Over the past week, I’ve answered questions and completed paperwork for my upcoming CPM (Committee on Preparation for Ministry) meeting in Idaho, finished 8 pages of self-reflection for my CPE final evaluation, and now I’m working on the seminary paperwork for my CPE experience (which is incredibly redundant - and just more self-reflecting). And this is how I feel. I’m really done with self-reflection for the time being; I know some of my CPE peers are as well (even if they refuse choose not to read my blog). I have had a really great experience with CPE this summer and I know I’ve learned a lot. But I’m done.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I guess it’s a good thing to spend this much time on self-reflection, if nothing else than to help us remember to self-reflect in the throes of daily life.
Will be praying that you have a fruitful time in Idaho.
Are you sure? Maybe you need to look at your feelings and figure out whether or not you’re really done with self-reflection.
:-)
Self reflection is good BUT…in the words of Charles Duran, “Folks will know how large your soul is by the way you treat a dog.” Take Sadie to the dogpark-you both deserve it!
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
- Socrates
refuse?
Kerri - Kerri! You left a comment? I’m so sorry - I forgot to change the wording. Refuse is not the right word at all. You chose not to read it because you rode the train with me every day and you knew everything…
Sorry - I corrected it in the post…
Yeah, self-reflection occurs a lot in the PC(USA) ordination process. I still have plans to pull together ALL of my paperwork for the process into one document in order to show that I probably wrote 100+ for everything… I have also reflected enough. Keep pressing on, you will be done before you know it.
What Jan said, - ditto.
I give thanks that you can self-reflect. There are increasing numbers of folks who do not/cannot - in terms of stage-type learning or faith development theory, they don’t move beyond concrete thinking into formal operations, or into integrative/reflective ways of being. Trained to take in and spit out info, not reflect, incorporate, synthesize, reject, reconnect. While I know it is “in the literature” and had heard of this from other college/grad school teachers, I had a hard time believing it until I ran into an example. One thing we church folk (not only pastors but others in the priesthood of all believers too - but often the “professional” gets pegged first) can do ist model/encourage self-reflection in the throes of life - encourage/model reflecting on text of Scripture or hymn/song or arts and images (actual pictures or verbal or whatever) in worship - the intersection of faith and live and why we do what we do or don’t do, as people of faith in worship and the world at large.
I’ve enjoyed reading your blogs, Adam. I’ve been a parish pastoral minister for the last ten years, and am ready for a change. I’m trying to decide between a CPE internship and a job in the nonprofit sector. Your reflections have been helpful to me. Best of luck!
I can understand how you feel. I just finished a unit of CPE and it was a decent experience. Nevertheless, I had a few people riding me to be in touch with my emotions. They did not take into consideration that people are different and minister differently. Not everyone cries all the time and reveals their most intimate feelings at the command of another. The final straw for me was when some pseudo resident criticized my style of ministry after only being around me a few times,and a fellow student had the unmitigated gall to refute my image of God as revealed in Scripture. So, what did I do???? I gave them the tongue lashing of their lives. I am a man and I demand to be treated as such.
Andrew Charles Smith Jr.