I’m over at A Day in the Life today talking about my vocation as a wife and mother.
Category Archives: Ministry
7 Quick Takes — Things Not to Say
I’m going to do something different and record my Quick Takes as a sound file. If you want to skip listening to the file (which isn’t going to randomly start playing unless you hit the play button), just click on the word “more…” and it will take you below the cut where you can read the transcript.
The Reality of Being A “Priest’s Wife”
My favorite preoteasa posted her thoughts on being a priest’s wife and had some fisking to do of a comment to this article. The comment read:
I once went to a talk given by a married priest who was refreshingly honest. He said that he doesn’t work on weekends or after 8PM. If you call his house after that time you better be almost dead because his wife will be mad.
Uh… no. The “refreshingly honest” married priest was either lying or the commenter was. I can’t think of any pastor’s wives (or pastor’s husbands or priest’s wives) who would be mad if someone called after 8 p.m. That’s considered fair-game! If someone calls at 3 a.m. and it’s not an emergency, that’s a different story. If someone calls on Jon’s day off (the existence of which is mandated by the denomination AND the congregation) and it’s not an emergency, I’ll generally tell them that he’s unavailable and will call them back later. (We had someone who did this weekly in Montana. We just screened calls on that day.) In both of those cases, I will move heaven and earth to get in touch with Jon if it’s an emergency.
Another comment with which I took umbrage was:
I think the priest is just acknowledging the obvious: if a priest has a wife and children, he cannot give priority to his priestly ministry; it must, naturally, come behind his duty as a husband and father. It is self-evident.
No, it isn’t self-evident. He can give priority to his priestly ministry while also honoring his commitments to his family. I can’t think of anyone who married a priest or pastor who didn’t know that their spouse would have evening meetings or have to be at church an hour before worship on Sunday. I can’t think of any of my clergy spouse colleagues who bats an eyelash when their spouse gets a phone call, tosses on clericals, and runs out the door. Does it impact our lives? Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a surprise. I also can’t think of any parish who doesn’t give their priest/pastor a day off. Jon’s is Friday and we do family stuff that day and also on Saturday if there isn’t something that comes up. If it’s important enough, you make it work.
The issue behind all of this is priests being married in the Latin rite of the Catholic church. I know for my preoteasa friend, this is an issue that is frustrating because she, like, has a husband who is a priest (Eastern rite) and they make it work. I think that it’s one of those things that will be allowed to happen in the West on a case-by-case basis and isn’t going to be a sweeping change that happens all at once. I can’t imagine that priests currently serving would be amenable (well… some might be) to marrying and parishes would have to get used to “sharing” their priest with someone else. (We clergy spouses are nice about sharing though… most of the time.)
How To Be A Perfect Pastor’s Wife
My favorite Byzantine Catholic priest’s wife posted today on how to be a perfect priest’s wife. She mentioned me in her post so I thought I’d play off of what she said and add a few of my own thoughts.
Know that there is no such thing as “perfect”. You may be married to a man of God but both of you are still human, even if this thought completely SHOCKS your parishioners. Realizing this early on will help you preserve your sanity.
Make peace with the fact that your husband works over holidays. That wonderful image of the kids opening their presents on Christmas morning while the parents and extended family look on? Not going to happen unless you take your kids to be with your extended family and leave your husband to do Christmas morning worship on his own. (Not that I’ve done that… multiple times.) Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter are insane and it means Wednesday services/soup suppers, special services for the Triduum, and generally not seeing your husband for about 4-6 weeks. My friend mentioned her husband possibly having to work on their anniversary — that was a Lenten soup supper/service this year for us. We STILL haven’t gone out though that’s more to do with Daniel flipping out if we leave him with a babysitter. You find ways to celebrate holidays at “alternate times”.
Find your niche. My friend did a great job on this one, mentioning that people get a little prickly if they think that you’re going to replace them. (OK… in my experience, people get A LOT prickly.) One thing I make VERY clear is that I may be the pastor’s wife but my view of my job is to enable others to do their jobs better and this means that I’m not going to be the WELCA president, Sunday school superintendent (even though I have part of a Masters degree in theology), or on council. (Being on council would be a MAJOR conflict of interest.) The job that I tend to find myself doing in every parish is sacristan/Altar Guild because I’m detail-oriented enough to know what colors need to be on the altar, how much wine/bread to prep, and what banners would fit the season best. The best arrangement I had was in Minnesota where my partner did the altar flowers and I did the sacristan stuff. Another thing I’ve also done is be the back-up person for coffee hour if someone was going to have to miss. My favorite job is lectoring but so far I haven’t had any offers here.
Learn early on how to keep a secret. We’ve had someone in every parish but this one who has called “innocently” to find out where Jon is. (Translation: they’ve called to mine me for gossip because Jon is probably meeting with someone and getting information that would be great when put through the rumor mill. God bless small town life.) My answer: “he’s out doing visits” and I leave it at that. If they ask me who, I claim blissful ignorance (though I probably know where he is) and tell them to call his cell phone if it’s an emergency. With rare exception, that cell phone call doesn’t happen.
Help your husband. Mine has had to be his own secretary in two of the three parishes he has served. This means that I’ve had to fold bulletins, run them off, deliver them on my way to town, assemble reports for the annual meeting, and that kind of thing. I’ve also had to adjust his stole on occasion, fix his microphone, and that kind of thing. It’s harder now that I have Daniel but I view my job on Sunday morning as being that extra pair of hands for him to make sure things go off OK. I love my friend’s suggestion of having a box for those things that need to make it to church. Thankfully, we live around the corner from the church and my husband’s church stuff is contained THERE but I could really have used that in the last two parishes.
Pray for and with your husband. This does seriously make a difference when things are going crazy.
Be social. I’m off the Myers-Briggs scale as an introvert. (Being a cloistered nun would be perfect for me at times.) Smile at people and say “hi”, especially to people you don’t know. If they’re visitors, they may actually return. One thing I do tell people is that my hearing isn’t great when I have a cold and that I hyper-focus so they need to tap me on the shoulder if I don’t hear them or respond to them.
Establish VERY clear boundaries. The parish called your husband, not you. Thus, you should be theoretically off-limits. This means that you are not your husband’s secretary, people should not be telling you things about other people, and they need to meet your husband at the church instead of the parsonage. You are only required to be at worship — everything else is your gift to the parish. I make it clear to people that they need to talk to my husband if they have a message because my short-term memory is not great… especially when I’m chasing a two year old. When people start telling me something about someone else, I explain that I really shouldn’t be hearing whatever they’re saying. I don’t invite people over to the parsonage for coffee because it’s our private residence — not an extension of the church fellowship hall. (I usually will get together with people in public, like on the playground.) I also do not discuss church business at work and have thankfully had bosses who will back me up when people try to do that. (Yes, I’ve seriously had parishioners call me at work when they can’t reach Jon. When they get huffy at me, I transfer them to my boss who tells them firmly that this is a business establishment and that they need to wait until I get home to talk to me.) People will try to challenge your boundaries so be firm (and tactful).
Make friends outside of church. I have a blogging network for a reason — I can talk about things other than whatever is happening at church or in the community. It’s also mentally healthier for me when the church isn’t my social life.
Learn to smile and nod. You know how kids say the darndest things? Parishioners are the same way. I’ve had people ramble on to me about their opinion on something which is 180 degrees from mine. (Case in point: The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. I’ve had people swear by it while I would rather swear AT it and burn it.) Telling them that they’re wrong and misinformed does not work well, especially since they’re the ones paying your husband and controlling your housing. 🙂 Learning to smile politely and nod while listening is essential. You can roll your eyes later when you get home.
Figure out what works for you. Every parish is different and every marriage is different. Learn how to balance your the part of your identity as a pastor’s wife with the other parts of who you are. Blogging is how I reconcile everything. I also write murder mysteries. Find out what works for you.
7 Quick Takes Friday — Rules from Your Pastor’s Wife
This is my first week of doing the 7 Quick Takes and I guess my topic will be rules from your friendly neighborhood pastor’s wife/khouria/preoteasa/rebbetzin. (Let’s assume for this exercise that the clergy spouse is female, OK?) Keep in mind that this is written a bit tongue-in-cheek.
01.) Thou shalt remember that you called the pastor, not the pastor’s wife. Our husbands are the ones with the call to ministry — not us. We’re the bonus you get. Our primary role is to support our pastor husbands and if we have any energy left over (which isn’t much at the moment in my case), we’ll plug ourselves into the church.
02.) Thou shalt not use us as our husband’s answering service. If you have something to tell Pastor Husband, you need to tell HIM. Telling me is a bad idea — I have a bad short-term memory and it just looks silly to have me standing outside the sanctuary with a notebook so you can write down messages for the pastor.
03.) Thou shalt respect the pastor’s day off. Pastor Husband works on Sunday so he gets a day off during the week — it’s in the Letter of Call. This day is to be used to be with family, take care of errands, make appointments, and have a life. The pastor *WILL* respond to genuine pastoral emergencies which are the following: death, hospitalization, and fire. If none of those apply, wait until the next day.
04.) Thou shalt pray for the pastor’s family that they have the patience and that which they need to best live up to the expectations of parishioners. We live in a fishbowl. Our lives are on public display whether we like it or not and regardless of whether the parish is respectful of our boundaries. We’re human and we can ALWAYS use prayers, especially to deal with our human condition and find ways to overcome it and be the saints that people expect us to be.
05.) Thou shalt not drop by the parsonage unannounced. The parsonage is our home. It is not an extension of the church — it is the place where we are entitled to our privacy. If you want to have coffee with me, call me and ask. The answer might be “yes” if the wee bairn is having a good day. The answer might be “no” if the wee bairn is asleep and the pastor’s wife is dealing with a nasty fibromyalgia flare-up. Bottom line: call first. It’s the polite thing to do.
06.) Thou shalt not badmouth other people to the pastor’s wife. Pastor Husband doesn’t tell me what he hears in counselling sessions and I prefer it that way. Thus, I don’t know who in the parish is an alcoholic and who in the parish is going through a messy divorce. I prefer this and I would rather not have people tell me these things out-of-turn because it’s none of my business. It also creates the problem of someone trashing people so often that the one time they have something valid, it gets ignored because it’s regarded as just another useless piece of gossip.
07.) Thou shalt love thy pastor’s wife and their family. Seriously, it makes it easier on all of us if you love us and make us feel welcome. It’s hard to get a baby fed and clothed in addition to making myself look like I haven’t just rolled out of bed. Please make my efforts to make it to church worthwhile. It means I’ll make a more concerted effort to be there and I’ll be in a better mood.
Press Release
Yes, Jon has a new parish.
I am referring to it as Metanoia Lutheran Church.
It is in northern California. The category for posts once we move will be Gold Country Life.
We move February 17th.
The Problems with Married Priests?
From Simcha Fisher (I’m quoting the whole thing so I can take this apart piece by piece):
Why doesn??t the Latin Rite Church just start ordaining married men again? If men can??t or won??t stay celibate, then why force the issue? Well, I peeked into the future, when married priests are commonplace, and this is what I heard in the pews:
??Well! I see the pastor??s wife is pregnant again! What is she trying to prove? Must be nice to pop ??em out year after year, while the parish has to support all those brats.??
or:
??Well! I see another year has gone by and the pastor??s wife still isn??t pregnant. A fine example they??re setting! I won??t have them teaching my children CCD, since his own wife is clearly on the Pill.??
and:
??I went to the rectory the other day to talk to Father about my divorce, and those damn kids of his wouldn??t shut up for a minute. Sounded like a herd of elephants running around up there ?? I couldn??t keep my thoughts straight. How can he give me advice about my family when he can??t even control his own???
or:
??I have to talk to someone about my kids, but I would never go to Father ?? his kids are so well-behaved, he could never understand what I??m going through. I swear, his wife must drug them or something ?? something ain??t right there.??
and:
??I see the pastor??s kids are taking tennis lessons! I guess they??re doing pretty well?? no need for me to leave anything in the basket this week, when we??re barely getting by.??
or:
??I see the pastor??s kids are wearing such ratty shoes. What a terrible example he sets! No one??s going to want to join a church that encourages you to have more kids than you can care for.??
and:
??I wanted to meet with Father to talk about the new brochures for the pro-life committee, and his secretary said he was busy ?? but on the drive home, I saw him at the McDonald??s playground, just fooling around with his kids! I guess I know where I stand in this parish! Harumph.??
or:
??Everyone thinks it??s so great that Father started all these holy hours and processions and prayer groups, but I saw two of his little ones sitting all alone, just looking so sad and neglected. It??s a shame that any children should grow up that way, without proper attention from their parents. Harumph.??
And so on, and so on. I??m sure you can think of more. Imagine if his wife had a job? Or imagine if she didn??t have a job? Imagine if his wife wore jeans? Imagine if she wore a veil? Imagine if he got an annulment, and then started a new family? Would the parishioners pay for alimony or child support? Imagine if the priest could get married, but was still single? Is he gay, or impotent? Is he hitting on me? Is he hitting on my daughter? [As Abby pointed out, no rite has ever allowed already-ordained priests to marry, so this wouldn’t be an issue!]
I??m paraphrasing here, but I remember a pathetic prayer uttered by the semi-fictional Don Camillo: ??Please, merciful Lord, if I have to blow my nose while I??m up at the altar, let me do it in a way that doesn??t offend anyone.??
And it wouldn??t just be a matter of doing the right thing and shrugging off unjust gossip ?? it would be so hard to know what is the right thing to do. I see how my husband struggles to work hard at his job, make enough money, and strategize for the future, because we??re all depending on him ?? and then comes home and puts it all aside to become the sympathetic and appreciative husband and the strong but playful dad. And he only has one family.
It??s hard enough for men to balance family and career ?? what if, as priests, they had to balance their biological family with a spiritual family of parishioners? Whose needs come first?
And did I mention? The average American Catholic diocesan priest makes between $15-30,000 a year.
Look, I know there are some families that could hack it. There are some that do, and I??m sure there are some that do very well, especially if the parish is close-knit and conservative, with a long, comfortable tradition of married priests. And I know we??re likely to see more married priests soon, since our beloved (and thrilling!) Benedict XVI has so warmly welcomed the Anglicans in.
How??s it going to go? I don??t know. I??m not saying it??s a bad idea; I??m just saying it??s not the no-brainer heal-all for anemic numbers in the seminaries. All the hypothetical nasty comments above are things that people say about decent, hard-working, LAY Catholic couples with private lives. Other people have no business judging them ?? and yet they do, all the time. How much worse would this gossip (and the attendant protest via empty collections basket and empty pews) be if the couple in question had much less claim to a private life? Parishioners tend to feel like they ??own?? their pastors. This can take the form of befriending and loving him, making him meals, and praying for him ?? but it can also take some uglier forms. I cannot imagine enduring such scrutiny as a pastor??s wife or child, especially without the graces of Holy Orders that help a priest survive his daily ordeal.
Simcha, you’re not that far off. I could make peoples’ skin crawl with the things that have been said to me and about me. In the last 9 years, I’ve had:
-people criticize me for getting a job outside the home (because “a smart girl like [me] could surely find some way to work at home”)
-people criticize my decisions when I was pregnant (and the fact that I hid it until someone guessed and called the entire church to tell them)
-one person tell me how I could have prevented the pre-eclampsia (more specifically HELLP Syndrome with a 30% abruption) and Daniel being born early if I’d done things differently when I was pregnant (because, you know, doctors electively choose to do c-sections at 3:45 a.m., right?)
-people criticize my clothes (apparently, I’m a Lutheran goth?)
-people complain that I do too much around the church
-people complain that I don’t do enough around the church
-people complain that I’m inhospitable because I told them they couldn’t come over randomly (while I was recovering from gallbladder surgery)
-people scream me out in public and then force me to apologize for making them make a scene
-people make up things and claim that I said them or that my husband said them
-people chew me out because my husband hasn’t been to visit them (because, you know, he’s OUT OF TOWN)
-people complain about my weird dietary habits (a.k.a lactose intolerance, FOOD ALLERGIES, and an inability to process grease)
-people use me as my husband’s message board (because, you know, they can’t walk 10 feet and tell him something)
So how do I survive this without the graces conveyed by Holy Orders?
1.) I blog. I use WordPress for a reason — passworded entries. I can get the toxic stuff out that way.
2.) I can separate the “wheat from the chaff”. In other words, I can separate the nasty people from the truly good-hearted people and I focus on the second group when I’m feeling like I want to convey bodily harm to the first group.
3.) I have friends outside of the church and the community. This goes with #1. Blogging has given me a network of people who have NOTHING to do with the church or with the community in which I live.
4.) In Minnesota, I took LONG walks. During some rough patches, I’d do an hour of taebo and then go for a 3-mile walk. I lost 25 lbs and my gallbladder. It also worked off some of the stress.
5.) I crochet. OK, I don’t do much of it right now because of Daniel but it was a way to work off some of the nervous energy.
As for whether it would solve the priest shortage, it wouldn’t. There’s a clergy shortage across the board regardless of whether you be Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. Having a young priest or a young pastor with a family does not bring the young people to church either.
Regarding the balancing of family and parish, it’s one of those things where it’s possible if the people in the parish are relatively sane and realize that the pastor has a family and that it would be NICE if he got to see them. Stuff like graduations, school plays, choir concerts, and such can be scheduled in between council meetings, Confirmation classes, and parish duties. Jon did not miss any pre-natal appointments that he wanted to attend and would have been at Daniel’s birth if it hadn’t been such an emergency event. (I had to be transferred to a hospital 90 minutes away in the middle of the night and was there for literally 30-45 minutes before they wheeled me into the O.R. for my c-section.)
Emergency calls happen. It’s the nature of being in a profession where you are on-call 24/7. However, I can count on one hand the number of calls between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the 7 1/2 years that Jon has been ordained. When those calls come in (even if it’s early evening and he’s just gotten home), I never question it. It goes with the territory.
Finally, I think it is important to remind everyone that the ministry is a vocation and a calling. My husband does not do it for the money — he does it because God called him to it.