Ep. 037 - A Conversation on Stewardship, Leadership, and Life with Father Aaron - Part 2

Episode Transcript

Aaron
I could be wrong about a lot of stuff. That's. That's how I've sort of ordered as best I can. My life towards this.


Spencer
Well, and that dovetails into kind of the way that we think about cultivating our own souls and being prepared to be stewards of what God has given us. And one of the things that you come back to a lot in terms of ministry and one of those kind of core passages that we touch on have touched on over the years has been Mark 4, you know, with the parable of the good soil.


Spencer
And so I wondered if you might kind of just unpack a little bit of that as you've kind of reflected on that over the years and as you kind of think about, okay, how do I look at soil of the heart and how do I address it in such a way that I love to cultivate, I love to see good soil, you know, in my own heart and in the hearts of those around me.


Spencer
How do you kind of process that?


Aaron
Sure. That's a really good question. Well, that that parable of Jesus talking about the sower going out and scattering seed and it going into these four different places, know you have the the Rocky path, right. Which is where the disciples spend a lot of their time walking, which is one of the fun things in Mark. So they just never really truly get it.


Aaron
You know, the devil always comes in, takes it away. It's a hard heart which Jesus will call his disciples hard hearted. So it's this hard place in our life. And then there's the the soil that sort of the rocky ground that has a little bit of we all know what I'm talking about. It's like the the sidewalk soil with the crack and.


Aaron
Or where something grows there. And we know this in Park Ridge, right? And so the soil grows in these little cracks, but it can't go deep enough to really blossom and bloom the way it needs to. And then you have the soil that is just entangled with with thorns and thistles and all of that. And those are the the concerns of this world.


Aaron
They're not bad things, they may just be a lot of things we've said yes to. And then there's that beautiful, cultivated soil where the soil is is churned and ready and it receives the seed and it grows. I think in many ways we've all experienced those kinds of soil in our life maybe numerous times. There's times when my heart's been hard and there's times when I've had a little bit of faith.


Aaron
But I haven't gone through difficult things in enough to let it churn up. That's one of the interesting things, is when Jesus says it goes into a soil, but when persecutions or hardships come, it fades away because it can't get its roots down. I think in many ways in our culture, we avoid difficult churning things that actually till our soil and make us able to receive the seed that God wants to sow in our life.


Aaron
We need that sort of toiling, difficult things that primes us to share the good fruit that God wishes to give them. And then also, culturally, right now, we're in a time where it is difficult for us to say no to thing when we take on all the weeds and the thorns and the thistles and nothing that God wants to do in our life can grow because we're doing all the other things that could be even financial things or time wise or just relationships that we we just don't know how to say no to people.


Aaron
I've had a problem with that in the past because I'm a two on the Enneagram. That's what people tell me. I don't know. Where I just want to help everybody. I'll take on more than I can handle. Everybody else pays the price for, including myself. So I think what we're wanting to do is say, how do we get to that good soil, which I think is A) allowing the difficulties of this world to actually churn our hearts a little bit like we have to deal with difficult things.


Aaron
We have to be churned over and turned over. We also have to to spend time weeding our garden, right? We have to weed our garden. We have to take a good snapshot of who we are. And are there things that are in the way? And we do need to weed our lives a little bit and remove the things that are actually not allowing us to cultivate.


Aaron
That can be sin. Right? We don't want sin in our garden. It can be the things that we keep saying yes to that everybody else is paying the price for. And so that making that space and time practically just by, you know, for Brenna and I to be able to sort of catch up every night, we try to catch up on the day.


Aaron
Every morning we try to say, hey, here's the day to come. How do we do this well? You know, who needs to make dinner? How are we going to manage that? Because her schedules wild, she's a farmer. It's crazy. it's very seasonal. And so just working through those things so that we have good soil because, God, here's the thing.


Aaron
It's not different seed. Right? And it's not just thrown in particular places. It's stone everywhere. So the question is, is do we have the soil to receive it? So I think we have to make those decisions to allow our lives to be able to cultivate that which God wants to do in our life.


Spencer
Well, and you talked about it specifically with Brenna. Working with her front of the day, end of the day, to be able to address what may happen or to plan well. As you think about other practices that you have, you know, we talk about kind of a rule of life, you know, here. And that's one of the wonderful things that Archbishop Foley comes back to again and again.


Spencer
You know, he has this little smirk, I think, every year at Senate and says, you know, you may have heard this before.


Aaron
Yeah, that's right. That's right.


Spencer
That's right. He gives the same talk over and over again. But it's about that rule of life that really it can address a lot of different things. But one of the things that it helps with is putting in practice, putting in place practices that can help us cultivate that good soil. What's that kind of look like for you over time, those practices that you've found to be most critical?


Aaron
Right. And answer that question. I think there's certain things that I know I need every day in order to keep myself sane. And those have changed in in life with different phases of life. I think once I had kids, I discovered this real necessity for silence. I love my family. Right? We have a piano in our house that has played nonstop.


Aaron
There's always singing. So I find that if there's not a point in time in my day where I don't have just straight still silence, I'm in trouble. And sometimes through the year, that's really early in the morning before somebody gets up, anybody gets up or sometimes in the year, that's after I get the kids off to school.


Aaron
And Brenna has gone to work, and I have the house to have some silence. Sometimes that might be at the sanctuary at church. It can be any or a walk, but I need that silence. And then every day I need some sense of scripture reading or some sense of a time where I'm able to speak to the Lord or reflect on the Lord.


Aaron
Just to myself. Right. And as an Anglican, we talk about the daily office as this way of doing it. And for me, I use a daily office sometimes. Sometimes I use another book called The Celtic Daily Prayer. And sometimes I just spontaneously pray for people. Or I just ask the Lord for what I need.


Aaron
But I think those things are really essential for me. It forms my day. With the. With the kids. And this is something that I. I think is really important, is I pray with them every night before they go to bed, sit down, talk to them about their day, really spend time, ask if there's anything they need to pray for.


Aaron
Sometimes they're so tired, they just want me to pray for them. But that is a really important part of our day, is praying with the kids every night before they go to bed. And then with the rule of life, there are things as a vocational priest that are more important than preaching a sermon.


Aaron
Right. Which you can all tell. Yeah. The people in the parish and their lives are more important to me than sermon prep. And I'll always be that way. And nobody's been able to convince me otherwise. So if. If it's a day that's set aside for sermon prep and writing a sermon and something comes up.


Aaron
That sermon can wait. It can just wait. People's lives are more important than what I will be able to say on a Sunday. Because the Lord can always speak through me. If I'm just willing to go out there and make a fool of myself, he can still do it. But I think it's. It's that coming back to that thing again, what are the most important things?


Aaron
I think Jesus would have given himself over to other things before he would have given himself to, like, his teaching would have been like people get paused. This is a great example. I think going back to that thing on the parable of Jesus has Jairus and his daughter, and he's on the way to see Jairus and his daughter, and he gets stopped in the crowd by a woman.


Aaron
And it says that the crowd that had grown up around him was like weeds. It's the same word used for the the parable of the sower. It's the same thing. And so he has to push back the weeds of the people. They were encroaching on it. And so he he pushes them back, makes space for the most important thing at that moment, which is this lady, Saint Veronica is what we would refer to her as, whereby he is able to heal her and bring her into the family, calling her daughter, and he's able to go do the other thing.


Aaron
So we have to give our lives to the most important thing because time is precious and it's given us an opportunity to live our lives towards that which is most precious to God, which is other people.


Spencer
To structuring the day, even with the expectation that we may have things, you know, in the day, but the Lord might change the plans that we have.


Aaron
He always does. I have a paper planner because of that, you know, And that gets me into trouble sometimes. Sometimes I think, you know, but that paper planner, like, you can erase something. And you can put something else, and you can just scratch over something and put something else in. Because that's just the nature of life.


Aaron
Yeah. And if we if we. If we're listening to God, I don't think our days are consistent.


Spencer
Yeah. Yeah. That's a good word. As you think about other rhythms that are critical to you, you know, maybe not on a day to day basis, but, you know, we think about it communally. We think about it maybe week to week, month to month, even year to year. What have you found those other pieces to be that that really bring life back to you, Reset the table for you, those kinds of things.


Aaron
Those are well said. Resetting the table is really important for me as a priest. Coming to that table every week in worship is so important that being with God's people and worshiping God is essential for my life. I don't know how people do it without that. It is such a source of life for me and for others that I've talked to, is that when we dedicate ourselves to something, we say, hey, on Sunday, barring like a vacation or barring something else on Sunday, I'm going to go and worship God.


Aaron
Who's giving me time. Who's giving me breath. He's giving me my very life and has given me his life to come and to worship him. And to do that with others is essential for my week. It has formed and shaped everything in my life. And so I think too in our particular tradition, having a liturgical calendar, which may sound weird to folks because we're often like January, February, March, April, May, but instead of seeing the seasons of life through Jesus, the liturgical calendar is so helpful for me.


Aaron
Like, right now we're in Advent. Right. I'm not even thinking that today is December the. Seventh, seventh or something like that. Yeah. But see, now in my head, I know it's. It's Pearl Harbor Day, but it's day for us it's Advent. Right. And so there is this a change of life in that moment that structuring me towards the future.


Aaron
So those things are really important on a weekly basis, even on a monthly basis. I don't know if there's anything that stands out monthly, but there is that rhythm of the year and the liturgical calendar for me, that sort of functions. Vacations are really important. Taking those times for rest are essential. Yeah, we try to do vacations or at least a break like every three months as a family, whether that be camping in the spring or the summer.


Aaron
Yeah, we're doing that with friends and then vacation in the in the fall. It's just important. I'm also married to a farmer, Spencer. Yeah. So the seasons, like, just play into things. Right now, there's no vegetables growing. Life is very different at the right household. Then for, say, like, May and June and July where it's just cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.


Aaron
But those things just, they just give order to our life. And I think it's more of an issue of us, not it's not an issue of us making those things for ourselves, but those things making us. And just submitting to it and just letting it be what it is. I think is one way to sort of become content.


Aaron
That's a big word for me right now. Is becoming content in the order of my life, is allowing the things that God has put in place to form and shape me. And just being like, that's just what I'm going to do. Right. I don't know if that's helpful.


Spencer
Yeah. That's great. You know, you've talked to other times as well about some of the other practices, these liturgical practices that have been meaningful, you know, confession, you know, being one. Yeah. To unpack what that is for you. And there's folks that we interact with that that sounds maybe different than what their tradition has been. So can you talk a little bit about confession and just, you know what that does is as you kind of look at at, kind of the rhythm of your life.


Aaron
Sure. One of my my dear friends, we he's a priest as well. We get together every penitential season. And more often than that, But we're definitely on those penitential seasons, which is Advent and Lent, and we confess our sins, which can be really difficult. Yeah. But as Christians, I think we always have to be taking a good inventory of our lives.


Aaron
And if we are living towards those things and to be able to go to a brother or sister and be able to say, Hey, here's where I'm wrong in my life right now, I need your prayer, I need to repent in turn and become better at those things, at least order my life differently or do those things is really important.


Aaron
Confession is something that I hear a lot from people. What I love in confession, if it's a good confession, is this sort of honest thing that takes place where you see people shape and inform their lives differently afterwards. Like, it's one thing to confess your sins. It's another thing to repent and return and follow God down a different path, down the path that the disciples are always called to follow.

Aaron
And so confession for me to confess regularly, weekly, sometimes twice a week, in terms of of corporately, but daily in terms of morning prayer and needing prayer to confess constantly. I mean, I think, you know, one church father said our whole life is meant for repentance. Yeah. So true. You know, with Brenna, I have to confess on a regular basis.


Aaron
Hey, I dropped the ball here. I'm sorry. Yeah. You know, with my kids. It's such a powerful thing. To confess your sin before people because they see that you're authentic. Hopefully that you mean well, that you're hoping to move towards Christ and you're hoping to lead the way with them towards that. And so confession is is essential for life.


Aaron
Yeah.


Spencer
Well, and what an important thing to heal relationships. I mean, I find for our kids, you know, there's nothing more healing than when Dad says I'm wrong. I'm sorry. Without qualification. Would you forgive me? You know , because even if there is friction in the relationship and it comes both ways, which it usually does, there's usually something that's going on both directions.


Spencer
But, you know, if we come to them with that unqualified, you know, ask of forgiveness, confessing our sin, it seems like the rest of the day, even the rest of the week, you know, the trajectory is so different, at least in our household. And I've got a lot that I need to confess and I need to come to the kids, you know, and ask forgiveness often for various reasons.


Spencer
But but it seems like that is one of those areas that can be so cathartic, can be so helpful for the soil of our souls.


Aaron
That's it's a churning of that soil. I mean, it's a digging up of the rocks, getting out of the weeds. Yeah. It's making us open more space for God if we're just if we just get out of the way. Yeah. You know, and let God do his thing with us. Yeah. Which is living a confessional life. Repentant life.

Spencer
Yeah.


Spencer
What would you say of longer seasons? You know, you had a chance to go on a sabbatical. Was postponed from COVID lockdown that was originally the time it was scheduled. But, you know, another rhythm that we think about, big picture and some of it's, you know, more difficult to access for some of us in different professions. But yeah, I think if we're honest, most of us could say, well, if I really wanted to, every three or four or five years, I could get a month off or something, you know, that would be a longer season than maybe just a week or two of vacation.


Spencer
How do you think about sabbatical? What and can you give a little bit of background on maybe what it what it was for you or how you've seen it impact the soil of your soul?


Aaron
Sure. So my next sabbaticals in five years, 121 days.


Spencer
Got that day circled.


Aaron
Yeah, we're getting there. We have a calendar on the mark now. No. Sabbatical. And I'll say this, and everybody I've talked to has said that their first sabbatical, like they did it wrong. Yeah. So I feel like, you know, it was a learning process. Hopefully the next sabbatical will just be rock solid sabbatical. Yeah, but I think a sabbatical is good for us.


Aaron
It takes us out of a larger portion of rhythm. And so you can. You can be gone for a week and then come back, and you're right into the same thing that you were. It's more difficult to do that if you're gone for three months. Yeah, or month or, you know, my case, it was like three and a half months sabbatical.


Aaron
It's much more difficult to come back and jump into the same rhythm. Yeah. And it gives you time to form new habits, new ways of seeing what you actually do. When everything's just cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and you're running. Yeah. So I think for us, for me, it was good. For us, it was good as well for the sabbatical.


Aaron
It gave me more time to do those things. Yeah, but it also. I'll say this. It's really difficult. This is something I've shared with, with some people. That sabbatical was really difficult to come back from. Because I think in many ways, you, you, you become. You see two people in sabbatical. You're coming towards the end of the sabbatical I Brenna and I went to Hawaii to end my sabbatical, which was just when Hawaii's a really ugly place.


Aaron
And the pace of life is so rushed. But we came straight back from sabbatical, straight back from Hawaii on sabbatical, and then, like, the next day at work. Yeah, it was really difficult to do because there was two different people I was trying to process in myself. One was a rested Aaron, who had taken time to be with his family, to say yes to all the things I wanted to say yes to, wanted to say yes to to say no to the things I wanted to say no to.


Aaron
Yeah, no. And yes, we're good. And then coming back into an environment where you don't get to do what you always want to do. Yeah. And it was really hard. And there was a sense of loss of trying to remember who I was. Do I still want to be that person or do I want to be somebody else who God’s calling me to be through this, you know, three month, three and a half month experience?


Aaron
Yeah. But I think, you know, the numbers coming out of sabbatical, post-COVID were one out of every three pastors did not come back from their sabbatical. They just left. And it's probably that issue of not being able to cultivate the soil beforehand and even during. So for me, it was really hard. Yeah. And I've learned a good lesson from that about the things that I need.


Aaron
So sabbatical can be really forming if we allow it to be forming for us. And to give a space to sort of see what's not working and what's working. And then start working towards those things that are. That are working and that are good for our families and or our churches or for our work life.


Aaron
That balance and all of those things that we need. Yeah.


Spencer
Anything else that you'd say in terms of rule of life and that's been critical for you or would be important to touch on.


Aaron
Yeah. Don't get stuck in a rule of life, when life is incredibly different than it was when you started your rule of life.


Spencer
So be flexible with that rule of life.


Aaron
You do have to. It sounds weird because we want the rule of life to be this thing. It's like you don't let the rule of life be the thing. Let it be the ethos. Right. Like, let it order you so that in all phases of life. You can. You can shift and change with it.


Aaron
Right. I'm entering a very different phase of my life right now. My parents live close by. Yeah. You know, they're getting older. What's that going to if I try to hold to, like, just, this is how life's going to be. It's just not my kids are getting older. They're going to need me at different phases in life, in different ways.


Aaron
Yeah. The church is getting different. I mean, the church is growing. And so. So the rule of life is not. I think it's important because it's not the thing. It's not The rule is that it's the ethos which it calls us to live towards. So we have to be flexible with the rule of life. Which sounds weird, but it's actually really true.


Spencer
Well, and it comes from the rule of life, You know, so many different applications over time. But, you know, you look back to, say, the monks Benedict, you know, having one of the more famous rules of life. But the flexibility even there in monastery life, which was much more static in many ways than the lives that we encounter on a year to year changing basis.


Spencer
But it sounds like being flexible enough, and you even alluded to it, I think in times of silence, there's some seasons that it's first thing in the morning or some seasons that it's 9 AM and there's some seasons that it's, you know, afternoon and then, you know, even before bed. And that's just, you know, how old are the kids. You know, we've got a teenager now and he doesn't like to go to bed before mom and dad go to bed.


Spencer
Well, you know, we have to push on that enough where we get a little bit of time, but also recognize that we're not getting as much time for the next probably eight or ten years as we did, you know, eight or ten years ago. Right before we go to bed, just to be able to connect and catch up in a little bit of that happens, but not as much as we used to have the luxury to do.


Spencer
So it's an interesting shifting of seasons. But the Lord's call on our lives remains the same. It's just that he wants it to be applied, I think differently. I think, you know.


Aaron
Spot on. That's exactly right. I was hoping that this would just be a time of silence.


Spencer
Well Yeah. Most things in life, I'm letting you down, so you know....


Spencer
Yeah.

Spencer
Well, you know, we've talked about the rule of life kind of cultivating, you know, and helping us cultivate soil that would be receptive to the Lord's putting seed in our life growth. What would you say in terms of any things that you see maybe people engaging in or doing that, that that they might be surprised, but they are just kind of soil killers as we think about, you know, the opposite side of things.


Spencer
One of the first things is let's not harm the soil. You know, let's not torch, you know, the nutrients, the capacity for things to grow. What would you say would be a couple of the things as you look at our current cultural moment that are really destructive to soil.


Aaron
Yeah, it's just it's discontentment. That's it? I think so much of our lives are wasted on just being discontent with what we have. That’s it. It's just like we accumulate more rocks, accumulate more weeds. We accumulate more thorns and thistles. We we just are so discontent with what we have. And it's just we're not thankful.


Aaron
At the end of the day, I think that's it. Like I have. I've told people this like I have no desire to be happy. I just want to be content. And then I'll probably discover that once I'm content. I'm just much more joyful. Yeah. And happier. We are seeking in our culture so much happiness.


Aaron
And. And we're not, we're absolutely miserable. And our soil is just not ready to receive. We don't. And even if the seed was planted, we'd probably be discontent with the time it takes for it to grow. Yeah. And we'd probably be discontent with the rain that falls on us, we’re just so discontent. And I think at the end of the day, to learn contentment by having a rule of life, by being thankful for the things I have.


Aaron
Just let it be. See if what you have right now is enough. If it is a gosh, be thankful for that. Right. Because we keep adding more and more things. I just don't think we'll be. And I mean, and we've joked about this. I'm going to really see this firsthand next week because I'll be in Las Vegas, you know?


Aaron
Yeah. I will be in the place that is most discontent. Maybe ever. Las Vegas is like the it's the the brooding pit of discontent. I need more and more and more. And I'm not going to practice discontentment that I'm going to see a concert that I get to go to.


Spencer
You're going to Sphere.


Aaron
I'm going to Sphere to see U2 because I have a dear friend cousin who is is actually, we try to do a trip a year. So he's like, let's do this. Let's do it. Yeah, but I think. Discontentment’s it. I think it's really simple. We’re just really discontent.


Spencer
The slowing down, engaging the moment. Recognize the gifts that we have and Lord's given and then celebrating those. Sounds like is is kind of the first lever to pull potentially.


Aaron
Yeah. You know, we practice this very briefly. We practice this at church every Sunday. You know, let us now give thanks to God for all that he has given us. And if we would just pause there for a moment. Look around the room. Look at our lives. We are it. Our lives are amazing. Be thankful.


Aaron
Yeah. I guarantee you that will order your life more than anything you can find from a book. Or from a planner. Just being thankful. And just being content with what you have. Yeah. Wow. You know, I'd love to see a world that's content. It would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. That's my soapbox.


Spencer
Amen. Father Aaron, thanks so much for joining us on this episode. I mean, just the range of things that we've been able to cover from stewardship to really the way that we look at soil and the way really coming after that discontentment in our lives, I think is is wonderful of just guidance and a push in the right direction.


Spencer
We're grateful for you. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Find Father Aaron at Two Priests Talking with Father Nick. It is a fun journey that they're on as they share perspectives from Anglican Priest. And with that, we'll see you next time.