A plea for 'duller and lazier' priests!

This work life balance thing is hard to get right. Many of my colleagues are unashamedly workaholic and I wish I could get a better balance of leisure and work in my own life. I seem to live with a strong sense of 'He could do better'. So I felt quite excited to read Anglea Tilby's reflections in the Church Times (15 July 2011) on the life of Barbara Brown Taylor who was one of the most admired priests, pastors and preachers of the Episcopal Church in the United States. After 20 years of ministry at what appeared to be the height of her ministry she decided to leave it all behind; burnt out, washed up, exhausted....on the brink of losing faith.

Angela Tilby expressed a 'kind of irritation at the way in which both community and individual let themselves be seduced by a perfectionist and workaholic model of ministry'. 'The memoir', Tilby concludes, 'made me wonder whether a duller and lazier priest would have produced a more mature and reflective congregation'. YES!