THE PASTOR WHO LEARNED TO DANCE
How I Learned To Be Myself in the Church
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
INTRODUCTION
WHO WAS I?
During my twenties and thirties the answer had always been: “It is true that you have a well-developed sense of humor but you are also a drab kind of fellow, solid, responsible, hard-working, but stiff and judgmental and very serious.” If you had met me in those days you would have observed a 5-foot 10-inch, large-muscled 160-pound male, with short-cropped hair, horn-rimmed glasses, full lips and beard, walking heavily on his heels. Once I would have answered the question, “Who are you?” with the response: “Just me. You know. Me.”
Until I was in my forties, my personality was shaped by the expectations of my ancestors, my parents, my teachers, my church leaders, the heroes of my nation. In order to survive and to succeed in the world I knew that I had to please these living and legendary beings. In response to their expectations I could either do well at home, at school and at church, or retreat into a fantasy world or become a rebel. I chose to do well. I was a pleaser, a good boy.1
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
Who am I? They often tell me
I would step from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country house.2
This building was important and necessary work. I agree with Jacob Needleman who wrote: “I don’t think you can undergo a path toward inner transformation until you are a relatively normal outward person. I think you have to have a more or less normally functioning ego before you can work toward transcending that ego. A lot of problems arise when people who have an undeveloped, or badly formed ego go right into some transformative effort.”?3
I remember that what gave me most satisfaction when I was a pastor in
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
“Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, here would be no dance and there is only the dance.” (T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets)
The metaphor of the dance is one I have chosen to describe the movement of the Spirit in my life as pastor in a small Protestant congregation in northern
I dance a light and joyful dance when I remember that God in Christ is the still point of the dance around which the various parts of myself arrange themselves.
As the people of God and I dance together we become a healing energy field in which the Holy Spirit powerfully moves .
I have written this book in gratitude for the gift of the presence of the Christ as the creator of our dance together with all creation.
It is a book for pastors and for students in training for church ministry, but it is for lovers, parents, business executives, and teachers as well.
I invite you, my brothers and sisters, to dance with me.
From a colleague: Your book is very good; very readable, very insightful and sometimes profound. I appreciate your open (and courageous) description of your personal spiritual journey, also your description of Psychosynthesis and its possible manner of application to one’s self and to the activity of the Church. . . . I think . . . that your work could be particularly helpful as a teaching tool for ministers and Seminarians.
THE PASTOR WHO LEARNED TO DANCE:
HOW I LEARNED TO BE MYSELF IN THE CHURCH by
Howard S. Fuller
About the Author
Howard Fuller, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), was born near Boston and received his theological and pastoral training at Union Theological Seminary, N.Y. C. After ten years as pastor in upstate
He received his Ph.D. in the Sociology of Religion from the