No Time

 

I have had good intentions on this blog, but lately I’ve suffered from “NoTime Syndrome”.

Holy Week (and before)

 

I have to admit–Lauren’s last days and her death put me in a dark sort of place a while.

It’s hard to describe how much I miss her.  I mostly miss her because she could always hold out hope.  No matter how grouchy and anxious I felt, she could always dangle hope out there.  I miss how she was so proud of who I was becoming in my formation.  Sometimes I feel sorrow that my process has gone on so long people are literally dying off before we even know 100% if it’s going to happen.

Rest in Peace, Lauren

The Rev. Lauren A. Gough

I’m having a hard time imagining a world without Lauren Gough in it.

No-Shame Zone

The Cone of Shame, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Something I keep learning over and over again is just how pervasive and how paralyzing shame can be in people, even in our own culture, which is far less honor/shame oriented than a lot of cultures–and a major part of pastoral skill is to help people take the first small step away from their own shame and guilt.

Nerds, Geeks, and the people who love them (Which on some days is merely tolerating them)

from Wikimedia Commons

I found myself in a very odd social situation the other day.  I was with a group of people and one of them was talking about a person (we’ll call him Irving) that for many years was a fixture in their house.  Irving would show up, and the family would just sort of live around him.

A Transfiguration moment on Ash Wednesday

The reredos at Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis

I had an interesting combination of events in these past ten days.  One has to do with the fact I had an amazing moment of grace happen 2 weeks ago in CPE (and I’m not yet ready to blog about it yet, because I’m still mulling over how to tell the story.)  The other was the few days leading up from this past Monday to Ash Wednesday.

Keeping an eye on the batteries

I have a thing about my batteries getting too low, and I don’t just mean on my smartphone or tablet.

It has not been lost on me that I’m moving from one profession who, by and large, takes care of themselves poorly, to another profession  who takes care of themselves poorly.  Physicians historically are at risk for eating poorly, sleeping poorly, ignoring and denying symptoms, or resorting to self-treatment, including self-medication with alcohol and prescription and illegal drugs.  Clergy have higher risks of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.  Both professions have a significant risk of burnout.  A great deal of attention is made at clergy conferences and diocesan events about self-care; but the fact remains clergy don’t take care of themselves nearly as well as they should.

From the very beginning of my process, I have promised myself to do better this time around.  In so many ways, this is my do-over.  One of the things I do pay close attention to is my “battery level.”  I am very much an introvert, although, as I like to say, “I play an extrovert on TV.”  Put me in a crowd, where I have to be extroverted to do my job, and I literally feel the batteries drain.  There is a place where it is clear to me I’m “red-lining.”  When I’m red-lining, I am prone to be crabby, snap at people, and feel profound despair.  Needless to say, these are not useful pastoral characteristics.

I am still not doing everything as right as I’d like.  For one thing, the flat unvarnished truth is, “My schedule is my schedule.”  Until May, my life is CPE the first part of the week, doing the bulk of my seminary schoolwork the middle of the week, and being a pathologist the end of the week.  That only leaves Saturdays for me and Sundays for God…and a lot of my Saturdays get clogged with errands and the occasional diocesan meeting in St. Louis, 3.5 hours away.  The trip to St. Joseph is 2 hours and 45 minutes one way if I don’t have to stop for gas, and almost 3 hours if I do.  When I had to drive back in a winter storm a few weeks ago, it took 5 hours.

The good news is the car rides give me unfettered prayer time.  The bad news is I am almost at the halfway point in my CPE process and I’m starting to feel the grueling-ness of this constant motion in my triple part-time life.  There’s little room for error–keeping all the assignments straight, working in my activities in the life of the church, working my “day job.”  I have been SO grateful I have not gotten sick yet this winter.  I pray I don’t have any family emergencies.  Some days it seems to be hanging by a thread.

Five years ago, I could not have handled this.  I think the pressure would have exploded me.

I am handling it, I believe, because I’m at least doing SOME things right in self-care.  I pay attention to my “batteries.”  I cook real food for myself, which cheers me, and allows me to eat in a more healthy way. My winter indoor garden really has helped chase away the blues of winter.  Oh, sure, I can be prone to anxiety and despair now and then (I’ll have more to say about that at a later date), yet I do confess I’m starting to get to the place where I’ll be awaiting spring.  Hebrews 11:1-3 hangs in my head:  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.”

There’s no doubt–I’ve had anxious days.  Anxiety can grip me in a way that can nearly paralyze me.  But the good news is it doesn’t last nearly as long as it used to. I think that might be my own faith growing!

Unstable Domesticity

From a 1950’s advertisement

Yeah, yeah, I know, when you hear that word “domesticity” this is what comes to mind, or perhaps The Stepford Wives bounces around in your head.  In short, when we hear that word, it tends to have negative connotations because of the whole “cult of domesticity” thing, where women are treated like fragile flowers and pushed into roles of subservience.

“Would you like salt and pepper with those words?”

(From izquotes.com)

I’ve never developed indigestion, either, but I will say I’ve had to chew a few pretty vigorously.  Here’s the story:

Transformation and the “V” Word

 

Lineman changing a transformer, from Wikimedia Commons

I’ve been thinking a lot about transformation lately, and for a lot of different reasons.