{"id":138,"date":"2009-01-13T09:24:38","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T09:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/mondays-with-mark.html"},"modified":"2009-01-13T09:24:38","modified_gmt":"2009-01-13T09:24:38","slug":"mondays-with-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/mondays-with-mark.html","title":{"rendered":"Mondays with Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=1404901729\">Mark Patrick<\/a> is my spiritual director, though we don&#8217;t act like a traditional director-directee pair.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve had other spiritual directors, and Mark is different. For one thing, we usually meet at a <a href=\"http:\/\/burncigars.com\/index.cfm\/pageid\/1\">cigar shop<\/a>. He&#8217;s been a pastor, therapist, and anger management teacher.&nbsp; We&#8217;re going to start an occasional series in which we&#8217;ll discuss some of the themes that have arisen in our times together.&nbsp;<\/i> (<i>OK, I know it&#8217;s not Monday.&nbsp; I&#8217;m a day late on this.&nbsp; So sue me.<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p><b>Tony<\/b>: Mark, tell my blog readers something about yourself &#8212; anything you want&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark<\/b>: I&#8217;m a Marriage and Family Therapist, Volunteer Police\/Fire Chaplain, Pastor of a small house church called Mustard Seed, Spiritual Director.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve been Married for 37 years to Polly with two adult children Lance and Megan. <\/p>\n<p>Some of the values that are always present in my work with people:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I am called to be a pastor:&nbsp; encourage, guide, affirm, and be present with people in transition, crisis, and growth.<\/li>\n<li>Listening is primary in ministry<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><\/span><\/li>\n<li>Questions and doubts are integral to faith<\/li>\n<li>Paradox is central to life<\/li>\n<li>Faith is a lifelong journey<\/li>\n<li>Truth is a continual discovery, not a possession<\/li>\n<li>Failures are a rich and painful source of wisdom<\/li>\n<li>Prayer is our ongoing conversation with God<\/li>\n<li>Love is the center of the Jesus Way<\/li>\n<p>I&#8217;m Looking forward to our ongoing conversations&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>Tony<\/b>: A lot of people want to get 2009 off to a good start.&nbsp; I&#8217;m one of them, and you and I have been talking about that.&nbsp; One of the things that we&#8217;ve been considering is how diet, exercise, sleep, etc. all affect our spirituality, our emotions, and our spiritual health.&nbsp; What got you, as someone who was raised conservative Baptist, to consider more holistic approaches to spirituality?<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark<\/b>: I still recall over 25 years ago sitting in a restaurant, looking outside and seeing a sign for a clinic that advertised itself as a Wholistic Medical center.&nbsp; It seemed like such an intriguing idea at the time.&nbsp; I had always thought of life as separated between spiritual and secular aspects.&nbsp; But this was so attractive and so natural.&nbsp; In the years since then I have learned through my own experience that we can&#8217;t divide and compartmentalize our lives.&nbsp; The physical, spiritual, emotional, relational in our lives all interact together.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s Mark (on right) with his family, Lance, Polly, and Megan: <\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Patricks.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/198\/import\/Patricks.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px;float: right\" height=\"240\" width=\"273\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mark Patrick is my spiritual director, though we don&#8217;t act like a traditional director-directee pair.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve had other spiritual directors, and Mark is different. For one thing, we usually meet at a cigar shop. He&#8217;s been a pastor, therapist, and anger management teacher.&nbsp; We&#8217;re going to start an occasional series in which we&#8217;ll discuss some&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mondays with Mark - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/01\/mondays-with-mark.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mondays with Mark - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mark Patrick is my spiritual director, though we don&#8217;t act like a traditional director-directee pair.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve had other spiritual directors, and Mark is different. For one thing, we usually meet at a cigar shop. 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