Hillary hating

Every time Hillary Clinton takes another hit in the media, I take it personally. It hurts me in my gut. Because I am her. She is me. Every woman who has ever been the first anything knows what that’s like. I was the first woman pastor that little town had ever seen. It was public, a fishbowl unlike any I have ever known. Granted, only a microcosm of what Hillary has to endure, but yet enough of a taste to understand, to make us sisters in that most awful way that being a target generates. I am friends with the first woman elected bishop in the Southeastern United States. She is a woman worn down by the attacks. on her leadership, on her looks, on whatever irrelevant topic available, couched in the most politically correct (ie: non-gender-related) way possible. I am in awe of women who continue to press on, despite vilification. It is not my calling, nor my gift. I crumble and die. Well, that’s not entirely true, to be perfectly honest, when it happens to you, you actually are emboldened, empowered and inspired, convinced you must be doing something right if you’ve hit such a nerve, provoked such a reaction. After all, if you aren’t attacked, you aren’t being taken seriously. Nobody really challenged the other women who have run in presidential primaries for the very basic reason that they were irrelevant and not taken seriously. Just like with children, negative attention is better than no attention, or being ignored. The most impressive thing about Hillary Clinton is that she does provoke such hatred. That means she is worth taking seriously. Which is the starkest back-handed compliment one can be given.

callings

It all goes back to a higher calling. The Church really does value the calling to ordination as a higher calling than anything else. And in my heart of hearts, as much as I value the call to ordination and even have a very valid and vivid calling to ordination myself, I honestly do not believe it is a more valid, more vivid, more important calling than those callings that others have and exercise.

But that is really at the heart of why the System doesn’t change. The Church doesn’t care if a trailing spouse is happy or even employed or if children are cared for or if congregations are pleased with their leadership. The Church is only concerned with perpetuating itself and its authority, and only the ordained can do that (or, at least, it is believed to be so by the Church). Sure I can go off on a clericalism rant as easily as the next Reverend, and I do have many a moment when I see the great chasm between clergy and lay and wish that more lay people “got” it, whatever theological “it” happened to be at that moment. But overall, I really don’t see myself as above a layperson. I am neither more holy nor less sinful. I am simply “set apart” (church language) to order the life of the church. My vows were to Word, Sacrament, Order and Service, all of which I strongly believe in and desperately want to follow. Yet I am confined within a system that refuses to acknowledge that I have a family and a life outside the Church as well.

Makes me long for the days of old (say about 1800 years ago) when the non-canonical gospels had as much press and validity as the Big Four do now. We’d have a much fuller picture of Jesus, a much more human divinity (as oxymoronic as that sounds, I truly mean it that way), a set of followers who were less homogenous than we think and far more family-friendly than the Church of the Dark Ages and Middle Ages crafted (conspired? perhaps) them to be.

In any case, there is so much that the Church could be, if it would only embrace the justice that it claims it stands for.

my company drives me crazy

I need to vent. I seriously am so disappointed with my annual conference’s Restructuring Task Force and its recommendations. My initial reaction is you spent all that time and all that money and that’s all you came up with? Heavy on ideas (which is good) and short on specifics of how they will implement them (not so good). More people under 35 should have been on that Task Force (not to be stereotypical, but those are the folks who know their way around technology, and that is where so many of our improvements need to be). Anyway, it brought up for me all my resentments of this Church that I love and this “company” for whom I work. I have a laundry list of things I’d like to see changed/addressed about the United Methodist Church, but nowhere to take them. So I’m dumping them here.

why are church membership lists kept so damn secret? Why are our baptized rolls not a matter of public (and searchable) record?

why are there parsonage committees at nearly every church but nothing to help those people at the conference level? a brochure of “guidelines” published in 1989 does not count as support.

why are church secretaries and district secretaries not uniformly compensated with basic minimums that local churches can choose to add onto?

I guess the new conference IT position will do this (I hope so) but all district websites should be looked at; the good links and helpful ideas should be culled and applied to all district websites. the conference should maintain those websites with the help of a person or two in each specific district; more uniformity should be given to district websites.

Why don’t we have:

a national (or even international) database of ministers under appointment (by appointment category, by zip code, by area code, by annual conference, etc.) on the umc.org website whereby you can find any “company employee” so to speak?

an agreement either with stores (Sears, Lowe’s HHGregg, etc.) or with manufacturers (Whirlpool, Kenmore, Frigidaire, etc.) that UM affiliates (both pastors and/or churches) can buy their washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, and dishwashers at a discount? and the same kind of contract for obtaining computers (Dell, Apple, etc.); we could even have several contracts. Teachers get discounts on things all over the place; why not UM ministers?

a list of clergy (who have agreed to be on such a list) listed by district who are willing to staff a regularly-serving pastor’s leave (paternity, maternity, renewal, administrative, whatever). why is that list not made public so that clergy who are willingly taking leaves, DSs who are overseeing those leaves, and congregations who will be affected by those leaves can all see who is available and be participants in choosing who comes to fill in?

a group of clergy children divided into at least 3-4 groups (preschoolers, elementary age, and middle/high school) and with a special subgroup for double PKs (or kids with at least two ordained parents/step-parents) facilitated by someone who has had young children while serving as an ordained minister (people who entered the ministry after their kids were grown do not count). that group of kids gets together (at the very least) every annual conference and plays together and talks together.

an active clergy couples group (I know that some folks are trying to get us to eat together during AC each year; and that’s a start) that is supportive; we don’t fit in the “spouses” group, but we need something.

a person paid at the district level to be a pastor to the pastors. yes, is is supposed to be your DS. however the DSs job has become administratively unweildly leaving the DS unable to truly hear the concerns of individual clergy and parsonage families. we do not provide for any pastoral care of our clergy; a district chaplain (modeled after the Women In Ministry’s structure) would be welcome and provide a service and need that even peer groups do not meet.

an annual conference “hot line” for clergy sexual misconduct? a place you can call to recieve guidance on those issues. an Office of Clergy Sexual Ethics that houses all the complaints and procedures and trainings and education and so forth. oh I’ve got a whole proposal outlined structuring such an Office that I’ve sent to the bishop and two Assistants to the Bishop with absolutely no feedback or interest whatsoever.

a better way to help people move. lists of things you might need in a move (and not just some laundry lists of cleaning supplies either). a guide for mourning the loss of a place you love as well as some guidelines for how to enter a place you don’t want to be. practical suggestions and reminders and their costs like, get a replacement driver’s license ($10), change of address forms for the post office, etc. specific things for a trailing spouse and the children affected by a move. a support group (on-going) in each district for those who are new to the district (one introductory district picnic does NOT count as supportive for new people to an area). maps of a new place, a phone directory, and a list of things like when the garbage is picked up might be nice. sure exiting pastors are sort of responsible for that, but perhaps that process could be unified across the board. it is nice upon moving in that you have a recommendation for a good pediatric dentist, pediatrician, which OB-GYNs to avoid because they have a reputation for groping patients, a place to get your hair cut, where are the parks, brochures from places where little children can go, etc.

If our hallmark continues to be “we move” then we ought to do a better job of helping people actually do it, both physically and emotionally. there is culture shock moving even from one district to another; we need to address that. and along the lines of “contracts” why not contract with a moving company (or just a truck like Ryder, etc.) to provide discounts to United Methodist ministers? You don’t have to use that company, but if you do, you get assurance that you can find a truck and you get it at a discount. Seriously, what is so hard about that?

Those are a few of my ideas; not that any of them amount to a hill of beans. I just wish that our “re-structuring” was more helpful to the rank and file “employees” of this “company.” oh and can we every have it written down somewhere that if you require a meeting where both parents must be present, that we have money set aside for child care?!? It cost us $80 to get our children watched during the special session of the AC. Fortunately T makes enough money to cover that as a professional expense, but that is not the case for all pastors with young children. oh and why do we not have a nursing room for mothers who are breastfeeding and still are expected to attend all of annual conference? I’m going to quit now before I get too crazy.

money talks

I hate talking about money with other people. I don’t mind sharing bargains and celebrating the bargain high with folks, but I would rather eat glass than talk to someone about how much I charge or what they owe me or stuff like that. My dad was in collections at some point. I swear I don’t know how he did it.

sick?

E threw up last night. He’s been a bit puny today, but that really seems more related to being tired from not getting enough sleep than anything else. We have a skin test scheduled for him on Wednesday. We had to cancel the one in September and this was the next one we could get. I will be so much more frustrated if he winds up being sick for this appointment, too. Sigh.

baby showers

I’m on a message board for moms that is debating the whole “second shower” concept for mothers-to-be. I honestly don’t feel that strongly either way. I don’t find it beyond tacky to have a second shower, but I can certainly see how some folks do. In some ways it depends on how you view a baby shower, what purpose you think they serve. Are they a party, a celebration, of the baby that is to come? Or are they a way of welcoming a woman into motherhood? People who think that every baby deserves a shower, a celebration, a welcoming into the world, generally do not think that second (or subsequent) showers are tacky. People who think that mothers really should only get one shot at getting ready for motherhood believe that it’s only upon the occassion of the first child that a baby shower should be thrown. Exceptions to this rule seem to be having children widely spaced apart (which, of course, varies according to what different people see as widely spaced) and having a child of a different gender (a piece of information that our sisters hundreds of years ago, who started this whole baby shower tradition, did not have access to). It seems to be universally accepted that you don’t throw yourself a shower, and I can agree with that. Then again, I’m not going to hate someone who does. Really now, life is too short to get your nose out of joint with everyone who throws themselves a party.

Personally I had four showers, highly tacky and even bordering on rude according to many folks. The church we were serving had a regular shower for us when I was pregnant with K. It was a typical shower with cake and decorations and lots of presents. I think I wrote over 80 thank you notes for that shower. The ladies of our church did that for every pregnant person at church, no matter what your station in life or number of children you had. My professional friends also gave us a shower — a book shower (something that I have come to recommend highly for folks who have already had a traditional shower). It was the neatest thing. We probably got 2-3 dozen books all for children ages 0-3. It was a great idea, and I have adopted it by giving books to friends who are having their 3rd or 4th child (you can never have enough books in my opinion). Then when I was pregnant with E, our church threw us another shower. I’ll admit I was uncomfortable with the idea of that. After all, I had saved all my “baby stuff” and, since we hadn’t known what gender K was going to be, much of the baby gear and clothes was all in gender-neutral colors. I protested to several of the ladies of the church. They insisted. I figured it was more gracious to allow them to throw me a baby shower than to be rude and refuse it. It was really lovely and we got lots of “boy” things, as we knew by then we were going to have a boy. Then my MOMS Club also gave me a shower. A surprise one. We didn’t give a lot of showers in MOMS Club. It’s understood that we’d be going to them all the time if we did. And we already had a pretty good circle of hand-me-down trains going through the club, so it wasn’t like we weren’t already giving each other things. But they were the ones who had watched me suffer through that awful pregnancy; they were the ones who had come every week for months to dust and vaccum my house; they had seen up close how I had almost died. I honestly think they were just so glad I had lived through the pregnancy that they wanted to celebrate that. It was one of the most gracious and loving gestures I have ever received. I was totally surprised (something that almost never happens to me) and very touched.

So there, my tackiness is confessed. Apparently I have received way too much in the form of baby showers. Guess it’s a good thing that I continue to attend baby showers for others and even share what I’ve been given. Sort of evens out the karma so to speak.

Have I mentioned lately what a blessed life I lead?

One day I’ll justify the twelve showers/parties/dinners thrown for us when we got married…

naps, revisited

We may have to revisit this no nap business. E is so tired by the end of the day that he’s in tears. I just had to pick him up in the middle of our family book time because he was just crying for no real reason. I held him and swayed with him as we finished singing Puff, the Magic Dragon (E’s choice for our family book tonight) and then took him back to his room, rocked him a bit and put him in the bed. He was asleep in seconds. Poor kid, he wants to stay awake and not nap, but he’s dead tired by 7pm. I guess on days he plays at church or in PMO, he really needs a nap and other days, he probably can go without.