Skip to main content

The Parable of the Train Traveller



His disciples asked him, ‘Teacher, tell us: What is good pastoral care?’  

He replied, ‘A certain man wanted to take a train from Cardiff to St. David.  Three priests were standing on the platform with him.  The man, who was terrified of train travel, asked them, ‘Is this train safe?’  

The first priest, who believed that all train travel was safe, assured the man that it mattered not which train he took or where he travelled.  ‘You shall be safe,’ he stated firmly, ‘and know of a certainty that the Church has blessed this train.’  Then he gave the man an encouraging smile.  

The second priest, who had planned to go to Oxford, said, ‘I shall change my ticket, travel with you, sit beside you to encourage you along the way, and have shared conversations.’  With that, he climbed onto the train with the man, helping him with his baggage.  

The third priest, who moments earlier had checked the train news on his Smartphone, yelled, ‘Get off the train!  The bridge is out and you shall surely perish, all of you!’  

Then, turning to Peter, the teacher asked, ‘Which of the priests gave good pastoral care?’  ‘I suppose,’ answered Peter, ‘the second one, who stayed off his cell phone and gave the man his full attention and good company.’
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alasdair MacIntyre and Tradition Enquiry

Alasdair MacIntyre's subject is philosophical ethics, and he is best known for his critique of ethics understood as the application of general, universal principles.  He has reintroduced the importance of virtue ethics, along with the role of narrative and community in defining the virtues.  His focus on these things—narrative, community, virtue—combine to form an approach to enquiry which he calls ‘tradition enquiry.’ [1] MacIntyre characterises ethical thinking in the West in our day as ethics that has lost an understanding of the virtues, even if virtues like ‘justice’ are often under discussion.  Greek philosophical ethics, and ethics through to the Enlightenment, focussed ethics on virtue and began with questions of character: 'Who should we be?', rather than questions of action, 'What shall we do?'  Contemporary ethics has focused on the latter question alone, with the magisterial traditions of deontological ('What rules govern our actions?') and tel...
Post a Comment
Read more

The New Virtues of a Failing Culture

  An insanity has fallen upon the West, like a witch’s spell.   We have lived with it long enough to know it, understand it, but not long enough to resist it, to undo it.   The very stewards of the truth that would remove it have left their posts.   They have succumbed to its whispers, become its servants.   It has infected the very air and crept along the ground like a mist until it is within us and all about us.   We utter its precepts like schoolchildren taught their lines. Its power lies in its claims of virtuosity, distorted goodness.   If presented as the vices that they are, they would be rejected.   These virtues are proclaimed from the pulpits and painted on banners or made into flags.   They are established in our schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries.   They are the hallucinogen making our own cultural suicide bearable, even desirable.   They are virtues, but disordered, or they are the excess or deficiency of...
Post a Comment
Read more

'Nature' and ‘Against Nature’ in Romans 1:26-27: A Study in the Primary Sources

Introduction In Romans 1:26-27, Paul distinguishes ‘unnatural’ from ‘natural’, saying that homosexual acts among both women and men are ‘unnatural’.  Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse [ physikēn chrēsin, natural use ] for unnatural [ para physin, against nature ],  27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse [ physikēn chrēsin, natural use ] with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. This understanding, however, has been questioned, and the debate centres around what Paul means by ‘natural’ ( physikon and kata physin ) and ‘unnatural’ ( para physin ).  Those questioning this understanding in recent years (it was not questioned in the history of the church until now) [1] focus on the notion of ‘natural’ rather than the Greek phrases, but bo...
Post a Comment
Read more