An Interview with Rev. Charlotte Robinson about her journal

Editor: Tell me a little about your journal.

Charlotte: When my mind is filled with ideas, or I am worried about something, or when there is an experience that is so complicated that it needs thinking through - that's when I write in my journal.

Ed: If your mind is so filled, how do you keep the journal from being cluttered?

C: I have a structure that I use. It has two parts. First, I get it all out. Then, I tell myself what it means.

Ed: How do you begin?

C: I start out by listing three columns on a sheet of paper. Then I label them "PASTORAL," "ORGANIZATIONAL," and "THEOLOGICAL." I call these the layers of the problem.

Ed: What do you mean "layers"?

C: Well, I think that just about every situation I encounter has dimensions of each of these layers. The pastoral layer has to do with inter-personal relationships. So, if I am in a conflict situation - say where two people in the congregation have a dispute. As a pastor, I have a responsibility to care for the emotional and psychological needs of each person in the dispute. But I also have to think about the organizational layer as well. Say the two people who disagree are the head of the Education Committee and a Sunday School teacher - and they are disagreeing about the Sunday School curriculum. In that case, there are organizational questions like "who has the right to decide?" and "should the church board decide?" Then there are theological questions in every dispute. Like, the content of the Sunday School curriculum. There are some things that we wouldn't want taught in our church school. So I try to separate these layers of the problem because they often conflict with each other.

Ed: What do you mean they conflict?

C: Well, sometimes solving a pastoral problem makes an organizational problem worse - and vice versa. Say, for example, that there was a difficult situation involving Camille Vargo, one of my church members who is very uncomfortable with public confrontation. I know that the most caring thing to do in that situation is to handle it behind the scenes - so she does not have to speak to the church board. But that might actually make the problem worse from an organizational point of view. It might, for example, leave the board out of a process that the board should be involved in. So notifying the board is in tension with Cami's discomfort in public. My organizational concerns conflict with my pastoral concerns.

Ed: So what do you do? Do you just pick one problem to solve and live with the consequences?

C: I try as much as possible to create a win/win situation - where I can deal with the pastoral AND the organizational AND the theological - all at the same time. But that is not always possible. So often I have to pace the process. For example, I might deal with the pastoral or inter-personal issues immediately - I might work with Cami to find out how she wants to see the problem resolved. And then in the short-term, I'll follow up by dealing with the organizational problem. In that case, I might informally poll the church board to see if they have any concerns with the solution Cami and I have worked out. And then, in the long term, I might address the theological issues. Indeed, I might have to loop around and deal with long-term pastoral issues as well. For example, I am working to slowly help Cami come out of her shell. In fact, I'd have to say that if something came up now, I'd probably be able to coach her through making a proposal to the church board. And that's something that would not have been possible when I first arrived here.

Ed: A few minutes ago you started to talk about what you do when you first sit down with your journal. And you mentioned that "first you get it all out." That sounded like a free-flowing process. But then you described these three layers. And that sounded a bit restrictive. Is there a bit of a contradiction there?

C: Not really - at least there is no contradiction in my mind [laughter]. Within the structure, I go wherever I want. I draw arrows between ideas. There are places where I argue with myself. Sometimes I'll pick another color of ink and write something that contradicts what I just said. I want the paper to reflect the combination of order and chaos that's inside my head - that's a scary thought, huh?

Ed: You use more than one color pen? Do the colors mean anything?

C: Yes, they do. Well, usually they do. I try to follow a process that moves from describing the situation, to reflection, to constructing a goal, and finally to developing a strategy. And each of the phases is a different color. Description is black. Reflection is blue. Construction is red. And Strategy is purple. That's the way it's supposed to work. But sometimes I get going and I forget the color scheme. I just go where my journal takes me.

Ed: Again, I hear a combination of structure and chaos. [laughter] Do you have a name for this process?

C: Well, I call this process "reflective brainstorming" because I want it to be as free-form as brainstorming but I also want to be thinking seriously about what I am writing.

Ed: So do you make a plan when you are done with this reflective brainstorming?

C: A plan is not really my goal. My goal is to learn what I need to know about a situation and about myself. Only then am I ready to write about "next steps."

Ed: Is "next steps" the second part of your journaling process?

C: Yes. I write out longhand advice to myself. Really it usually is more like a sermon to myself. I try to connect up the theological or spiritual elements of my reflective brainstorming with the other ideas. Sometimes I forget that I am the one who will have to live with the results of my preaching and I really lay it out. It's a process that keeps me honest.

Ed: Do the next steps then become your plan?

C: Well, once again, I don't really make a plan. I decide what to do next and why. I never really have a plan that is like a recipe of steps to follow. I never really say, "Add two meetings, and recruit three volunteers, and then bake until brown." It's too cookie-cutter.

Ed: So you don't believe in detailed planning?

C: No, actually, I do sometimes lay out some very detailed plans. I just don't feel compelled to follow them. What I mean is that the only way to think completely through a problem is to make a detailed plan. I often learn as I am planning that I've completely forgotten some element in the reflection. But once I make a plan, I realize that things never really go the way that I expect them to.

Ed: What do you mean?

C: Well, take this morning, for example. I decided this morning that some day I need to talk to a woman in my congregation named Elaine about lending her expertise to a project. But I decided that now is not the time to call her. It is the busiest time of the year for her work. But I played around in my mind about what I would say and how I would approach her when the time comes. Yet, the next thing that I know, I am standing in line at the post office talking to Elaine. It was easy to mention it to her because it just flowed from our conversation. But none of that would have worked very well if I had not thought it out in advance -- about what I wanted to say to her and exactly what I wanted her to do on the project. Can you see what happened? I made a plan to talk to her next month then scrapped the plan when I ran into her. But I would never have known what to say if I had not made the plan. In other words, my planning told me what to do even if I did not follow the plan. I already knew what I was going to say.

Ed: So what do you do with your journals after you write them?

C: I save them and read them a few months later. I have been doing this long enough that I often pause in the midst of a journal to explain who a person is or to clarify some detail. That might seem strange since I am the only one reading it and I should know what I meant. But I find that a few months later, I don't always know what I meant. And some of my best learning takes place months or even years later - after I have a bit of distance from the situation. So when I write in my journal, I actually picture the audience being myself six months from now. And I include whatever details that I think I might need in order to understand the situation a half a year later.

Ed: Thanks for taking the time to explain your journals.

C: No problem.