Life as a Clergy Wife: Sunday, Sunday, So Fraught for Me

Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday Sunday comes, but whenever Monday Sunday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time*

Actually, I'm lyin' because I'm not cryin' all of the time on Sunday because I'm blessed to be married to a priest who is on his diocese's Sunday Supply rota and not the official rector of a church. Since this means I'm not the official rector's spouse, I'm therefore exempt from congregational expectations about spouse attendance.

Sundays are, however, somewhat fraught for me because he does end up preaching and/or presiding most Sundays.

Do I attend where my husband is preaching and/or presiding? Do I worship where I'd prefer to worship? Do I stay home in my pajamas, drink coffee, and blog? Am I even ambulatory?

Of course I'll attend if he really wants or needs me to, but absent a powerful request, I'll only consider showing up if and when:

• there's only one service and it begins at or later than 10:30 AM,
• getting to the church involves driving less than 24.5 minutes, and
• my husband is not expected to meet with church leadership before or after worship.

There are a few other conditions that I've never had to trot out explicitly because my husband knew (pretty much) what he was getting into when married me.

In fact, you absolutely do not have to go through pre-nuptial discernment with me to suss what these "other conditions" might be, so imagine my surprise to find this scrawled on scrap paper earlier this week:

"In exchange, you can come to [church] Sunday to hear me preach and preside at liturgy w/kids doing the readings, singing."

So stunned was I that I didn't even see the smiley face embedded in the OXO sign-off. It took two days for me to muster enough calm strength to ask:

"You're f'ng kidding, right?"

"Yes."

*With a h/t to The Mamas & The Papas