The Tilted Halo
The Tilted Halo podcast has a refreshing and honest perspective on the challenges pastors face in their ministry and those involved in ministry as a whole. Hosted by Pastor Kathleen Panning, who has seen it all, this edgy show explores the idea that we all have a "tilted halo" - a recognition that we are not perfect and all make mistakes.
Through personal experiences, interviews with fellow pastors, leaders, and insights from scripture, this show offers advice and encouragement for those struggling with the weight of their imperfections. From burnout and rude awakenings to personal failures and shortcomings, The Tilted Halo provides a safe space for pastors to share their struggles and find support from a community of like-minded souls around the globe.
With a focus on authenticity, vulnerability, and humanity at large, this podcast challenges the notion that pastors must have it all together and invites listeners to embrace their humanity and lean into the grace of God. Whether you are a pastor or someone looking for a fresh perspective on life's challenges, The Tilted Halo is a must-listen in the search for hope, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose.
The Tilted Halo
EP 45: Love, War, and Morality in Ministry
Does the phrase "All is fair in love and war" hold true when the going gets tough in our ministry and personal lives? In this episode I am challenging the notion of "All is fair in love and war", opening up the room for a raw and real conversation on the pressures of being a woman in ministry, and how our bad days affect our loved ones. Drawing on personal experiences within a congregation conflict, I highlight the implications of telling half-truths to manipulate situations. Trust me, no one is off the hook here – if you're a man in ministry, I welcome you to this crucial conversation. Let's together find better ways to handle stress and pressure, without unfairly projecting our feelings onto others.
Welcome to the Tilded Halo. This is a new podcast and it's for anybody who's a woman in ministry. You might be a pastor like myself, a bishop, a priest, a rabbi, music minister, elder children's minister whatever your title is, you're absolutely in the right place, especially if you're someone who loves your ministry and you're doing it well and you're feeling pressure to sometimes be perfect and deep down inside, you know you're not. And how in the world to deal with that? And men, you're absolutely welcome here too, because this is about ministry and the same thing can happen to you. So you're all in the right place. Let's get started with the show.
Speaker 1:The old saying is all's fair in love and war. Really, is that really true? You know, sometimes the people closest to us have to bear the brunt of the everyday and the not best parts of us, and we have to remember that they're the people who tell us they love us and that doesn't mean it's fair to give them the worst of us. I can't tell you how many times that there have been where I've had a lousy day and then my husband comes and says something and that can just send me off in a direction that I really wish I hadn't gone and it's kind of like letting him have it and that's not fair to him. Just because I'm having a lousy day Maybe I didn't sleep so well, maybe I'm tired, cranky, whatever it may be, you know, it's not fair to dump on somebody we love. That's not fair at all. That's not what it means to be all's fair in love and war. And if that's what it does mean, no, that's not fair. I mean I don't like it when somebody else does that to me. They're having a lousy day, maybe they don't feel well, maybe haven't slept well, had all kinds of other people dumping on them and then dump on me as an outlet to what they're feeling? No, none of us likes to be the ones dumped on, and so why would we think it's okay to do that to someone else? And so, no, not all is fair in love and we can think about that in other respects too.
Speaker 1:Is it fair to kind of be? How can I put this? To try and get somebody's love to do things to win them over? It's tempting, and we want to be nice to them. We want to do that. But to take it away from somebody else or to take their attention off of someone else? Yeah, is that fair to do? To try to be someone or do something that we know will please them? Yeah, we want to please them. But if it's done in order to manipulate somebody, that's not fair. It's never fair to be manipulative of other people.
Speaker 1:And if we think that's not fair in love, then you know when things are not going well and there is a sense of conflict, and this can mean literal war between nations. It can also mean when people are angry with one another, whether in a family or within a faith community or you know any other place like that. Is it fair to do some underhanded kinds of things or tell only part of the story, part of the truth? I think about that and think about a situation that I experienced in serving as a pastor and there was a conflict within the congregation, and it was over of all things, where someone was buried in the church cemetery and there was a group of people who took the side of the person who was upset about where somebody else had been buried and that person who was upset wanted the congregation excuse me, wanted to force the congregation on board to require that the deceased be exhumed and reburied someplace else, at the expense of the widow of the man who died. And in trying to get their point across and to get other people to feel the same way that they did, they sat around a petition and it told part of the story, but not quite all of it, as to what had happened and how things had you know why things were the way they were. And then to get people to sign their petition, they called just the members who they believed would sign the petition. There were other members who they did not call, and so they had quite a number of names on this petition. And as we talked with some of the people to hear what they thought they were signing to have done and why, found out that well, they hadn't heard quite all of the story. And so sometimes in those kinds of disputes or wars of words and wills, we don't quite say everything. We say only the things that prove or bolster up our own position. We don't want to share, of course, not anything that other people would see, as perhaps you know, verifying in everything the position of the other side, the other person, the other side of the argument. That's not fair either. And then there are times where there are literal conflicts between nations. And you know, in literal literal wars, no, not all is fair. There are rules of warfare surprising as it may seem, but there are. They've been decided by the Geneva Convention.
Speaker 1:It came a lot of that came out of what happened in World War II and some of the practices that were utilized by, especially by Germany during World War II that were very destructive very destructive is the kindest and nicest word I can use for it. But they were very, very deliberately trying to do things to get rid of a lot of people and to take over a lot of territory, and that was not fair. It impacted a lot of civilian people who had nothing to do with the conflict. They were in no way trying to hurt anybody within the government of Germany or in any other government. They were not at war with Germany, but German leadership under Hitler decided to be at war with them and that was not fair because as civilians, including children, they had no way to fight back. They had no possibility of doing things to protect themselves, even, and many times they couldn't even escape to try and protect themselves or their families. So that's not fair. It's not fair to take civilians and use them as ammunition, so to speak in warfare. It's been decided by the Geneva Convention as no, that's not fair.
Speaker 1:So, no, not everything is fair in war either. Not everything is fair when we disagree with people individually. It's not fair between the states of this country to do things that hurt civilians, the people of their state, or that can be discriminatory towards people of other states who might be visiting or passing through the state. There are things that just plain aren't fair, and not only are they not fair, but if we really think about them as people of faith, we know that they would not be things that God would approve of God spirit or universe, that that is not the way of God. So, as we think that old saying all's fair in love and war, no, it's not true. It is definitely not true.
Speaker 1:Going through Christian and Jewish scripture and I'm not well enough, first in the Quran to know about Muslim scripture but in at least Jewish and Christian scriptures, god is first and foremost a God of love and of mercy and of grace. That's what's most fair. That's what is the way God wants the world to work. No, we don't always make that. That's part of the reason that our halos are all so tilted. We don't always do that, but there's always a chance and the possibility that we can do better, that we can think about that and say no, I guess I was wrong, and to apologize and ask for forgiveness and to not engage in the practices to begin with, that, yeah, it may bolster our position.
Speaker 1:But to think about you know, what does that do to somebody else? And the truth is all too often we don't care about somebody else and that's why we do the things we do becomes a power struggle. It becomes an I'm right, you're wrong. That's not the faith statement that God is asking of any of us, of the way of looking at our world and of, you know, being people. It's not about being king of the hill and pushing everybody else off. Who we can push off, just so we can stand up at the highest point. No, so is all fair and love and war? My answer would be no. The only thing that's fair is love. Love is the fairest of all, and sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but that is the estimation that, as people of faith, is the most direct thing that brings us in relationship with God and then positive relationships with each other. So this is the tilted halo and, yes, mine slides off about this stuff too, but we still need to think about it and talk about it and look for new ways and better ways to be. So until next time, I invite you to think about how you can be more fair in love than in anything else, and doing it not to manipulate, but to do it really out of the grace and love that you know you want to receive and that others around you would like to receive too. So peace, blessings, and come back next time.
Speaker 1:You have been listening to Tilted Halo with me, kathleen Panning. What did you think about this episode? I'd really like to hear from you. Leave me some comments. Be sure to like, subscribe and share this episode and catch another upcoming episode. For more conversation on ministry life, mindset and a whole lot more, go to wwwTiltedHaloHelpcom, where I've got a resource guide and other resources waiting for you, and be sure to say hi to me, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn. See you on the next episode.