Blinding clarity

I’ve been continuing to reflect on ministry after Tembu’s ordination and Michael Fuller’s sermon.  My thoughts moved on from my ‘super-rev’ tendencies to thoughts about all the times I/we make a mess of it.  Even tho’ I am an owl of owls, I woke this morning blessed with a blinding clarity about it all.  Unfortunately the clarity evaporated as quickly as the sunshine in which Alison and I breakfasted on our patio beside the ripening corn …. But it was something about our tendency to turn opponents into enemies because of our lack of boundaries and our personal investment in what we do – and about the fact that, in church life, everything stands for something else.  So, unless you ask in the right way, you never find out why somebody feels [unreasonably] strongly about something [apparently] insignificant.  It’s what I used to call a ‘Why are you shouting at me?’ issue.  And then it was about how the order in which you make decisions is as important as the decisions themselves.  And then about the nature of paralysis – where it is better to make almost any decision than none because it least it moves you to a different place and the landscape changes.  Simple!