"Would You Say to Their Face What You Say Behind Their Back?”
The answer to this question in most cases is, “Hopefully not.” We say things about each other all the time that we would prefer they not hear. I know I don’t want to hear at least half the things that are said about me. (And I am glad to hear the other half.)
I’m in the middle of doing team evaluation of ministers who are applying for the seminary and other ministers who are already in the program. Our team statement is “We are their advocates from application to ordination.” However, it can become easy to make flip comments on the evaluation forms because we think they won’t ever see these forms. I saw the evaluations from my application two years after I was ordained. I wasn’t supposed to see it, but I did. Those “ministers” wrote things that I would truly hope they wouldn’t say to my face. They were flip. They were unkind and they were not very ministerial. But who am I to judge?
One of the reasons I joined the UWM mentoring program is to change things so that no new applicant would ever be treated as poorly as both me and several of my friends had been subjected to.
We have received extra training this year guiding us to make constructive comments on the evaluation forms, that offer a forward movement rather than writing judgmental comments that amuse us. I have learned that I’m not smarter because I know what’s wrong with somebody and I can say it in a witty way. That doesn’t make me smart and it sure doesn’t allow kindness to come through.
My point is that we need our built-in editors to let us know that the people around us are people with feelings and they need to be encouraged to blossom rather than drying up and wilting. We need the same thing. If no one is encouraging you in a loving way, do it for yourself. Say kind, supportive things to yourself. Encourage yourself to do better and continually remind yourself that you are loved by God and cannot not be loved by God.
Let’s start declaring the present activity of God in each of us to our faces and behind our backs. Let’s pick that mountain of confusion up and throw it into the sea.
Let’s affirm together, “The Superconscious Mind is awake in me now!”
I see you and you’re Good,
Rev. Shawn Moninger