the other Rev. Ricky

If there's a theme for my GA this year it's the multiple personalities we create and present depending on the situation or task at hand. Ken Sawyer's Berry Street lecture spoke about the need for the minister not to be his or her "authentic self" but to be "the minister." There was more talk on this line in the plagerism conversation when we talked about the need in the congregation for us to represent God through telling our personal stories. In the blogging workshop we talked about the possibility that blogging gives a minister to be more personal than we ever would in our clergy roles. But at the same time a minister/blogger is still a minister so the stole is loosened, so to speak, but not removed. Even in situations that ought to be purely personal the minister's role is there. I've had a couple of phone calls from friends back home this week who needed me to be a minister (one for some pastoral care, another seeking advice about a new employee who's a Jehovah's Witness).

Of course, I feel comfortable in the minister's role because "the minister" and I have a lot in common. I like the role. It's natural for me. But, like Borges who wrote a short piece called, "The Other Borges" about the public Borges who's the famous writer, different from the private Borges only he knows from inside, there is both Rev. Ricky and Rev. Ricky. And as Borges concluded, which one is writing this is impossible to know.