A Face That Will Melt Your Heart

I made a new friend last night. He was waiting at the front door to my apartment when I got home from work.

He let me scratch his ears, and then patiently waited on the steps while I went in for the camera. What a beautiful guy!

When Did Church Become Work? - A DRE's Response

Errant Frogs has a provocative post over at his blog that asks ministers, “When did church become work for you?” (In regards to the choice of whether to go to a church service on Sundays off.) I began a response, but realized quickly that I was taking the question off in a wholly different direction than he intended, so decided to post it as a reflection here, instead of as a reply to his post.

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I recognize that I’m inviting myself into a conversation that really wasn’t aimed at me, but I think that this question is relevant not just for ministers, but for non-ordained church staff as well. It certainly is something I’ve been chewing on for a long time, though from a slightly different angle.

I’m a DRE, and at the risk of sounding whiny, the response to the question that came to mind first was a snarky, “Well, at least ministers GET Sundays off!” Oh, technically I think I’m supposed to have a Sunday a month off too, but the congregation has never really embraced that, and I haven’t chosen that as my battle yet. It’s an extraordinarily rare Sunday that I’m not working. There have been only two since the start of the church year when I wasn’t on site, and one of them was for a professional development conference. The other was Christmas day, and I was across the country visiting my family. And I was back in time for the next Sunday, New Year’s Day.

If anything, I think the question of Sundays off, and what we do with them, is almost more critical for religious educators than for ministers. I’ve been a DRE for five years now (serving two different congregations), and for five years I have been without a spiritual home. Certainly ministers cannot experience a service in the same way as the membership can when they are the ones preaching, but at least ministers get to participate in the worship life of the church community. I don’t even get that much; I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been able to stay for a whole church service in the last 3 years (and all but one of them were intergenerational or RE-focused services that did not include sermons).

I became a UU as a child more than 20 years ago, and being part of a UU community has been a central part of my life ever since. But as church staff, I’m not able to be a member the same way others can, even if I were to join the church I serve as a member. Church IS work; my job means that I am not able to attend worship services, in the church I serve or any other.

If I had that Sunday-a-month off, would I go to church? YES! I’d drive the 40 miles to go back to the church where I was a member prior to becoming a DRE and sit in worship with everyone else and try to reclaim some of what I’ve lost. At least I think I would. But again, my situation is very different than a minister’s.

I don’t think we (religious educators or UU communities in general) have really considered what we ask our staff to sacrifice for the privilege of working in our churches. We certainly haven’t grappled with how to provide alternate means for staff to access those things that we lose when we become staff. I don’t even think most churches even realize that they ask their staff to give up anything. But they/we do. What does it mean that we ask the people who are so passionate about UUism that they choose to spend their professional lives working in our churches to completely give up the central UU community experience: attending UU worship services? I do recognize that it’s logistical; RE happens during church for a reason, and part of the role of RE staff is to participate in that part of church life. But it’s true that even outside of Sunday worship, I cannot be a member of the church I serve in the way that I could were I not staff. Being the DRE always comes first, and I take my role as a professional very seriously. But since I cannot participate in the primary element of church life anywhere else, either, since UU worship at every church within reasonable driving distance from me happens on Sunday mornings, it really doesn’t work for me to seek that community elsewhere, either. Can you tell that I’m grieving?

Church became work for me when I realized that no church is my home any longer. Church is work because there is no time when I’m at church that I can be primarily focused on my own needs instead of the needs of the church and the members of the church that I serve. That’s not to say, though, that I think Church-is-work is an entirely bad thing; it’s not a burden. But it is a reality that is important to recognize. I’m kidding myself when I try to claim that church isn’t work. The problem is that church-as-spiritual-home has always been such a central part of my UU identity that I'm not sure that I know how to feel fully myself, or fully UU, without it.

I miss going to church to simply experience a service, listen to a sermon that challenges me to consider more deeply some aspect of my UU faith, and visit, sans agenda or purpose, with random folks afterwards. It’s taken me five years to realize how much I miss it. It’s a big problem, bigger than I thought it would be, and I don’t really know how to solve it. I have yet to find a way to replace a physical church home with another type of spiritual home. The online variations of church community haven’t quite worked for me, even though there are several incarnations out there, particularly as I’m a young adult. Something important to my own spiritual health is still missing, and I don’t know how to replace it. I do know, at least, that I love my work and feel a strong call to continue to do it, so this is a problem I’m going to have to live with for a very long time.

Is it the same for ministers? Yes and no, I’m guessing. But I’m sure there are lots of you out there who could enlighten me. Other religious educators, too, who have certainly found their own ways around this. What do you do to remain connected to our “Living Faith” when you can’t just be a regular old church member anymore? What do you do to meet your own spiritual needs? What do you do to keep being UU from becoming wholly tied up with your professional life?

Weekend Cat Blogging: Feel a draft?

Cleo's taken to playing Lump-Under-the-Covers again, but she seems to have lost the knack.

I found her hiding under a blanket tonight.

I'm sure she thought she was being pretty stealthy. I just didn't have the heart to tell her that, well...

I did take lots of pictures, though.

When the Well Runs Dry

One day soon I'm going to write a real reflection on what the world looks like from the edge of burnout and how I'm attempting to steer myself away from that too-familiar cliff.

In the meanwhile, I'll just share that I went to the ocean to watch the sun set tonight, and it was just what I needed.

(And oh, how I love my camera.)

Introducing Cleo

Well, it's weekend cat-blogging time, and I've realized that with my entry onto the cat-blogging scene last week, I neglected to formally introduce the star of the show, Cleo!

Yep, this is Cleo, short for Cleopatra, partly because of the lovely kohl markings around her eyes, and partly because she's a royal bitch with a superiority complex. (Did I really just say that out loud?)

Lucky for her (and for her adoring fans), she's also super cute, especially when she's sleeping and especially especially when she's super pooped!

I particularly enjoy cold days when she snuggles under the sheets - I'll walk into the bedroom and find a vaguely cat-shaped lump in the covers. If she's unlucky, I find out by sitting on her. Cat-shaped lumps are awfully similar to pillow- or mussed-covers -shaped lumps.

Peeking underneath, though, often reveals a kitty-shaped sleeping blob that, unless provoked, will stay put for hours.

But don't let her fluffy exterior fool you; this is one bratty kitty.

And anyone who thinks of cats as graceful creatures sure hasn't seen Cleo during her morning gyrations in the sunspot on the carpet.

Nor watched her steer me toward her food bowl every day, much as a sheepdog would, by running alongside me, cutting off my path when I stray, and nipping at my feet.

Every now and then the facade slips, and we can see the pure evil that is her true nature peeking through:

(Ok, so she was really just yawning, but wow what a maw!)

But she's awfully sweet when she chooses to be. I've decided that her meanness is just so much bluster to cover up the fact that, at heart, she's really just a lap cat.

And really, its mostly just other people she's rude to. Me she likes. Right?

And if nothing else , she's certainly good for a laugh. Particularly when hopped-up on catnip.

So don't worry, folks. Cleo will surely be good for years of cat-blogging fodder! She's a total diva. And my, is she pretty.

Meme: Ten Views I Hold Without Much Evidence

I’ve encountered a new meme over at Velveteen Rabbi (a lovely blog that I highly recommend you check out). Oh joy, might I be the first to break this one on the UU-blogging scene? (Or maybe I’m really just several months or years behind the times.) I think a lot of the meme-craze is awfully silly, but I really like this one. Many of us, myself certainly included, place such emphasis on reason and logic as the lens through which we view the world that we start to think that everything we believe is based on reason and solid evidence. Not so, not so! I had lots of fun coming up with my list below.

Ten Views I Hold Without Much Evidence:

1. That paradoxes and improbable coincidences are the world’s way of winking at me to see whether I’m paying attention.
2. That regardless of the rate at which I acquire books, I really will read them all someday.
3. That one day my cat will actually like people.
4. That living with joy is the purest act of worship.
5. That St. Simons Island, Georgia is the best place in the world to spend a lazy summer vacation.
6. That the universe is a single organism and we are but cells in the larger body, each of us a vital part of the consciousness of the holy (whether we realize it or not).
7. That traveling solo by train across the country for days at a time is a perfectly reasonable means to my final destination, even if I end up spending more time getting there and back than I do wherever I'm headed, and even if I really could afford to fly.
8. That one day I’ll pay off those student loans.
9. That the correct way to make PBJ is to mix the peanut butter and the jelly and then to spread it on the bread. And that it really only counts if it’s made with apple jelly.
10. That everything I do makes a difference in the world.

I tag: everyone who actually reads my little blog effort. Yeah, that means you! (Both of you.)

Mystery and Wonder

Every now and then the world smacks me in the face with its beauty and I remember to sit up and take notice.




Last night, I noticed that something was madly circling the ceiling lamp outside the door to my apartment. At first I thought it must be a HUGE moth, but upon taking a closer look I realized that it was a bird.





A hummingbird, to be exact. I watched it through the window for a few minutes before carefully opening the door and creeping out to the landing, sure that it would fly away as soon as I did so. But no, it was so intent on that light that it paid no attention to me at all.

It seems strange to me that a hummingbird would be attracted to lights in this way, but its behavior seemed identical to a moth’s around a flame. Does this happen normally? It would come to rest at the base of the light for a few moments, then take off again and begin furiously attacking the lamp (so much so that I could hear the edges of its wings as they struck the glass), flying in circles around it, before coming to rest again and starting the cycle over. This continued for quite a long time, while I took a few photos, went in to change lenses and add a flash (again expecting it to be gone before I returned), and came out again.



And after a while I began to worry about the poor thing; I had no idea how long it had been at it before I came on the scene, and it showed no signs of slowing down its mad attack on the lamp. Would it wear itself out, or injure itself? Would it ever stop?



After a while longer, I decided to bring out a chair so I could reach up toward it and shoo it away from the lamp, thinking that surely it would get the hint and fly away as I approached. But no, it simply continued circling, still paying no attention to me, even when I got so close as to brush its feathers with my fingers. I found, in fact, that if I put my hand in place beneath it, it would even perch on my finger rather than the edge of the lamp when it came to rest. But, at first, every time I tried to draw it away from the light it would simply fly up again, to continue flinging itself toward the lamp.







After a few minutes of this, though, it allowed me to draw it further down from the light, and I was able to take a photo of it perched there on one hand, while I held the camera in the other.






And even though I could not hold my hands still, it stayed there. I cupped it in my hand a little, shielding its eyes from the light above with my other hand, and it seemed to settle down some, blinking its eyes more and more slowly. I took another photo with it there, and then sheltered it in my hand for nearly ten minutes, I think, before it lifted off and flew away into the night.





Did I do the right thing? I don’t know. I’m not sure whether I should have chosen to handle a wild bird, but on the other hand, I’m not sure that I could have coaxed it away from the lamp otherwise. And I’m still ringing like a bell, astounded that last night, I held a hummingbird in my hands.

All the little moments.

Sometimes I ache with the knowledge that all of my memories will die with me, that all of the little bits of things, all of the moments that made me who I am - no one knows them. At other times, I feel bored and boring, that of course they wouldn't matter to anyone else anyway. But oh, what longing I feel on some nights to be known, to lay all of my memories out where my children and my children's children will someday be able to see them. I wonder how many writers find a similar yearning at the root of their urge to write. And it feels so urgent, too - quickly, quickly, before I forget more than I already have! Before I forget how the boy whose name I have already lost brushed the hair out of my face with his fingers, that day in the woods when I was thirteen. Before I forget how I learned to tell where north was by the direction our kitchen window faced when I was eight, before I forget the day we saw helicopters landing out in the field behind our backyard when I was five. It's the little moments I'm most anxious about losing - the big ones are much more firmly lodged in my memory, much more likely to be passed on. Oh, let me tell you about feeding blackberries to horses, and walking on a frozen stream, and climbing on the roof of the house to sweep the pine needles away, and all the other little bits of things that are in danger of slipping away! Let them be remembered, somehow.

Why I can't leave flowers around the house

Leafy Surprise

As I was getting ready to make my favorite pasta dish for dinner tonight, I opened up a package of fresh basil, and noticed something that grossed me out so much I almost had to throw the whole package away, right then and there: a snail shell. Squeamish? The basil was fine, but the thought of icky dead things on it was just too much for me.

Ants, spiders, creepy-crawlies? Fine with me, as long as they’re still moving! I can scoop up or spray just about any living thing that makes its way into my house without getting the willies. But I have big, big issues with dead things. Believe me, I’d take a live spider over a dead one any day. My freshman year of college, I came home one day to find a huge trail of ants across my wall. Did I panic? No, I pulled the furniture away, borrowed a big can of bug spray from someone down the hall, and went to work. My roommate come in a little while later though and found me, paper towel in outstretched hand, attempting to wipe the dead ants off of the wall without having to look at them. Wasn’t working too well. She was very gracious about cleaning up my mess for me.

I’ve gotten a lot better since then, really. But even so, that basil was no longer going into my dinner. Until I happened to notice something unexpected: the snail had begun to move. This was no dead thing; I simply had a stowaway!

So is it weird that suddenly I was perfectly fine with eating the basil (after a very thorough inspection and wash)? Man, talk about fresh! If that little guy could survive picking, packing, shipping and a trip all the way to my house, then the turnaround time must have been pretty quick! And you bet it was organic, baby - no pesticides on those leaves, you can count on that!

And really, if I had my own garden, things would be crawling all over the plants all the time, and I'd still be fine with washing them and eating them. Why is it so different with something that's been packaged? I mean, isn't it kind of cool, actually, that in my oh-so-removed-from-growing-my-own-food life a little bit of the natural world managed to elude capture long enough to meet me in my kitchen and remind me that those basil leaves don't just grow right there in their very own sterile plastic packaging?

And really, once the snail had come out of hiding in its shell, it was kind of cute. If you go for slimy globby things, that is. I took a few photos, then left it outside under a bush, on its own little basil leaf. What a journey for a little snail! And it lived to tell the tale.

(And my tomato-basil-smoked mozzarella pasta was awfully yummy, too!)

Cleo and Mr. Peepers: Encounter

Ruth Waller

I’m one of the only people I know who at 28 still has all four grandparents. But I don’t know how much longer that will be true.

In the last few years I’ve made sure to fly home to visit twice per year – over Christmas and in the summer. And at this point, even though I waffle back and forth over whether it makes sense to go in the summer every year, I know that it might be one of the last times (or the very last time) that I will see one or more of my grandparents, and so how, how can I decide not to go?

This most recent trip was difficult. My mother’s mother just is not the person she used to be, and it was shocking how much her aging has progressed in six months’ time. Her memory has been getting worse for years, but this time, she asked me several times a day where my mom was, and I’d have to tell her again that she was at work. I could tell that the answer to her question was floating right past her, even as I spoke. And she gets so upset about it sometimes, because she knows she doesn’t remember something, or because she wants to do something that she just can’t manage anymore, like cooking. And she’s very depressed. My granddad said that lots of days she gets up in the morning for breakfast and then just goes right back to bed. It used to be that having the grandkids around would perk her up, and she’d seem happier at least as long as we were visiting, but not this time. Even when we were there, she’d spend most of the day in bed.

The most jarring change of all, though, is the way she walks now, with tiny little shuffling, bobbing steps – she never falls, but always seems as though she’s about to. She carries her cane when granddad can talk her into it, but it becomes just one more hazard – she doesn’t remember to use it. It just drags along behind her, forgotten in her hand. Hopefully, if she began to fall she would be able to use it to regain her balance. Other than that, though, she’d be better off just not carrying it at all.

And my granddad just cannot handle it. He complains about her walk, or the things that she can’t remember, or how she lost another important piece of paper, constantly. And he doesn’t intend for her to hear him complaining, but she does. It breaks my heart. I think that he just cannot accept that she’s not the same person he married. He gets angry at her for forgetting things. It’s so hard for him, and he’s only making it harder on her, too, but he can’t see that.

Before my great-aunt Gladys passed away last year, my mother used to take grandmother to visit her as often as she could. Mom said that the two of them had such a great time together – they’d pull out old photo albums and talk and giggle for hours. They looked at the same photos over and over again – neither one of them could remember which pages they’d already seen. Gladys was further along the same path that my grandmother is headed down, and I don’t know which is sadder: that grandmother could critique Gladys’ condition without realizing that she could have been describing herself, or that my grandfather so clearly saw in Gladys where his wife would be later.

I’m just not ready for this. No one ever is, I know, and I’ve been given many more years with them that most people have with their grandparents, but that doesn’t make it any easier. It’s so difficult to look at my grandmother and see that she’s just not lucid anymore. And that she’s so very unhappy in her fog. How can I blame my granddad for being so unable to accept her as she is now? I miss her too.




EDIT: Synchronicity. Not five minutes after I posted the above my mother called to tell me that my grandmother is in the ICU with a bleeding artery in her stomach (I think that's what she said). They tried to fix it last night, it didn't work (perhaps because she was so agitated), and they tried again a little while ago and now we are just waiting, waiting waiting to see how she does. No word on what it means if it doesnt work this time. Shit. I wish I could be there. Mom said it's pretty bad, and she's given to understatement. I wasn't kidding when I said I wasn't ready for this. No fair calling me on my weakness the moment I've admitted it's there!