The Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Unitarian Universalist minister blogs at Boots and Blessings on what happened when she wore a clerical collar:
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.
So, It Developed Into A Spiritual Practice.
The spirit was willing, but the self-consciousness made me weak. It’s just so much easier to be invisible. I’d go out sporadically, have an experience that made me mentally promise to be more regular about it … but life just keeps happening, busy schedules, things to make happen, ministry to do …
Read more about her observations on wearing a collar here.
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