When I get home from church on Sundays I am usually toast. I love church and all the interaction but when I get home I'm ready to melt into the sofa and drift off to another world.
On Monday I made two phone calls and wrote 8 emails. I was in my office the whole day. When I got home I was warmly greeted by the wife and conversed on various topics of the day with the offspring. Never interacted with another person.
On Tuesday I met with a couple of people for 45 minutes for some planning. I made a few more phone calls and sent a few more emails. I briefly greeted a friend across the parking lot on my way home for lunch and I spent another enjoyable evening at home with the family.
To sum up my interaction with people not related to me, in the last 70 hours I have interacted with exactly 3 other people for a total of 46 minutes and talked to 5 other people on the phone for approximately 10 minutes. I absolutely love it and I didn't even notice that it is rather odd.
That's the problem. Though I love it I'm not sure it is good for me. In fact, I'm quite sure it's not. It can't be healthy psychologically or professionally.
One of my sons is a rather rambunctious extrovert. But I find it curious that even he consciously processes his interaction with people. The other day, when describing his participation at an event he attended, he said, "You know, I just decided to put myself out there." That's the decision I just don't make. In fact I find excuses to do the exact opposite.
I suppose now is the time to make a resolution to "put myself out there" more but I'm not going to do it. It seems silly to do it just to do it. It would be just as unhealthy to force myself to become an extreme extrovert when I am not one. But I do need to think more carefully about the conscious decisions I make when it comes to interacting with people. The excuses need to bear up under a higher level of scrutiny.
Isolation
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10:21 AM
For some reason this reminded me of the old lawyer joke:
"Item from lawyer's bill: Crossed street to greet client. Wasn't you. $25."
:)
I, too, can really squirrel myself away from others if I am not careful. In fact, I have been doing it way too much of late...
6:55 AM
9:06 PM
It may have to do with how you qualify being a pastor. A pastor is not a position you hold, it's not a ministry role. Pastor is a type of relationship you hold within the church to people. You are a pastor when you are relating to people. This has been helpful to me.
I'm an introvert, and many years ago I decided to figure out how to engage people - and yet be me. I had to learn how to do small talk. I had to learn how to initiate conversations. I had to learn how to introduce myself to people. It wears me out in a way that an extrovert may not understand. But I had to do it in order to be the pastor I felt convicted to become.
I don't know if this is helpful to you at all, but I can relate to your blogpost.
11:34 AM
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