Let’s all take a deep Advent breath together.
I’ll be the first brave pastor to raise my hand and say that I get scared this time of year. Actually fearful that I might forget some important detail and blow Christmas Eve, or just fall over with exhaustion because I forgot to schedule a Sunday out of the pulpit since late October (and none before then since August…. for Unitarian Universalists this is a long stretch since we create the liturgy fresh every Sunday, finding unique readings, writing prayers, scheduling special music, sometimes rehearsing during the week so we can sing with the special musical guests, etc.).
I fear I will forget to thank someone, fail to call someone, not remember to write Christmas cards to the right people. I will snap at a critic who has no idea how hard I am working, who has no clue about the invisible counseling, leadership presentations, or coaching and cheerleading I am doing behind the scenes. No one does, amirite, pastors? Critics are looking for your public appearances. If they don’t actually see you all the time they assume you’re not working. But as we all know, a huge and demanding portion of ministry is invisible, intimate, and private.
You may join me in a primal scream now.
Maybe that’s all we needed to do this morning, this almost-third-Sunday of Advent morning.
It is Advent. Perhaps a martyred, exhausted spirit is exactly right for this time of year. After all, we are waiting, “in sin and error pining,” for God to be born among us and to allow us to fall on our knees and give the church back to Him (Her, God, It). PLEASE baby, get here. It’s so easy to forget that this is your church, not ours, and that we are disciples, not gods. We’re in the business of following and yet we are asked to lead every day, all day, and it is so easy to forget that at Jesus, Inc., leading also means retreating in prayer, losing our temper, expressing our fears to God, and taking a nap at the back of the boat. It means being brave enough to come forward through the crowd and beg the savior to heal us. It means getting on the floor and crying at his feet. It means running scared because someone cynical, disrespectful and with harmful intent accused us of being “too Christian” (this century’s version of “do you know this man?”), and we just can’t handle that in the moment. And it means repenting of having denied where we get our strength, our vision and our love from, and coming back to admit it and take the consequences. Yes, I’m irrational. Yes, I’m emotionally connected to him. Yes, I’m dependent on him. Yes, I with my Ivy League degree and my honors D.Min. and my admirable intellect and many accomplishments and snarky sense of humor and love of pop culture and hip boots, I am dependent on Jesus Christ. Yep. Now what are you gonna do with me? What will you think of me?
By Easter, I won’t care. Today, because I’m waiting for him to be born, I do care. I suppose it’s liturgically appropriate to feel religiously vulnerable in this season. It doesn’t help that so many of my crazy brothers and sisters in the body of Christ are acting like total asshats and alienating our brothers and sisters who aren’t Jesus followers. As my ancestors taught me to say, “Oy, gevalt.”
I am sitting here, pigeons, with a big glass of water at my left hand. One of you asked how we can slow down and cultivate the spirit of peaceful, quiet anticipation of Advent. Here’s one way: remember that caffeine is not the elixir of life. Put the oxygen mask over your own face first, you know what I’m saying? That big glass of water that I’m having isn’t just better for me health-wise. It’s a spiritual practice and reminder that I can’t replenish my spirit with Starbucks any more than I can replenish my bodily fluids with it.
A big glass of water comes first. Before the dog’s breakfast, before checking e-mail, before listening to voice mails or looking at text messages or Facebook. A big glass of water comes first, and a little time with Mr. Jesus (I love his Breck Girl hair on the candle), and a check-in with Vicki and her body, mind and soul.
I can’t help bring Christmas or the beauty and hope of the lights of all the winter holidays (UUs celebrate or observe Hanukah and Solstice, too) to anyone if I’m putting French Roast where the living waters ought to be.
And neither can you, my sweet colleague.
You and Jesus first. You and your heart and Jesus. You and your soul and Jesus. You and your mind and Jesus.
Then, and only then, everybody and everything else.
Perfect love casts out fear. Put love where that fear and anxiety are. You will try, won’t you? Me, too.
Love, PeaceBang
Word.
pretty much with Jane Ellen+ on this one, yup!
Needed to read these words. Water now takes on a whole new perspective. The Water of Life.
Oy, gevalt indeed. Thanks for the words, especially as I am in a bit of “dead brain” while trying to write tomorrow’s sermon. I’m gonna go get a glass of water and sit at the cross for awhile. Pax!
Hang with his Mom. It’s her season, after all.
Thank you. Thank you.
perfect for Advent III, or a lot of the time. Thanks!
Awesome. Thanks again, PeaceBang.
When I decided to put love where the fear and anxiety were, I found myself channeling you and having (gasp!) fun with tomorrow’s sermon: Isaiah as Fashion Columnist OR “What’s Right to Wear this Advent.” (And I am so fashion-challenged.) Must be the water and my time with Jesus 😉
Love to you too!
“PLEASE baby get here” chimed with something someone said to me the other day along the lines that at this time of year, as we get ready to celebrate a birth, its not inappropriate that we feel pregnant.
Not happy smiley hallmark card pregnant, but the real thing – nauseaus, too tired to think but incapable of sleep, with heart-burn and stretch marks and and tears at the wrong moment, and torn between impatience for labour to start and fear of what it will be like when it gets here.
I share for what its worth. I’m preparing worship and sermons for the next 2 Sundays and I’ve always thought that the only thing I’ve experienced that comes close to being a parallel with writing a sermon is childbirth. Maybe this week that thought is particularly appropriate.
You nailed it. This season for a female clergy person is definitely “primal scream” time, as you reminded us. This season pretty much ended my ministry b/c ( was working insane hours a few years ago and the pastoral care load was heavy – 4 dying people in December – 4 funerals followed right before Christmas. Plus tons of church work as I served 3 churches at one time. Yeah… stupid but my boss was a workaholic…. yeah. you get it.
I ended up in the hospital with major colon surgery, a colostomy, etc…. all due to stress that began around the Christmas holiday forced march. I thought I was managing my time, but, obviously was not and my body said, “OK, we’re stopping now.” Just be excruciatingly careful, friends. Be very careful about how you overload your schedules. It can come around and really nail you. Yes, drink that water, breathe and stretch. The pilot of the plane has to be in good health. And, I agree, the pressure of it all is like childbirth. Take care of yourself, no matter what.
One cannot make coffee without water.
Excellent post!
My favorite word in it: “asshats”.
Favorite line: “I can’t replenish my spirit with Starbucks any more than I can replenish my bodily fluids with it.”
We are not the pilot of the plane. God is. We are not the shepherd. Jesus is.
One doesn’t have to be clergy to be in this boat, I hope? I’m affiliated with the PCA, so a different Christian tradition from most everyone else here. I’m a Technical Writer (Feel free to shudder–I couldn’t do y’all’s jobs either).
This is the first year I can think of that I’m dreading Christmas. Just typing that sentence makes me want to protest. But it’s hard to be excited about something that just symbolizes MORE WORK at the moment. I have a huge work deliverable due Dec. 23rd. The day my disabled parents arrive. Between now and then I have to somehow deep clean the house then keep it clean, while staving off the happy masculine messes of my husband, his friends, and our total slob of a roommate. If I don’t, my mom won’t judge me-she’ll try to help me, which is worse!
I have to prepare a special potassium-free meal plan for my dad, whose kidneys are slowly failing due to his Type 1 Diabetes. I have to find handicapped-friendly sightseeing for my parents, who aren’t coming all this way to leave plantation houses unseen.
I’m worrying about my mother driving ten hours to get here when she just had a knee replacement six months ago and hasn’t recovered well at all. My dad is too disabled from the stroke 15 years ago to help with the driving. He doesn’t travel well. at. all.
My mother just lost 30 pounds, which puts her in my size range, so I cleaned out my closet of every last thing I can realistically part with, knowing I have a good income and can afford to buy new clothes. My mother is on fixed income and is wearing things that hang on her. She can’t afford nice things because all their income goes to medical bills. I went shopping with my MiL over Thanksgiving for things to replace what I’m going to give my mom, and my MiL smeared me to my husband as shallow, vain, and spendthrift because I had money to spend and she didn’t. Things are tight for the in-laws right now due to their previous choices coming home to roost. I’d saved up for new clothes, the large city where my in-laws live has stores my city doesn’t, and the shopping was supposed to be a treat. *sigh*
Not to mention, it seems that practically every woman I know is pregnant. (I’m 27. I know this is a problem I’ll age out of.) My husband and I have been trying for a baby for three years. I’m grieving even as I’m congratulating. I am excited and happy for them, but where’s mine? My parents are old and in poor health. Will they live to see my child if I ever have one? My family history runs back almost 1000 documented years on one side. I’m an only child–am I the end of the line?
My husband gave me his Bubonic Cold after I’d nursed him most of the way back to health, and of course, I got it worse than he ever did. I’m being stubborn, snappish and impatient at work. The rest of the world just looks like a tragic mob of barbaric morons. I’m too tired and mentally drained to indulge in my hobbies. All I have the oomph to do after my chores are done is mindlessly window shop online, which makes me wonder if my MiL was right, that I am shallow and vain. I can’t be spendthrift if I don’t buy anything, though. 🙂 I feel that if I don’t get some rest and peace, I’m going to explode into a human shrapnel bomb of GRRRRR!
All I have the strength to do right now is cling to the words of “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.” I know it to the tune of “Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners,†but this version is just lovely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEEd0uWnDGs&feature=related
Sorry for the pity party, but this seems like a safe place to rant. I think everyone here gets it. [We get it. Rant on, honey. If we kept you from snapping at your mom or dad or a pregnant friend or a clerk, we’ve done a good thing. Big hugs to you from me. – PB]
Loris, I’m glad you found a safe place to rant — things do sound overwhelming! Thank you for the link — I had never heard that tune before. I pray you are able to find some peace in the weeks to come…
Loris, thank you for sharing the St. John’s College rendition of “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” (set to a tune I’m not as familiar with either, but that’s okay). Peace and strength to you and your family. I hear ya. I will keep you all in my prayers.
Wow. Hang on to those words. I am praying for you.
Hi PB. I’m not a minister (although I used to preach when I lived in the UK) but I do enjoy reading your really sensible advice – I even try to follow it occasionally, though I do have a habit of seeing pretty things and wanting them whether they are suitable for my shape or not!
But I wanted to call by and thank you for your great ministry and to wish you and your loved ones a very happy Christmas and a peaceful new year. God bless. [Thank you so much for this, Dormouse. God bless you too. Big hugs – PB]
Another one saying thankyou to Lori for the link, and hang in there. I’m also not a minister and tech writing is my day job. (I’m a lay preacher in a baptist church, but grew up presbyterian.)
Wonderful music. Ranting is a way of expressing yourself w/o doing physical harm to anyone. Rather like a steam whistle letting off steam. Your sisters understand your mess of problems and can sympathise. My mantra during simialr pileups of angst is that life does carry on and soon it will be a new year with many new blessings and NEW challenges. We do get your frustrations and you are safe.
could you repost some of your oldies but goodies re: surviving the party circuit. They are classics! Thanks.
Thanks, PB. xo