Hey, Vampire Slayer -- Who's Your "Watcher"?

I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer* one day, like you do, and I thought, "Wow. I wish I had a Watcher."

According to the Buffy Wiki, a Watcher is:

a member of the Watchers Council, devoted to tracking and combating malevolent supernatural entities (and particularly vampires), primarily by locating individuals with the talents required to fight such beings and win. More specifically, Watchers were assigned to train and guide Slayers, girls that were part of a succession of mystically powered young women who were destined to face the forces of darkness.

And then, quick as a vampire turns to dust when stabbed with a wooden stake, I realized, "Ohmygosh, I TOTALLY have a Watcher."

My Watcher is named Ken, and he's an expert in Bowen Systems Theory, and he coaches me, teaching me about the vampires I encounter, and drilling me in how to slay them.

No, the Vampires aren't people around me!

Far from it. The Vampires are my own responses to anxiety. How do I show up as the person I want to be, rather than reacting to events around me? How do I identify my guiding principles and practice being led by them? How do I identify the forces of anxiety that emerge in systems and help others to slay their own vampires?

I am a huge proponent of having a Watcher. Maybe yours is a systems coach, or a spiritual director, or a therapist. But it's a person with some expertise who partners with you to help you become the best You you can be. And holds you accountable for doing your own work.

It's kind of funny. At the beginning of every Buffy episode, a voice intones, In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer. But the whole show is a refutation of that. Buffy has friends and a Watcher to make sure she doesn't stand alone.

We've all got big things to do, slaying monsters and building Beloved Community.

Don't try to go it alone.

*The tv show, not the movie. But you really shouldn't have to ask.

Comments

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to

Beloved Community: The Now and Not Yet

Rev. Christine Robinson has a great little post up about the phrase "beloved community" and why it's problematic to use that to describe a church. Like her mom, I can get cranky about the whole thing, but my crankiness lies in the misuse of what is, to me, such a breathtaking and profound concept. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone whose words I study in great detail, is the one we often think of as originating the term, but he learned about it through the writings of Josiah Royce. Josiah Royce (right) with close friend William James. Royce was a philosopher, studying Kant, Hegel. I imagine he would have enjoyed Koestler's theory of the holon , because he saw humanity as being both individuals and part of a greater "organism" that was community. As King's belief about Beloved Community would be rooted in agape , Royce's philosophy stemmed from what he called loyalty, and by that he meant, "the practically devoted love of an individual f

To Love the Hell Out of the World

To love the hell out of the world means to love it extravagantly, wastefully, with an overpouring abandon and fervor that sometimes surprises even yourself. That love flows out of you, sometimes slow and steady, sometimes in a torrent, sometimes filled with joy, sometimes with fierceness, or anger, or a heartbreaking pain that makes you say, "No, no, I can't take this anymore. I can't do anymore. It's too much ... too much." But it's too late. You've opened up your own heart, your own mind, body, and strength, and yes, it is too much. But there's also so much love that comes crashing down on you, gifts from the Heavens in the form of the smiles and cares from others, a giggle burbling up from a toddler's fat little belly, the soft, sweet smell of star jasmine catching you unaware, not knowing where it came from ... but it's here. And you're here. And just to live, just to exist, swells your heart with enough gratitude and love that you mu

Boots and Blessings

Search This Blog