Well-being - extract from a paper I wrote over the summer...

Ministers Well-being: An introductory discussion paper compiled from various sources

Introduction

In 1778, John Wesley wrote in a letter to Alexander Knox: “It will be a double blessing if you give yourself up to the Great Physician, that He may heal soul and body together. And unquestionably this is His design. He wants to give you … both inward and outward health” (Knox, 1837, pg 12). Wesley’s statement captures the desire God has for each person to reconcile with the best of themselves and the world around them. He is talking about human well-being, which is a process and not an end in itself.

The Well-being section of the Methodist church intranet site is for the connexional team. There a key sentence acknowledges that "we recognise that for ministers the boundaries between ‘work’ and other parts of life often merge." This fuzzy boundary makes well-being provision for ministers complex. 
 

In the secular world well-being is a live issue. The Guardian on Friday 15^th July 2011 had an article on happiness at work. People are not just motivated by money. The top motivator is "respect" – how valued and trusted by their organisation employees feel. Then comes (in order of priority) "type of work", "providing good service to customers", "the people you work with" and finally, good "work-life balance". It suggested five ways to make workplaces happier environments. First, we need managers with better social and interpersonal skills, who manage people by praise and reward and not fault-finding (because few managers do this, a pay rise is often the only time people feel their contribution is recognised). Second, individuals should have autonomy and control over their work – the absence of micro-management. Third, there needs to be a shorter working hours culture, where appropriate flexible working arrangements are available which people can take up without damaging their careers or feeling guilty. Fourth, there should be manageable workloads and achievable deadlines, and finally, a culture should be encouraged in which employees feel valued and trusted. This shows the difficulty of applying secular studies directly to ministers who don't have managers but do have incredible autonomy!

Why Ministerial Wellbeing?

Healthy ministers make for healthy churches. Unfortunately, unhealthy work patterns practiced by clergy in congregations have resulted in burnout, if not actual physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological break-downs. A holistic understanding of work is crucial if we want to develop healthy expectations and work standards for all ministers in circuit appointments.

Many things contribute to well-being, some of which are in the control of the individual and some are in the control of the church. ADR can help the minister and the church make changes to those things within the control of the church but could also make suggestions about those things that are within the personal control of the minister. Ultimately though a person is responsible for their own wellbeing outside work and to a great extent at work also.

Well-being can be split down into: emotional, spiritual, social and financial well-being.

1. Emotional well-being encompasses mood, self-efficacy, self-image, etc.,― essentially one’s viewpoint and confidence in oneself.

2. Spiritual well-being centers on the relationship with God and the activities that support and enhance this relationship such as prayer, meditation, worship, etc.

3. Social well-being considers the relationships within a person’s life including support from friends and family.

4. Financial well-being considers how well one is managing the business of living as well as preparing for retirement. While financial well-being is not often an element included in models of health, it is often a source of stress which can have major effects on multiple dimensions of health.

Each one of these components, when in their optimal state, helps to ensure the overall well-being and effectiveness of the human being. When one or more are impaired, the overall health and vitality of the individual suffers and their ability to thrive is diminished. In the case of a minister, this impairs their ability to answer the call to serve God and their community.

Book Review - searching for spiritual experience in today's world

Piers Moore Ede “All kinds of magic”, Bloomsbury, 2010, ISBN 978 1 4088 0962 4

Piers Moore Ede came to prominence with his first book, a travel guide searching the world for wild honey and this second work details a deeper inner search to fill his spiritual void. Piers has seen many glimpses of “the holy” in different cultures but never enough to have an life changing effect on him. This book is a detailed description of his exploration as he searches for deeper meaning to life through spiritual experience. Being English and having studied in the USA he rejects Christianity out of hand and like so many westerners before him sets off to India with a conviction that the subcontinent has a spirituality permeating all levels of society which has been lost in the west. Nothing though is as simple as it first seems as his meeting with a leading figure in India's secular society shows.

He is a very sensitive writer and having previously suffered from depression is both analytical and descriptive of all that he both thinks and experiences during this long journey of exploration. In this quest he meets holy men and women from Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic traditions and through their mystical insights he finds similarities in the experience of reality from the mystical vision and world view. He admits that this is frequently irrational and the book contains debates between his experiencing self and his critically analytic self as to what is really going on. He meets prophets, mediums, faith healers and oracles all of whom are both revered and feared in their societies yet all seem to fit in to the prevailing world view and what they do works for the people in their communities. He even examines the use of mind enhancing plant extracts (drugs) in religious traditions to raise awareness and bring enlightenment – which very reluctantly he decides to try.

The descriptions of all his experiences are meticulously recorded and written with great sensitivity. By the end of the book he recognises that he has been changed by the experiences and has become a different person.

It is interesting to note that not once does he look at religion or systems of belief per se – he is only interested in the experiential dimension; he wants to know and feel holiness and if he can accept the experience as real then he is prepared to be changed by it. But he is not prepared to take the word of others as to what he should do or feel and so he avoids the official religious castes.

He regards shamans as the most helpful assistants on his journey rather than priests. He discovers that these mystics often sit lightly to their religious tradition and are often regarded with suspicion by others in their faith groups (cf reactions of Muslims to Sufism)

His blind spot is that he totally ignores the western expressions of spirituality found in the various branches of Christianity, all of which have their spiritual, charismatic and mystical threads alongside the more orthodox. Perhaps his English upbringing has inoculated him from seeing Christianity as any more than a cultural shell leftover from centuries past. His analysis of all protestantism since the reformation sees it as dry, intellectual and wordy. He believes that the reformers squeezed all the holiness (or the magic) out of the religion.

This book is a good read. The descriptions of life in India took me back to my months there in the eighties. His sympathetic portraits of the characters he meets and the chance encounters that often made him take interesting detours in his journey give the whole story a lively sense of discovery and adventure. Ultimately I disagree with many of his conclusions, but he and I started and have ended up in very different places. But I thoroughly enjoyed sharing the journey with him.

(This book review first appeared in the journal of Spectrum)

The spirituality of Harry Potter and the deathly hallows

The last Harry Potter book has many deep spiritual themes in it. I identified twelve.

I bought the book on the day it came out and have just seen the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two. It is a well written good story and a fitting end to the series. I thought it better than the earlier books in the series with a good pace and plenty of action throughout. If you haven’t read it you are safe to read on – there are no plot spoilers here.

After I put the book down I was struck by how deeply spiritual the book is. There are almost Christian parallels and allusions in the plot. Here is is list of the twelve points on which I base my argument.

1. The whole Harry Potter plot revolves around self sacrifice. “Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends.”
2. Love and friendship are valued more highly that material things.
3. All the characters are seen to be flawed in their human make up – even the heroes. This could be argued to be original sin. Even Dumbledore is not perfect.
4. Redemption is possible for anyone who loves or feels remorse. Without love or remorse there is no redemption.
5. Heroism is reluctant and great deeds are portrayed as being hard and unpleasant for those doing them.
6. Death, when it comes at the right time, should not be feared but welcomed as a friend.
7. Happiness and joy come from human relationships and such real experiences cannot be created by magic.
8. That which is truly worthwhile often comes after a long struggle and there will be many times when you will be tempted to give up.
9. Power brings with it great responsibility and those best equipped to deal with power are those who do not seek it.
10. Self understanding awakens people to life and its potential.
11. There is a belief in life after death – perhaps even a vision of heaven in a near death experience. It could almost be said there is resurrection in the book but that is a bit far fetched!
12. There is a long journey through a metaphorical desert in the Deathly Hallows where leadership is tested and the direction to travel is not clear. This parallels with the journey of Moses through the wilderness.

For these twelve reasons I see spiritual depth in this book, much more than in the previous books in the series. I have no doubt people will be doing Ph.D. research on ideas such as this in a few years time!

post script :   J K Rowley says that the two quotes from the bible found by Harry and Hermione on the gravestones in Godrics Hollow are crucial to understanding the whole book. They are  "Where your treasure is there your heart shall be also" and "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death".....

I originally wrote this is July 2007 for the Spectrum magazine.