Clergy reality TV
for those who are looking for true love
It dismays my husband, but I love the Netflix luxury real estate show ‘Selling Sunset’.
Beyond being transfixed by the beautiful homes - and how those women manage to climb steps in those heels! - I am fascinated by the agents themselves - maybe not in the way that the producers intend.
I’m drawn to the fact that they all seem so unhappy - despite being blessed with beauty, wealth, and fame. Despite getting to be in beautiful places all the time, and despite working with a team - a group of people that they often refer to as their ‘family’.
Yet they are constantly fighting, breaking up with their partners, and being offended by everything. I feel for them. I find I want to hug them all.
Their lives don’t make me envious, despite all their trappings of success. It certainly doesn’t make me want their lives - it actually makes me want them to know about my life. To know there are ways to live that bring you contentment and joy, focused on the inner life, not external experiences.
It makes me think there should be a reality TV show about ministers!
Maybe that seems boring - though I think people might be surprised how often clergy find ourselves in the middle of life’s dramas, trying to broker peace and be a calming presence.
That’s not exactly what I’m envisioning, though.
As I mentioned last week, I’m reading through Michael Plekon’s book Ministry Matters, engaging in conversation with it here on my blog. I’m starting with the introduction, where Plekon explains his work to be a ‘meditation on the vocation, lives, and work of pastors’.
I appreciate this, and I hope that Plekon would agree that considering the life of pastors is also, in a way, considering life in general. What we find important, what we pay attention to. What is most important in all areas of our life.
Another kind of reality TV that I really don’t watch is the dating shows. It’s confusing to me that people think they can find love - not just in highly artificial settings - but in a setup that is competitive. It is the epitome of treating people like objects to be won or lost.
But who isn’t looking for love? Isn’t that, ultimately, what life is about? Romantic love - yes, for many of us. But I think everyone is seeking deeper love - the kind of grounding love that gives them serenity, confidence, and hope. Sustaining love for the times when life is challenging, confusing, overwhelming.
The reality of the life and work of ministers is that we point the way to this - relationship with God.
I don’t know, but I think a lot of people might tune for a show about that. They can call my agent when they’re ready!
Oh aren't we all ever looking for true love. Even when we have found it. Jeanne and I have been together since 1975, married since 1976, two kids, several grandkids, years in our work, quite a few parishes. Still there is more to discover, in life, and in love. We seniors know this! To think about pastors is also to think about the whole of the people of God, the church. And as I tried to say in Community as church, church as community (2021) for all the shrinkage and decline, we are yet gifted with the rediscovery of each other, of how much we depend on each other, of how each of us helps the others make church happen. It's no disrespect to the people to reflect on priests, the ordained, because we are also of the people of God by baptism. So anything we learn about our pastors will build us all up.