Meanwhile, back at the parsonage

Demographically, I represent the classic clergy partner — I am a woman married to a male minister. But let me just take a moment to do a little consciousness-raising on this issue (good child of the 60’s that I am…). Most denominations have men, women and transgendered people in the pulpit. For those clergy in intimate relationships, the partner may be any of the above in any combination. Penny Preacher may be a transgendered woman still married to her wife of 30 years. Or Paul Pastor may be in a committed partnership with John Jones, unable to marry because of the law, not their choice. 

We of the clergy partner horde come in all genders, colors, ages and partnership forms. And some of us are clergy too, which is its own special type of challenge, I would think! But I think there are things that we share in common, which is why I write. No matter your religious tradition or station in life, being partnered with a person who has devoted his or her life to the service of “the spirit” changes your life. It is an honorable and challenging life to take on, and I just wanted to remind everyone that all kinds of people have done so.

As the spouse of a UU minister, I am never subjected to a ”faith test” by the members of the congregation the way I suspect my brothers and sisters in more doctrinal religious traditions are. Whew! I’m not sure I would pass. But living a clergy-centric life does mean that issues of what I believe and how those beliefs play out in my life are often at the forefront of my awareness.

As Emerson put it so eloquently, we shape our gods in our own image. Our UU Purposes and Principles are more a reflection of who we believe we are than a mandate for who we ought to be. It is not so much that we strive to live up to these ideals as that these ideals speak about how we view the world.

I’ve been pondering what it means in my life that I value ”the inherent worth and dignity of every person”. This definitely does not play out for me in doing charitable work in the community. Sure, I provide minor, anonymous support to various charitable efforts in the church and the wider community, but I’m not organizing soup kitchens in my spare time. It has become clear to me, however, that this is the principle that informs my parenting above all else.

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and the daughters of life’s longing for itself.” (Kahlil Gibran)

Children are people, not larvae of their adult selves or possessions of their parents. They are autonomous, inherently worthful people in their early incarnations. They are now who they will always be, and everything that happens to them now is part of what happens to them forever. They learn to treat others well by being treated well. They learn about the inherent worth and dignity of others by being treated as valuable human beings with inherent dignity their whole lives.

Every time we diminish a child, we diminish the child’s personal sense of worth and dignity. So we don’t punish our children. Or threaten them. Or bribe them. Or embarrass them on purpose (that happens all by itself). Or speak rudely to them. Or allow them to do those things to others to the extent that we are aware of it.

We teach them of their own worth by giving them the freedom to make their own decisions, even when they would like to take the lazy way out and have us make the decisions for them. We teach them to honor themselves by making life-affirming choices that promote their dignity as human beings and citizens of this planet.

And because we all learn through the example of others, we as their parents strive to live lives of integrity and self-determination that meet our own standards of worth and dignity. Having children helps remind us to ask ourselves on a frequent basis: Am I living the life I want to live? Are these actions congruent with my best and higher self? What course of action is in tune with my core values? And am I making the world a better place?

I guess that’s the UU version of What Would Jesus Do?!

One of the unique joys of being married to a UU minister is that he takes seriously his charge to be a voice of religious reason and tolerance in the community. That means, of course, he sometimes puts himself squarely in the line of fire, which is not the metaphor I wish it were given this guns-obsessed society of ours.

Sometimes as he heads off to get himself arrested in some civil disobedience action or to put himself between opposing sides in a volatile situation (where one or both parties may be armed), I do worry about the children growing up without a father.  But then I worry more about them growing up in a world where fathers don’t do this sort of thing.

Fortunately, he usually restricts his activities to speaking out in legislative sessions and arranged forums. But speak out he does, and he can run afoul of some emotionally unstable characters in the process. There have been times when I wondered just how far some of those crazies might go. As time goes on, this issue looms larger in my thinking.

I would never want him to curtail his activities because of my fears. However, I do think it is important to be at least reasonably thoughtful about protecting the privacy of the family of public figures. So we don’t have a phone book listing. And I am going to ask that our address no longer be listed in the church directory. There is just no reason for it to be there, and there is no sense in leaving that door open.

Thankfully (knock on wood), we’ve never had trouble. Here’s hoping it stays that way!

This is another one of my advice blogs — you have been warned!

Some of you are partnered with a clergy person who is going to stay firmly planted in a pulpit for the rest of his or her natural life. If so, ignore this post!

For the rest of you, be prepared to be uprooted several times during the course of your minister’s career. This will be our  6th, no 7th move (if you count the sabbatical year) since my husband started seminary. I am the guru of family moves; heed my words!

The best thing you can do is to start packing early. This gives you time to ponder the important question to be asked about everything in your house — do we really need and use this thing? Do yourselves and the congregation paying the mover’s fees a favor. If it hasn’t been used in the last 12 months, it goes away. It does NOT follow you to Saskatchewan just to take up shelf space in the new garage. You KNOW that it will be following you yet again, this time to Miami, in the same pristine, untouched state five years down the road.

I don’t care if Grandma gave it to you as a family heirloom when you turned 16. If you don’t use it, lose it.

You’ll thank me later.

I am going to ‘fess up to lusting after something terribly decadent and outrageous. I figure I can get away with justifying it to myself if it’s for my husband’s installation service this Fall. Right?

Doncha’ love the faux-fur trim around the cuff? Note to self: do not even THINK about attending the potluck in this outfit.

Now if I can just figure out where to get those fabulous shoes…

I’ve been depressing myself this afternoon. I “googled” the phrase “clergy spouse” just to see what popped out of the  cyber universe. Whew. Who knew things were that bad? Here’s a sample of what I found.

From the DesperatePreacher.com: “The demands of ministry are manifold, they vie for our commitment of time, energy, mental pre-occupation, and even our devotion. As a result spouses and children often feel neglected, misunderstood, and treated unfairly.”

Ouch.

I mean, I can see how things could end up like that. Certainly, in the early days of my husband’s ministry, I often felt like I was in competition with the congregation for his attention. As he struggled to learn what a life of service to others was about, I was demanding that he also learn what a life of partnership and parenthood entailed. It’s a wonder the poor guy made it through those years!

At some point, I woke up to the reality that a minister’s life is dedicated to a calling that requires his attention, his time and his heart. It is a privilege and an honor to share my life with someone who lives intentionally, who grapples with the great issues in life on a daily basis and who is admired and loved by a lot of other people.

Today, in my relationship with my husband, I make room for his other relationships, and am not in competition with them. In essence, I minister to the minister. I work with him to set up our lives so that his time away from the church is comfortable and nurturing. He should always find it a relief to come home to the sanctuary of his family. In return, he has worked hard at learning to keep his priorities straight with respect to both his primary relationships (the children and me) and himself. He now sets clear boundaries as to when he is working and when he is not. And he makes time for mundane family chores like grocery shopping and chauffering the offspring.

For my part, I no longer expect to make plans for Saturday nights. That’s just the way it is. And I know that he won’t be home many nights a week. Okay. He knows what he needs to do for his work, and I trust him to make good decisions. I don’t second-guess them.

Most of all, I make room for the ministry in our lives and give daily thanks for the gifts that this amazing man brings into my life.

Here’s one of those things that it would be helpful if non-clergy people understood — any social event at which a member of the congregation is present is work time for the minister. To you, it may be a relaxed evening of dining and pleasant talk. My husband, on the other hand, is in minister-mode. He can’t let his hair down (if he had any..) and relax. He knows that his words will be remembered and his actions judged as their pastor. So he is in full work mode, just in a different setting.

And me? I am in “wife of the minister” mode. I am highly attuned to the social undercurrents, and paying attention to how I am behaving, what I am saying and to whom. Most of the time, I seem to get it right. But that is because I am working hard at carrying off the role. So this is not “free time” for me either.

So yes, social invitations are appreciated as an opportunity to make deeper connections with members of the congregation. But when we are there, we are working. Just so you know.

As happens periodically in the life of a minister, my husband has accepted a call to a new congregation. It’s a great move and a terrific match, I think, and we’re all very happy about it. But here’s the kicker — UU ministers give THREE MONTHS’ notice to their current congregations! Dang, but that is the pits.

Here’s the problem(s). First of all, now that the new congregation has found their minister, they would like him to start work. NOW. Not in three months or even three days. NOW. So, he will spend the next three months diplomatically trying to fend off requests and communications from the new church while both maintaining his daily duties at the current church and helping them transition to his replacement.

Secondly, we obviously have a lot to work on as a family, like selling the house and moving, but we could have done it in a month. Okay, maybe not sell the house that quickly, but we could work with that. The long and short of it is that this long good-bye/hello phase is like living in limbo. He’s not really “here” fully and yet not “there” yet. Meanwhile, we are marking time in our current community among friends who know we are leaving and are starting to withdraw. Or maybe it is that we are starting to withdraw from them. Or both. But this extended three month notice period follows on six months of the search process. We are all mentally exhausted!

Good thing it’s spring and I can divert my restlessness into cleaning the house.

I just gotta say this on behalf of all minister’s partners everywhere. Here’s what drives me crazy:

Meetings that run way later than they need to. Please, people, go home!

People who try to tell my husband what to preach. Shoot, that’ll piss him off for hours.

Veiled comments about what I should be doing vis a vis the annual rummage sale, Christmas banquet, children’s religious education etc.

Asking me to pass messages on to my husband. Folks, that’s why he’s got voice mail. It’s much more reliable than wife mail and it doesn’t come with a bad attitude.

Asking me to look up a phone number of a member, go through my husband’s papers/computer to find something for you, answer a question on my husband’s behalf, commit his time to a meeting or social occasion. Ministry comes with a pledge of confidentiality. It would be an egregious trespass into his affairs for me to go through his office or talk about his work with you. Please don’t ask.

We’ve got two of them. You know, “preacher’s kids”, who invariably are expected to grow up to be either televangelists or axe murderers. So far, I can’t tell which end of the spectrum our own progeny are planning to head toward, but stay tuned.

I asked my son a few years ago about what it was like living with us as his parents (why, oh why, do we do stupid things like this?). He carefully explained to me that one of the big issues in his life was which parent was on discipline duty. Frankly, he preferred me, because even though I am pretty scary when I get mad, I say (yell) what I need to say and move on.

 From his father, he gets a sermon, of course. Only not the 21st century 20 minute homily version. No, it’s the full 19th century 90 minute examination of all of the ethical, moral and social aspects of the particular poor choice he made. With footnotes.

Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.