Myers-Briggs Intuition and Lent

Paranoia, melancholy and stress, three factors which can make clergy difficult to relate to. As an INTP, so theory goes, I relate to the world through my intuition primarily. Hunches, guesses and piecing together jigsaw puzzles, it's rather like turning a kaledioscope and waiting to see what appears.

Why do washing machines and cars breakdown in Lent? Because it is Lent! Why do PCC members cause trouble in Lent? Why does the prospect of Annual general Meetings fill clergy with trepidation in Lent? It's not just their proximity. Things go wrong in Lent - take it as a compliment.
Lent is also a time when clergy are more likely to get tired, frustrated, fed-up, stressed, miserable and grumpy. It is something to do with that spiritual warfare between good and evil - whether you understand it as structural sin permeating society, or a force for bad exisiting both in individuals and ontologically (in as far as God permits evil). Is the devil real? Hashatan - Hebrew for God's adversary is there in the heavenly court in the book of Job, and the devil or Beelzebub, the Prince of the Air is there in the Gospels. Reality is that Lent is when clergy are most vulnerable because of the spiritual warfare which surrounds us and in which we play a small part, as we exhort our flock to turn away from sin and to turn to Christ.

I am not sure if there is any research into paranoia and the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI), though there can be a correlation between depression and paranoia.

I am not suggesting for a minute that if you are an INTP you will be more paranoid than other personality types, but I think it is clear that if your under the weather, perhaps with a cold, flu or just down in the dumps, bacause things seem to be going wrong, so anyone is more likely to be a little melancholy. Those people with INTP brood, they mull ideas over, and if those ideas are intuitions about others, and you are a little melancholy to start with those intuitions are more likely to be negative, tainted by your experiences of Lent.

Add together the tendency to brood over things, an atmosphere of challenge to mental equilibrium, and the likelihood that some people are being nasty - your paranioa is more likely to surface. Are people out to get you? Do they intend to cause hurt and distress?
Undoubtedly some do, but if you relate to everyone based on your hunches you will be more likely to have a hunch that they are somewhat untrustworthy, potentially harmful or dangerous.

Lent is a time for self-examination, it can be a time when hunches get acted upon, but those hunches are more likely to be wrong at Lent than at any other time. Jimminy Cricket on our shoulders may not be our conscience speaking. So at Lent try to pull in the intuition, treat everyone the same as normal - hopefully everyone equally as well, though that may be too much to hope for - analyse your hunches and see if there is any basis to them, and recognise that any melancholic feelings you have are likely to be projected onto others. Motes, beams and suchlike. Withdraw your projections, recognise that some of your hunches will be correct, but that you aren't able to work out which at the moment. Hold your fire when you want to explode, and time will make things seem better. The Easter message is that Christ is the victor and conqueror of sin and death and it's his victory not ours, spiritually preparing ourselves to celebrate his resurrection will keep us rooted in his love and psychologically more healthy.