We have heard a lot about PTS or Post Traumatic Stress among those who have returned from serving in the military. In an over-simplified description, a soldier has experiences that rip at his perception of reality. As a strategy of survival, s/he buries that experience deep in the psyche and tries to move on in life. Later, when s/he has returned from military service, some event will activate that traumatic memory and cause the person to relive the experience. S/he can’t fully release the pain of that earlier experience and repeats the trauma again and again.
While normally less violent, a pastor frequently experiences or in many cases hears from others about life shattering experiences. Particularly for pastors who seek to listen with compassion to another person’s trauma, they tend to absorb the feelings vicariously. As with the soldier, the multiplication of those experiences tend to build cumulatively over time. It is not just one tragic death, painful marital betrayal, economic collapse within a family, etc., but a variety of such experiences, many of which have no answers. The pastor listens and seeks to help but often feels helpless in the face of such pain. In many cases, s/he never knows the resolution to the issues presented because the person moves on but the painful feelings that have been shared continue to reside with the pastor. When we speak of Christ taking on the sins of the world, there is a very real sense in which a good pastor bears the sins of the congregation.
Sometimes the injustices and painful traumas that the pastor experiences cumulatively cause him or her to even question his or her faith. Yet there is no way to avoid that week after week, the pastor must stand before a congregation and proclaim a faith for their sake. Even if the questions that are raised about faith are not continuous, there is no time to take a break during the times when the questions are heavy. Therefore, the pastor must also struggle with the burden of feeling hypocritical deep within the soul.
The pastor’s version of PTS is different from that of the soldier but no less real.
