There is more on clergy burnout and clergy well-being written about. Here is yet another article from Huffington Post. This one highlights a clergy health study. It is a meaningful yet stressful profession that is going through complete transformation.
The rabbinate I trained for at Hebrew Union College is vastly different from my day-to-day reality on the ground. Yes, I still prepare sermons and teach classes . People come to talk over their problems. But the administration and fundraising and marketing issues are big. Human Resource issues and p/l sheets. There are so many things that I had to learn on my own or find other teachers or programs to gain knowledge through the years.
One of the things that is most troublesome is the lack of time for assessment and reflection. I don’t think this is unique to my profession as a clergy person. I think this is a downside to our society. Time for thinking is not valued. Time for processing is far and few between. Oh there are metrics and measurements–how many people came to a program, or how many hits on the Temple website, but there isn’t time to think and discern, or even pray over an issue at length. And that is I think a difficulty.
Immediate answers are necessary. Unfortunately, in the business of the Eternal the time frame is often longer than that–way longer!!!!
So hug your rabbi, priest, minister, practitioner, imam. Pray with them and for them. And most importantly partner with them in the work of making this world a better place for all people!