Well, how sweet. “Kristenme” just contributed a comment saying that she was WORRIED about me because I hadn’t blogged in ten days here. Darlings, do keep in mind that if I’m MIA, you can always pop over to www.peacebang.com where I blog on more general subjects. I’ve been active over there in the past weeks, blogging up a storm about church growth and my vision for how congregations can mature in their attitudes.
I will be doing some traveling and speaking on the subject to the Unitarian Universalists in the Midwest this coming fall, and the subject is near and dear to my heart. Even — and you may want to sit down when I tell you this — EVEN MORE DEAR THAN LIP GLOSS.
Right now I am seguing from summer vacation to gearing up for a new church year. Plotting out sermon topics, filing (ugh, how I LOATHE filing), planning programs, meeting with staff, and reading, reading, and reading some more. I am currently deeply into Diana Butler Bass’s latest — which is chock full o’ good stuff — and also fascinated by Mark Johnson’s The Meaning Of the Body (much slower going for me).
I am struggling to understand something about the Higgs boson so I can preach something vaguely coherent about it (this from a girl who failed high school physics class). Viewing some Olympics coverage (and crying at the Nadia Comaneci commercials. Remember that moment? Oh, I do, I do! We thought she was sublime!).
I am spiritually struggling with my usual existential sorrows, but seem to have achieved an age where I am not emotionally flattened by them. Why do horrible things happen to so many people? How do we cope when our lives change overnight? How can I find the words to say to the person I know is hurting without piercing necessary defenses? Whence our tremendous human strength? How can I help using my limited abilities without getting involved in ego stories about what I wish I could be doing to save/rescue/heal someone else?
I used to get quite deeply depressed in August as a general rule. You could set your watch by it. I think the main reason I no longer slip into that bleak place of despair and enervation is that I see my role as a minister in a healthier perspective. When I first started serving as a sole pastor of a congregation, I felt the full weight of the congregation’s success, failure, happiness or frustration entirely on my own shoulders. I gave myself credit for all the good and blamed myself for all the bad. I tucked my sassy self in a bottom drawer and lived from an earnest and concerned place at all times. Good gads, what a recipe for misery! I had a tremendous amount of anxiety as I tried to be perfect at all aspects of parish ministry.
And I didn’t have a cat or a dog and hardly spent any time with friends. BAD idea.
Things have changed a lot in my heart and my head, and I know in my bones that God is in charge and moving through our communities. It ain’t all about me. I’m just part of the story, with a role that feels less and less “exotic” and singular as the years go on. Ministry really is all that we do together in religious communities, as my colleague Bucky McKeeman wrote. I am learning that ministry is the process, not the thing we do after we’ve done the business of the church. Now there’s a sermon. Spiritual practice is what church folk are doing within our work, not outside of it. And so it is with the clergy. I am feeling extremely blessed lately as I live that experience with clergy and laity.
In the creative realm, I am feeling extremely blessed and gratified to be spending a lot of time with a wonderful group of people in a theatre company I’m working with this summer. The project is a world premiere of an original musical and it has been a total delight to originate a marvelous character and to work with a cast, crew, production team and orchestra of talented, committed, smart and considerate people of all ages. The analogies between this theatre project and church life are rampant and I savor each one.
Tonight I am nursing a terrible head cold with Jewish penicillin (matzoh ball soup) and a pot of tea. We go back onstage Thursday night and run another fifteen performances of the show, which really does require tremendous commitment and discipline (and at seven costume changes a night, a great opportunity for me to reflect on how clothing and accessories change the way I move and feel).
I’ll wait until I get some production photos of me to share them with you. It takes me a full six or seven minutes to just get into my first act costume. Corset, petticoat, microphone clipped to bra strap and fitted around the face, dress, lace overlay dress, three strands of pearls, stockings, boots, big hat, prop flask tucked in bosom. By the time I walk down the hall to speak the first line of dialogue in the show, my posture is as straight as it gets, my head up high, and my arms and hands held in a way that I never hold them in ordinary life. I work those heavy skirts like they owe me money! My pointy little Fluevog boots keep me feeling “perched” rather than grounded. Chin(s) are up, voice is ready for Floretta’s distinctive dialect, and I’m ready to take my part in telling the story.
What story are you telling this summer with your very being?
Kiss of peace.
Thanks for asking, PB! The story I am telling this summer is (rather surprisingly to me) that of the peaceful, loving, gentle and extremely grateful semi-retired pastor who realizes deep within her heart that she still has the chops for ministry but is glad not to have to use them very much. As the summer minister of a very large UU congregation in Portland, OR, I am wildly enjoying preaching now and then, working alongside a highly competent staff of Really Nice People, and having the occasional pastoral conversation with someone who needs a little attention.
Then I go home, take off my work clothes and put on my good clothes (shorts and a T-shirt), and have a beer in the back yard. Life is ever so good!!!
[I didn’t know you were being summer minister! Glad to hear it. Always glad to hear from you. xoox – PB]
The story I’m telling this summer is one of survival. I’m a solo pastor in a small town congregation. There’s been a great deal of turnover with pastors in the nearly five years I’ve been here. Last summer brought me to near meltdown status with 7 weddings in 6 weeks and 5 funerals over the same amount of time. No days off, no time off, no “me” time.
In September I started grief counselling which has been a Godsend. Fast forward to this summer and yet again there were a spate of funerals, including my dad. He asked me to preside his funeral which I was honoured and terrified to do. I came back to my home community and the following day another parishioner died. We honoured his life a few days later.
This summer I’m not planning ahead. I’ve got the bulletin done for August service and I’m taking two weeks at the end of August/beginning of September to help my Mom sort through Dad’s things. I’m moving at a much slower pace than usual. I’m taking my morning coffee outside to enjoy the trees, the breeze and the birds instead of immediately checking email in the mornings. I’m taking walks without my ever-present cell phone.
In short, I’m being gentle with myself…for the first time EVER I’m taking my own damn advice.
I know with time my energy level will increase, as will my desire to forward plan. Right now I can’t do it, not because I don’t care, but because I’m still in mourning.
This afternoon I’m taking one of my dearest parishioners who is in her 80’s to visit her best friend who moved to a residential care home two months ago in a community an hours drive away. They haven’t had a face-to-face visit since she left. And I get to be part of it and share communion with them while they catch up. It will be awesome.
Kudos to you for indulging in your love of theatre. I’m so proud of you sharing with us, healthy ways to be. You rock PB. Thanks for rocking!
Here’s something for your physics sermon:
A Higgs-Bosun particle walks into the local Catholic church.
The priest says, “What are you doing here?”
The particle says, “I’m here because you can’t have mass without me.” [Love this. Will use it. Thank you! – PB]
I’m so fabulously glad you named August as your clockwork depression month. It’s comforting to see that I ain’t crazy for having a “month” also. For me it is October, which was really unfortunate when I had annual paperwork due to my governing body about how my soul and studies were going in seminary (yay for being through the ordination process!) in that down & dumpy month. I used words like “melancholy” and was sent dutifully to much-needed counseling.
Kiss of Peace, ma’dear.
It sounds like your theatre production is going well, which I am glad about. Can’t wait to see the pictures. Any press about it? [ Oh yes, tons! I just didn’t think I should post all that here for some reason. – PB]