Whatever You Decide Is Perfect
One of the things about being a parish minister is that your schedule is constantly being changed by people’s needs and crises. You can be on your way out the door when you get a phone call: someone needs to talk, so you talk. It could be a church leader who just wants to review an agenda, it could be someone whose daughter is driving her crazy, or it could be the music director wanting to check something about Sunday’s service. Whatever it is, you need to be present to it. Most ministers are the only person in their organization being paid to devote their attention to the church on a full-time basis. So if someone calls about church business or for pastoral support, baby, it’s you. You’ve got to get that phone, and then you’ve got to be willing to turn your plans around on a dime.
The end result is that we’re…. well, I’m late for social plans a lot. I don’t like this and I know I’ve angered and upset and just plain disappointed a lot of people (family included) along the way, but it also means that I’ve learned to cherish flexibility as a major virtue. There’s a reason that religious professionals tend to hang together: we don’t have to explain to each other the last minute switches and weird things that come up to interfere with our schedules (“I can’t make lunch today, I’m going to the vet in an hour to be with someone who is euthanizing their cat.” “My secretary is going on vacation so I have to finish the Christmas Order of Service three weeks early.”). Nod, re-schedule. Or when it’s really hairy stuff, (“Someone’s house burned down” or “My board president just fell and broke both legs”) clergy friends never freak out. They’ve seen it all.
A while ago my friend Suzy said something to me that I haven’t forgotten and haven’t stopped wrapping around me like a quilt. Suze is a high school friend whom I hadn’t seen for a long time, and I was going to stay with her in Connecticut this past winter and use her home as a jumping off point for a brief stay in New York City. I was going to drive to her house in Connecticut from Massachusetts, and Suzy offered to drive me to the commuter train station so I wouldn’t have to bring my car into the city.
It was snowing hard the day I wanted to leave; there was that. I had to drop my dog off with other friends the day I finally could leave; there was that. Something small came up at church, of course; there was that. So I had to text Suzy several times to apprise her of my new ETAs. She is the mother of two small children and has a lot going on in her own life (contractors in the kitchen being one thing, as I recall), but she remained gracious and affectionate in response to each harried message, replying at one point:
“Whatever you do is perfect.”
Now, honestly. Who says that and really means it? “Whatever you do is perfect?” You could not possibly mean that, Suzy. It totally disarmed me. It gave me nothing to be anxious about, none of the usual insecure co-dependent poison to drink, none of the usual guilt to marinate in as I drove down the Merritt Parkway heading toward Greenwich. Whatever I did was perfect. There could be nothing more freeing, nothing more supportive to say to someone. And the thing is, she meant it. Her friendly voice was unmistakably authentic. Of course I had to be sarcastic in the face of such maturity and graciousness. I was like, “Girl, whatever happy drugs you’re on, I WANT SOME.”
We’ve known each other for a long time. We used to be teenaged girls who skipped class and sat in our bras on the roof of a mutual friend’s house tanning ourselves. We went on a senior trip to Antigua with two other friends and existed solely on Tia Maria. And we both turned out to be respectable citizens.
Whatever you do is perfect. I still can’t get over the sense of goodness that created in me, how much I appreciated hearing it. I mean, how many times have I heard –or just felt — in my life, “Hurry up, let’s go, you screwed up, you kept me waiting, you were here too early, you stayed too late, you left too soon, you got the time wrong, you got the date wrong, you inconvenienced us, you move too slow, you run too fast… nothing you do is perfect! It’s not even acceptable!”
Right? And these messages have increased 100-fold since I entered the parish ministry; I don’t think it can be helped. It’s the nature of the work. Clergy share this: we know that we have inconvenienced, hurt and neglected our friends and families by meeting the needs of our congregations and assuming that our loved ones will understand and accept why we were late/didn’t show/missed the school play/took the later train/skipped Christmas dinner, and in a thousand other ways made a decision that was not at all perfect.
Later, while in Manhattan on that winter trip, I decided to believe Suzy’s assurance that I was welcome to take any train back to Connecticut that I liked and she would pick me up at the station. I had initially said that I thought I’d be on the 3:00-something, but I called her to let her know I would be on a later train. Again she replied,
“Whatever you decide is perfect.”
There is place in the gut where we feel safety or the absence of it.* When Suzy said those words I noticed that place in my solar plexus relaxing, expanding, letting in breath and comfort. I realized that like many of us, I hold a tremendous amount of tension in that place: a holding the breath and steeling the self for the punch in the gut that comes when someone responds to you in judgment, anger, or with the rejecting energy of pure irritation.
I told Suzy how beautiful I found her mantra of “Whatever you do is perfect” to be, how welcoming and how generous. We had a great conversation about the fact that it feels just as good to her to live from that place of openness and flexibility as it does for me to receive the fruits of it. What surprises me is how often I think of that phrase even all these months later, how inspired I still am by it, and how healing it has been to even say it to myself when I am tempted to engage in non-productive self-haranguing.
“Whatever you decide is perfect.”
I love it. I want it to be my mantra for relationships where each of us knows that the other is doing the best they can and in good faith.
Changing Your Wiper Blades
Last week I bought new windshield wipers for my car and I was amazed at how much better I could see! These new wipers were like a miracle – with just a few strokes they swiped the windshield clean, giving me a clear view of the road ahead. For weeks I had been driving with impaired vision without even realizing it. I just assumed that everyone looked out windshields like mine, through streaks and skips and stripes, straining to see in the sun’s glare. It’s hard to say exactly how long my sight had been compromised because it had deteriorated so slowly, over a long period of time. This got me wondering what else in our lives might be performing less than optimally without our noticing.
There is a theory that says if you drop a frog into a boiling pot of water it will immediately hop out, but if you were to put that same frog into a pot of cold water and slowly heat it up, the frog will stay put, not noticing the heat or the danger. Now, I’ve never tested this hypothesis – and I have some serious ethical questions for those who have – but I can see the truth in it. I think it’s natural to become so familiar with something that we don’t notice subtle, but ultimately substantial, changes. We think we’re doing just fine when, before we know it, the water is boiling beneath our feet. If we’re not careful, long-standing relationships can erode as patterns of behavior ingrain themselves, diminishing our view of those around us. Our beliefs and opinions – our faith – formulated in our distant past and clung to with unexamined, habitual resolve, can fall prey to this fate as well. So, what are we to do? How do we avoid a frog’s fate?
It’s mostly up to us to notice when our view is getting cloudy. We all need to change our wiper blades from time to time, and much more frequently than we may think. When we do, we’ll see the road more clearly, with all its attendant dangers and abundant opportunities. Sometimes, if we’re lucky enough, someone – a trusted friend or a family member – may point out that our view has somehow gotten murky. A child comments that we’re bringing too much work home from the office. A hymn at church unexpectedly brings tears to our eyes. Or our partner utters those ominous words: “We need to talk.” Such windshield-wiping moments can be challenging, but they can also show us how beautiful the journey can be when the view is unobstructed. They can remind us of the miracles that happen when we are in relationships with those who see us clearly, even when we’ve lost sight of ourselves.
This day and every day, I wish you peace.
Peter
Still Mulling Over Mitt Scissorhands
Apparently the story of Mitt Romney’s highschool “hijinks” has now moved on from the news cycle, and that’s a relief. But I’m still mulling it over. I find it on my mind and heart as I pray, garden, or wash the dishes.
I suspect that this didn’t change any votes: Those who were for Mitt now add this to their list of misgivings, or they don’t care. Those who were for Obama now feel some added justification. I’m not mulling it over as a voter. I’m still processing it as a mother, as a minister, and as a human being.
I don’t know about other ministers, but I have received a couple of calls from congregants who have found that this stirred up memories for them that they would just as soon forget. Issues of the lack of fairness—if this were a movie, the bully character would be shunned and left behind, not running for president. The hero would have been the guy with the hair, going on to vindicate himself. He is now dead with no story to tell.
The unhappy memories stirred for congregants are not just times when they were bullied, when they felt unsafe because of someone else. I have also heard from people who either participated in bullying or didn’t stop others who turned on a vulnerable person. “Like Lord of the Flies,” one of Mitt’s classmates apparently said. These folks are sometimes suffering more than the bullies. Suddenly, years later, they are ashamed of who they were and what they did, and don’t know what to do about it.
Those of us who minister to, or parent, or care about teenagers know that in our communities we are speaking to potential or real bullies side by side with their intended or actual victims. We know bullying is going on now, every day, in blatant or subtle ways. We know that as much as all the kids nod and tell us the party line we want to hear, they are often protecting each other and us from the whole story. Mitt’s victim apparently never brought this up at home. We hear over and over after bully-induced suicides, “He/ she never mentioned it,” or “It didn’t sound so serious.”
Those of us who love at risk kids know how quickly “hijinks” can turn serious, taking lives as quickly as car accidents or heart attacks.
I guess all of that is why I am still mulling over Mitt’s “pranks.” I wish to see a huge, united, adult community saying with one voice that some things are bigger than political ideology or party affiliation: that respect for others is the center to a good shared life. It would start with Mitt himself, dropping the act of “If I hurt someone…” and acknowledging that he did, badly—both the victim and the ‘friends’ who joined his behavior. It would move out to the rest of the adult community, talking honestly about people we have hurt, making amends to them when we could and making commitments to ourselves not to let it happen on our watch again.
Then maybe our kids could be safe to talk to us honestly about their own situations.
Professionalism and Pluralism in the Military Chaplaincy
In the fall of 2011 I was honored to attend the first ever OutServe Leadership Conference. This was the first time for this organization of LGB persons actively serving in the military to gather publicly, since such public gatherings and recognition was made possible by the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Harass, Don’t Pursue. It was held in Las Vegas, Nevada… and even with the setting it was as professional a military conference I have ever attended… and I have attended more than a few Chaplain Corps Conferences.
It was an honor for me to be able to sign one of the official copies of the Repeal of DADT “Chaplain David Pyle” (see picture, above).
I was attending the conference as an ally, and in my role as a member of The Forum on the Military Chaplaincy. With a fellow UU Military Chaplain, I spoke in a workshop about Professionalism and Pluralism in the Military Chaplaincy, and how LGB service members can engage more conservative Chaplains in dialog about what it means to be an LGB person serving in the military.
More than this, I listened. I had numerous conversations with LGB service members about their experience. Several of those I spoke with were Unitarian Universalists. I heard stories about service members who had been “outed” by their Chaplains. I heard stories about service members feeling they had to care for their own religious needs while deployed, because they did not believe their chaplain would support them. I heard stories about joyously finding that there was one Chaplain at their base who was welcoming and affirming of LGB persons, and building a relationship of trust with that chaplain, after having had hard experiences with other chaplains.
More than all of this, I heard a perception from many that the Chaplain Corps might be wonderful for many service members, but it just was not there for them. They were excluded from the requirement that military chaplains “perform or provide, and care for all”.
As I flew home from the conference, I sat thinking about our Military Chaplain Corps, and the realization that Chaplains had been failing all of these service members for decades. Their distrust of chaplains was an earned distrust… chaplains had wounded many of these young men and women. Chaplains had, often with the best of intentions, said thing to and about these young women and men that were soul-damaging. In hoping to “save”, what had been done was to separate… to make someone feel that they are outside of God’s love, and outside of those whom the Chaplain Corps cares for…
And for that, I am sorry. I cannot apologize for the whole Chaplain Corps, but I can apologize for my complicity in it… I realized that many of these young men and women had never had anyone apologize for the way Chaplains have treated them. And so, for myself and for whatever it might mean, I did apologize… and I committed myself to helping the Chaplain Corps grow into the fullness of no longer treating LGB service members in such shameful ways.
I was flying home to move back into my role as a Parish Minister for a UU Congregation (I went right from the Airport to an event at the church I serve), and it had me thinking about the difference of role I have in these two ministries, and how my faith plays a different part in each of these roles for me.
As a Parish Minister, my Liberal Faith as a Unitarian Universalist Minister is what I wear on my sleeve. I preach the gospel of interdependence and inherent worth. I lead a congregation in social justice actions. I speak the saving grace of universal salvation whenever I am given the opportunity. My faith is a public faith that I present to the world, and encourage the congregation I serve to join me in doing so.
Yet, in military chaplaincy, and indeed in any chaplaincy, my faith plays a very different role. My Liberal Faith as a Unitarian Universalist is the inner strength I need to be with people in the best and the worst moments of their lives. My Liberal faith is what calls me and allows me to be with someone else, focusing on what their faith asks and requires of them in a particular place and time. As a military chaplain, my personal faith is of utmost importance… for me… for how I have the strength to be with someone else in their confusion, pain, loss, grief and hurt. As a military chaplain, I am called to be with them in their religious faith… not to import into the moment my own.
As the plane was landing in Los Angeles, I realized that perhaps the issue among military chaplains is that we do not understand or accept these two very different understandings of ministry. Many of the behaviors that wounded so many of the service members I spoke with this weekend would have been completely appropriate coming from a Parish Minister of a conservative tradition in a civilian setting… but were inappropriate (in my opinion) from someone entrusted with the responsibility and authority of military chaplaincy.
So, when denominations and seminaries teach only the Parish/church model of ministry, how do we inspire ministers who wish to be Military Chaplains to understand and accept this different role for their personal faith? I do not know. Perhaps we need to change the standards of who can become a military chaplain. Perhaps we need to require Clinical Pastoral Education. Perhaps we need to take a look at what denominational endorsers are telling their chaplains their role in the military should be.
All I know is that, as I listened to the stories of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Guardians, and Marines I spoke with, it was apparent to me the cost of not addressing this in our Military Chaplain Corps.
For, as I listened to the stories, I felt ashamed.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David