), the bank will also require from us two things: a deposit on the house (that is, that we pay them a percentage of the house's cost) and collateral (in our case, the house itself).

Why does bank wants a deposit and collateral from borrows? The deposit isn't to lower the amount that they will borrow; nor is putting the house up as collateral meant to give the bank something to sell if the borrowers default on the loan. It is rather to raise the cost for the borrowers of their defaulting on the loan. In effect, the bank is willing to trust us (or any borrowers) only to the degree that we have something to lose if we fail to repay the loan.

Trust is won by my willingness to suffer loss if I am untrustworthy in our relationship. If dishonesty or untrustworthy behavior doesn't cost me anything, you are unwise to trust me.

At first this might sound a harsh and judgmental standard—it certainly did to me. But as I thought about it, I began to ask, what is it that I mean by trust? Is it simply a warm feeling or is it my ability to predict your future behavior? While forgiveness need not be mutual, trust must be. Trust requires that we walk together as it were. It isn't necessarily bad or sinful if we don't walk together—but if we don't walk together our relationship is not trustworthy for the simple reason that we aren't together on this or that issue.

What has all this to do with pastoral leadership?

I think were often pastors go wrong is that we are not clear as to the cost of failure to us if we fail in a pastoral relationship. Or maybe it is more accurate to say, the cost we bear for failure is not relevant to those we fail. Often clergy and laity deal in rather different "currency" from each other. Most priests I know that failure very personally, but this deep, personal sense of failure while sincere, is often not seen (or necessarily valued) by those that we fail.

I will, in my next post, come back to what might be a more meaningful pledge by clergy to those we serve. I suspect that much of the tension we see in the Church today reflects the fact that we do not have a shared standard of valuing the cost of behavior (whether perpetrated by clergy or lay leaders) that violates the bond of trust that holds us together.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Natural Law and the Kerygma

Natural law, I would argue, is an important, and much neglected, element of the kerygmatic ministry of the Church. To come back around to Fr George's essay—and the Orthodox resistance to natural law—I think one valuable contribution Orthodox theology might make to natural law theory is helping to deepen the evangelical character of the natural law tradition. Such a work is, after all, certainly compatible with the example of St Paul who offers us an archetypal expression of the kerygmatic or evangelical function of natural law in the opening chapter of his letter to the Church of Rome (1.18-32).

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. (vv. 18-23)

The Apostle offers us a biblical sound basis upon which to offer a natural law theory that is anthropologically sound, evangelically relevant and compatible with the patristic understanding of natural contemplation (theoria).

Let me conclude by offering a pastoral, intra-Orthodox, observation. I cannot help but wonder if many of the scandals that have plagued the Orthodox Church in recent years are not the consequence of our theoretical, and more importantly, practical/pastoral, rejection of a Pauline theory of natural law. The Apostle is rather clear that a refusal to be obedient to God as He manifests Himself in the created order brings with it just the kind of division we see in many quarters of the Orthodox Church.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (vv. 24-32)

If every element of what Paul describes is not seen in our recent scandals, there is enough of a "family" resemblance to make me wonder if we have not failed in at least this one area of our pastoral obligation to "rightly discern" the Word of Truth.

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Criticizing the Critics

Where I would disagree, however, with Orthodox critics of natural law is the tendency to assume—as does Fr George in his essay—that natural law is (1) derived from empirical, scientific observation alone and that (2) the tendency to assume that the use of reason is somehow opposed or harmful to the life of faith.

Yes, certainly, there are those who have advanced an understanding of natural law that is divorced from Christian faith. And yes, some who have done so are themselves Christians. But I think the Orthodox rejection of natural law is (as I alluded to above) a rejection of a particular understanding of natural law that admittedly has deviated from the biblical and patristic tradition. Again, as so often seems to be the case, it is easy to reject a position if I compare my best to your worst. This I think is what has been done with Orthodox critics of natural law.

Pope John Paul II encyclical, Veritatis Splendor (Latin for "The Splendor of Truth"), offers Orthodox critics a biblically and philosophically sound defense of natural law and its relationship to conscience that would serve as a better touchstone for Orthodox critics of natural law. For example, in his reflection on Matthew 19:17 ("If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments"), John Paul writes:

Only God can answer the question about the good, because he is the Good. But God has already given an answer to this question: he did so by creating man and ordering him with wisdom and love to his final end, through the law which is inscribed in his heart (cf. Rom 2:15), the "natural law". The latter "is nothing other than the light of understanding infused in us by God, whereby we understand what must be done and what must be avoided. God gave this light and this law to man at creation". He also did so in the history of Israel, particularly in the "ten words", the commandments of Sinai, whereby he brought into existence the people of the Covenant (cf. Ex 24) and called them to be his "own possession among all peoples", "a holy nation" (Ex 19:5-6), which would radiate his holiness to all peoples (cf. Wis 18:4; Ez 20:41). The gift of the Decalogue was a promise and sign of the New Covenant, in which the law would be written in a new and definitive way upon the human heart (cf. Jer 31:31-34), replacing the law of sin which had disfigured that heart (cf. Jer 17:1). In those days, "a new heart" would be given, for in it would dwell "a new spirit", the Spirit of God (cf. Ez 36:24-28).

At least as articulated by the late pontiff, natural law is not the fruit of human reason operating in isolation, much less opposition, to divine grace. Rather, it is the product of the mysterious interplay of faith and reason. Natural law is born from the convergence of human freedom and creativity, one the one hand, and divine revelation and grace on the other. If the categories used are not immediately familiar to those trained in Orthodox theology, we nevertheless would do well to follow St Basil's observation: "Dogma is one thing, kerygma another; the first is observed in silence, while the latter is proclaimed to the world." (On the Holy Spirit ch. 27(66))

In my next post, I will try and fill in a bit of what I think is the biblical and evangelical character of Christian understanding of natural law.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Orthodox Criticism of Natural Law

One of the most valuable things, for me at least, about keeping a blog is the questions and criticisms that people offer in response to what I've posted.

Certainly this has been the case with my recent series of posts on the psychology of pastoral leadership. One commentator in particular, David, has offered a number of penetrating observations. (Unfortunately, my shift from Holscan to JSKit for my comments means that David's comments and questions have not shown up here—I suspect I need to go back to Haloscan or possibly move my blog over to Wordpress, but this is for another day.) You can read David's comments here, here and here. (I hope!)

As a recent article in The Tablet suggests (thank you Sr Macrina), one of the difficulties in a discussion drawn from the catholic moral tradition is that most of us are unfamiliar with the philosophical presuppositions that frame the discussion. That is certainly true with my own thoughts on subsidiarity. As I allude to in an earlier post (which can be read in its entirety here), subsidiarity presupposes at least a basic understanding of natural law. But this of course raises another question: Which view of natural law?

Natural law theory has had a much greater influence, I think, in Western Christian theology than in the Eastern Christian theology. Indeed, two contemporary Orthodox theologians—Fr Alexander Schmemann and Vladimir Lossky—seem to reject the idea that natural law has any application in Christian theology since (following ironically enough, an argument which St Augustine, that paragon of Western theology, would have embraced) what is "natural" for human is our state before Adam's transgression. Now what we know about humanity is profoundly unnatural.

In an essay that appeared several years ago in The Word, "Pastoral Considerations on Current Problems: Sex, Natural Law and Orthodoxy,"
Fr. George Morelli, a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist and Coordinator of the Chaplaincy and Pastoral Counseling Ministry of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, offers what seems to be a typical criticism of natural law. In response to the idea that extra-marital sexual relations are not contrary to "natural law" Fr George writes:

Extra-marital sex is not against the natural law. In science, when we speak of natural we mean what is in nature. In nature, many types of behaviors exist. There are many varieties that we see in our own culture and even more varieties that we can see in cross cultural comparisons. Sociological and anthropological studies lead the way here. Thus monogamy, polygamy, war, murder, chastity, and homosexuality, etc., are all equally lawful in nature because they all exist. For example, we may observe that in a certain culture, homosexual behavior occurs and thereby deviates from what the average individual does. But that neither makes it unnatural nor immoral. The fact that it exists means it is natural, as natural as a sunrise or an earthquake, a flower or a flood.

Fr George argues that we cannot basis Christian moral norms of empirical science, but only on the Gospel. He goes so on to argue in the above essay that whenever the Church "has based its faith, dogma or morals on science, she has been terribly embarrassed." Precisely because the primary concern for the Orthodox Church is evangelical, Fr George argues that as Christians "We do not obey a proscription, sexual or otherwise, because it adheres to some so-called "pseudo" natural law."

Rather Christian obedience is of a different kind.

We obey according to the measure of our faith. The measure of our faith will be based on the depth of heart and sincerity of our prayer. It would be well to keep in mind what our holy fathers have taught us - obedience leads to faith and prayer, and in turn, faith and prayer lead to obedience. Being excellent psychologists, the fathers tell us that the main pitfalls to prayer and obedience to God's will are forgetfulness, ignorance and laziness. Possibly we could sum up these three categories into two: knowledge and perseverance (or persistence). Real knowledge of the Christian spiritual-moral life can only come from the light of faith in accordance with the Gospels and the guidance of the Church. Persistence in seeking the will of God and obedience to His commandments also comes through faith. Obedience itself makes for even greater love, faith and obedience.

As I said, I think that the above argument is a good, popular expression of the rejection of natural law by many Orthodox theologians. In which the Orthodox criticism asserts, that our knowledge of the spiritual and moral life comes "from the light of faith in accordance with the Gospels and the guidance of the Church," I would heartily concur, as I suspect would most Catholic thinkers.

I will, in my next post, offer a response to the Orthodox rejection of natural law.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What Doesn’t Work

Fidelity to the personal and communal vocation of the human person requires from those in authority that they are restrained in the exercise of power even as God's is Himself restrained in His relationship with His creation. (While I think this restraint must certainly be personal, i.e., ascetical, reflecting on my own experience as an American, I also think the restraint must also be systemic, i.e., by wise laws and procedures overseen by wise and ascetically self-limiting leaders. But a fuller explication must, alas, wait for another day.) Though not without significant differences, reflecting as they do the relationship of Persons in the Triune God, parish leaders (or really, any human leaders) must as we've seen be characterized by trust. As God trust His creatures so the human leader must trust those he leads.

Practically, this means that as a pastor, my relationship with the parish should largely be "hands off." Just as I ask deference (that is to say, trust) for decisions I make, I should also defer to lay people as they go about their own personal and family lives. While this is relatively simple in personal, one-on-one, relationships, trust becomes more difficult when we speak about the day to day, week to week, year and year out, governance of the parish.

The model that largely structured the life of the parish throughout most of the 20^th century is some form of lay trusteeship. Occasionally this model made possible a collaborative and cooperative working relationship between priest and parish. In the main, however, it has taken the form of the priest being responsible for "upstairs" (i.e., the liturgical and sacramental life of the parish) and the laity for "down stairs" (i.e., everything else).

Under this lay trustee model it was not (and in some places still is not) uncommon for the priest to use the sacramental lives of the Church as a means of exercising control over what he saw as a rebellious the laity. And the laity, for their part, were not shy (and still at times, are still not shy) about using the power of the purse to force compliance of what they say to be a stubborn priest. (In both cases, I should add, there was often some justice for the complaints. But just as frequently the matter was (is) simply a desire for power.)

While this approach has the virtue of simplicity, it in fact is grounded in a system of dysfunctional relationships that do not embody or reflect a respectful openness to the uniqueness of others. Much less is it grounded in an imitation of the relationship of Persons in the Holy Trinity. Rather it is a model in which priest and laity seeing each other as competitors who must zealously guard their respective areas of authority from encroachment by the other. Worse, still are those situations where priest and lay leaders collude with each other to maintain a monopoly on power in the parish.

Whether the life of the parish is marked by power struggles (the competitive mode of leadership) or the tight fisted control of the many by the few (i.e., collusion) the life of the Spirit is quenched and the parish dies a slow spiritual death that often takes root years before its numerical death.

In the Tradition of the Orthodox Church the principle of subsidiarity finds its counterpart in terms such as synergia, (i.e., the working together of wills human and divine) syndiakonia (i.e., a co-service of clergy and laity) and symphonia (the working together of Church and State). All of these, I would stress, are grounded in the mutual obedience of all parties involved to the will of God as manifested not only in Holy Scripture and the writings of the Fathers, but also natural law.

While synergia, syndiakonia,
symphonia are all rich terms, where I think Orthodox thought would profit most from Catholic Social Teaching is in the grounding of our understanding subsidiarity not simply Holy Tradition but also natural law. I will in my next post try and offer a bit of an apology for natural law as a useful adjunct to Orthodox theological reflection on Church leadership.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Subsidiarity & the Respectful Life

We saw in an earlier post, the more about the practical virtue of respect for an effective leader. To help us now understand more about the character of the respectful leader, I want to borrow a concept from Catholic Social Teaching. Specifically, I have in mind mere the principle of subsidiarity.

The entry on subsidiarity in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) begins by pointing out that participate in society and social groups fulfills an essential aspect of human nature even as it "presents dangers." Thinking of the political realm the authors of the CCC identify as the chief danger the "Excessive intervention by the state." Such intervention is deemed excessive when it, or has the possibility to, undermine the "personal freedom and initiative" of its citizens. The Catholic Church "has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity" specifically with an eye to offering a response to the intrusive state. Central to this articulation is the idea that "'a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.'" (#1883)

Moving swiftly from anthropology to theology, the CCC argues that subsidiarity in human society is a reflection of how God relates to His creation:

God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence. (#1884)

Stressing as it does the primacy of human freedom and initiative (what I would call simply, wisdom) in the structuring of our shared life, the "principle of subsidiarity" leads the Christian (and person of good will, since while grounded theologically, subsidiarity is a principle of natural law) to oppose "all forms of collectivism." Continuing, we read that subsidiarity as a principle of social organization necessarily "sets limits for state intervention" and instead leads us to work for a way of a life in which we are able to harmonize "the relationships between individuals and societies." (#1885)

While offered within the context of "establishment of true international order." (#1885), what strikes me as important for parish leadership is the argument that leaders (i.e., the "higher order") should "not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order." Instead the task, dare I say, vocation, of leadership is to serve the "common good." This service, if I've understood what I have read both in the Catechism and more generally in Catholic Social Teaching, is directed not toward the collective, but the person and what Pope John Paul II calls the "community of persons" (i.e., the family, the school, the state, the Church, etc.)

I will, in my next post, contrast the principle of subsidiarity to what I see as the more typical patterns of parochial clerical and lay leadership. Let me add, these patterns are often dysfunction, but they are also (thank God) changing.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

More on Respect

Previously, I outlined what I would call the anthropological imperative for respect (which I described as "contemplative openness" to the work of God in self and others) as the foundational virtue of leadership. What I will do in this post is sketch out the broad outline of a respectful relationship.

With my own parishioners I am clear (well, I think I'm clear, they are the better judge of my clarity on this issue than am I), I do not want, nor do I deserve, their obedience. What I ask for—and I've discussed this in an earlier post, to read it click here—is deference. By deference I mean that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I want the benefit of the doubt for my views about the direction the parish should take. Of course, in phrasing the matter the way I have, I am also inviting criticism and debate of my views. And why not? I can be—and often am—wrong.

My asking for deference is another way of saying that I wish my parishioners to respect my position as the parish priest. As the pastor, I often have access to information that others in the parish do not. Beyond this, however, even if it is more specialized than is the case with most priests, like most Orthodox priest, I also have a very specialized graduate training that (I think) gives me a particular expertise that most of my parishioners simply do not have.

All that said though, as I think about my own role in the parish, I am mindful of the advice I often give people with critically ill children: Your child's doctor is an expert in all children; you are an expert in your child.

Thought of in this way, pastor and parishioners bring different, and usually complimentary, knowledge sets and skills. While I may be expert in this or that aspect of parish life, I do not have the kind of expertise or depth of knowledge as does someone who has lived his or her whole adult life in the parish. One form of expertise is not necessarily better than another, they are simply different.

What should be clear is that respect cannot simply be a one way street. Clergy must not simply ask for respect, we must also offer it to the laity (and to one another, but that is a topic for another day). But this is difficult if the priest (just to look at one side of the relationship, but what I say is equally applicable to the laity and bishops for that matter) if his relationship with others is not proximately ground a self-respect that finds its more remote ground in appreciative, but critical, self-knowledge that it itself ground in a trust in God and His work in the life of the priest.

More often than not the absence of a healthy sense of self-respect reflects not so much the presence of a psychopathology, but a developmental lack. Self-respect is not spontaneous or natural, but rather learned. Since this learning process necessarily includes moments of failure, it is difficult to grow in a healthy regard for self in a social context that (as I've pointed out earlier) equates leadership with a relatively arbitrary collection of skills.

And again, this doesn't mean the skills are not important, just not primary. And again, no list of skills are exhaustive and any attempt to create one is more likely to foster anxiety and a nagging, but nevertheless debilitating, sense of insufficiency.

How then might we foster respect in self and others?

Developmentally, we come to a sense of our own competency through the twin socialization mechanism of conformity to the expectations of our tradition as mediated by our parents AND the willingness of our parents to affirm us even when our behavior fails to measure up the standards of our tradition.

Between children and parents, this largely happens spontaneously. Where things often go wrong is when the relationship between parent and child grows in complexity and so the possibility of real, substantive, but nevertheless legitimate divergence and disagreements. At this point, the natural, more biologically based relationship, needs to be itself re-oriented through critical reflection.

Put another way, we need to think about why it is acceptable to continue to be affirming and respectful of others even when the exercise of their freedom is an challenge to what was once our undisputed authority in their lives.

Using early childhood development as our model, what we see is just as the parents must continually limit themselves in the face of their child's growing sense of self-mastery and freedom, so too the parish priest needs to see his relationship with his parishioners as an act of kenosis as they become ever more capable of directing their own personal and communal spiritual lives.

At this point I need to introduce the concept of subsidiarity, an idea I am borrowing from Roman Catholic social teaching. I find in subsidiarity a helpful insight in coming to value the different expertise that are brought to the parish. Or as St John the Baptist says of himself relative to Christ, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (Jn 3.30)

While such a program of leadership is personally challenging, I would like turn my attention to a more theoretical justification of such an approach. For this reason I will in my next post try and offer a bit of an apology for the principle of subsidiarity as a useful adjunct to Orthodox theological reflection on Church leadership.

Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles by Zemanta

• More Thoughts on Trust and Obedience (palamas.info)

Respect & the Complexity of our Social Life

eturning to our earlier conversation of the importance of character to effective leadership, what character trait or traits might we look for in those called to a leadership role in the Church? While an argument can be made for the relative primacy of any number of virtues, I increasingly come to think that a key virtue—if not the key virtue—of pastoral leadership is respect. Let me explain.

Both in administrative matters, and especially as it pertains to fostering the spiritual life of parishioners and the whole community, pastoral leadership is (to again borrow from Friedrich Hayek's essay "The Use of Knowledge in Society") a "complex of interrelated decisions about the allocation of our available resources. " Secular "economic activity" and parish leadership are a mode of "planning," that is they are concerned with the allocation of scarce resources. And, just as "in any society in which many people collaborate, this planning, whoever does it, will in some measure have to be based on knowledge which, in the first instance, is not given to the planner but to somebody else, which somehow will have to be conveyed to the planner."

While a concern for skills much be part of how we select both our clergy and lay leadership, the overemphasis on skills leads to (if I borrow again from Hayek) a governance of the parish by "authority," or by a leadership composed "of suitably chosen experts." Ironically, the approach that (tacitly and sometime explicitly) favors skills over character is one that is (in the short term) likely to prove popular and even effective. Why? Because, and again as Hayek observed, "it is today . . . widely assumed that the latter [i.e., 'the experts'] will be in a better position." The Church finds herself in a cultural context in which "one kind of knowledge, namely, scientific knowledge, occupies [a] prominent a place in public imagination."

The adulation of expert knowledge—whether scientific or theological—is possible only to the degree that we "forget that it is not the only kind that is relevant. It may be admitted that, as far as scientific [or really any expert] knowledge is concerned, a body of suitably chosen experts may be in the best position to command all the best knowledge available—though this is of course merely shifting the difficulty to the problem of selecting the experts." And so Hayek concludes, "What I wish to point out is that, even assuming that this problem can be readily solved, it is only a small part of the wider problem."

That wider problem is not one, I would argue, that can be solved since it pertains not to human ingenuity and creativity, but truth. And, as Chesterton reminds us, "truth is stranger than fiction. Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves."

But if the myriad practical problems cannot be solved—since any given solution engenders a new set of challenges—we can respond to the problems in a manner that opens us more fully to divine grace both in our own lives and the lives of those entrusted by Christ to our care. Respect is that practical virtue, I would suggest, that allows us to dwell in the midst of the complexity of life (that Hayek describes so well) with a gentle openness and trust in God.

Etymologically, the word respect literally means to look again (from L. respectus "regard," lit. "act of looking back at one," pp. of respicere "look back at, regard, consider," from re- "back" + specere "look at"). Moving from the literal to the connotative, we can think about being respectful as gazing up or looking at someone or something with appreciation, even admiration.

The respectful person than embodies what Adrian van Kaam calls a "contemplative openness" to the world of persons, events and things. At the heart of this openness is the ability and willingness to see the world not in terms of isolated pieces but as an ever expanding whole that both flows from, returns to, and is sustained by, God.

While Hayek's work might seem itself too theoretical for pastoral ministry, the problem he points to is immediately applicable. We can compare the theoretical posturing of the economist who ignores the practical wisdom of the entrepreneur to the pastoral disrespectful leader. In the latter case we see someone who elevates his own partial vision of the parish at the expense of the whole.
The disrespectful leader is disrespectful because his vision is narrow, static and sectarian rather than holistic, dynamic and catholic. Invariably, if not initially, he will seek to control the life of the parish based upon his own egoic vision of what the community "ought" to be.

Contrast this sense of respect to our typical experience of life as not an ever deepening sense of wholeness and support, but rather increasing fragmentation, isolation and competition. It is this second experience that I would characterize as disrespectful or the tendency to ignore the whole in favor of the part. (It is in this sense that we can talk about the logical priority of charity, but the practical priority of respect. Respect looks beyond itself to charity. A fuller explanation of this will have to wait for another time.)

The respectful leader, on the other hand, understand that—even if he should want to do so—he cannot control the parish in any but the smallest details and only then at the expense of committing an offense against the dignity of the person and the prompting of grace in the person's life.

I will in my next post, look in more detail at the practical virtue of respect. Until then, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hayek on the use of knowledge in society (knowledgepolicy.com)
• More thoughts on Spiritual Direction & Confession: Trust & Obedience (palamas.info)
• More Thoughts on Trust and Obedience (palamas.info)

Leadership & the Complexity of Planning

All virtues are, necessarily, situational. This does not mean that morality is not objective, far from it. Rather, it is only to say that the moral law most always been embodied and so, necessarily, to some degree situational.

Aristotle's discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics of temperance and courage as the midpoint between extremes illustrates the importance of context for any consideration of virtue:"First, then, let us consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it."

But while the principle of balance is for Aristotle is absolute on the theoretical level, in practice it must always take context in to consideration. And so "the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean." (Bk II.2)

If, as I have argued earlier, the character of the leader is primary and concrete skills secondary, to understand the virtues needed for leadership we have to first understand the context within which the leader is called to serve. In his defense of the free market, the Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek offers us the insight we need.

Hayek argues that the practical problem with a planned economy is a poverty of information. Not matter how well researched, social interactions are simply too complex, the variables too, well varied, to lend themselves to the kind of analysis and understanding that makes accurate prediction of causal relationships possible. Or, as he argues in "The Use of Knowledge in Society," (with my emphasis)

the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources—if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

Increasingly, I find theoretical work in economics increasingly useful for my own systematic reflections on the pastoral life of the Church since (in both cases) the concern is the practical of how the wealth of the community ought best be used.

And if, as Hayek argues, "This character of the fundamental problem" in economics has "been obscured rather than illuminated by many of the recent refinements of economic theory, particularly by many of the uses made of mathematics," I think the pastoral life of the Church has been harmed by a similar, and equally, unwise use of theology. Just as "many of the current disputes with regard to both economic theory and economic policy have their common origin in a misconception about the nature of the economic problem of society" because economists have narrowed their vision to the mathematical, so too the parish suffers a like harm because often we try and impose on the community our own idiosyncratic, abstract, albeit theologically articulated and justified, vision of human life and society.

For Hayek this epistemological question is central to any consideration of economic planning. I would assert that his insight is more broadly applicable to the actual challenge faced by the leadership of any community. This is especially so with, in the parish where we have not only all the varied factors inherent in any social group, but also the added complexity of attending to the mystery of divine grace in the life of both individual parishioners and the parish as a whole. All of this is captured in "ordinary language . . . by the word 'planning.'" Hayek's view of planning resonates with the challenge of pastoral leadership.

In my next post, I want to look with you a bit more at the complexity of parish leadership in light of Hayek's argument of the complexity of economic planning. As I hope to show, while all the Christian virtues are important to pastoral leadership, it is the virtue of respect that is foundational.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hayek on the use of knowledge in society (knowledgepolicy.com)

The 25 Random Things Michael Steel and the New GOP Leadership Should Know...

Thank you to Chrys, who frequently offers his insights here. He emailed me this morning an interesting post by Hugh Hweitt over at Townhall.com. While the post, "The 25 Random Things Michael Steel and the New GOP Leadership Should Know," as Chrys said is "meant to address political concerns, it seems to me that there is a good deal of insight here that would apply to the Church, as well - or at least specific ministries and/or projects within the Church."

I agree with Chrys and I would invite your own thoughts and comments as well.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

p.s., If anyone else has something you think worth including here, please drop me an email!

+FrG

25 Random Things Michael Steel and the New GOP Leadership Should Know

1. Creating messages that move people to action begins with an understanding of the people you want to move.

2. You cannot control the message. You can only tell your side, and hope to influence the general consensus.

3. Popular culture is, far and away, more powerful than political rhetoric.

4. Popular culture can be created. But only with success by those who understand its nature. And even then, it is equal parts art, science, and chance.

5. People no longer interact with products (or causes) on the basis of top-down information. Communication is omnidirectional, and the world is flat.

6. You can\'t force anyone to listen. You can only work hard to get them to like and trust you. When they do that, they begin to listen, but only on their own terms.

7. They don't just listen. They talk, too. Which means you must listen, if you want to keep interacting with them.

8. Playing catch-up in the digital world is difficult. And because the digital world changes every minute, it\'s a perpetual process.

9. Naive misuse of social media is exactly the same as ignorant misbehavior in real-life social settings, and it comes with the same consequences.

10. Social media is a real-life social setting.

11. There is no on-line and off-line anymore. It's all connected. If you don't understand it all, you don't understand it at all.

12. Successful creation of an online communications campaign depends more on the creativity of the campaign than the technology. It's the same as traditional communication. You don't think "That's a great billboard," because of where the billboard is, or how it's constructed. You think "That's a great billboard," because of the idea and execution.

13. Technology is a tool - a delivery mechanism. In the hands of a technologist, it's an efficient machine. In the hands of an artist, it\'s a powerful canvas. Lots of people understand the internet. Very few people can create a movement on it.

14. People don't interact with websites or Twitter, or Facebook. People interact with people. They use those things to help them do it.

15. People don't act on need. People act on want.

16. Public service is noble. But politics is a business. You're selling a product. The product is an idea or a candidate. Marketed properly, any product will sell. A good product will sell more. A bad product will not see many repeat customers.

17. You need to understand technology. But more than that, you need to understand the market. Because technology has created a vast cultural shift in that market. Just learning the technology won't teach you the shift.

18. Embracing the wishes of everyone, and crafting a message by consensus, guarantees mediocrity.

19. Before you take a message public, run it by your 16-year-old daughter. Not because she won't understand, and you might need to dumb it down for the masses -- but because she's smarter and cooler than you, and you might need to listen to her suggestions.

20. Richard Nixon lost to the "first TV President." But it wasn't TV that did it. Kennedy presented a better image than Nixon in real life, too. Nixon lost to well-crafted (for its day) pop culture in the form of a candidate. And because he had no understanding of that, he had no real defense.

21. John McCain. See item 20.

22. It is a popularity contest.

23. Item 22 is unfortunate, and shouldn't be, and everything you're thinking. But it is what is, and you can't change that. The only option is to win the popularity contest with someone who also embodies and embraces the ideals we believe in.

24. This list is just the beginning of the things you should know. It, like the communications landscape, will change in about an hour.

25. You should know why this list is written and titled the way it is. If you don't, ask your 16-year-old daughter.