I struggle with the concept of being responsible. I have never lacked at being the responsible one in many situations. My OCD tendencies and leadership style tend to suit me being the responsible person in situations. However, when it comes to life I find that I tend to let my responsible self dominate the rest of my life. If you think of a person being made of a variety of parts that could be seen as individual people that all sit in a circle. As whole they make you up and should work to keep you in balance. There's the lover, fighter, career person, responsible person, the higher self, the inner critic, so on and so on. It is easy to get out of balance in this group. One person will tend to come to the fore front and for me right now it's the responsible one. While not always a bad thing to be responsible, when that is your dominate mode of operation balance is lost. The whole self loses touch with the things that ground and refresh a person. They lose sight of the joy in creation. It's hard not to think about the future without thinking about being responsible in a society where it seems like the future is uncertain. Jobs, financial situations are changing and you don't want to find yourself "screwed over" in the future. If you've ever been in a situation where you were upside down on bills you tend to work to keep yourself from having that happen again. It seems like the responsible thing to do but at what cost? That's where I find myself. Struggling with doing the things to keep me from going backwards but at the same time not going forward. It's not easy to admit because that would mean I'm not all with it and how irresponsible would that be??? Here's to praying and learning that my responsible self needs to take a back seat to other parts of me.
As a minister I have the honor of performing rites and ceremonies for people at a variety of stages of life: baptisms, blessings, marriages, funerals, etc. I usually enjoy planning and leading these events. But lately I've had a rash of folks shocked that as a minister, I would have a fee to do some of these services. So lets talk about why I have fees. To start with, if you are a member of my congregation you do get my services as a part of my contract with the congregation as long as they are spelled out in the contract. Generally if you're a member of the congregation I serve, it is expected that I will preform baptisms, blessings, funerals, weddings, etc for you because I want to remind you of God's continuous blessing in your life and especially at important moments in your life. However some folks are shocked that there would be an honorarium suggested for the minister. The reality is that these blessings, weddings, funerals, etc. are extra work in our wee...
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