Jack Ditch ([info]revjack) wrote,
@ 2008-05-05 19:20:00
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Level Up!
Well, I guess I'm a sixth level cleric now. In honor of my fifth anniversary, I went a bit longer with this year's year-in-review, and gave it a permanent home on my website. So if you're interested, please check out A Sermon To Myself On The Occassion Of The Fifth Anniversary Of My Ordination.

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[info]gypsy1969
2008-05-06 01:48 am UTC (link)
I think for some of us, it is the nature of this UU church to come to and go away from it.

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[info]hecateuse
2008-05-06 01:53 am UTC (link)
Very interesting and thoughtful. Thanks for posting it!

I particularly agree with your comments about universal ordination. As time goes by, I've found that seemingly inane and meaningless "everybody is a minister, called to service in his or her own way"--the central tenet of the ULC--increasingly relevant and powerful. The one and only thing that binds the ULC together is that acknowledgment that we are all on our own paths to truth; that's not a lot of binding as religions go, but it's a damn good place to start.

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[info]revjack
2008-05-06 09:47 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I sorted out a lot of cognitive dissonance as I wrote this. By the standards of the UU community I served, I guess I didn't do a very good job. But then I asked myself, "Since when were those MY standards?" I remembered how I came to the UU community unabashedly preaching universal ministry, and how that message never really caught on. Sure, the UUs would probably say that "acknowledgment that we are all on our own paths to truth" is one of the only things that bind them as well, but then they take all that judgment and expectation that this ethic prevents them from directing towards the laity, and direct it towards their ordained ministers instead. The ULC, by just sitting there ordaining whoever wants it, force themselves to really play out that ethic on all levels.

So there I was sitting there fretting about my failures as a minister from the perspective of an ethic that I was never ordained into, one that was pretty much the opposite of what I ever preached. And when I looked at myself from the ULC perspective that I brought into this gig, I was like, "Hunh, I think I actually might be doing a somewhat admirable job."

REEEEEEEALLY ironic that it would be a UU church making me feel unduly condemnable. But hey, if anything's been a hallmark of my ministry, it's been irony.

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[info]mapjunkie
2008-05-06 01:01 pm UTC (link)
Maybe the DnD/WoW nomenclature isn't the right way to go, because it packs with it certain myths about linear progress and expectations thereof. Leveling sideways and becoming broader is also important, and Christianity teaches that leveling down is sometimes the best thing one can do.

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[info]revjack
2008-05-06 09:21 pm UTC (link)
I hear ya, but I've avoided the temptation to think linearly by presuming there's some kind of skill tree I'm advancing on. And I've definitely been the sort to just throw one or two points into a whole lot of different cross-class skills (as they say, "Jack" of all trades.) The way I figure, one level is one year of experience, but that experience can be doled out in some pretty shallow ways, and you can't judge the cleric by his level. Anyway, I'll probably not stop leveling until I stop thinking and learning in the framework of ministry, and though that came close to happening this year, it hasn't quite happened yet.

Some folks think that Discordians make jokes out of serious things. But really, we just take our jokes very seriously.

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[info]mapjunkie
2008-05-06 09:34 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I'm familiar, the same kind of mock zen as old-school unix folks: http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html

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[info]the_sween
2008-05-06 02:12 pm UTC (link)
Woo Hoo!!! Get Blade Barrier!

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[info]revjack
2008-05-06 09:00 pm UTC (link)
"I put one skill point into Atheism, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt"

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