The Danger of Comparison

   It seems that we live in a day and age when we are always comparing ourselves to others. Or if we live long enough, comparing how it was to how it is.
   Today I was blessed to be at two meetings with colleagues. As a colleague was thanking for organizing one of the meetings for young clergy, I started to share with him my vision for the annual conference, that we would be a place where our young clergy seize opportunities to be the best leaders we can be. That we be a place where we can admit that we don't have all the answers and seek to find them from the best and brightest. And that very much is my vision, along with creating a place (and here is the comparison) like other annual conferences, where the first appointment is seen as being crucial, where we create opportunities for advanced continuing education (fully funded) for young clergy who often have different financial constraints, where we create long term mentoring relationships beyond what is required by BOOM, where we think about how to help pastors fund DMins, and we resource one another. I am the first to admit that it is a huge dream.
    But when you look at that dream, my biggest fear is not that it won't be meant, but instead that it will convey the incorrect message that our annual conference isn't doing anything, which is far from true. We learned today that we are one of two annual conferences with a deeply spiritual way of approaching appointments -which takes longer, but is continually bathed in prayer. That's amazing!
   The danger in comparing is that we often don't know everything good about ourselves that is being compared to in other areas. We don't know the behind the scenes workings-  which often leads us to be pessimistic or jaded.
   At Spring Awakening this past weekend, there were some pretty opinionated people sitting behind me. At first when the cast came out onto stage 10 minutes before curtain they were really excited, thinking it was a pre-show. But instead, they got dressed in their costumes right on stage (they already had the bottom layer of clothing on so they could just slip on the top layer) from a rack full of clothing located on stage. They stretched and warmed up on stage. And the folks behind me weren't happy, saying it took the mystery out of the show when they do that.
   Which is true. But maybe the mystery needs to be gone, not only in that particular instances but in life. Maybe we need to start sharing again and again the things we assume that everyone knows, which need to be celebrated. Maybe we need an accurate view of ourselves before we go comparing ourselves to others.