Good morning, Warriors and happy Sunday! And a big welcome to all the new Warriors who have joined us recently! I have been rather busy the last few days, with an extra shift at work and weddings. Still life happens, and we move on. I am “up and at it” and am not slowing down. In fact, since I am blessed to have two jobs where I carry my phone with me, I have been keeping a list updated with various thoughts, ideas and probabilities for upcoming blogs and stories. In fact, a rough count would be probably around 80 different ideas that have come up in the last week. Even without being here, I’ve been here, so to speak.
Today, I want to talk about what it means to me to be a minister, and what are the responsibilities that I have in that regard? I’ve touched on this before, but this is a subject that comes up frequently in my life. It also relates to things I was taught when I was growing up, and it relates to a post I made the other day.
I also want to mention that I am not a religious minister. I don’t have a doctrine or a specific dogma that I have to follow. I’m an Esoteric (Spiritual) minister. I read texts and books from all faiths, not just one. My experience has shown me that the truth is in all religions, they each just focus on a different aspect.
The word “minister” has a very simple meaning: to render aid. That’s all. It means to help people. It doesn’t mean my job is to stand up and preach to tell you how to be or what to do. That is not the job of a minister. My job is to be the example, to show you, as best as I understand, how to be better, how to do better.
And that leads to one of the problems with being a minister. In general, we as people and a society hold a misperception that “people of the cloth” are somehow supposed to be these superhuman, perfect beings. We’re not. We may be examples, and representatives, but we are still human. We still struggle with the same everyday issues that you do. We still get frustrated, angry, spiteful, judgemental, etc. And we are still loving, compassionate, kind, grateful. We are no different than you are, except in our experiences and what we have as a specialty study.
But one of the responsibilities of being a minister is that we also need to help those that come to us for help see where their self-responsibilities are. Many ministers fail at this, many succeed. Most of us, l believe, do both. The Catholic Confession is a good example of this. Yes,Confession is about where a member of the Church recognizes where they failed in some area(s). However, “x” number of “Our Father’s” and “x” number of “Hail Mary’s” is not going to resolve the problem. The behavior lies within the person, not without. Therefor, the solution also lies within the person.
So let me give you an example:
Several years ago, I had a friend who referred me to a co-worker of hers. This woman was having relationship issues with her former spouse, who had anger and violence issues and was traumatizing her, and their children. I met up with her, and we had a chat. She explained to me that she didn’t want her ex around, but when he showed up at her home in the middle of the night she would let him in because she didn’t want to disturb the neighbors. I told her I understood, but then asked her, quite frankly, what her neighbors would prefer? Would they rather deal with a night or two of limited sleep while she called the authorities to have him removed? Or would they prefer seeing her body being carried out in a body bag? Or how her children would feel growing up without a mother?
Spirit cannot work if we do not take steps to allow the work to happen. “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves.” is the proverbial saying from ancient Greece. If we don’t take the action, nothing will change. And as a minister, one of my responsibilities is to make the necessary changes within myself so that I can be an example of how to do it. But it is not my responsibility to make the changes that you need to make. It is not possible for me to make those changes for you. It is up to you.
Blessed Be.
The Warriors Den 