Life as a Clergy Wife: Doing That Priest-y Thing?

I was having a rough Friday exacerbated, no doubt, by having been in five different time zones and multiple airports over the past two weeks. (This kind of schedule does not play well with fibromyalgia, something I do know but often pretend isn't true.)

I'd already had a meltdown that included crying. I'd also had a rapid-fire exchange of direct messages on Twitter with someone who was feeling my pain along with her own. I watched a #SharkCat video (see below). And then I called my husband at work, something I don't make a habit (habit, hahah, get it?) of doing.

During these early years of our marriage we've spent an incalculable amount of time trying to figure out how to identify, establish, and maintain reasonably healthy boundaries relative to work. We tried calling it "vocation." Using the word "vocation" underscored the sacred dimension and obscured the fact that most ministers work like dray horses. Maybe other couples can do it well, but having both of us in active ministry -- full time for him and nearly full time for me -- was trashing our marriage. And our friendship wasn't doing so well, either.

We talked near-constantly about about polity weirdness, rubrics, open Communion, the tyranny of combative church committees, ad orientem altars, crappy church signage, ecumenism gone bad, dysfunctional church websites, and the persistent resistance among some clergy to recognize the value of social media. This went on during the workday and at home after work.

We? Okay, mostly me. Honestly, if bitching about institutionalized religion were a spiritual practice, I'd be viewed as a diligent disciplined practitioner.

So not only did we agree to stop talking about church work, but that I'd rebalance my healthcare-church consulting portfolio. Along the way, I think I decided that I wouldn't call my husband, the priest, at work for anything more substantive than finding out if he was stopping off at the supermarket on his way home.

But I was a mess, so I called him at (church) work.

"You busy doing priest-y things?"

"No."

His other phone ringing in the background, but I knew he was absolutely present to and for me. He could tell I was upset. He listened. He said some stuff. He listened some more. I could feel my energy shift and lift.

Later, I realized that I'd called him not at his work, but really at his vocation.

Yes, he was being my husband, but he was indeed doing a priest-y thing. For that I was, and am, graced and grateful.

Walking boosts creativity? My memory is jogged.

First day of kindergarten, before
textbooks and notebooks,
and one of the very few days
 I ever got a ride to school from Her.

When I was growing up almost everyone walked to school, even if school was miles away. Decades later, I'd discover that I'd only trudged less than a mile, but it always felt onerously longer. Especially when it was snowing.

Personal computers, let alone lightweight sleek tablets, hadn't yet been invented; backpacks hadn't yet been embraced by civilians. Instead, I wrapped my arms around a pile of dense textbooks and a bulky three-ring notebook.

To relieve my pain, I'd occasionally divide the stack and sling each half under opposing armpits. That maneuver lasted maybe a block; less if a pile of leaves was on the sidewalk. And that's just about the only time I walked. For decades.

My family didn't walk and we sure as hell did not hike.

Enduring family joke has my father of blessed memory revving up the Corvair to retrieve The New York Times from its landing spot at the end of the driveway. I have a theory about this, one anchored in the Jungian notion of the collective unconscious. I'm pretty sure that we were still recuperating from 40 years of wandering the desert after escaping Egypt or, in the case of my father's family, fleeing Cossacks during pogroms.

By my mid-30s, I'd discovered  and embraced the salutary benefits of walking. My stamina and breathing improved; so did my mood. For years, I started and ended days with a long walk. It wasn't only exercise, it was also prayer time. It became even more than that -- to the extent that creativity and prayer can be separated.

I discovered that walking enhanced my ability to conjure up stories, to transform thoughts and feelings into language, so I added midday and late night walks, especially after staring at flickering computer cursors for hours. It didn't seem to matter whether I stumbled around a nature preserve or did my New York City-type walking thing in lesser cities, walking worked wonders with words.

And so it came as no big whoop surprise to see my lived experience validated by research reported last month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology ("Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking.") Among the details The New York Times blogger Gretchen Reynolds provides in her post ("Want To Be More Creative? Take a Walk") is a significant one about how it doesn't seem to matter where the walking happens, could be on a treadmill.

Really? Hunger trumps creativity whenever I walk on a treadmill. Oh, wait. At Stanford University the treadmill "faced a blank wall," not a Food Network episode of "Chopped" on one of five monitors at the gym.

Falling Up the Stairs*

Not a good thing at all when a carpet cleaning professional gasps with horror. Horror. Not even delighted amazement at the challenge ahead. Turns out coffee does not play well with carpet fibers, even ones alleged to be stainproof.

Over a week ago I spilled coffee into the beige (not coffee-colored) carpeting. More precisely, I dumped the contents of a 12-ounce mug of coffee laced with fake sweetener, almond milk, and topped with a generous dollop (i.e., scoop) of fake whipped cream.

I was racing up the stairs when this happened. (Think Olga Korbut meets Kerri Strug...but not nearly as adorable or graceful.) I was also wearing flip flops and holding papers in my non-coffee mug-holding hand. The cat may also have been involved. What the hell, let's add the cat to this scenario.

After swiftly cycling through the seven words you can never say on television, I raced down the stairs for a fresh roll of paper towels and a bottle of seltzer. Dowse, blot, dowse, blot. Looked like I got everything. I left for a trip to Chicago (see the Storify here).

"You're probably going to have to call the carpet cleaning guy," my husband announced when he retrieved me at BWI. For the record, he didn't lay this news on me immediately. How could he? I'd swooped in first with my story about wandering into the men's room while reading crap on my phone. Smart phone. Me? Not so much, but that's another story.

Turns out seltzer, nectar of my Jewish upbringing, was the totally wrong thing to use. According to the carpet cleaning professional, it sets coffee stains and we might have to bring in the carpet repair professional who replaces sections of hopelessly damaged carpeting. So maybe I only imagined seltzer removing red wine from light carpeting back in the 1980s? Possibly. I imagined a lot of stuff during the drinking years.

Turns out coffee, in which I currently live and move and have my being, is somewhat eternal when it's spilled onto fibers. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to spiritualize this event, I'm trying to find God in this, of all things, but I can't even see the face of Christ in this damned spot.

Seeing the face of Christ? Yeah, me either.

*I'm back. More about my hiatus in another post.

One 2014 Resolution I Hope to Keep: Return to Iconography

Created c. 1996

For one thing, I don't generally get too twitched about making New Year's resolutions on or around January 31. By the time January rolls around, I've already observed the beginning of two new years: 1) Rosh Hashonah; and 2) first Sunday of Advent.

Typically, my new year's observations include deep cleaning; plowing through tolerations; taking stock of what I've done and failed to do during the previous year; repentance/teshuvah/making amends in some form; and contemplating what might be next. By the time January rolls around, I'm ready for yet another do-over.

At this point (i.e., 1:30 PM on January 31, 2013) I can't remember what I resolved to do for 5774 or how I planned to embrace this new liturgical year. And, my so-called retreat at the monastery completely threw me off track. Actually, that last bit of whinging isn't completely true because when I finally gave up on my mortal flesh keeping silence and started talking with people, I ended up talking about art.

When one woman let me play with her Inktense pencils, I felt a painfully deep and tightly coiled inner something start to release, both physically and emotionally. I spent less than two minutes futzing with these pencils and saw icons emerge in my mind's eye, something that hasn't happened for years.

Inktense pencils morph into either vibrant or subtle watercolors when whatever is drawn with them is brushed with, uh, water. The intensity of the color seems to depend on the amount of water (duh?) and the size and use of the brush. All this is to be discovered because I immediately went online to order my very own set, which arrived on Saturday.

So, on my To Do list for this afternoon or tonight while binge-watching crap on Netflix: sorting through and ditching art supplies I know I won't be using. Acrylic paints top the list.

Never liked that medium, although it was certainly easier than egg tempera to use and clean up. Of all the icons I've painted over the years, I have either tossed or given away ones I've done with acrylic.

(I have, of course, kept and treasure the Christ the Teacher icon I received from iconographer Peter Pearson as partial payment for line editing I did on A Brush With God and Another Brush With God. These are wonderful workbooks for beginning and advanced iconographers.)

What I loved about egg tempera was the rich dimensionality that became possible, especially as layers were added using the "Byzantine float" method. Decades later, I can still hear iconographer Vladislav Andrejev, with whom I also studied, saying in his deep Russian accent, "puddle and push; puddle and push."

Neither puddling nor pushing possible with acrylic, so I stopped painting icons. In all fairness, I stopped for a lot of other reasons as well, but my frustration with acrylic medium was a key factor -- and a great excuse.

Now? No more excuses.

Got my new pencils, will clean out my acrylic paints as a symbolic and real way to move forward, and then...move forward. Returning to iconography is one New Year's resolution I hope to keep.  You're invited to hold me accountable!     

Restlessness Seems to be Trending

Thanks to Twitter, I recently stumbled upon Thom Turner's (@EverydayLiturgy) post, Restlessness is Godliness.  Reading his post helped me name what I'm feeling these days.

Whoo-hoo self-discovery! Turns out that underneath my disappointment, manifested as disgust with the institutional Church (Roman Catholic version), is a deeper restlessness that has nearly stopped me from moving forward with anything.

Underscore: nearly.

At this age and stage of my life, moving forward is deeply grooved into my way of being as well as doing. I'll be curious to see if that changes after I'm released from Earth Duty.

I know that my current restlessness has to do with impending changes, or at least adjustments to  identity and purpose. And I know that God has a plan. It's the waiting that's so killer, even though I also know that waiting is, in and of itself, a spiritual practice.

Meanwhile, I'm finding comfort in this reminder:

"Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You . . ."

Saint Augustine of Hippo

(Personal) Guidelines for Political Discourse

One of my Roman Catholic priest pals recently asked what I thought about the current HHS brouhaha. "I'm ignoring all of it," I replied and then sighed dramatically.

I find today's political discourse way too convoluted to address. 

In addition to being woefully lacking in civility, much of it lacks rigorous grounding in secular or religious history, sociology, political science, or economics. And those conditions make it near-impossible for me to engage in any sensible way. (See yesterday's mea culpa for why I think we're besieged with uncritical, sloppy, a-historical thinking.)

Plus, I must always prayerfully consider how I'm using my time, energy, and talent. Don't know about you, but I get distracted from the goal (Philippians 3:12-14) and so, years ago I adopted the practice of examining the spiritual value of everything. 

When it comes to leaping into the fray du jour, I try to ask myself this question before getting  head-bangingly involved:

Will this enhance my relationship with God,

 or will this distract me from my relationship with God?

I've recently added this question to help me stay focused:

Will this further God's call to serve, 

 or will this distract me from God's call to serve?

These questions get me back on track every time! Feel free to add them to your tools for critical inquiry. 

Yet Another Attempt at Happy New Year

Happy New Year...one more time? Under the best of circumstances I triple-dip this salutation -- once on Rosh Hashonah, on the first Sunday of Advent, and then again on January 1st.

We're sixteen days into 2012 and I'm declaring "do over" in the Happy New Year department. Now that another book is launched and recent health crap is resolved, I'm finally able to think ahead.

Like everyone else, I already have some exciting events on the calendar. I'm finishing up one terrific project and have inklings of what might be next. I will participate in Lent Madness with a gaggle of great bloggers. I'll probably write my annual post about how having a parish-based Seder is not evil, demeaning, or wrong. I know I must have a serious conversation with the young lovely who cuts my hair.

But really and truly, I haven't a clue what's next. I've been in this place before and struggled to escape it like a cat wrapped up to be pilled. I'm thinking that hanging out in the Great Cloud of Unknowing would be a very good thing at this juncture.

What on earth will this look like?

I don't know about that either, but suspect getting back to spiritual basics is the way to go.  For me this means getting back to discerning if whatever I'm doing enhances or distracts me from my relationship with the Almighty. I might have to start with a silent retreat somewhere. God knows it has been way too long since I've rearranged furniture in a monkish cell on my way to more clarity.

Can't Make This Stuff Up (I)

Hi! My name is...
Eugene

Yet another reason to love apartment living: Couldn't help but notice this situation while dropping off recyclables in trash room.

I laughed and walked down the hall to check my mailbox. And then, I raced back to the trash room, hoping no one had scooped up Eugene in the 2.5 minutes I'd thoughtlessly left him alone. No one had.

Now, Eugene is recuperating from his Near Dumpster Experience in the safety of my urban hermitage, as I'm sure God and all the angels had intended.

October 4: Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

From last year's Blessing of the Animals at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Princeton, NJ.

I've captioned this picture,
"Our outfits match!"

Keep or Toss? Changing My Mind

Got lots of comments on this blog and via personal email in response to my question about what I opted to keep from the memorabilia listed in Down the Rabbit Hole of Memory.

I probably should not have been so darn surprised when authors urged me to keep the diaries and faith folk told me to hang onto my prayer journals. What did surprise me was the passion with which some advised I keep these things. So compelling were these notes that I ended up hauling diaries and prayer journals out of the trash where they had been unceremoniously tossed. I may do as Laurel suggested and bury them somewhere.

Two very different types of readers thought I should hang onto the needlepoint but it's still in a pile of stuff to disperse and yes, I do have someone in mind. (Note to the gal pal who thought I should keep the Shaker box: consider it yours!)

So what did I keep? I kept the Hippo Mug bestowed by the first ex-and-annulled husband after his drunk mother called me a kike.

Why? I have my reasons ─ beyond the fact that the Hippo Mug has survived 30 years of major life changes.

Please trust me when I say it was an authentically tender gesture on his part in the face of the family freak show, a gesture made more poignant by the reality that as graduate students we could ill afford any fiscal frivolity.

Even more important, I believe the Hippo Mug has served over the years to remind me that my Jewish identity is real, durable and will always be so even though the altar I approach has a cross as well as a menorah on it.

Hoping to Become a Sports Legend

The sybaritic thrill of schlepping stuff to the curb for recycling and trash pick-up is nothing when compared to the thrill of readying my home for sale.* Getting everything good-to-show is right up there with striking the set in between liturgical seasons, something that has amused friends for years. (Note: I'm not mentioning names, Barb.)

Plus, there's the frisson of fun I always feel when cleaning is involved. Does anyone not know that I consider vacuuming relaxing as well as invigorating? I love cleaning ─ the logistical challenges, the physicality, the winning results.

I emphasize "winning" because I tend to view cleaning and even mere tidying up as a competitive sport, which is why last year I stood on my dining room table to vacuum spider spinnings off the ceiling.

So what if I pitched backward and am now down a chair that matches the table? Truth to tell, I was a bit hurt ─ not at all by the fall but by comments about how I should have either used gadgets or called someone to "spot" me during this event. (Note: I'm not mentioning names, Barb.)

Gadgets? Are you kidding? As far as I'm concerned, this is akin to any other form of sports "doping."

Dear readers, if you're not in good enough shape to do a back flip off a dining room table while cleaning without getting hurt, you have no business being up there in the first place.

*The answer to the question: Baltimore.

"This is my Bible..."

Once upon a time and long ago, I did indeed attend events where unbearably enthusiastic Believers would wave Bibles above their heads while chanting, "This is my Bible! God said it! I believe it! And that settles it!" It has been years since I've thought about that slogan.

In fact, I searched Google this morning because I could only remember the opener which, once I read the rest, is probably a good thing but let's not go there. And I only found myself searching Google after hearing, "this is my Bible" running through my brain on continuous loop.

You see, over the weekend I decided to be done with the Bible I've been using for personal prayer.

Never mind that I'd probably get another one exactly like it; same translation (NIV) and type size (Giant Print); use the same page clips to find my way through it. As for reinstalling Bible-index tabs? Not at all a problem. Fun!

The (alleged) problem is that I've been scrawling notes in this particular Bible for 15+ years and most entries include the date, time and circumstances of my encounters with scripture. Believe me, it's one thing to rediscover passages I've been led to during times of great joy; quite another to stumble upon ones I've clung to during times of pain, grief and other apocalyptic emotions.

Enough already.

Maybe not?

This morning, I unzipped the case and opened my Bible with every intention of removing all the stuff tucked into its pages, recycling the Page Nibs and then ─ oh, I don't know ─ maybe retiring it to the basement? But I never got that far because all I could hear was, "This is my Bible..."

"All Are Welcome"...as if we bother to notice.

Thanks, once again, to Paul Campbell at People for Others for providing blog fodder. This morning he posted a review of In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church. Gina Welch, the author of that book, having embedded herself in a Baptist megachurch, was oh-so-surprised to discover "a movingly ample capacity for selflessness and generosity" among those church folk.

Paul's questions: "Would she have come to a similar conclusion if she had attended and become involved with a huge Catholic parish for more than a year? What conclusions might she have drawn about Catholics from worshiping with them? Any thoughts on this?"

First, please murmur after me:

Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison

There, now I feel better.

Not to swipe at the church with too broad a brush, but had Welch attended a huge Catholic parish for a year, it's doubtful she would have been noticed, let alone welcomed. We may be singing "All Are Welcome" with soppy gusto, but that's about it in far too many parishes

Somewhere along the way "evangelization" and "evangelism" became icky words among Catholics. Evangelization seems to have become a holy-owned subsidiary of the, uh, evangelical churches. And when, pray tell, did the schism between radical hospitality and evangelization happen?

My best worst guess is that Welch would have spent a year being herded into a pew and up to Communion by a dour (because that's what piety looks like, right?) usher. Had she bothered to attend the monthly "social" after Mass, she would have spent it standing in a corner clutching a cup of bad coffee and a store-bought donut.

At some point during that year, she would have been subjected to the Bishop's appeal video in all its bad-production-values glory. She would have been invited to a "ministry fair" offering her opportunities to serve without revealing how that service might be anchored in faith, let alone the Gospel.

If she drove to church, she would have had the experience of being nearly run over in the parking lot during the post-Mass stampede to get kids to soccer practice and their parents out to the malls. Okay, so maybe she'd get to play Bingo...but with no one her own age. I suspect she would have ended her year wondering: who are these people and where is God?

But because "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life," I hope she would have encountered faith nevertheless ─ perhaps in light streaming through stained glass windows or candles flickering in the quiet dark; while gazing at images of Christ crucified and risen indeed.

Wearing Life Like a Seamless Garment

Someone called me a "workaholic" earlier today.

Considering the source, I couldn't tell whether the characterization was dig or compliment. It's not the first time I've heard this commentary about my apparent inability or unwillingness to carve life up into "work" and "relaxation." But it's neither inability nor unwillingness on my part. It's a lifestyle choice.

I once thought gender distinctions explained why men felt more compelled than women to make this observation about me. I've come around to thinking that while gender may be a factor, it doesn't entirely explain differences in how women and men organize life. I now believe that personal spirituality factors into an individual's definition of what is -- or isn't-- work.

This epiphany occurred during the recent Triduum. Although I found myself actively disliking John's gospel this year, internal spluttering did not prevent me from having a Holy Spirit moment upon hearing the word "seamless" with reference to Jesus's garment (John 19:23).

I was instantaneously reminded of an invitation, issued more than a decade ago, to "wear life like a loose garment." Next, I mentally drifted through conversations I've had about the perils of making rigid distinctions between life and work. And then, I realized that what I really want -- and have always wanted -- is to live life like a seamless garment.

Lifestyle choice? More likely a calling, which is probably why I can't recall ever being accused of workaholism by other spiritual seekers.

ADVENTure Continues (2nd Week)

Since the second candle on the Advent wreath represents the Bible, I figure it's a good time to write more about what I do, technically speaking, whenever my mind leaps to scripture during the writing process. I'll start by noting how it's a minor miracle that my mind leaps to scripture at all. It wasn't always thus.

For the past two decades, however, regularly reading scripture and practicing lectio divina has clearly had an impact on my life. As a practical matter, I rely on tools when I write. I use a combination of references to chase down full citations when scripture snippets occur to me, or to discover what has been recorded about specific concepts or events.

Bookmarked on my computer: SearchGodsWord and the New American Bible as available on the USCCB site even though I generally can't abide the NAB translation.

By my desk:

• A. Colin Day, Roget's Thesaurus of the Bible, which I find easier to use than Strong's Concordance. I rely on a 1998 paperback edition that I found remaindered
• The Catholic Comparative New Testament, great for comparing translations.
• Tanakh:The Holy Scriptures (Jewish Publication Society translation). It doesn't use the customary two-column page design, which makes it easier to read as narrative.
• I also refer to a copy of the NIV (New International Version) translation. Its version of Hebrew scripture is remarkably consistent with the JPS translation. Imagine that!

You can count on me having much more to say in future posts about how writing is itself a spiritual practice.