vocation – Salvaged Faith

robed authority

Posted on August 23, 20102 Comments

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I was blessed to officiate the wedding of my friends recently. And up until five minutes before the wedding, I couldn’t decide if I would wear my robe or not.

You see, I had packed the robe. And I was most assuredly wearing the stole. But the robe was an additional layer of formality, of tradition, of authority… that I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to assume at the time.

There is this great debate it seems among pastors about whether we should robe or not. As a woman, I have often argued that wearing a robe keeps people from being distracted by what we are wearing. It adds some authority simply by the fact that you are wearing something different from what everyone else is wearing.

But that in itself is also a reason to discard the robe when you are trying to be in ministry with people. It is a barrier between you and everyone else. It makes you distinct. Which in certain circumstances actually helps to conveys your authority and then I’m back to wearing the robe.

This was the inner dialogue I was having about ten minutes before the wedding – which ended when a family member said he was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that I was one of the college friends and yet also had authority to do the wedding… I put on the robe. The authority and not the college student was the only image left to put out there… which of course also meant that when the ceremony was finished and the robe got put away, I felt more than comfortable dancing to “Love Shack” with everyone else.

You know how lawyers in England still wear fancy wigs when they are doing their official business in the courtroom? It’s a trapping of tradition and old sentimentality… and yet it also marks what they are doing as important. It sets that part of their life aside as distinct from the rest of their work and play.

I know that I allow myself to become something more… something different when that stole is draped over my shoulders. I read scripture in a different way. I preach and the words become more than what they were an hour before as I was practicing them at home.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14

Putting on the stole and the robe are ways of taking on God’s authority, of literally wearing a symbol of compassion and gentleness. It is a uniform, as much as a police officer’s uniform is… it conveys my role and my task in that place.

Does a police officer stop being a police officer when the uniform is gone? Or a surgeon when she takes off the scrubs? Or a lawyer when the suit is hanging up in the closet? Yes and no… sometimes we simply put on other hats and become wives and dads and little league coaches instead. But I think that deep down, once we put on a vocation – a persona – we can’t really take it off.

Once I have put on this authority that Christ gave me, once I have put on kindness and patience and forgiveness – they aren’t really things that I can take off again. Once I have put on love… it is there to stay. Perhaps it is just easier for others to see with the robe on.

what it means to be a girl friend… and a pastor

Posted on August 2, 2010Leave a comment

This past weekend, I got to hang out with a ton of my friends from college. I felt almost like a completely different person while I was around them – even though I had a “pastor” hat on for a bit of the time. I had the honor and the privledge of marrying two of them while we were gathered… but at the same time, I was also just one of those crazy college roommates.

All of those people knew me before I was “Pastor Katie.” They knew me as a friend and as a girl who likes to giggle and while I was the religious life council girl back then, I was also the one who… well, what happens at the PAC house – stays at the PAC house.

But what happens now that you become a pastor? Where do you find good friends? Where do you find people that you can go to and talk about all of your problems and struggles and be really, really stupid with? Who do you stay up until 3am with?

For the most part, I have solved that dilemma because my husband gained some friends through his brother who then became my friends. Completely unchurch related friends. I can hang out without having to be professional, or worry about what might come up next. I still have to cut festivities short on a Saturday night so I can get up and preach the next morning, but I get to experience with them what I used to remember as a “normal life.”

But I think even with that bunch there is something missing, because aside from being the “pastor”, I’m also the only girl… or at least have been for a long time.

And I think I really miss the kind of companionship that a best girl friend offers. And I know that I have been lucky enough to have found some amazing best friends in the past… and right now, I really wish I had someone to shop with, and watch crappy girl movies with, and talk about girl stuff with. I miss the circle of friends who gathered every Tuesday night in seminary to have pizza. I miss the estrogen that radiated out of the upstairs of the PAC House or Bubbly Manor (the names of our in-famous college abodes). I miss the crazy antics of teenage girls… that somehow are rekindled when JSTACK has the chance to get together every year or so.

But what happens when that person doesn’t live next door to you anymore? What happens when the nearest girlfriend lives an hour away? And how do you get yourself to a place where you can find someone like that in your neighborhood, when you live in the parsonage in a small town? How do I find people my own age to hang out with… without also thinking about how I can get them involved in my church or what I might need to ask them to help out with next? How can I be a friend when pastors don’t make friends with congregation members?

Vocations?

Posted on June 3, 20102 Comments

Today at our county ministerial alliance we talked about the multiple vocations that people have in their lives. The conversation sprang from a book we are reading together and a scene in which a Catholic priest approaches his bishop to let him know that he has fallen in love. The priest both feels called to the ministry and called to love and marry this woman that he has met.

Good old Wikipedia shares that vocation is: an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified. While being a wife wouldn’t always be considered an occupation… it is work. And parenthood falls under the same consideration. As do our hobbies and livlihoods. And potentially our jobs. As we talked, we became more and more aware of the multiple vocations that have an influence on our lives.

In my own life, I am called to my husband, to my family, I am called to ministry as an elder in the UMC, and I’m sure that there are many others. In seminary I wrote often about a deep calling to rootedness… part of which comes from being a Midwesterner and the daughter of a farmer. It is a calling that I am currently living out both by attempting to build deep relationships in my community and with gardening.

The problem comes however, when these various callings that God has placed within our lives don’t always neatly fit together. The conflicts can be painful. How do we divide up our time and our resources and our energy? What takes priority on what days? These is a complex dance that is stepped between these obligations and loves. Not always do we make the right choices and not always is there a “right choice” to make.

Recently, the juggling has been more difficult in my life. And try as I may to give myself fully to my husband and my church work and return the phone calls of my parents and tend to those pesky weeds sprouting up in the garden, there are also the distractions that somehow sneak in and ruin the delicate balance that we create. I spent far too much time this past week reading Grey’s Anatomy fanfiction. No lie. It’s embarassing really. And over the weekend, as I prepare for Annual Conference, I’m struggling with how I can possibly spend time with the family who are coming into town, while at the same time I have obligations for rehearsals and plenary sessions. I struggle to balance how long I stay after church on a Sunday and heading out to the river to be with my in-laws and my neice and nephews. I struggle with what to do on my Fridays off with my husband when a special meeting is called in Des Moines. I struggle with finding time to get the sermon written when a funeral comes up and find myself taking time away from sleep to get it accomplished. The pull between these vocations is intense!

As I sat down to think about this idea of multiple vocations, my mind drifts to the saints who have walked before us. What biblical characters struggled with these demands? Which founders of our faith successfully navigated these waters? My mind draws blanks. I think about the ones who didn’t…. Paul’s urging of those who were unmarried to stay that way. John Wesley’s failed relationships. Even Moses left his wife and children with his father-in-law, Jethro, for a time (Exodus 18)… and I’m not sure that when they came back they came back to stay. I’m hoping others can point me to some better role models!

Modern brain science has taught us that we really cannot do more than one thing at a time. When we believe we are multi-tasking, we are really just switching incredibly quickly between one task and another, giving each full attention… even if just for micro-seconds. But it leaves us fragmented and tired, even though our brains are quickly adapting and getting better at this dance.

What are we to do? What is the right balance? And if it comes down to it, what will be our first priority?

“this beautiful mess” part 1

Posted on February 23, 2010Leave a comment

I have been trying to read more. There are far too many books on my shelf – delicious books – just waiting to be picked up and devoured. So I decided to start with Rick McKinley’s “This Beautiful Mess.”

The writing style just draws me in… it’s conversational and pulls me in. But even more than that, he speaks to the core of my longing for the Kingdom of God. As he starts out the book, he describes it as a “permission slip… get out of religion free.” He invites us to recieve the book “not as the last theological work on anything, but as a well-intentioned, God-loving invitation to go and grow and be where you haven’t before.”

And then, McKinley takes those pithy sayings that drive me nuts and transforms them into solid truth in a way that I wish I could do. For example:

…when our lives are all about us, the appeal of that kind of bumper-sticker dumbness is irresistible. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” gets turned into a tool of the self to assure my business success instead of a promise that brings peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose.

Peace to my soul when all hell breaks loose. That’s what I’m craving. Yeah, it would be nice for the hell not to break loose at all. But it does and it will and Christ never promises that we won’t have trouble. Maybe that’s what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I blogged about my car accident. I never expected that an accident wouldn’t happen. I never expected to be so protected by the hand of God that no trouble would ever befall me. I do expect that Christ will be with me through even the darkest valleys, however.

I have now been in ministry to the congregation I serve for two full years now. Maybe it’s because I’m young, or don’t yet have the self-confidence in my own vocation, but it’s taken me this long to be able to challenge some of those simplistic and pithy characterizations of God. I find the confidence to do it in sermons – mostly because the Holy Spirit is at my back… or rather, I pray over my texts that she will be. I just don’t go into other conversations in the same way… and I should! Perhaps with more prayer and with more confidence in the God who gives me the voice to speak, I can continue to affirm the faith of my people while at the same time giving them a “get out of religion free” card. I can give them an invitation to think deeper and to go where they haven’t been before, to move beyond Jesus and me in heaven by and by to Jesus and me and the poor with my sleeves rolled up here and now.

It’s not an either/or. I’m foolish to paint it that way. It’s a both/and. Breathing IN and Breathing OUT. Letting Christ be King… but King of his own Kingdom and not the ones we create for him. Changing our allegiances. Challenging the politics of it all. And doing all of that with grace and humility.

the potential demise of “the beast” and whether or not God cares.

Posted on February 10, 2010Leave a comment

Those of you who know me on facebook or twitter will be aware by now that I was in a car accident on Monday. “The Beast,” as many affectionately call my dad’s car is in a ditch somewhere. While I’ve had my share of bumps and taps in a car while driving (I have both bumped a car in front of me at a stop sign and been bumped from behind at a light… and then there was the whole hitting of the cement pole thing that is a very long story) – and even was in another accident when we hit a deer on the interstate, this accident was very scary.

As I have had to recount the incident dozens of times – both in my own head and to insurance adjustors and to family and friends, I’m not necessarily going to do that again here. In part, because it all happened so quickly… or so slowly… I can’t tell if time was speeding by or slowed down and everything took place in half a second or half a minute. All I know is that I had changed lanes to avoid/give room to a vehicle that lost control and as that vehicle came back into my new lane, I hit the brakes and prayed that we wouldn’t collide.

We did.

As a pastor, I’ve thought about where God has been in all of this. It’s easy to both be absolutely grateful and absolutely pissed off. On the one hand, no one was really hurt in the accident and I am utterly thankful for that. It could have been worse – much worse. On the other hand, it could appear that all of those prayers for safe travel fell on deaf ears. I not only was in an accident, but I also couldn’t make it to my ordination interview. Really, God? Was that a part of your plan?

But then as a person of faith who wrestles with God quite often, I also find myself not wanting to do either of those things. I find myself not really wanting to place God in the situation at all. I chose to drive that day. The other driver also chose to drive. The wind changed directions, the road got icy, stuff happens and we collided. No where in that entire scenario does God have to intervene. There were choices made and actions taken and then there were appropriate consequences.

I guess it’s the battle between free will and determinism that is wrestling inside of me. I read the scriptures that says God knows the number of hairs on my head and that God won’t leave me or forsake me. But does that also mean that I think God will protect me from bad things happening my entire life? Not at all. Do I think that all actions have consequences – good and bad? Sure. Does that mean that God intentionally sends things into our lives to teach us lessons or to punish us? Not really.

I know that my little “adventure” on the interstate nowhere near compares to disasters and tragedies and heartache that others have felt in their lives and that we all will continue to experience in this life. At the root, however, I guess what I’m wrestling with here is a question of theodicy.

And the only answer I can come up with is that God was present in how we chose to respond to the situation. The woman who was in the other car and I sat down at a Perkins Restaurant over a pot of coffee and some pie and we talked. We got to know one another a little better and talked about our families and why we were both on the road that day. We cried together over what had happened. And we knew that despite it all, in spite of being far from home and not knowing what to do next, that we were not alone. We experienced table fellowship and allowed this yucky thing that happened to bring us closer together. We felt hope in the midst of despair.

If that’s not God… then I don’t know what is.

the blue couch

Posted on November 18, 20091 Comment

In my last post I mentioned really connecting, even if for a short time, with my host in Indy. And as we talked about some of her decor, we talked about antiques and things passed down, and then she brought up the movie The Red Violin.

I haven’t actually seen it, yet, but she said it’s the story of how this violin traveled through war and love and hat and across continents and the journey that it took. And instantly, I realized that I had found something that I have been looking for a very long time.

There have been lots of times when I have had to share my autobiography in my ordination and educational processes. But I realized to really share that story – not because I had to, but as a means of helping other young women know that they weren’t crazy as they tried to figure this whole ministry and calling thing, I would want to write a book. It would include my vocational journey, my relationship with B, my own self-discoveries – but I never could figure out where to start? How would I do it? I could just start writing – which is kind of where my blog has sprung out of, but it hasn’t had the focus and direction I’ve wanted.

On this trip I also picked up and read (in one short 35 minute sitting) Becca Stevens, Funeral for a Stranger, and marveled at how she used the one experience to talk about so many different things… it was the vehicle for the rest of her tale.

And then I heard about The Red Violin. And I found it. I found what I couldn’t figure out.

Brandon and I have this modern, down, cat-scratched, taped, misshapen, used and abused blue couch. We have dragged it everywhere. We got it for free from a business that was throwing it out and for 8+ years it has journeyed with us. And as I’ve made mistakes and gotten things right and said yes and said no and finally ended up as a minister in Iowa, I’ve dragged that couch along with me.

I have a title. I have an outline. Someday I may sit down and try to actually write the thing.

FF: Five Songs

Posted on October 23, 20092 Comments

When I was a very little girl growing up in Virginia, I never missed a Sunday going to Court Street Baptist Church. But there was something else that made Sundays special, and that was “Davey and Goliath.” Every week the opening strains of the theme song would find me lying on the floor, chin on hands, looking up expectantly to watch the adventures of a clay boy and his big dog.

What I didn’t realize was who wrote that music, the hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

It was the same Martin Luther who said:

“I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God. Music drives away the Devil and makes people gay; they forget thereby all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. Next after theology, I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor.”

On this Friday before Reformation Sunday, let’s talk about music. Share with us five pieces of music that draw you closer to the Divine, that elevate your mood or take you to your happy place. They might be sung or instrumental, ancient or modern, sacred or popular…whatever touches you.

1) All Will Be Well – the Gabe Dixon Band… I fell in love with this song in Nashville – it pretty much sums up my theology (and may be the reason I love Moltmann so much)

2) Here I Am Lord – the song that represents my call – I love singing the harmony on the chorus when you get a big group of people together.

3) I Believe in a Thing Called Love – The Darkness – this song gets me up on my feet and moving. at a time when I was taking better care of myself and exercising regularly – this was the number one song on my playlist.

4) Hey Ya – Outkast – my dad and I danced to this song at my wedding – not for our father/daughter dance… but because he liked the song and we requested it. It still makes me giggle thinking about us out there busting a move

5) Shelter – Ray Lamontagne – another artist I fell in love with during seminary. If my husband hadn’t had a song already – I would have lobbied hard for this one for our first dance.

pastoral discoveries

Posted on October 22, 2009Leave a comment

So – my last post kind of cryptically talked about growing and stretching and being challenged and stressed. As I’m wading around in all of that still, I thought it would be good to talk about some of the things that Im learning about what it means to be a pastor in the midst of it.

1) It’s okay to not answer your phone. At our Healthy Ministerial Relations workshop we talked about boundaries and many people shared that they turn their phone off on their sabbath days. I wouldn’t do that simply because my cell phone is also my personal phone – but I did remember that advice when I recieved five phone calls from church folk on Sunday afternoon. I didn’t have my pastor hat on then – I was being a sister and was helping paint my brother-in-laws new house. So I let the calls go to voice mail. And then I listened to see if they were important. And then I let it wait. When I started my day on Monday – I called each one of them back. And while initially I felt kind of guilty about doing so, it was a reminder that I don’t have to be “on” 24-7.

2) Why do pledge drives/stewardship campaigns have to be in November? With how busy our lives are right now it just seems like one more thing on top of every other thing. I think for the most part we like the connection of offering and thanksgiving and consecration all going together, but there is no time left. We are now talking about pushing all of that back to January. We don’t use our pledges to make our budget anyways because we don’t have enough history with them. What difference would it make if as a congregation we commit to support the church at the end of January instead of the end of November? Plus – it gives us the opportunity to really push our small group study and having a “new year, new finances” kind of focus might work out really well!

3) Rookie mistake – don’t talk to reporters. And especially don’t talk to people when you really don’t have time. As I was finishing up the funeral orders – about 15 minutes before the family was scheduled to arrive – I got a phone call that I really didn’t have time to answer. I told him I didn’t have time to talk, and was trying to show that I had no information that could help him, but in my rush to get on with my business, and because I had no idea what he was talking about I said something that was taken out of context in the article. Note to everyone else: just say no comment. (see also #1 – it’s okay not to answer the phone and screen the calls through voicemail)

4) Your support network keeps you sane… or at least helps you let off steam. Without my best friends and facebook, without my brothers/sisters (in-laws too), and without being honest and vulnerable with my congregation, some of this week might have been unbearable. But because we talked (and typed) and prayed and hugged and watched football, we got through it.

5) You have to keep the joys and thanksgivings at the front. I carried around the pictures of my new nephew and showed him to lots of people this week – it gave me a chance to celebrate in the midst of the stress.

6) Sometimes you can get away with swearing during a sermon. At the funeral this week, the family didn’t want to get up and speak, but had some things that they wanted me to include. And so I said them – and it cut to the heart of who this guy was and everyone understood and I didn’t get any snide looks from anyone who thought it was inappropriate.

7) Once you use powerpoint in a sermon, you may never go back. I preached on the three major atonement theories in worship on Sunday and used visuals/bullet points. I had so many positive comments that now I’m wondering how we can adapt the technology in our worship space to make it easier to continue doing so.