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Advice To the Graduates

Dearest pigeons,

Do not imagine for a moment that although you stand with a fresh M.Div. in your hand that you have completed your theological education.

You have concluded the portion where you learn from what esteemed people have to teach about ministry.
Now, if you are lucky enough, you will learn what God has to teach you through the people with whom you will do the work of ministry.
The learning is much harder, the evaluations hard to decipher, and the A papers will never be read by anyone else in the world but you and the one person you managed to minister well to that day.

All the more humbling is the fact that you will receive a paycheck for this continuing education, which will seem at times to be an outrage, given how often you feel that you fail.

This is God’s classroom. You have consented with all your heart, mind, strength and soul to be enrolled in it forever, with you every waking thought and breath.

Kisses of peace to all of you, magnificent messes, you who minister.
And much love from another magnificent mess who ministers, xoxxo PB

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Baptism Advice From Pastor Newbie

Dear Pigeons!
I got this letter from Pastor Newbie who sent it, “in the style of PeaceBang” to several of her seminary pals. Atta girl, make your Auntie PB proud!! Here is what she wrote, and you will definitely laugh, as I did. Oh, this work! Quite a work it is!

subject: What I learned from my first baptism

Dearest D., D, T, and A,

[Pastor Newbie] has risen…she has risen indeed!

I feel compelled to share with you some feedback “from the trenches,” some practical observations I made this Easter Sunday when I performed my first baptism (yes, you would have thought I would have done one by now, but alas). I find this could be helpful when teaching rituals and ordinances, as well as preparing pastors in instruction for baptismal candidates. And this is all based on first hand experiences I had yesterday. Easter day. The day of the Risen Lord!

1) When preparing candidates for baptism, stress that this holy ordinance is about the decision to enter into discipleship of Christ in the Christian community. It is a spiritual time. A time of great heft. It is NOT the time to propose to your girlfriend whilst giving your testimony before the baptism. No. No. Nononononono. No. (and if you are going to do that, please tell the pastor ahead of time. She may talk you out of it. She may refuse to do the baptism. All reasons you probably did not want to tell the pastor ahead of time. But a little respect, please?)

2) Pastor. Dear pastor. Holy Week is a busy, busy time. And while you may not have done a baptism before, remember two important things a) check baptistry for leaks early so you are not wiping caulk away from your brow after Love Feast [this is what our Maundy Thursday service is called, PB], and b) locate baptismal robes FAR IN ADVANCE so you and the baptismal candidate are not reduced to entering into the holy waters with sheets stitched together for the tallest little angels in the Christmas pageant. And if you ARE reduced to this, recognize that sheet-robes with large, loosely stitched hems at the bottom hold a great deal of water. We don’t want to look like an incontinent little angel stepping out of the waters, now do we?

For what it is worth, I am humbly (oh, so humbly) yours,
[Pastor Newbie]

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My Charge To the Minister

Here I am giving the Charge to the Minister at the Installation of the Rev. Jude Geiger at the Unitarian Univeralist Fellowship of Huntington in New York. My remark about being Alfred the Butler is a reference to the speaker who went before me who gave the congregation a charge that involved being like Batman.

The things I said to Jude are the things I say to you all the time: be yourself and do not contort yourself trying to live into some false, outmoded clergy persona, pray and be faithful, do not fall into the trap of believing that your work is more important than what God is doing through the church, and have a ministry worth loving.

Enjoy!

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Eat First! The Siren Song of FREE FOOD

So you’re thinking, “Great, there’s going to be dinner at this event, I can rush around like a squirrel all afternoon and get changed and rush out the door again and get some nummies at this thing. EXCELLENT. FREE FOOD.”

Except that you’re at the event and starving, or pretty close to it. You have a tongue coated with old coffee and therefore have dragon breath and low blood sugar and the caffeine shakes and you’re trying to be present to the event and to represent your congregation or organization in an appropriately pleasant way while secretly praying with all your might that the server will please…. God… get… here… with… the … bread… basket…

That’s no good, pigeons! What would mama say?

Have you ever skipped breakfast on Sundays because there’s going to be FREE FOOD at coffee hour and you know you count on that? Don’t. Because realistically, you can’t count on it. You know how it is: you’ve greeted people in the narthex at the conclusion of the service and by the time you get to fellowship hour, most of the snacks are gone baby, gone. If you’re ravenous at that point, you’re going to be carrying on a nice conversation with parishioners or visitors while surreptitiously trying to inch your way backwards toward the crumbs of coffee cake that you’re thinking you might just moosh onto your moistened finger and pop into your mouth, because… COFFEE CAKE.

Remember that episode of “Laverne and Shirley” where the girls had to go straight to a fancy party after having participated in a study on food and sleep deprivation? CLASSIC! There have been times that I’ve felt like Shirley Feeny pouncing on a crumb that fell off the banquet onto the carpet.

Eat first.

I am starting to realize that even “meet and greet” occasions (e.g. the fundraising auctions, the receptions to honor someone, the community event where you’ll be accepting or giving an award) where I’m counting on appetizers to tide me over until I can get a meal is no time to be trying to time bites of food with conversation and socializing. Having attempted that too many times, I know I must learn to resist the siren song of HEY, FREE FOOD in favor of not having to worry about accidentally spitting a bit of chewed stuffed mushroom appetizer into the eye of a local official.

It’s hard, untraining ourselves from the Pavlovian seminary experience of flocking like vultures to whatever event offered free nosh. HDS grads, do they still have the weekly Dean’s Tea? I remember peeling over to tea after classes on Wednesdays or Thursdays and eating cubes of cheese, crackers, crudite, and like, twenty cookies. That was dinner! Some of my fellow divines stuffed cookies into their pockets, because it was cookies or ramen in those days. The cookies were FREE.

It’s not just you being klutzy. Managing the balancing a plate or napkin, chewing and swallowing in between conversing with human beings is a huge challenge. We have all spilled a glop of mustard on our fronts seconds after remembering that it’s totally rude to speak with our mouths full. We’re all cavemen when we’re hungry– reptilian brain smells edibles and grunts “FOOD! MUST HAVE.” If you can afford it, take the time to nourish yourself properly before going to the Thing Where There Will Be Free Food. If you can’t afford it, please take someone into your trust who can provide a meal for you. Seminarian and clergy poverty is no laughing matter. I would certainly want a student intern to confide in me as a clergy supervisor or lay member of a church if they were experiencing food insecurity or hunger. It is no trouble at all to do a plus one to my cooking, and I’m not alone in thinking so. It’s not okay that any of you are going hungry, and you should never have to put on a brave front and count on social events for your meals. OKAY? That’s why God made Tupperware.

That said, there’s no reason in the world to eat this disgusting snack that I keep in my office drawer, because life is just too short. This is a truly, genuinely disgusting snack that tastes like blueberry flavored horse dirt, and I don’t even know what horse dirt IS. I just made it up because it’s richly descriptive. Also, the chia seeds will get stuck in your teeth.

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Newbie Question: What Do Wear To Officiate At The Wedding, “Billing” in the Program, And Co-Officiating

Here’s a question about what to wear to a friend’s wedding, and also stuff about CO-OFFICIATING — something that can be lots of fun but that can also go terribly wrong, which is why PeaceBang tends to hear the “Jaws” theme start in her head when the word comes up. Read on, and see how I advised our Dear Pigeon:

Dear Peace Bang,

I am co-officiating a dear friend’s wedding in a few weeks. It’s my first wedding to officiate, it’s the first wedding of my close group of friends from college, and I have been pouring over your blog looking for right ideas over what to wear!

I am a year out of seminary and 8 months in to my first church position, but I am not yet ordained as a clergy person (working toward it in the —-). The wedding will take place at 5pm at a fancy Arts Space in —- (not in a church), and the ceremony and the reception are in the same space. I will be leading most of the ceremony except for the legal parts I am unable to do since I am not ordained. That part of the ceremony will be led by an Episcopal priest.

So far I’m thinking that I will wear a blazer with a skirt (floor length? is that weird?) and then ditch the blazer when we get to the reception (which is also in the same space where the ceremony is).

So, to recap: evening wedding + not ordained + co-officiating with someone who is ordained (and robed) + first wedding to officiate + first wedding of dear friends, so I’m on that clergy/friend line.

Additionally, I’m not sure how to credential myself within this ceremony. So far, my friend (the bride) has listed the officiants as “my friend — and the Rev. — from [Our Lady Of The Frosty Cocktail] .” I have an M.Div. and a M.S.W., my work is DEFINITELY ministry, and I’m in the ordination process, but I am not Reverend yet. Or do I need to credential myself at all, and just let my presence and words in the ceremony speak for themselves?

That’s a slew of really terrific questions and here’s how I responded:

I think your choice of attire is absolutely right. I love long skirts with blazers for weddings. They give you business up top and a touch of eleganza on the bottom. Tailored + flowy is a good way to avoid Earth Mother Crunchy Hippie Syndrome which afflicts so many sisters of the cloth, and you certainly don’t want to get into cocktail dress territory.

I know how eager we are to assure folks of our credentials when we officiate, and being so close to ordination must make that desire more ardent. I remember that feeling. It’s like, “I’m a REAL MINISTER! I’M JUST NOT A REVEREND YET!” You are a real minister. You know it, those with whom you minister know it, the — head cheeses know it, and God knows it. You could ask your friend to list you in the program as [Name], M.Div., MSW, but if you can live without the letters, I would advise doing so. It will give the program a kind of clinical touch that doesn’t belong on such a document, and you’re being listed as her friend, which is what matters to her (not your fine cred). Better to be listed by name and accept people’s inevitable praise at the reception with a smile and a comment to the effect of, “one of the great joys of being a minister is to be able to celebrate rites of passage with people I love so much.”

A word of advice: the [ordained clergyperson] who will be on hand to make things official may or may not think that he’s in charge of the service. Make sure you two work that out very clearly before you go into the rehearsal. It can be VERY awkward when clergy get into smiling “Who’s the Alpha” situations on occasions such as this.

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