When I Feel Like the Worst Pastor on Earth

I have done the wrong thing, again - or rather, not done the right thing. I realize over and over that I am extremely uncomfortable with pastoral visitation. Honestly, I have no clue when I am supposed to visit people. When they're in the hospital, that's obvious. Other occasions, not so obvious. For example, when someone's family member dies. All I have to go on is the fact that, if I was in that situation, there is no way I would want some pastor I barely knew hanging around. Apparently this is not the common perspective around here.

Eventually, I think I may get it into my head that I am expected to be present at ALL events in everyone's lives here. I hope that someday showing up at everything will cease to be completely awkward.

It's times like these when I wonder if I missed something important by not growing up in a church environment. My parents are shocked when I mention that I've gone to visit people because of this or that reason, and to tell the truth, I'm a little surprised myself. I'm surprised when people are not completely annoyed by my presence, let alone when they actually expect me to be there.

This figuring out of the pastoral role in a community is no picnic, let me tell you. If you show up, you're nosy and intrusive. If you don't show up, you're apathetic and insensitive and not doing your job. Either way, I end up feeling like the worst pastor on earth, and that, my friends, is no fun at all.

The Supreme Hideousness of Saturday

Preaching is one of my favorite things about ministry. I think I've mentioned this before; stepping into the pulpit has always been that moment for me in which I am completely at ease. It all clicks when I stand up and begin to speak. I never feel the presence of God so fully as when I preach, when it feels like all the words just flow out and actually mean something. It's the time when I feel the most Christian. I believe every word to the core of my being. It's great.

Saturdays, on the other hand, are not so great. On Saturday, I'm fortunate if I believe anything.

Saturday is the day on which I finally sit down and actually write the sermon that's been brewing all week. Or rather, I sit down and stare at my computer screen, and wait for all those thoughts that seemed so stunningly insightful the rest of the week to join hands and become one coherent whole.

It's awful. All day, it feels like the weight of the whole church is bearing down on my shoulders, and I can see all the faces of my congregation and hear the voices raised against me in a mass protest against my stupidity. I try to pray, because that's what you're supposed to do, right? But God does not just pop down and tell me what to say. On the contrary, God's back seems to be turned toward me, ears plugged, so that I have to tug on God's hand and shout and jump up and down to get even the slightest evidence of being noticed.

Saturdays are the worst. But I'm trying a new thing. Instead of just feeling like crap all day and telling myself over and over that it's all going to crash and burn, I'm trying to bring to mind just a little of the Sunday euphoria. Perhaps, with practice, I will learn to ward off just a little of the self-loathing, uncertainty, and blankness of Saturday.

Working Through It

So, I have a strange pattern of dealing with big issues in my life, and I have just realized that this pattern has recently come to involve the people who read this blog. The routine goes something like this:

1. Something that at first didn't even seem like a problem starts to chafe a bit, and then slowly grows into a large gaping sore so painful that I can barely think about anything else. Case in point, this whole issue with time off. It's not even an issue for months. Then a couple of months go by in which, due to the on-call nature of ministerial life, I get no time off, and it starts to wear on me. When I try to return some balance to my life, a couple of people resist, and WHAM - Big Gaping Sore.

2. Big Gaping Sore takes over my entire brain. I can't do anything or have any conversation without it coming up in my mind. Being an extrovert who can barely have a thought without expressing it, I talk about it. I talk about it all the time. Blogging being my primary outlet for the communication of all frustration, the Big Gaping Sore ends up in a post.

3. Well-intentioned people use the interactive format of the blog to offer advice, insight, etc. into my problem - which is, by the way, exactly why blogging works so well for me as an outlet. People who are subjected to my Big Gaping Sore also put forth their thoughts on the matter. All kinds of people slap bandages and ointments of varying degrees of helpfulness onto the Sore.

4. Big Gaping Sore starts to heal as I start to realize that a) others have been there, b) people do actually care, and c) the Sore is not incurable. The Sore becomes just a little less tender, I cease to be incapacitated by it, and I wish to move on with my life and think about something other than pain.

5. The bandages and ointments keep on coming, reminding me that, hey! I still have a sore there! As the "treatments" pile up, I finally just want to scream, "Everybody stop! The Sore just needs to breathe and be left alone for a while!"

6. So, I scream, again usually by way of my blog, verbally smacking all of the people who are just trying to help.

Okay, so now I need to apologize for smacking around all the people who just tried to offer some relief. I'm sorry. I don't really hate your advice, and I realize that you all cannot possibly know when the point arrives that I can't take any more of it.

In random news, has anyone else ever noticed that the spell-checking function on Blogger does not recognize the words "blog" or "blogging?" It strikes me as ironic that the medium I use to explore my nature does not recognize its own. There's another blog post in there somewhere, I'm sure of it.

Things Unhelpful

***This post alternately titled "When I want to smack my perfectly nice commenters," or "Another rant about advice I don't want to hear." Consider yourself warned.***

When I was in junior high, my best friend and I would talk for hours about our problems with our parents and the other kids at our respective schools. Our advice to one another generally ran along the lines of, "Your mom has no right to do that to you! You should totally tell her off! Maybe you should run away; that would show her!" or "Stop caring so much about what all those stupid kids at school think of you!"

Of course, while this advice provided some temporary gratification in the form of elaborate daydreams about ditching the parents and making a public spectacle of the horrible kids at school, it wasn't actually very helpful. Clearly a thirteen year old girl would not do well to run away, and telling the parents off usually just ended in being grounded. Trying to exact vengeance toward peers was a recipe for further humiliation. Our advice sounded all well and good - as long as it was somewhat divorced from reality. When I realized that these plans wouldn't actually work, it just made my problems seem more confining and difficult to bear.

This memory came to mind yesterday as I attempted to have my weekly day off (yes, for those who asked, I only get one - if that, as you'll see). The beginning was pretty good; I had lunch with some recent acquaintances and did a bit of shopping. Then I came home. Not long after walking through the door, however, my peaceful reverie was disrupted by a combination of loud knocking and the canine doorbell howling to beat the band. Let me tell you, an irate congregant with Alzheimers is not what you ever want to see at your door, let alone on your day off, but there's really nothing to be done about it. So, I spent some time sorting out the situation and sent him on his way.

This week I've received an abundance of advice, most of it centering around the fact that I need to rest. Now, I understand that people are demonstrating their good intentions and concern, and some comments have led to pleasant daydreams about nights in which I can sleep for 8 uninterrupted hours, but when it comes down to it, that's about as helpful as the advice I got from my junior high best friend. "You must take your sabbath rest." Good idea. Now, how do you suggest I do that when I have a screaming delusional man at my door? The more people tell me to rest, the more frustrated I become when it simply isn't possible.

The moral of this story is, I'm more than happy to receive constructive advice from people, seasoned clergy especially. However, all of this "You must rest!" talk is starting to sound a lot like "boundaries;" it's a pat answer based on the experiences you're projecting onto me, or something you learned in seminary, and it doesn't actually mean anything. If you can tell me how to find rest amidst the madness - and I mean practical ideas that work in the reality that is small-town ministerial life - I would love to hear them. But please stop just telling me to rest, or that I need rest. These things I already know. Thank you, and happy Sabbath rest to all of you, who are surely getting as much of it as you need.

Blog for Sympathy!

First of all, I want to thank those of you who left comments with encouragement, prayers, and advice after yesterday's post. It was a bottoming-out sort of moment, and I appreciate the fact that people out there read this blog and express care for me.

Which brings me to the second point of today's post. Blogging is a funny thing. Often what gets posted is the extremes, because extremes are a) more interesting, and b) more pressing to 'get out of your system.'

So, my friends, please do not panic. I have support of various types, if not always as much or as often as I would like. My congregation and consistory by and large are very helpful, encouraging, and positive. But a church is still a group of people, who sometimes do really unpleasant things. And a minister is still a person, who from time to time has really bad days. Yesterday was, for various reasons, one of those days. This blog is one of the ways I have of working through my issues, like my perfectionism. I put them out there, where I (and apparently many other people) can see them, so I can begin to chip away at my old patterns in order to let God transform them and create new ones.

In short, today is a better day, and days like yesterday do not define me or my ministry. Just thought you might like to know.

Arid Extra Dry

Dry. Arid, in fact. How can someone who feels so dry inside have so many tears to shed?

It's been a week of tears; at least it feels like a week, but it's only Tuesday. On Sunday morning I tried to ask for prayers to surround the memorial service of my friend who died after being struck by a car a couple of weeks ago. Completely out of form, I burst into tears almost as soon as I began speaking. Saying the words made me realize how sad I am that I can't be there - a feeling I thought I had succeeded in stuffing into that little I'm-not-dealing-with-you-stupid-emotions cupboard at the back of my mind.

Only by consciously steady breathing and the grace of God did I manage not to burst into tears again last night at our consistory meeting. It's clear that a couple of people are not exactly pleased with me right now, and I don't know what to do about that. Actually, the knowledge that they are displeased isn't nearly as difficult as the fact that they won't talk to me about it, nor will they look me in the eye. The more silence I encounter, the more I internalize what they might be thinking. I have an excellent imagination, especially when it comes to delusions of failure.

So, I tried to talk about the fact that I do actually need time off, and that I'm feeling some resistance even when I only take my one allotted day off a week. Since I am hyper-sensitive about whether I am working hard enough or getting enough done or, you know, saving the world, the slightest implication that I am not doing all of these things pretty much puts me over the edge. I held it in, and sobbed into my dog's fur after they left instead. Some small part of me says that I shouldn't have to fight this hard - even inside - over having the time off that is specified in my contract. An ideal world would be SO nice.

This morning I said one sentence - one BRIEF sentence - about the fact that my meeting had not gone particularly well in some respects, and suddenly, again with the tears. Where is all this water coming from?

Tonight I'm just sitting here, crying, and I don't even really know why anymore. God, I am tired, and frustrated, and feeling totally helpless and without support - even though that's not true. I wish I could internalize all of the good things as much as I do the bad, because then I think I'd be a pretty happy person. But I'm not happy. I'm stuck. And I'm dry. Blech.

Ready or Not

Tonight we held the first meeting of our Profession of Faith class. For the ecumenical audience, this is somewhat like what you might call "confirmation," and those of you on rlp may have heard me refer to it as such for the sake of ease and brevity. Basically it involves a group of junior high boys (boys because that's all there are, not because we're sexist) meeting once a week with me to talk about God and church and stuff.

Recently someone told me that 13/14 year olds were too young for something like a profession of faith class, because they weren't ready to know what they believed or wanted from faith.

We played a game together where we all wrote down facts about ourselves that we thought no one else would know, and tried to guess who had written what. One boy wrote that his right ear had more earwax than his left. Another said that he had a short "intention span." I think he meant "attention," and that could have described any of them (or me, for that matter). I haven't laughed so hard in years.

In the midst of this, I kept thinking, "She was right. They're not ready." They're not. It's true. They can't decide whether they want popcorn or Doritos (so they choose both). Of course they're not ready to decide to commit their lives to a particular set of beliefs, or even to a particular community of faith.

At the end of our hour together, we wrote down questions we have about God. Every week we're going to draw one and talk about it (wisely, I didn't promise answers). After they left I looked through the questions. "Why is God named God?" "Why is God not seeable?" "Does God have relatives? Like the Holy Ghost?" In these questions, I see discussion of the limits of language, the difficulty of faith in the unknowable, and questions about the Trinity and our relationship to God.

They're not ready, it's true, to decide once and for all what they believe. Who is? Not me, and I'm pretty set in my beliefs at the moment. We're all in progress. I don't think real faith has an end point in this life; real faith is never ready to settle and think it has all the answers. Real faith recognizes that it never has all the answers.

But we're all - 13 year old boys included - ready to start - ready to question, ready to learn the basics that can give us a foundation later, ready to think about God and about the tough issues of faith and life. We're all ready to have someone care about us and listen to us and respect the fact that we have insights about God, even though we may be just babies in our spiritual journeys.

If they're not ready, it's because no one is. So I'll take the chance that they're ready for something, and whatever that might be, we'll work with it. I trust that they're just beginning, and that over a lifetime, if this class is what I mean it to be, it will come back to them someday. Ready or not, here we go!

Goddesses Three

I am in the middle. Don't ask.

The Gang and Me

That's me, bottom left.

Playing Pastor

The first time I preached a "real" sermon was in the church where I worked during seminary. Many members had resisted the idea of a woman preaching, but the elders had finally assigned me one night service; if they didn't like it, that would be the end of that (and of the whole discussion of female preachers). No pressure. On a student's budget I couldn't afford a professional wardrobe, so I stood at the back of the church that night, waiting to "process," in the only suit I owned, an unwise mail-order purchase - at least a size too big, gray, with huge shoulder pads (didn't show that in the catalog), no shape, and sleeves and skirt both at three inches too long. I felt, and looked, like a little girl "playing pastor."

In case you're wondering, the sermon went fine, and after that I preached about once a month during my three years there, albeit with helpful feedback like, "You're a really good preacher, for a girl." I also acquired a fine assortment of suits, which are quite useful now that I wear a robe almost every Sunday. And if you ever find any little girls playing pastor, send them my way; we could use more good women in pulpits.

Anyway, today I revisited the "playing pastor" feelings as I served Communion on the seven-month anniversary of my arrival. In this church, we pass around the bread and then all eat it at the same time right after I say, "The bread which we break is the communion of the body of Christ." But this is not a practice to which I am accustomed. I am of the take-the-bread-and-eat-it-now school of communing. So, I broke off my little piece of bread (very little piece, because I have to talk again immediately after eating it), and popped it into my mouth.

I realized right away that this was the wrong thing to have done. So what did I do? I spit the bread back into my hand.

As you might imagine, this did not improve the situation. Spitting out the body of Christ is just a bad idea. It's not in any way dignified, graceful, or symbolically or theologically a positive demonstration of what Communion is supposed to mean.

Then, to make things even better, I got a case of the giggles - egged on, of course, by the elders and deacons practically rolling on the floor with laughter in the front row. Severe frowns from our elderly pillars of the church did nothing to quell my amusement.

Repeat mantra: I am an adult. I am the pastor of this church. I will stop bursting into gales of laughter and continue the service with proper sobriety.

It didn't work. Let's face it, folks; I am an adult, and I am the pastor of this church, but sobriety is not my strong point. My stoic Minnesota Lutheran upbringing instilled in me a strong sense of what the appropriate is, but somehow failed to enable me to actually do it. And no, they did not teach me in seminary how to deal with my inevitable snafus, or how to repress a fit of the giggles during worship.

On second thought, if you find any little girls playing pastor, and you want them to grow up to be proper, appropriate, dignified ministers who can serve Communion with unfailing decorum, do not under any circumstances send them to me. But if you want them to be able to laugh at themselves and take the criticism that comes because of it, I'll take all comers. I didn't get my start until later in life, but I know what it's like to be a little girl playing pastor.

Perspective

Yesterday as I was travelling home from NYC, in a rest-stop bathroom, I read the following instructions on a paper towel dispenser: "In case of emergency, turn handle to manually dispense towels." This begged the question, exactly what kind of emergency would be solved by manually dispensing paper towels? I assume they meant that the automatic dispenser might not always work - but to me, this does not constitute an emergency situation.

A little perspective, please.

As I thought more about this warped sense of importance, however, I realized that paper towel dispenser-makers are not the only ones in need of a little perspective.

Perspective: the manner in which objects appear to the eye in respect to their relative positions and distance; the ability to see all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship; a mental view or prospect.

I thought about how I used to think that parents were crazy and rude to bring their children to certain locations and events, and even ruder not to control their behavior. Then I got a dog, who is most likely the closest thing to offspring I will ever have. I don't bring Laila everywhere, but I've brought her a lot of places that weren't necessarily completely appropriate. Even worse, I am so used to her behavior that I often don't blink and eye when she barks incessantly, jumps on people, and tries to steal food out of their hands. I have become the woman who shrugs when you give her a dirty look because her children are running and screaming like lunatics in the bookstore where you hoped to get some peace and quiet.

Screaming children still give me a headache, but I'm less likely these days to give dirty looks and mutter comments about parenting. My furry child, whose behavior I cannot always control, but whose presence is good and necessary for me, has given me a little perspective.

I also thought about my birthday, which is today, and which makes me a little sad. Not because I'm getting older; youth is not an advantage in my field, and aging has excited rather than depressed me thus far. I'm sad because I'm far from people who would really celebrate this day with me, and because distance and age have turned parties and gifts into phonecalls and e-cards or nothing at all, and these things don't feel particularly satisfying. (Maybe if I ever remembered people's birthdays and sent them gifts or threw them parties, they would return the favor, but that's another topic!) I think about the fact that I am working today, and that my "birthday celebration" will be leading Bible study as usual, and it makes me a little weepy.

But then I think about all of these people whose loved ones have died, whose homes have been swept away, whose daily sustenance is questionable, who don't have phones or computers to make or receive birthday calls and e-cards. A little perspective, please.

I look at the growing stack of birthday cards, the list of "incoming calls" on my cell phone, and my email inbox. I think about the birthday wishes flying around the Real Live Preacher chatroom - my newest little community - as the clock struck midnight, and those that have continued throughout today. I remember that there will be chocolate cake at this Bible study. I had to interrupt writing this to answer the door and accept a card from a young neighbor.

A little perspective tells me that people near and far celebrate with me today. We celebrate not just my birthday, but hope and joy and laughter and life, not by ignoring the many lives that have been lost and broken in the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but by looking honestly at the great difficulty of life and choosing to rejoice anyway. Now that is the kind of perspective I want to have.