The Big Stones

You've probably heard the story about the professor who filled a container with large stones, and then
asked his students if it was full. When they replied that it was, he added smaller stones until it was once again 'full.' Then gravel, then sand, then water, until the container was filled. The moral of the story, as it's told, is about priorities: we need to put the large stones in the container first, because if we start by filling it with water, we'll never fit the large stones in. If, on the other hand, we start with the large stones, we can always add the smaller stuff later in the margins that remain.

I've been wondering lately about what my 'large stones' are, and how to make sure that I'm putting them into my life before the space gets crowded out by other things. What are the values that I'm most deeply committed to? What are the practices that are most essential in my life?

One of my deep convictions about pastoral ministry is that I cannot lead others to places I'm not willing to go myself. I cannot authentically invite people into God's story unless I'm already living into that story in my own life. I cannot lead the congregation in prayer well when prayer isn't a regular practice in my own life.

And one of the things that I know from experience to be true about myself is that one of the 'big stones' that I need to make sure that I've created space for is Sabbath. Practicing Sabbath rest has truly saved my life over the past number of years. Learning to create space for deep rest, to nurture silence as a place for meeting with God, to honour the fact that I'm a more whole person when I regularly create time and space to be still and know that God is present, both in the world and within me--this is not laziness, but is as essential to my health as the air that I breathe.

I started attending an annual retreat at the local monastery years ago, when I was reaching the point of burn out from the demands of ministry. Some of the people who were closest to me at the time felt that I'd already passed the point of burn out and suggested that it was time to reevaluate. I recall that it had been a very long time since I felt any sort of real connection to God, since I could say that I'd experienced God's presence or that it felt like my prayers were going anywhere other than bouncing off the ceiling.

That week-end saved my life. It started me on a path and introduced me to spiritual practices that have sustained me for almost a decade since--and not an easy decade at that! I have no desire to go back to the way that I was trying to survive in ministry before that transformative experience.

And yet, in my concern to 'do well' at my new job, I'm realizing that it's so much easier to lean into the ever-present demands of the tasks of the day than it is to make time and space for attending to God. It's not that I don't know what would be life-giving to me--it's that I don't want to be perceived as lazy or as not meeting expectations. And, right or wrong, my perception is that if there are expectations I'm not meeting, they're likely to be related to tasks that need to be accomplished, and not to my failure to nurture a life of prayer and attentiveness to the Spirit.

It's so easy, even in ministry, to get carried away by the demands of the day and to lose sight of the importance of stopping, taking a deep breath, and allowing yourself to remember the goodness and ever-presence of God. It's so easy to get caught up in planning programs and working out the logistics of Sunday mornings and scheduling pastoral care that you neglect your own self-care.

I'm not sure exactly why I'm writing this today. But I think it's partly to urge those of us who love the church to take a step back and reexamine our priorities from time to time. I know that I need to find ways to make practices like Sabbath-keeping, prayer, silence, and solitude some of the 'large stones' that automatically find their place in my bucket before anything else gets slotted in around it, rather than the other way around. I know that I need to create space for prayer, and then make prayer unapologetically part of what it is that I do as a pastor. I know that I need to honour the heart work that is essential to my pastoral ministry, even if it is unseen and cannot be crossed off of the ever-present to-do list.

I've also talked to enough people to suspect that I'm not the only one who feels guilt about creating space for spiritual practices and self-care in the midst of the many demands of life. And I hope that in talking about my own struggles to sort out my priorities, others might find solidarity with the struggle and hope in knowing that they are not alone in this.

My call is to love and to serve the people God has placed in my circle of care, and I can only do that faithfully when I'm attentive to God and to God's activity in the world. If I'm to love others, I must first of all live out of the awareness that I'm beloved myself. My call is not, first and foremost, to answer emails or to plan stimulating programs or to organize events that go off without a hitch. I will do plenty of all of those things as a part of living out my vocation--but I can't afford to forget that these are not my primary call.

I'm not in danger of becoming lazy and doing nothing but sit around resting and praying. That's just not going to happen. What I am in danger of is getting so busy doing stuff that I forget the resting and the praying.

What are your big stones, and how are you doing at putting first things first?

And if you see me in person, feel free to help me to be accountable by asking me how I'm doing at keeping first things first.

After all, it's not selfish--it's actually the most loving thing I can do for the people I'm called to love and serve.

The Betrayal of Autumn

Last year I posted this photograph on my social media along with the caption, "Because some days this is the only thing that makes any sense to me."

Fall arrived last year in the midst of a season of loss and change in my life, and as the leaves changed colours and gradually dropped, forming a soft carpet on the forest floor, I felt a gentle reassurance in the changing of the seasons. Just as summer yields to fall, and fall to winter, I felt a gentle reassurance in seeing my own season of loss mirrored in the created world, and I grew to trust that I was safe in the hands of the Creator who brings such beauty in the midst of a season of dying.

This year, the leaves seem to be beginning their autumnal transformation early, and I feel betrayed.

I am not ready for the lush green growth of summer to end. In this season, at the beginning of a new adventure, the reminder of fall that "there is a time for everything" is not wisdom that I want to hear.

I'd rather hear, "Everything is going to be okay."

Instead, the leaves and the memories they bring remind me that sometimes things do not turn out the way that we want them to, no matter how hard we try or how much we hope and pray.

I'd rather hear, "Don't worry!"

Instead, I see reflected in the world all around me a reflection of my fears--that this, too, is too good to be true and I might be asked to give it up as well.

The arrival of autumn is betraying all of my attempts to put my fingers in my ears, tune out the things I'd rather ignore, and live in blissful denial for a season. To focus on joy, and ignore the hard truth that there is much happiness and fulfillment in this new season of life--but that it coexists with the reality that the joy doesn't erase the hurt and sense of betrayal of a year ago.

Hear me well--I am happy, and there is a great deal of joy in my life this September. I don't for a minute regret leaving my 'safe career' behind to pursue my heart's true love. There is so much that I want to experience and so much that I'm looking forward to. I'm so grateful for this new congregation where I've been planted.

But the last couple of years have been hard, and even when I'd rather ignore it, the truth is that my spiritual director was right (again!) and that it is healthy and necessary to honour hard emotions too, not only the happy ones.

I was driving out to the forest yesterday to spend some time on my day off lost in a sea of trees and soft breezes, where my soul feels most connected to my Creator. And along the way, I was praying and telling God that I was annoyed at the feelings of sadness that were arriving, unbidden, along with the hues of yellow on the trees outside my windows.

But even as I was prayer-ranting, I sensed a growing awareness that to revisit the sadness and the fears that this season reminds me of isn't a bad thing. It doesn't signal sure and certain doom, nor does it prove that my fears about the same thing happening again are bound to come true.

It just echoes the poet's words: "There is a time for everything." Joy and fear coexist; happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive.

I will be a better pastor and a more compassionate friend if I can gently learn to honour not only the consolations of life, but also the desolations.

Instead of tensing up, putting my fingers in my ears, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, and ignoring the inevitability of the upcoming transformation in the world around me, I'm going to try to relax into the reassurance that it's okay to be scared and it's okay to be sad. It's okay to take time to acknowledge the hard stuff, without fearing that it will make me oblivious to the many blessings around me. It's okay to honour both joy and pain. One is not holier than the other.

Yes, the leaves are changing. And their gift is to make me aware of the fullness of who I am, and the fullness of who God is. They invite me to an authenticity that I might initially want to reject, but that I'll be richer for paying attention to. They invite me to encounter a God who is big enough for all parts of me, not only the joyful and happy parts of me. They reassure me that even if the world only wants to see my social media highlights role, God invites something deeper and doesn't shy away from the behind-the-scenes me.

May I have the courage and the grace to say yes to their gentle invitation.

The View from Seven Weeks In...

I am absolutely happy with my new job.

But as it turns out, new jobs are tough. It's frustrating to realize that a simple task that should only take a couple of minutes at most takes three times longer than necessary because you have to learn and relearn all of the micro-steps to the task that will, with time, come without thought. For example, something as simple as checking my voicemail last week required first digging through a desk drawer to find the file containing the paper with the voicemail instructions, reading the instructions to figure out what to dial in order to access the voicemail system, and recalling where I had written down my password for the voicemail system. Or answering a relatively straightforward email requires first reading through several sets of minutes from several different committees in order to figure out the background of the request and what next steps need to be taken, and by whom.

All of these things will get easier with time, and every new job comes with its own learning curve. It's normal.

But as it also turns out, starting a new job doesn't make the hard stuff instantly disappear.

As much as I love doing this work that I believe God has called me to do and has given me the necessary gifts for, as time goes on I am realizing that the voice of the man who told me that I shouldn't pursue pastoral ministry is still echoing around in my head, and wasn't instantly vanquished by the call to serve here. The voices in my head that tell me that any minute now the fact that I'm the wrong gender is bound to pop up haven't gone silent, even though I now serve in a congregation where women have long been affirmed in leadership and pastoral roles. And the hard experiences of the last year, and the irrational fear that another 'congregation' that I love will be taken from me in an untimely manner is persistent in its unwelcome presence.

Add to that the normal introvert fatigue of trying to get to know hundreds of new people all at once, and it's exhausting. Actually, physically, exhausting.

I'm used to pushing my limits hard...to hitting the wall and then pushing just a little harder to see how long I can keep going and how much I can do.

But it's been a tough year, and my capacity to push past my limits just isn't cutting it right now. It seems I've reached the end of my resources.

Which is a gift, in a crazy sort of way.

Because a long while back I read an analogy about ministry that really stuck with me. It compared ministry to learning to swim: When we try to master ministry of our own resources, we can become frightened and defensive, clutch up, and it is then that we sink. When we instead learn to rely on the gifts of God, when we learn to trust in the buoyancy of the water that holds us and just relax into it, it's then that we learn to float. "The buoyancy of water and the possibility it creates for us to be able to float and to swim with confidence provided an apt and lovely metaphor for the buoyancy of God, whose everlasting and omnipresent grace enable us to live and to have life abundantly."

Perhaps the gift in the exhaustion is the invitation to learn to breathe deeply, to relax into the buoyancy of God, to know that not everything depends on me, to practice receiving the grace of God that I invite others to experience. To learn to serve in true partnership with the Spirit of God, instead of simply paying lip service to the idea. To lean into the goodness of God and the trustworthiness of the Spirit.

Hard lessons, friends, especially for those of us who are used to being strong, to achieving what we set out to accomplish, to challenging the limits.

But lessons that I hope I can learn now, in these early weeks of pastoral ministry, and carry forward with me for many years to come, so that I can serve as well as I possibly can these people whom I am rapidly coming to love, in the way that God intended all along.

Glass Ceilings

Here's the thing about glass: it's hard to see, because its whole purpose is to be seen through. You're not meant to notice the glass, but what's on the other side.  You look out the window to see what's beyond, not to notice the window itself. You look past the glass at the aquarium to see the fish swimming within. You choose a glass lid for a pot so that you can keep an eye on the contents simmering away inside.

The whole thing about glass is that it's hard to see, especially up close.

It's easier to observe glass from a distance. I can more easily see the windows of the neighbouring buildings than I can see the window out of which I observe them. 

At times, in the past, I have been asked my opinion regarding the so-called 'glass ceiling' that seems to prevent more women from assuming pastoral roles in my previous church denomination. On paper, it has been more than a decade since a resolution passed at a national gathering freed women to serve in pastoral roles at all levels, including lead pastor roles, within the denomination's churches. Based strictly on casual observation and informal conversation with other observers, it seems that little has changed in that decade. Why is that, some have wondered aloud.

I think I was too close to the proverbial glass ceiling to see it well. It was much easier to see what lay on the other side--the opportunities that I longed for--than to see what was up close.

I'm probably still too close to the situation to really give you a good analysis of the glass.

But here is one thing that I've noticed in recent weeks, which I offer as a personal observation, for whatever it's worth.

I have noticed something that I've come to think of as 'the assumption of competence.'

Let me try to explain. 

A few times in the past few weeks I've been caught off guard by people who assume that I'm a competent pastor.

I know that might sound strange. I get that. In another field of work, it would be wholly ridiculous to hire an occupational therapist and then to assume that she is incapable of doing the job for which she was hired.

And yet, my surprise on a couple of occasions when this 'assumption of competence' has happened to me has made me examine why that is. And I've realized that there have been subtle boundaries that I've regularly encountered in ministry. Things that it is assumed that I will not do, or that I should not do, or that should only be done by a more senior (male) leader. Or things that, should I have the opportunity to do them, it is made clear that it is 'very special.' Is it because they are 'too pastoral'? Or because the roles that I've functioned within in the past (and the roles that are often held by women in the denomination, I'd suggest) are niche roles within the church, with fairly well-defined boundaries? I'm not sure.

In the new setting that I'm in now, I find myself at times offered opportunities for ministry that I'd always assumed in the past were off limits to me. The opportunities come without any fanfare, as if they are no big deal. Except to me, they are a big deal. 

Some of these things are things that I've come to be nervous about, because they've felt off-limits for so long. I've wondered if I'm up to the challenge. I've questioned my own competence.

Let me tell you, though, that there's a tremendous gift in having someone assume that I am fully capable. In having something that might seem like a 'big deal' in my mind ever so casually handed to me, of feeling someone else's confidence in me even if I have my own doubts.

Because do you know what? It turns out--I am pretty competent. Still learning, to be sure. Going to make mistakes? Definitely! Perfect? Far from it. But competent? Yes!

Without opportunities to be competent, to rise to the challenge, to try new things, to live into all of the corners of the calling to pastoral ministry--without the support of people who assume competence, who back off and allow success and learning to flourish--we'll still have glass ceilings for sure.

So, for the chance to glimpse and explore my own competence, I am truly thankful. And for more people to be given this gift, I continue to pray.

 

Like My Skin Fits

Many times over the past several weeks, people have asked me how it feels to be switching careers--to be leaving behind the career that has sustained me for the past seventeen years for employment as a full-time pastor.

There are a few different answers that I can, and have, given to that question.

Sometimes it feels terrifying. I am leaving the career that has given me job security, that paid the bills through my graduate studies and once again when my ministry role came to a sudden and unexpected end this fall. I'm leaving the job that has helped to give me some sense of value and worth when my experiences in the Church at times left me questioning who I was and whether I had anything to offer.   And because of the regulations that govern my previous field of work, at some point it will become increasingly difficult to go back and do this again in the future. So, it feels scary.

It feels exciting. I remember vividly how it felt to wait, in the in-between time after the interviews were all completed and when the congregation's response was yet to come. I remember how very much I wanted their answer to be 'yes'--how I felt nothing but certainty that my own answer was a resounding 'yes,' if only they would ask the question.

But most of all, to my surprise, as I have prepared to make this move, I've noticed something in me that goes beyond emotion. The only way I can describe what I've been feeling as I have anticipated the beginning of the month and the invitation to take on this new role, after their 'yes' and my 'yes,' even amid all of the fear and excitement, is this.

It feels like my skin fits.

It feels like something has fallen into place that has long been dislocated, so long that I had ceased to notice that it was rubbing me in the wrong way all of these years.

You see, I have known that this is what I was called to do and to be for almost twenty years. I have been ready to make this move since before I had even graduated from university.

And while I was grateful for the chance to study theology and ministry, and to work in pastoral roles in a part-time capacity, and while I was told by many men who were employed full-time as pastors how fortunate I was to have another career as a fall-back and how bivocational ministry is the way of the future, there was never an opportunity to fully embrace the call to full-time pastoral ministry.

I was never offered the choice.

And I know that this will not be easy--that I have so very much to learn, that there will be many challenges along the way, that there will be hard days, and all the rest.

But right now, it feels like my skin fits for the first time in as long as I can remember.

And for that, I'm beyond grateful.

A Plea for Honesty

I sat across the desk from a male leader in my church denomination several years ago as I was about to embark on the adventure of seminary studies. At that meeting, I voiced one of my concerns at the outset of the journey--that I would ultimately not find space to use my gifts for ministry within the denomination that I called home.

And I still remember, as clearly as if it were just yesterday, him looking across the desk at me and telling me that there would be no problem with me finding a place to use my gifts within the church as long as my theology was solid. Gender and singleness, he assured me, were not determining factors in how churches in the denomination chose their leaders anymore.

I wasn't sure that he was right, but I badly wanted to trust him.

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I have had a sense of being called by God to serve in pastoral leadership in the Church for more than fifteen years now.

And for many of those years, churches within the denomination have been officially free to call men or women to leadership positions including that of lead pastor. For all of those years, churches have been free to call women to other leadership positions with the exception of the role of lead pastor. That is to say--on paper, there was no barrier to me serving in the way that I felt called.

Many people within the denomination over the years have chosen to quietly affirm my gifts, or their support of women in ministry leadership roles.

And yet, for fifteen years I struggled to find a place to serve, a place in which I felt like I and my gifts were truly welcomed.

And in those fifteen years I gradually came to the conclusion that it must be because my theology was lacking, or because I was misunderstanding the gifts that God had given me, that I was unable to find a place for myself, no matter how hard I worked, or how much I excelled in my coursework, or how diligently I worked to prove my loyalty to the denomination, or how patiently I waited for someone to offer me an opportunity to do what I loved to do.

I could never pinpoint exactly what it was that was wrong with me. I just knew there had to be something--or some things.


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And so, it came as a shock to me when I made the difficult but necessary decision to seek opportunities for ministry within a different denominational setting that virtually immediately my gifts were recognized, welcomed, affirmed, and sought out. That it was not a matter of fifteen years, but less than fifteen weeks before I found a place to belong.

It's a shock to the system, to say the least. Suddenly, I was receiving the external affirmation of my call to ministry from the church that I had been longing for for so long.

It's a shock to the system, to begin to wonder if there isn't actually something wrong with me after all.


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What I really, really want to say is this:

Friends, we are not doing anyone any favours by pretending that there are not systemic barriers facing women in our churches when, unfortunately, at least at some levels of leadership, those barriers are alive and well.

We are actually hurting people when we quietly pretend that these forces are not present, when we fail to name the actual forces at play in our churches.

How I wish that someone had the courage to say to me that I was unlikely to find the place to serve that I was looking for because I was a single woman. It would have been a gift. It would have saved me so much agonizing about what I was doing wrong, or why I couldn't shake the sense of God's call even when I clearly didn't have the affirmation of my gifts by the church.

How I wish that someone had arranged to have a conversation over coffee and actually asked me the question--whether I might consider seeking more welcoming spaces to test my gifts, where I wouldn't have to wonder if it was my giftedness that needed examination, or simply my gender or marital status leading people to certain conclusions before I ever opened my mouth to speak.

It might make us feel better, to ignore the uncomfortable truth that in many (not all!) cases, there is much work to do before women can be truly free to serve as they are gifted in our churches.

But this silence, it's actually hurting people.

So, this is my passionate plea for a new attempt at honesty. If this doesn't mean speaking out at a larger level, could it at least mean having the courage to have a hard conversation with someone one-on-one, to find out what their lived experience is like and to speak truthfully?

Because if we can save one person from thinking she is not good enough, not worthy of full acceptance in the Kingdom of God, not truly beloved by God, it will be worth it a thousand times over.

Gratitude

I've been feeling reflective lately, thinking back in particular over the year that has been. There have been lots of quiet anniversary markers over the past several months as a number of "one year today since..." milestones have come and gone, and as I've remembered some of the harder transitions of the past year, I've found myself becoming increasingly grateful for the moments of beauty that have come along the way.

This picture resonates with me as I reflect on some of the moments that leave me with a profound sense of gratitude--in the midst of the sharp and painful edges of the year, there has also been abundant beauty, for which I am so very grateful.

The blog is too public a forum for me to link names and stories with these spots of beauty, but in my mind with each one of these anonymous snapshots is a face and a name, a person for whose presence in my life this past year I'm profoundly grateful.

I'm grateful for each and every moment in which someone has understood without question my need to grieve the closing of House Blend and the loss of the community I loved--for the permission and encouragement to find safe spaces to process the hurt that I was feeling, for the acknowledgment that grieving is normal and healthy. For everyone who has, however briefly, stood with me without exerting pressure to 'be okay' when I simply wasn't. Thank you for teaching me the value and importance of the practice of lament.

For the people who held space for me to question my own vocation in ministry--who allowed me to ask the very hard questions that I needed to ask. Who didn't rush in to offer easy answers, as much as they might have wanted to. Who believed in me enough to trust that the answers would come, in time.

For the people who believed in me when I needed it most. I can't express how important it was to know that there were people who could still envision a future for me in which I was free to use my gifts to serve within the church--who still believed that I had something to offer, even when the way forward wasn't at all clear to me. Who reached out to tap me on the shoulder, to remind me that they were still in my corner. Who, in the end, spoke more loudly than the critics. Who reminded me of the power of being enfolded by the love of a community.

In a year that hasn't been easy, one of the things that stands out the most as I look back is the beauty offered by so many loving words, warm hugs, and honest affirmations. By people who made space for all of me, not just the bright and shiny parts. By people who never stopped believing that God has good work for me to do yet.

In a year that hasn't always been the greatest year, I'm grateful because these cumulative experiences of being loved have given me a picture for the kind of church that I want to be part of going forward--a church that persistently sees the good in others; that is quick to offer love, especially to those who are lonely or hurting; that believes that God has good work for us to participate in; that make space for vulnerability and honesty, even when it's uncomfortable; and that manages to be beauty incarnate even in the hard spaces in life.

Much has been given to me this year. I hope that I can find some way to pay it forward in the future.