About a month ago I posted a quote from The Pastor as Minor Poet, by M. Craig Barnes, which essentially described the thesis for the book. If you are not a pastor, this book isn’t for you – though some portions might be a helpful read for pastors’ wives (which I’ll speak to shortly). This would also be a good book for those looking to enter the ministry, because it provides a helpful perspective that can get lost or pushed to the edges in the midst of theological training and study. Honestly, though, I’m not sure an aspiring pastor would really appreciate what Pastor Barnes is conveying. Still it is worth reading for the novice even if he may get more out of it 5-10 years down the road after having gained some real life ministerial experience and perspective. While the book has a lot to offer in regard to the poetic approach to the ministry and what that looks like, I found the simple fact that here was a pastor approaching and articulating his ministry in this fashion to be an invigorating breath of clean air. It further confirmed convictions that I have regarding the ministry, but also helped me to maintain my sanity that I am not the only who thinks about the ministry in this fashion (l know that I’m not because where else would I have learned to think this way except from other pastors, but sometimes it can feel like it). So here is a pastor with years and years of experience who endeavors to have a poetic ministry in the midst of his congregation, and who understands the inherent struggles and challenges unique to such an approach. And herein lies how portions of the books can be helpful for ministers’ wives to read. Chapter 8, “The Subtext of the Poet” is one such section. There are too many good quotes to draw from, but consider these words from the beginning of the chapter:
Minor poets have to struggle for their poetry. It comes only as a prize bestowed upon those with the courage to keep returning to the wrestling between the holy words of the Bible and the day’s ordinary words. At the end of the day, it’s up to the parish poet to make holy sense of all these words.
This is what pastors really mean when they complain about the loneliness of their calling. No on can do this priestly work for them, or even with them. It is ironic that a profession that surrounds pastors with so many people leaves them alone with their own ponderings. And this is the part of the profession that is completely missed by everyone the pastor serves….
There is nothing hierarchical or elitist about this loneliest dimension of the job. To the contrary, pastor are never more servants of the church than when they’re alone with their thoughts about what God is doing in the lives of others. But they’re not really alone. Their souls are crowded with all who have made their way deep inside, And of course, there is also the nagging presence of the holy words that will not go away. This is how pastors love their congregations – they take them into their souls, where they carry on both sides of a conversation between the people and their God.
Barnes goes on in the chapter to expound the ways in which the pastor finds the poetic voices. He notes that there are times when the poets are only talking to themselves, or, more accurately, they “ponder experiences they cannot adequately describe.” For the pastor-poet this means he “is possessed by a burden to ask what God is up to in the lives of the lonely and the sick, as well as in the lives of those whose blessings are so abundant they cannot even count them.” The pastor comes alongside both, thinks on both circumstances and situations, and endeavors to speak to both:
No element of the minor poet’s job description is more crucial than this churning. The experiences, impressions, befuddlements, and penetrating words that are absorbed throughout the day have to turn over and over in the pastor’s soul, where they’re mixed together with the holy words of the Scriptures until at last the human subtext can be described with minor poetry.
So pastors’ wives, when your husband suddenly gets that far away look at the dinner table or in the car, and you ask him if there’s anything wrong, and he just shakes his head and says, “No, not really,” he may just be churning, mulling things over, trying to figure a few things out, and simply can’t put them into words. At least not yet.