Body Grief, Part 2: Spinal Cord Injury

When I was born, I was born with a narrow spinal canal, which I wouldn't know about until middle school when something happened that bruised my spinal cord. My fingers itch to tell you that it's not a big deal. I'm totally fine and it could have been so much worse. I could have been paralyzed or something. It's a non-thing. 

But, my grief has something to say about it. She's actually got a lot to say.

I was born with a narrow spinal canal. Because of that, I bruised my spinal cord at the age of 13 by dancing hard or maybe it was when I fell that one time. I'm not sure, but it happened when most kids are working on perfecting daring jumps and pool dives. Instead of talking about puberty and figuring out what it means to be a woman, I was in and out of doctor's offices for two years to have them tell me that my numb fingers and tingling body was maybe growing pains, or in my head. Maybe it was Lyme's disease. Maybe it was something wrong with my brain. Let's take another MRI of your brain to be sure... I would stump the doctors who repeatedly said that they never saw anything like this in someone as young as me. When they finally took an MRI of my neck, they realized that I was suffering from a spinal cord injury.

"Someone your age shouldn't...." is not a phrase you want to hear.

In the pivotal moment of learning about my body and its changes, I learned that I couldn't trust my body and that changes were bad. I learned that my youth had not saved me. I learned not about my mortality, but about my frailty, at 13 years old. Weirdly, that seemed worse.

I learned at 15, before my first surgery (after they finally figured out what was wrong with me), that I was a "walking time bomb" and that if I had so much as a whiplash, I could easily be paralyzed from the neck down. After that information was shared, they scheduled my surgery for a few weeks later.

What was wrong with me? I was born with a narrow spinal canal (congenital spinal stenosis), and had bruised my spinal cord, which I only recently made the realization is categorized as a "spinal cord injury." The doctors always talked about my spinal cord as being bruised, but I think that was their way of making it feel less scary to me. Note to self (and any of you): call the condition what it is, because it helps in the future. It is a spinal cord injury to my C4-5 area, and my symptoms are consistent with that term.

My first spinal surgery was a brutal one. Military surgeons are not the best of the best, and that actually does make a difference when you're getting spinal surgery.

I remember going in to the pre-op room, along with others in their hospital beds, we were lined up and waiting our turn with the anesthesiologist. As a 15 year old, I had never broken a bone or been to the ER; hospitals and surgeries were new to me. I was worried, how could I be sure that I wouldn't feel anything? The man next to me was waiting his turn to go in for knee surgery. He was a giant man, with a hearty smile and comforting words for me. I don't remember what he said, but I do remember watching him fall quickly and deeply to sleep within seconds of the anesthesiologist walking to his side. I thought, well, if they can put that guy out that quickly, I should be good. And I don't remember anything after that until I woke up post-surgery. 

The surgeon did a laminectomy of C3-C6, which means the back of my neck was rendered boneless for three notches, my long neck like a stack of horse-shoes, with no other support but my neck muscles (which had all been cut through).

After my first surgery, I was homeschooled during recovery with the help of a public school aid who visited once every week or two. I did work from my couch, although I don't remember it being that much. I remember that I failed a test that was given right before my surgery, which alerted me to how nervous I was (I was a very good student). My "homebound" teacher told me not to worry about it, and the test disappeared off my record.

I came up with clever ways to maintain some independence. I used a compact mirror to see around me since I couldn't turn my head. I had a whole station at my side of all that I needed: the remote, a drink with a straw, my mirror, and some books. My Mom was always there if I needed anything. My older sister was a little annoyed that I wasn't required to help clean up. She had no understanding of what spinal surgery entailed or what the recovery was like. All she knew was that I was lying on my butt, asking for things and getting them. 

I remember the day my mother helped me take my first post-surgical bath. We took my soft neck brace off to clean my imprisoned neck, and when my mother wet my hair to help me wash it, the mere weight of my hair pushing down on my neck caused me to cry in pain. We had no idea hair weighed so much, or that my neck was so weak.

There was no physical therapy. No follow up, except the surgeon (who was kind) who told me he could see my spinal cord breathe when he removed the bones from the back of my tight spinal column. The surgery was not a corrective surgery, the spinal cord damage had already been done. This surgery was to prevent future injury or risk of paralysis. The surgeon mentioned in passing that I might get a thing called "swan's neck" when I was old and grey. I, with my "I'm fine" attitude, said "who cares if my neck bends when I'm 80; I won't care what I look like."

No one corrected my understanding of what "swan's neck" was.

When describing my symptoms, which usually followed a curious friend's question about my scar on the back of my neck (very Frankenstein-esque), I would try to tell my story as succinctly as possible. There was no elevator pitch story about my neck, and I grew tired of telling it and trying to make sense and be accurate. I used to tell people my symptoms were like wearing a thin glove over my hands at all times. I stopped telling people about any of it because it was so hard to explain, and took too long. I could tell people lost interest pretty quickly, and I was basically over it myself.

Besides, it wasn't a big deal. It was in the past.

Five years later, I was 20 and in college. I'd fully recovered from surgery, but the numbness from my bruised spinal cord had become my new normal. I couldn't put earrings on unless I could see them clearly in the mirror because my fingers couldn't feel the tiny backings. It was a lot of work, so I decided that I would only wear the earrings that hook on. Eventually I gave up even on that and decided not to wear earrings at all. My ear piercings have closed up. Any jewelry with tiny clasps are out. Playing the guitar is not a real possibility. Anything that requires dexterity is off the books for me. 

By 20 years old, I had given up tiny things, lots of little tiny things.

Then, I started to feel even more numb, my pinky fingers became like extra appendages that I had no control over. I was more tingly. My typing was slower, because my hands weren't responding as well, they were more clumsy. I struggled to tie my shoes because my hands just wouldn't work efficiently. I struggled to walk with my normal stride because something wasn't quite right. My brain felt like it was not in clear communication with my body and it was weird and frightening. But I ignored it. 

My sister, who was with me at the same college and saw me struggle, ratted me out to our mother. I said that it was nothing. It was so subtle and slow that I couldn't even tell you what was different. I'd completely forgotten what normal felt like. I knew it was getting worse, but I was afraid of what that meant.

With the new symptoms, my surgery wasn't in the past anymore.

I found myself in the office of yet another neurosurgeon. It was in this office that I started to understand just how bad my first surgery was, and just how complex my problems really were. Every 20 year old wants to hear: "Wow, you're young to have this problem. Your last surgery was a hack job. You need another surgery." I thought, "this is a bigger deal than I thought it was." I hoped that whatever this surgeon did would officially close the chapter on my neck problems.

This happened the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, what dreams I wanted to follow. With my whole life ahead of me, I got this reminder: You are not strong and young, you are fragile. You thought that surgery was a one-and-done, but you were wrong. You can't hide from your body, it will fight you and fail you again and again. You are not like the rest of your friends. You were already different, and now you're even more different. 

You are fragile, so so fragile. 

This surgeon was one of those fancy south Florida surgeons that makes the medical journals. The surgeon got to do something new and fancy, just for me: a medical anomaly. With my hearing, I had my sister to commiserate with. With this, I don't even know where I would look for someone with. common experience. 

I remember medical residents coming in to see the doctor demonstrate my over-active reflexes. I was a teaching moment, a fun weird thing for them to see. I gave permission, but I wondered why my reflexes di that. No one ever told me.

I had my second spinal surgery fairly soon after my appointment with the fancy surgeon. The reason I needed the surgery, the reason my symptoms were increasing, was because my neck was bending; that swan's neck thing was happening way before I was 80. The missing bones in my neck were the culprit. My neck muscles couldn't do all the work of holding my head up without the literal "back bones" of my cervical spine. So slowly my neck had been slouching, bending, sighing down under the weight of my head (I promise my head is a normal size). My spinal cord was squished against bones that were straining to hold my neck straight like a superhero under a giant rock, saving my spinal cord from doom. The bones needed help. 

For folks who need a visual, put your hand out, palm up and flat. Imagine a pencil (or get one) lying straight on that hand: eraser at your middle finger, lead tip at your wrist. Now start to curl your hand up, like a cup or how you'd hold a little trinket in your hand. Imagine that pencil isn't supposed to move (and also doesn't). The parts of your hand that curve are pushing on to the pencil, especially at the top and bottom. Your hand is my neck (lying down) and the pencil is my spinal cord (getting squished).

What I needed was a little straightening out and extra support. The surgeon went in through the front of my neck this time, which would significantly decrease the post-surgical pain, compared to what I had experienced from the last surgery which cut through all the muscles in the back of my neck. This new surgeon straighten my neck by fusing the existing bones to a straight cadaver bone (no idea where it came from) with fancy flexible screws he invented, straightening out my C-3-C-6. My cervical horseshoes were now welded together in a straight stack.

I remember in the recovery room right after my surgery, I was given a phone. They told me it was my Dad, so I said "Hi, Dad!" I heard my Dad say "Hi" back, but his voice was squeaky and strained. I'm not sure I have ever seen my Dad cry, but I have heard emotion in his voice, and this was the first time I heard it so clearly. It hit me then that perhaps I should have been more worried going in to this thing. If my Dad had been scared, it was a big deal. 

I treated my surgeries as "this thing to get over." I didn't really process what I was feeling, I worked hard not to feel anything, to skip to the end, to recovery.

The first day in the hospital I was visited by both the occupational and physical therapists. I was severely nauseated by the mixture of powerful pain medication and limited food. It was a vicious cycle, not feeling like eating because I was nauseous, and being nauseous because I hadn't eaten. When the OT came in and wheeled me to their therapy room while I had a wet rag to my head, I may or may not have told them their vocation was a huge waste of time. They wanted me to use tweezers to pick up beads and put them in a cup. I told them I couldn't do this task before the surgery and had no interest in spending time doing it now. Then I threw up, so they took me back to my room. The PT was a little more helpful, she taught me how to get out of bed without putting too much strain on my neck, a method I still use out of habit today. 

I also received a phone call to my hospital room from the insurance department telling me my surgery had been refused coverage by my insurance company. Luckily I was still under my parent's insurance and did not have to bear the burden of that news, only the confusion and frustration of them calling me mere hours post-surgery to tell me that. (Long story short, the insurance did cover it.)

I was discharged and rode in the back of my Mom's minivan home for the two hour drive from Miami to my parent's home in south Florida. I laid flat in the middle seat, with my Mom supporting my head and my older sister driving. Every bump was agony. I tried to put on a brave face. I realized how traumatizing that must have been for my sister, so I texted her and she has no memory of it! So funny.

I wore a hard neck brace this time, with strict instructions to keep it on and not move my neck. The bone needed to fuse over time, basically like a slow welding inside my neck. My mother and I had learned our lesson and this time took hair-washing much slower. 

I did make the rookie mistake of taking it off while lying outside in the sun, airing my neck out and trying to catch a tan. I now have a nice reddish scar on the front of my neck that glows a little if I've had too much to drink. 

My neck brace stayed on the duration of the summer. At one point I was healed enough to travel and visited my grandparents for what was the last time I would see my Grandfather (Opa) alive. He had Alzheimers, but he remembered us. and did not seem thrown off by the fact that I had a neck brace on. One afternoon we sat on a bench waiting for my parents to pick us up, two invalids. It was a sweet, sweet moment with just the two of us. We sat there on this mild summer day, watching the trees swaying in the wind, as the birds chirped and the sun shone down on us, and Opa gestured towards all of it, saying "I'm so lucky to be here, isn't it so beautiful?" I'm so grateful for that moment, even with the neck brace. It's my last memory of Opa.

My recovery was much easier after this surgery, but it was still a long haul. When it was time to go back to college, I was hesitant, feeling like I had only just healed. My sorority at the time was hesitant to give me a pass on "Rush" week. I barely participated and felt guilty like I was using my neck surgery as an excuse not to do anything (even though I hated Rush in the first place). Looking back - what the actual hell was I thinking? Of course I shouldn't have done any of that! I had just had SPINAL surgery! 

After each surgery I felt fragile, like I would never be whole again. And yes, I did heal, but I think I fooled myself when I said I was 100% back to normal. No I wasn't. I had missing bones, a fused spinal column, screws in my neck that I was terrified would set off the airport security checks. (They didn't.) And my muscles were still tired. My hands were still numb, even more so than before, the damage again was done, and the surgery was again preventative, not corrective.

I told that surgeon: "Thank you, and I never want to see the likes of you again." The surgeon seemed confident I was never to return. Which was true, I would never return to him again because life goes on and you find a new neurosurgeon in your current town the next time something happens. Which apparently, there is always a next time once you start messing with the spinal column. 

No one told me that.

Fast forward over ten years, I'm a wife and a mother with a master's degree. 

I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain in my right arm. No warning, just shooting pain. I couldn't adjust anything, crack anything, take anything to make the pain go away. At first I thought: wow, this is the next level of sleeping on your neck wrong. Then I started to realize: shit, no, this is something more dangerous. My right hand had become significantly less functional. This was my neck doing its thing again. I had allowed time and my two healthy pregnancies temporarily blind me to the frailty of my body. 

Off to the neurosurgeon I went. This time on my own insurance, with two children, and a husband who had never seen a person close to him go through major surgery. 

I was smart, got two opinions. Neither of them suggested anything other than surgery. The only difference was the type of surgery. This time was different. This time I had pain. Apparently I was "lucky" that hadn't happened before. I had a disc at the bottom of my neck pressing on my spinal cord, popped out by the pressure of holding up my head without any help from the discs that had disappeared so many years ago. Once I settled on the surgeon, he said, we need to move quickly, you may lose the use of your right hand if you go too long. So on a Monday, I scheduled my spinal surgery for that Friday. 

A discectomy with a fusion of C6-7 going through the front again. Two scars, almost perfectly lined up on the front of my neck. 

I got to the hospital that Friday morning and said "I'm here to get cut up." The receptionist was notably shocked and said she'd never had anyone say that to her. I felt like saying, well you've never had me, so here I am with my morbid humor, trying to make my way through my third spinal surgery. Also, really, no one had said that? 

My Mom was there, as she had been for every surgery, it would be a strange bond we would have. This time she was there more as a support to my husband, and to be with the kids. I went in for surgery. I didn't allow myself time to think about things or feel things. I was focused on the pain and the hope that the surgery would relieve it.

When I woke up, I saw my husband, Jason, and my Mom walk into my hospital room with looks of anticipation, and concern? I said "Hi!" And they both laughed and smiled and visibly relaxed. Apparently, while I was in the recovery room, the surgeon had told them I wasn't talking yet, and he noted that he had to really move things around in my neck, so there was a slight chance my voice would be different, or maybe perhaps, gone. You know, small side effect. My speaking was a relief to them. I had no idea that was even a risk I had taken. Of course, the other risks like paralysis were more prominent on the list of mentionables.

I had been told earlier that I may have to wear the kind of neck brace with screws in my head. I was.... not looking forward to this possibility. I didn't end up having to do that, although the surgeon never really indicated why. He did say my bones were like butter, and not in a good way. Everything was very fragile in there. But as all neurosurgeons say when they're finished: "I fixed it and you're good to go!" 

The nerve pain did not go away immediately. The surgeon said it may take some time, but it "should" go away. I had spent a few weeks incapacitated by the pain, and now in recovery, I was still in pain with some extra incisions. I was terrified that this could be my new normal, and that the relief would never come.

One morning, about a week after surgery, I woke up, and the shooting pain was gone. I was afraid to even sit up, because I was afraid it would break the spell. I knew that the morning was a good time to judge if the pain had gone because usually the pain relievers had started to wear off by this point. I sat up, and the magic remained. No nerve pain. I started crying, calling my mom and my husband in to tell them the good news. 

The next time I cried, it was after my sweet boys had danced around me, but very careful not to touch mommy, because if they jumped on me or tried to hug me in their usual rough way, my fusion might be jeopardized. So they were trained to be gentle with me. I cried because I missed them. They were there, but at arms length. They had to be so careful, we had to be so careful, that I felt like I had some invisible bubble around me. I was so tired of being fragile. SO tired of it. I didn't get to fully participate in the life right in front of me.

In due time, I healed, and my surgery became another memory I would tuck away and put behind me. I asked this surgeon: "I should be done now, right?" He said I should, and that it wasn't common for the discs below the sternum (past the cervical spine) to buckle under pressure. Essentially, now that my entire neck was essentially fused, there wasn't anything left to pop out. The next set of discs were supported by a larger system than just neck muscles.

About a year or two later, after working full time as a hospice chaplain, my hands started doing something weird. If I leaned to one side and put weight on my elbow, they would go numb or twitch. I went back to my neurosurgeon who told me the medical equivalent of "stop doing that." He said I basically had a wonky nerve now, it had been messed with to the point where now all the signals were a little crossed and electrified. Any slight pressure on the nerve would be translated exponentially into some sensation, be it numbness, twitchiness, or pain. He said if the wonkiness turned to pain, there are procedures that could be done to remove the nerve from the elbow where it was getting tight. I was like, seriously, I'll just "stop doing that." I still have to be mindful of the positions of my hands and arms, I even have to switch my hands often while driving, because I mindlessly rest my elbows on the door or armrest, making my hands weird.

I definitely can't lie sideways like the French girls, I'll get numb hands. Super sexy.

I moved to a new town, and so far I have not had to have any new surgeries. *knock on wood* However I have had a few MRIs, where they found a herniated disk in my lumbar (lower back) that gives me mild pain on good days, and the week of Thanksgiving when I was hosting my family: major pain. Fun.

Strangely enough, the first time I really came to grips with all that I have lost to this narrow spinal canal, was when I was painting our family room a few years ago. I am cheap and stubborn. So when I wanted to change the color of my family room, I decided I could do it all by myself, thankyouverymuch. 

So I did, but what would take a normal person a day or two at most, took me a week. I was so angry at myself. I got so tired so quickly. I couldn't keep my head up long enough to paint the top trim. Like, I literally couldn't hold my head up. I had to hold the back of my head with one hand while painting with the other, and then switch when my hand got tired.

Then, and only then, did I stop and think about why that might be the case. And why this wasn't normal.

When I finally got down and took stock, I realized, holy shit, I've had to hold my head up with my hands for hours to look at what I'm painting because I have had three spinal surgeries. My neck can't look up for long periods of time. It just can't. My back was aching because it's jacked up. I've "thrown it out" at least three or four times and I'm not 40 yet. 

And that's when I realized that I should not physically be painting a family room. 

I need you to know that I literally had not considered this. I was so in denial of my body's history that I did not understand why I had to hold my head up. I was fighting myself because I was so worried that I was just being lazy. Instead of listening to my body who was saying "STOP DOING THAT!" I just pushed forward until all I could physically do was lie exhausted on my back in the middle of a half-painted room. And I felt guilty! Lazy! Why couldn't I paint a damn room?! 

I think my denial was partially a result of my continued adjustment. I have become a master of adjusting. I'm so good at it that I don't even realize I'm doing it, or why. With my hearing loss, I have been over-performing physically every day of my life in order to be as close to normal as I can be. So of course the normal warning signs like exhaustion and weariness were lost on me.

Here is what my grief has to say about that: I'm *so* tired of adjusting. 

I've adjusted everything to be able to hear people and engage in conversation. I have adjusted everything to be able to physically move and function without things being too difficult or cumbersome, and without needing any help. I'm constantly adjusting down, adjusting to function at increasingly lower levels. I'm so tired of it. I'm tired of needing to hold my head at the end of the day because my neck muscles are tired. This happens at the end of every day and I didn't even notice until the painting incident. I'm tired of lying flat on my back at night and feeling the pain radiate down my spine. I'm tired of knowing that I can't do certain things but still feeling lazy about it because I can't say something obvious like: I have "spine-weak-muscle-inconsistent-nerve-weirdness-ism." But that's not a thing, and my thing isn't a word I can say. So I continue to navigate whether I can do something, or whether I shouldn't, or whether I am lazy, or whether I'm wise for not trying. I still don't know those boundaries. 

I watch these dancers on the TV and my soul aches, my body just sighs. I will never be able to move my body like that. That makes me sad. I wish I could still do a back bend. I used to be able to do a backwards dive into the pool.

Now I have stopped doing all of that. And I miss it. More than I realized. 

Body Grief

Sometime about a year or so ago, I decided to pay closer attention to my body. Not for reasons of appearance, but more about reconnecting to my body in ways that honors and appreciates all that it has been for me. I fooled myself thinking that I could reconnect with my body by remembering only the good things, the positive things.

But Grief demanded my attention. 

Grief said to my positive memories: Me first. I don't blame her. I've been shoving my body grief down deep within me, in hopes that it would disappear in a black hole or somehow filter out with no pain or process. That never works. Like, ever.

Grief needs to be felt and heard. She needs me to see her.

It hurts for me to look so I've been ignoring her all this time.

When I was born, I was born into a muted world. My fingers itch to tell you that I was OK, everything was OK, there is nothing special about any of it and I can do anything I want, thankyouverymuch do not show sympathy for me because not only do I not need it, I do not deserve it. 

*Deep Breath*

Grief is trying to say something but it's hard for her to get a word in edgewise with all my words and caveats and comparisons and I'mfines. 

Here is what Grief says if I give her a chance to speak...

I was born into a muted world. 

So I will never hear music like most of you do. If I could hear, I think I may have been a composer. I love hearing a violin sing above the orchestra, a small stringed instrument with the power to soar above the crowd. If I could hear, I might have been a singer/songwriter playing the guitar and trying her best to put the world's emotions to music. I may have had an outlet for my own emotions, one that was as easy as humming a perfectly placed tune. What would it be like to open my mouth and have music come out?

If I could hear, I could sing in church with my full voice instead of lip-synching. I can't remember when it was that I first understood that "make a joyful noise" was actually not suitable for worship. No, sorry, you are distracting with your imperfections. So I made myself quiet. To this day I do not sing out loud in church. Those who were so sad when the coronavirus took away their ability to sing in church, well, it kind of made me sad in a mad way, or mad in a sad way. I haven't been singing for years.

If I could hear, I could catch all the little witty sayings in the movies, and laugh at the same time as everyone else without feeling like I was annoying someone by asking them what was so funny. "What did I miss?" Those who love me tell me, the rest will say something like "never-mind, it's no big deal." But they don't know that half my life was never-minded, and I was deemed unworthy of deciding for myself if something was a "big deal" or not. I still have the experience of watching an old movie from childhood "for the first time" because they have captions now. I keep learning how much I missed the first time around.

If I could hear, I could discern the music playing at the restaurant and enjoy it like you do. I could burst out with the song lyrics that you know, just from hearing it on the radio. I wouldn't have had to memorize the lyric sheets from old tapes and CDs. I might know more than just the chorus of famous songs. 

If I could hear, I could understand your whispers. I would be included in every aspect of life that includes whispering, most of them funny, many intimate. I can't hear or understand whispers, so I either throw the game of telephone into hilarity, or I just simply miss the moment. So many missed moments.

If I could hear, maybe I would have been cooler as a kid, maybe I would have understood more jokes and hidden meanings muttered under our breaths. Maybe I could have been in on whatever scheme or inside joke was running around. Maybe I would have caught all the innuendo or pop-culture references. 

If I could hear, I would hear my children wake at night, and instead of going to their Dad, they would come to me. If I could hear, would they feel more connected to me? Would they feel like they could depend on me more? 

If I could hear, I could get a good nights sleep when I am alone, without worrying about whether something bad would happen the moment I took my hearing aids out, that I would miss a child crying, a door creaking, an alarm going off, a dog whining. 

If I could hear, I could save money to go on more trips instead of buying hearing aids. 

If I could hear I wouldn't know what it was like to sit at a table and not be able to join the conversation because it was too hard to focus on reading lips that long, or across that many faces. I wouldn't have to choose only one conversation to focus on and hope it held my attention or that I would be included for the totality of it. If I could hear, I wouldn't have to work so hard at the easy things like having a conversation. Maybe being around people, ones I care about, wouldn't exhaust me.

If I could hear, maybe I would feel more easily connected to new people. Maybe I wouldn't be so isolated. Maybe I would feel like less of an outsider, in every group, every space. 

If I could hear, I wouldn't have worried as a teenager about a boy kissing me and then being horrified that my hearing aids would squeal with feedback if he touches my ear. Maybe that's why I didn't have my first kiss until college. 

If I could hear, maybe I wouldn't have been so awkward and anxious at pool parties and going to the beach with friends, when I had to make sure no one got my hearing aids wet, because even my best friend would forget and playfully push me in the pool with my hearing aids in. If I could hear, maybe when I take my kids to the neighborhood pool I could actually talk to other parents AND play with my kids, instead of having to choose between the two because I can't get my hearing aids wet. 

If I could hear, maybe I wouldn't be so angry when people shushed me, because I wouldn't have spent an unbelievable amount of energy listening to what *they* had to say. 

If I could hear, I wouldn't be paranoid about remembering to bring batteries with me everywhere in case a battery went out and I suddenly can't hear out of one ear, our God forbid both (it happens more often than I care to admit).

If I could hear, perhaps waiting rooms, airports, public transit, and other places where it is important to hear announcements, even your name, wouldn't be so tiring and taxing. I wouldn't have to be the equivalent of a night guard, always awake, always alert. Maybe this is why I sleep so heavily at night, because once I don't have to work so hard at hearing, I can finally fully relax.

I honestly don't know what would be different about myself or my life if I could hear. I'm not really trying to figure that out definitively, mostly because it's impossible to do that. I want to give myself space to recognize what was, and what is. I didn't allow myself to grieve whatever losses I had, because I was so busy trying to change it, or ignore it. Or minimizing it by saying itsfineitsOKitsnotabigdeal. (I'm trying very hard not to do this now.)

I want to relax into what is, and the best way I know how to do that is to grieve what isn't, and then move forward. 

I grieve that things weren't easy, and by doing that simple act, I'm giving myself permission to name that things weren't easy. Just because I am finethankyouverymuch, doesn't mean that it wasn't hard, or that it isn't still challenging. Giving myself permission to see that is a revelation in itself. It allows me to accept help, without shame even! 

Naming the challenges hopefully will allow me to appreciate myself, my supports, and give myself grace and care when I need it. Hopefully I will be more realistic about my capabilities, my needs, and the limits of my energy. Weirdly, by acknowledging my limitations, I will free myself to be at ease with who I am. I won't be actively trying to mask my limitations, to go into overdrive to prove I can do something I shouldn't. Freeing indeed!

I grieve the hearing I never had. I think somewhere deep down inside I thought that I could somehow adjust, compensate, focus hard enough to make up for the loss. I can't do that. The loss will always remain, no matter how hard I work. I need to stop expecting myself to be "normal" and allow myself to be me. This is actually kind of revolutionary for me, and I still struggle to do that.

I Grieve, therefore I can be. I wonder what unprocessed grief you have that keeps you from being. I won't tell you it's easy to let your grief speak, but it is good.

Rest is not Scarce

I have been following Tricia Hersey’s Instagram Account “The Nap Ministry” (Follow on Instagram here: @thenapministry; and visit her website here: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com). 

Hersey has proclaimed herself the Nap Bishop, and for the new year I have resolved to learn everything I can from her. Her message is not specifically for me, though. At least not directly. Her message is for the Black community who need to hear her central message: that rest is owed to them as reparations, and that they must take it. 

This is not a trite message, although it sounds simple. It is far from simple. Hersey has reached her current prophetic message through in-depth study, and by acknowledging her community’s inherited trauma of the Black body exploited for free labor. The intrinsic worth of the Black body has been for generations equaled to their productivity. Hersey posits that if every Black person refused to produce for the rest of their lives, it would only begin to heal their community and pay the debt our country owes them. That's how long and how wide the collective need for rest is in that community.

As a white person, I'm struggling to answer the question of what I can do to both enable (and empower) rest for the Black community, and also embody rest myself. 

Hersey is not saying that only Black people need rest, she's saying they are OWED rest. Rest has been stolen from generations of Black people. Her message is that white people, all people need to rest too, for the sake of rest itself, but more importantly, because rest is resistance to the capitalistic system that disproportionately burdens people of color.

All people need rest. We as white people are terrified to make room for more rest within our own communities, because deep down inside we know that the systems of capitalism and white supremacy favors our rest over others. Our rest is needed, and the systems in place are favorable for us to get it. We fear that if we make space for everyone to have rest, we'll lose our own.

Our fear and selfishness puts the security of our rest above the availability of rest for others. If you suss it all out: we've decided white supremacy is OK and necessary as long as it keeps our access to rest in quick supply. That's pretty crappy. It's also based on lies.

We all fear that rest is scarce. Short version: it isn't.

For Black people, the supply of rest has been limited either in reality (forced labor), or in manipulation (double standards). Black people have said they have to work twice as hard to get half as far. For Black people, rest might feel like giving up the fight. The system we have now, forces Black people to "hustle" just to get by. If they don't work harder than everyone else, the fear is not that they won't make it to the top, it's that they won't make it at all. 

This system is unjust. That's why Tricia Hersey says a big, fat NOPE to that. She's gonna bypass the system. She's challenging the established rules.

White people have secured access points to rest over a very long time. The way our economy works today protects that access. We work to uphold the systems that have supported our successes: capitalism, and what Hersey calls the "grind culture." We keep functioning within these systems because they are the only way we know how to get the "luxury" of rest and leisure. It's worked for us so far, right? 

If we work hard enough, we make enough money to take a vacation. If we work hard and long enough, we get to retire someday. If we work hard enough, we make enough money to hire other people to do the work that exhausts us. We can have a house cleaner, eat out, get the car detailed, the lawn maintained. We'll save time from all our hard work for rest. Work begets rest. It's worked for us for years, hasn't it? 

Ah, but it hasn't. The irony is that this doesn't seem to pan out for everyone, does it? In fact, more so than ever, it seems our system is working less and less, even for the people it was built to support: white people. 

We're still busy; ceaselessly working toward the next goal. We kick the finish line down the street by our own unsatisfied determination and desires. We wonder when we will "arrive" and the answer is never, because our goal is no longer rest. Our goal has become power, money, and prestige. These goals are mirages that shift as quickly as the slant of the sun on a desert road. This is the grind culture. 

One of the things I have learned with Hersey's message, is that work does not beget rest; rest begets rest. When we rest, we give space for more rest, for others to rest. 

It feels counter-intuitive, but think about it. When I decide that my work email does not need to be answered 24-7, I am setting a boundary that allows my colleagues to not feel like they need to answer my emails ASAP. By setting my own boundary, I am giving space and permission for other boundaries to be set. By de-escalating a situation from "urgent" to "normal," I am setting the tone for how (and how fast) we do things. We have been steadily inflating our speed to match each other in a weird time-speed race. Why are we rushing? Why are we trying to become machinery? Isn't life so much more than that? If we start to scale back, re-set the time-warp speed at which we expect things to be done, we will find rest and we will foster rest in our community.

Our community needs rest. We're in the middle of a pandemic, both physical and mental. Everywhere you look, you hear lonely and exhausted people, with very shallow wells of rest and reprieve to draw from. We blame it on the pandemic, but the truth is, the pandemic only revealed how shallow our wells were to begin with. The pandemic also revealed how heavily we relied on the productivity and grinding of the lowest paid, hardest working people of our society, a category of workers who are disproportionately Black and Brown people. 

A while ago, before the pandemic, I remember reading a post on social media by an exhausted local mother and thinking, I remember when I was that exhausted with young children, why aren't we helping each other more? The answer was and still is that we are all so caught up in the grind-culture that we can only maintain our own existence, our own rest. We feel like we have none to spare. Some people are lucky enough to have a functional village or family nearby for support. But most Americans today live isolated in a sea of people, hoarding their resources because they know they are close to exhaustion.

In order for rest to be realized at the communal level, we must resist the antithesis of rest: the grind culture. This grind culture is the "time-race" I'm talking about above, where everything has to be better, faster, more efficient to the point where we expect machine-like quality and efficiency without stopping to ask if it is even necessary (it isn't). 

Tricia Hersey states that at the base of this grind-culture, and what fuels the ugliness of capitalism, is white supremacy. The grind culture demands that everyone do and produce so that we may uphold some invisible standard (possession of power, privilege, and prestige). The grind culture inevitably forces that invisible standard to ceaselessly rocket higher and higher out of reach. Someone will always reach the goal, and therefore the goal must escalate, because someone else wants it. 

Most of the time, the person at the top is white, and not because they are awesome.

The whole idea built into white supremacy and grind culture is that someone wins. Someone gets to be at the top. Since there are millions of people in this race, there is almost never a winner, but rather a steady, recycling turn-table of the same rich, white people who were born two feet from the finish line. White people like to pride themselves if they were born ten feet from the line and by sheer hard work and skill, sprinted to the top. It feels like a victory. They shout down to the lower echelons of society: "I did it! I made it! Just keep moving, working, racing! You can make it too!"

Meanwhile, on Tricia Hersey's plane of existence, she is not concerned with the apoplectic and out of breath humans on the mountain top. She's napping. She opted out of the whole ridiculous thing. And she is telling her Black community that they can opt out too. They work hard enough. They don't need the race to be whole people.

Grind culture at its very basic function is a traumatizing and racist enterprise. Those who have had rest stolen from them for generations are asked to just keep producing more to keep up, catch up. Tricia Hersey is *done* with that. And we should be, too.

The problem is not whether we are working hard enough. The problem is the system that requires us to grind like machines.

She says that if we rest, we resist this manic operation. We stop the machine from churning out more broken Black bodies (and others who are crushed in this grind). We create space within our communities for all to rest.

So as a white person, when I rest, I am not only seeking that which is needed for myself, I'm squatting in protest on the foundation of white supremacy. I'm using my body as a clear signal that I will no longer participate in this culture that grinds all bodies to dust, particularly those with Black and Brown skin. I am putting a speed bump in the middle of a demonic racetrack. 

Rest begets rest: when I rest, I am communicating that I will not put my body into this cycle of burnout and needless urgency. I am setting a boundary which redefines what the social norms could be. As a white person, I have the privilege and responsibility to set those boundaries in ways that can shift social norms.

Tricia Hersey is calling on Black people everywhere to take a nap. While they nap, white people need to do the work of tearing down the grind culture. White people need to take turns napping and dismantling. 

We need to create a community where everyone has access to rest. We need to create a community where everyone has access to the good things in life: love, community, food, shelter, beauty, work, and the pursuit of happiness. We need to redefine the parameters of what success looks like. We need to take stock in what it means to be human, and what we need to feel whole. Spoiler: it's not power, prestige, or hoards of cash. Rest will teach us all. 

Follow #thenapministry on instagram for more on this revolutionary concept, and start your practice of rest today. Start resisting white supremacy, start resisting the grind culture, start embodying the wholeness of what it means to be human. 

Start where you can and build up. Take a nap, don't answer the email right away. Take time off work, and really take the time off. Don't be productive for a whole day and practice turning off that shame portal when you rest. Empower others in your family to rest. Empower it in your work space. And not the kind of rest that comes because you worked extra hard, hobbling to collapse at the finish line. Genuine, regular rest, before exhaustion. 

Change the small systems around you. Is someone doing the lion's share of work in your home? At work? Is it you? Or is it someone else? Create a system where the work (and rest) is shared. That might mean lowering expectations, and that is not a bad thing. Decrease urgency. 

De-stigmatise rest. It is not laziness. In fact, if you have any religious background, it is built into the foundations of nearly every major religious practice as Sabbath. For some, it's a commandment!

Challenge the current culture! Don't "try not to burnout"- be rested! Don't "try to balance life and work" - be rested! Resist productivity as an intrinsic virtue and value. View "well-rested" as the epitome of whole human experience. 

If you think you have no space or time for rest, The Nap Bishop will tell you that's not true. She knows. You have to brush your teeth every day and you have to rest every day.

Rest is not scarce. We must shake the bounds of white supremacy and embrace communal rest.

Weight

I did the dumbest thing a person can do in the tenth month of a pandemic: I weighed myself. I had intentionally stayed away from the scales because I knew it was a dumb idea to start my morning with numbers. I added insult to injury by weighing myself on the first day of my period, which if you don't know, is like getting a portrait done five minutes after you've woken up. It's just a bad idea all around.

SO I weighed myself, couldn't stop my impulse and there they were: the numbers. And they told me exactly what I expected them to tell me: I had gained weight. OBVIOUSLY. But I gained ten pounds and this felt a little harsh for my scale to thrust at my face.

Now let me tell you a little secret: I feel great. I mean, even though I'm more anxious and I haven't worn a bra or makeup for an untold amount of time, even though I can't even imagine wearing anything with buttons or anything other than cozy socks, even though I am becoming an expert at stretching the acceptable length of time between showers, I actually feel pretty confident in my body. I've been walking lots, wearing sexy yoga pants, that kind of thing. 

Just to be sure I wasn't doing something terrible to myself (because I felt fine and even though I'm sure I could eat more healthy, I feel like I've been doing OK), I looked up my BMI. Because that's a perfect measurement of health. (Please say that last line with all the sarcasm you can muster.) But seriously, it's at least a tool that can help me know if I should maybe be less laissez-faire with my choices. 

Get this: my BMI is in the normal category. 

I am certain that about 90% of the people who read that last line just uttered (possibly out loud): 

"This Bitch." 

And that's not entirely unfair. I get it. Here I am whining about gaining ten pounds and I'm in the "normal" BMI range, whatever that means. I'm on the top of it, but I made it.

This is when it hit me. I feel fine because I AM fine. The numbers are just one measurement that I have had to learn not to take too seriously. If you're fighting with me in your head (as some voices in my own head are trying to do), then you might have some body image issues. It's OK- join the universal club- it takes a long ass time to work that shit out, and the entire capitalistic society is working overtime against your efforts. 

I had forgotten how huge the market was for us feeling crappy about our bodies until I watched cable with commercials for the first time in months at our Airbnb (aka: we need to be ANYWHERE ELSE other than home). Wow. SO many commercials telling you SO many things about your body and food. All of it conflicting, none of it helpful. If you grew up before streaming shows was a thing (which is most of us), then you grew up with at least one source of "your body sucks," aka commercials. Forget about whatever family baggage you have. Body image issues seem to be a foundational part of being human, specifically, American.

But here's the other realization that I had: weight has nothing to do with your body image issues. I'm going to repeat it because even I don't fully believe it: 

Weight has nothing to do with your body image issues. 

Y'ALL. How many skinny-gorgeous-people do you know who are complete lunatics about their bodies? I can name a few. In fact I remember this one baby doll-eyed gorgeous woman confessing her low self-esteem and I was like: "This Bitch." But she wasn't lying. She was *gorgeous* and had body image issues. If you think about it, the list of people who have body image issues is about as diverse in actual body shape/size/ability as the fish in the ocean. 

SO therefore, if you change your numbers, it won't change your mind. The body is a friggin miracle and also an insanely delicate and resilient thing. Human bodies really are bizarre. They deserve a whole lot more than stupid numbers. They deserve to be moved in fun ways, touched, bathed, rested, walked, lotioned, all the nice things you should wish upon an entity that carries your heart, soul, and mind. 

She's working hard y'all! Give her some love, and watch your body relax into the safe space you've created for her. 

$#@%^ the numbers.

What Am I Doing Today?

Crying. Smiling. Breathing. Laughing. Hoping. Preparing.

I know that presidential elections are not the whole story. I know that there is work to be done. I know that there are people I know and love who thought Trump was their answer. I don't understand it, I don't agree, and it makes me a bit devastated. However, I know that all of those people are not monsters.

I refuse to say that someone is a garbage human being if: XYZ. Because as naive as it may be, I'm backed by the saints and prophets of nearly every religion and philosophy when I say that we are all connected, we are all valuable, and we are all worthy of love. So I will continue forward with that because it feels right in my body and soul. It is the one truth that has never changed for me- and many things have changed for me.

Today I cried big fat and small streaming tears. My body released a small portion of four years of stress, anxiety, and the strain of the struggle to hope.

My child said "Yay!" and then he quipped: "And we get a woman too, right?" This is the innocence I want to keep. We don't demonize our political opponents here. We don't sugar-coat our disagreements with them either. We simply state what we think is good and right and what we hope for. My child still hopes. Because we have created a home where hope is still alive. 

Today, for the first time in a while, I felt a little less like our hopefulness was a strain on reality.

Like I said before, we have a lot of work to do. This is not an easy flip of a switch where everything is OK now. No political person is the savior. But I do believe the work has a chance to get done now. There's actually a chance that the debates could become conversations and collaborations. There's a chance that the trajectory of hate and anger can shift to reconciliation and facing the hard stuff with integrity and hope. And compassion. 

Friends: do not demonize the other. We HAVE to figure out how to build relationships. If you hear me saying this as some white girl trying to get us all to get along, don't. I have ulterior motives. Relationships were what helped me grow as a human. It's how I became less bigoted, racist, patriarchal, homophobic, ethnocentric, etc etc. Only when faced with a human being (or a force of nature) who was not like me that I still connected with- that is when change happened. I want this to keep happening to me until all the shit has been burned out of me by love. I want the same for all of you, because how else can we be fully and beautifully human? 

This is how we're made. We're all connected because that connection is the maker and savior of us all. The earth, and all living things are connected. I don't care what religion or non-religion you are. This is a universal truth. The more we are in relationship with all that moves and has breath, the more we all will recognize the divine in ourselves and each other. When we see this divine spark in each other: we will be forced to change what we thought was divine and good. We should face this continually until we can't help but see the divine. We recognize it everywhere. It should blind us.

This world is not dual, binary, or flat. Our universe is profound and gorgeous. Why oh why would we want to miss out on experiencing it? 

Let's get to work. Go.

6 Reasons Your Pastor is About to Quit- Revisited

An article by Thom Rainer made the rounds in my pastor circles a while ago, titled "6 Reasons Your Pastor is About to Quit" and the six reasons listed are all related to Covid. The author alludes that these issues have been there, and this is just a boiling point, but I was hoping the author was going to go a little deeper and explore that point.

I felt inspired to write this not as an argument against the article, but sort of an attempt to unfold some of what's underneath it all, to go a little deeper.

Thom Rainer gets to it here:

Why has this period of great discouragement ensued? Of course, it is connected to COVID-19, but the pandemic really just exacerbated trends already in place. We would have likely gotten to this point in the next three to five years regardless.  

I also want you to know that these pastors do not think they will be leaving ministry. They just believe the current state of negativity and apathy in many local churches is not the most effective way they can be doing ministry. 

This is the real stuff. I am going to springboard off of Rainer's points and offer some insight based on my own experience in ministry. I've held a few jobs in the local church (youth minister, congregational care), my husband is a pastor, and I have a LOT of friends who are in ministry, as well as membership in some online groups of clergy women. Not all of what I have to say stems from my specific personal experience (some does), but all of it stems from real experiences of people I actually know. 

1 Pastors are weary from the pandemic, just like everyone else. 

Rainer states this truth, reminding people of the humanity of pastors. I want you to take it a step further. What do we do when a major transition happens, or something traumatic in our lives? We tend to have some serious introspection. Many clergy (and I'm sure many others) have been confronted with their mortality, the meaning of life, and all the other existential stuff that a pandemic stirs up. You are not the only ones having that conversation with yourself.

When that happens, you start to ask questions that our busy life didn't allow, like: is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Is this what I *want* to be doing? Could I be doing more in a different setting? All of a sudden, we see the ways we are spinning our wheels. 2020 has offered a stark background for our questions. The weight of our questions (and their answers) seem much heavier and more important than before. Our calling actually feels heavier, and we are asking ourselves: are we spinning wheels here or getting somewhere? We think to ourselves: the world needs help, and I feel like I'm working overtime and not even making a dent!

Right now it doesn't feel like we're getting anywhere, which leads to the next point...

2 Pastors are greatly discouraged about the fighting taking place among church members about the post-quarantine church.

Bingo. In the midst of the existential questions, we look at our "office," which is the church for clergy, and see some really terrible (and ineffective) behavior. There are businesses that are completely re-writing the playbook for their future (do we even need an office building?). Clergy are trying to do that with their churches, but the Church has been in fight or flight for a while, and right now a lot of them are choosing to fight, with the pastor and each other. 

I am a part of an online group of clergy women, and trust me when I say that people have been behaving badly for a very, very, very long time. You probably already knew that, but you may not have known they were behaving so badly to the pastor. Let's go ahead and exclude the crappy Pastors who are abusive and power-trippy. I would venture to say most pastors are actually just trying to be good people, and help other people be good and connect to God. The conversation around whether their theology or methodology is good, we can save for another day.

When Covid hit, a lot of Pastors knew they were walking onto a minefield with every decision they made. Church people can be pretty awful to their pastors. It's not the exception, it's the rule. 

So if you think you have something to offer the world and your response to that is being a pastor; there's nothing like a pandemic to make things bad enough for you to look again and say "maybe there's a better way, a way that doesn't kill me." And yes, we're talking life and death for some of these pastors. Pastor suicides are not uncommon, and if they don't do it intentionally, they do it by overworking and becoming so unhealthy that their bodies give up under the strain. 

It's hard for pastors to prioritize their own mental health when their congregations demand they sacrifice it for theirs. And time and again, the pastor obliges, putting their lives on the sacrificial altar for the church. The tragedy is that this is entirely unnecessary, (and actually terrible theology) but a pastor often stops just short of helping themselves, because it is their calling to help others, and in their minds the sacrifice is a necessary one. I'll get into that more later, but this may be one of the most toxic and prevalent behaviors I've seen in pastors today. They tell everyone to rest, to prioritize family, etc, and forget that they deserve the same basic human rights and privileges. 

3 Pastors are discouraged about losing members and attendance. 

This might seem, like the author said, "all about the numbers," but he's right, it's not. However, he talks about pastors worrying about losing friends in the congregation. I don't think it's about losing friends either. Not to burst any bubbles, but pastors are learning that church members make for very challenging friendships. There's always a line and boundary when you cease to be a friend and become their pastor. This is not an equitable relationship, no matter how hard you try. 

Many pastors confess just how lonely they are, making the irony of being surrounded by people that much more painful. I have learned first hand just how fickle church friends can be. There's a reason why seminary talks a LOT about boundaries and the importance of having social connection outside of the church. Unfortunately, the pastor's schedule makes it challenging to be social outside of church. You can't even go visit family for the weekend because you have to be home on Sunday. 

So many pastors are trapped in one-sided relationships with people whom they love and would do anything for, with no real commitment on the other end. The needs of these people are so consuming, that it leaves very little time for the pastor to invest in more genuine and mutual friendships, so they are often left either very lonely, or in forced ignorance that the relationships are mutual. This ignorance is often burst by some tragedy or event that leaves the pastor even more heart-broken when they realize just how conditional the friendship was. 

The other part I want to note is that the numbers are important to some extent because that is how your efficacy as a pastor is measured: NUMBERS. It's also the determination of whether you have a job (or get paid). And I don't care how committed you are to your job, you need to be paid to live. Most pastors don't expect to be millionaires, but it would be nice if they could pay their bills, which many cannot. I feel the need to reiterate this: many pastors struggle financially. I'm talking people with 3 higher-level degrees struggling to pay rent and medical bills. 

So the question returns: do I want to continue to use my gifts in such a way that will be measured (incorrectly) by numbers, at the price of my social and mental health? Do I want my livelihood to be attached to whether my "help" is attractive enough to people? For pastors who live in parsonages, the job is more than just a salary, it's your home too. That's scary. Our entire financial security is owned by the church. Those numbers are scary. It's why many have stayed, not knowing if they can make it outside the church. "Hi, I'd like to be your newest account manager. I have three theology degrees."

4 Pastors don’t know if their churches will be able to support ministries financially in the future. 

This is basically the same thing as number 3. Less people, less money, less ministry. Which staff person do you have to cut? Do you offer to cut your own salary? Many do, and many have it cut for them. If you are faced with the survival of your church (and staff) or your salary, it looks un-Christian to say "I need the money." Aaaaand now you can't pay your bills. But you can't ask for help, that's tacky. God provides, and all that.

But deeper than that: is the church even effective? See number 2. A pastor is thinking: these people are arguing over the color of the walls, the quality of video, the mandate of masks; they are not making great disciples. Maybe, just maybe, the Church (universal) is changing to something new? Maybe the pastor is being called to do ministry in the New Church, and let go of the four walls and toxic dynamic. Maybe these pastors have all felt a calling out of the church, and the pandemic just made it even more painful to stay. Maybe the pandemic finally put even the minuscule safety net of the church at such a risk that they have nothing left to lose. 

They have been trying to bail out a sinking ship, and the pandemic has shown them that maybe the ship sank a long time ago and they've been drowning with it. Or, more optimistically, they've reached shore and it's time to move on to discover what's ahead. 

5 Criticisms against pastors have increased significantly. 

So this is a follow up of 2 for the most part. All that fighting is mainly directed at the pastor (with some exceptions, of course). And all that fighting does not effect lay people's livelihood. A pastor who loses half their church in some uproar: they may lose half their salary or all of it. They certainly lose sleep and sanity.

In normal times, a pastor's patience has to build up enough stamina that you can mostly handle the people behaving badly. This is not always true though. Before the pandemic, there were plenty of pastors leaving toxic congregations because no amount of resilience and thick skin could withstand it. Plus, most pastors have families, and it's hard to ask that resilience of your entire family. I for one have zero patience for bullshit when the health and wellbeing of my family is in jeopardy. 

Female pastors and pastors of color who do not look like their congregation have been disproportionately bearing this burden of congregational (and colleague) meanness. It gets really ugly. Now that the pandemic has added some fuel to that fire (forget the already insane political climate), and you're reaching the boiling point. A pastor is smart to get out of that pot, and fast.

And while I'm talking about people being awful to their pastors and church staff, it begs the question: Why should we expect pastors to endure this abuse? Many pastors have deluded themselves into thinking this is their "cross to bear." (I mentioned this earlier.)

Hear me pastors: just because God calls you, doesn't mean you're immune to trauma (or your family). It doesn't mean you're literally immune to this pandemic. It doesn't mean that God gave you some magic potion to make all the emotional and physical stress roll off your shoulders. Enduring trauma is not an item on a gold-star chart that God has, saying "Oh she survived that traumatic experience and then stayed there, she must love me." 

No. Full stop. No.

We shouldn't expect our pastors to be martyrs AT OUR OWN HANDS. Martyrs are for tyrannical governments, not pissy people. 

There, I said it. Go read that sentence again if you need to. 

Sometimes blazing a trail means leaving the trail.

6 The workload for pastors has increased greatly. 

Last but not least, because everyone else is exhausted, the pastor picks up the pieces like the infinite source of energy/love/spirituality robots they are asked to be. Churches are generally understaffed with volunteers and overworking staff. Also, pastors aren't trained in AV/internet/whatever. Most of them figured it out, only for people to have an opinion on how it could be done better.

But here's the deeper part. They were already working too much. They were already working weird schedules. And I'm not just talking about the time clocked. I'm talking about the mental load. The emotional load. A pastor's job is so fuzzy in terms of what is "work" and what isn't. It can be all-consuming if a pastor doesn't set proper boundaries. And pastors that set proper boundaries? Yeah, the church doesn't usually like that. 

Now it's like the pressure has increased on every part of what made their job hard and defeating.

The knot in their shoulder has a giant fist grinding into it. They can't miss it. What is it? It's that final recognition that none of this was sustainable. It's realizing that this is not working. This is not what I want. This is not what anyone should want. This is broken. 

Much like many systems that have crashed under the pressure of a pandemic, pastors can see that the church is in some serious need of reformation. 

And the only way they know how to help is to leave.

So, this was all up-lifting. 

What can you do? 

If you are a pastor: follow your call, but make sure it's not the calling of fear and scarcity, but rather the calling of God who literally made stuff out of nothing. 

Set boundaries for yourself and stop trying to be Jesus. In the words of my new favorite theologian, Tricia Hersey (the "Nap Bishop"): "lay yo ass down and take a nap." This comes from her very serious, very deep understanding of who God is, and who we are as humans. You are not a sacrificial lamb. You are not a martyr. You are not a part in the production line of human productivity. 

When you act like that, you actually diminish the Kin-dom of God and feed into what Hersey calls the "grind culture" (which she will point out has White Supremacy at its foundation). Stop doing that. Stop modeling that kind of behavior. It's not healthy for you or anyone else. 

You as a pastor, by resting, you are resisting the very culture and systems that threaten to undermine the Church and Kingdom of God itself. Rest is holy resistance. And for people of color, rest is OWED you; rest is reparations. (Seriously, follow The Nap Ministry on instagram.)

Clergy: you are a fully embodied and complex human with needs, hopes, dreams. Listen to those. That's the magic God works with. Do some inside work if you haven't already. Go to therapy, meditate, sit outside and stare at the trees. 

And if you need to hear this: it's OK to leave.

If you are a member of a church: maybe just start by taking a little more responsibility for the future of the Church. And I'm not asking you to be a martyr, we're changing that dynamic, remember? It wouldn't hurt to show your church's staff a little love (especially the pastor/s). Treat them like the full humans they are.

But more than that, I'm talking about thinking of your role as someone who can support and move with the Spirit. Someone who feeds and waters the dreams born of the Spirit. Don't be afraid.

Start thinking about what a sustainable, inspired model of God's Kin-dom looks like. If your pastor has mentioned some ideas that actually make sense: publicly throw your support at it. Think communal, collaborative. Think rest, repair, healing, wholeness. Dare to imagine and engage in creating something new.

Stop trying to be right or look right. 

Start trying to be loving. 

Do some inside work: go to therapy, meditate. Remind yourself that your staff with years and education experience might know something. Remind yourself that you have gifts too, and it might not be running a religious institution. This is OK. Very OK. Good. So let it go. 

We need you where you're gifted. Hone those skills.

To all of us: we MUST remember that we're all human. Not machinery. We're all connected. Not islands. 

Re-assess our expectations. Are they healthy, helpful, and do they help others thrive? Do they help you thrive? 

When we start to answer those questions honestly, when we start to rest and love, we might get to follow our prophetic leaders into the next iteration of Church. We shouldn't be running off a burning, sinking ship. 

We should be following a light.

Last but not least: we may not all be going to the same places. This is also OK. Let the people go. Pastors, congregants, neighbors. Let them all go. Let yourself go.

Maybe we're being led to the promised land. 

4-6 Weeks

Now that many of us have been in this quarantine for over a month, I feel a shift in the way we're operating. It's not the best shift. The grace and forgiveness that flooded our veins in the beginning of this when we were all figuring out our "new normal" has started to subside. I'm not saying people are being less helpful or kind, but we're ramping up our expectations of normalcy. We are sure that it's time for things to be OK (whether or not they indeed are).

Some of this is evidenced by states and localities who are planning to open up despite evidence that this is unwise. Some of this I see in work places when folks are now expected to go back to their usual work load (or be able to increase it), as if now is the time when we should have this work-from-home thing figured out. (Thank God not my work place, but I have friends who are back to the grind times ten!) Some of this I see in ourselves, where before we said "it's OK, I can be gentle with myself in this time," we are now saying "well, I really should have this figured out by now, why am I so stupid?"

I don't know what the science or sociology is behind all of this, but I suspect that there is something empirical about 4-6 weeks as the amount of time humans expect to adjust and be back in business. I wonder if this has anything to do with how long we expect mothers to be able to adjust before rejoining the work force, as 4-6 weeks is often the amount of maternity leave offered (if they are lucky enough to be given the time and rejoin). That time frame is also a pretty common time given for healing from surgeries or broken/sprained body parts. About 4-6 weeks after a death, we find it sort of uncomfortable if someone is still raw with grief. Again- maybe the science is against me on this, but I have a feeing there are some correlations between that time-frame and our patience level for adjustment.

After 4-6 weeks, no matter what is actually happening, something in our brain says "This should feel normal now, all unrealistic expectations are invited to return!"

We're at that mark, when folks are antsy, what was good-enough is now not. What was reasonable is now ridiculous. What was above-expectations is now sub-par. But here's the problem: just like a mother in week 6 postpartum, we're not fully adjusted. We're not fully healed.

Also, I don't think we're ever supposed to be fully adjusted to a pandemic. Just sayin.

So instead of being fully-adjusted and completely ready to move into this new way of being, we're actually losing it. We're less adjusted because what we've really been doing is holding our breath. We've been holding it as long as we could, still functioning and moving around, but knowing that it was weird. We've just all finally broken and taken a collective breath of pandemic and I think all of us just went "OH Hell no. This cannot be what it is."

So we close our eyes and walk off a cliff.

Sorry, no, I mean, we close our eyes and just imagine that it is in fact, normal. That this is all fine, we are fine, you are fine, it's FINE. And in order to fuel our collective delusion, we just will normalcy into being. I am now fully functional, and so are you. So help me God, or I have to open my eyes to see the truth.

I believe that there is a new normal in all of this, but we're not there yet. It's going to take a little longer, and it's OK if you are not feeling OK yet. It's going to take a lot longer than 4-6 weeks. We are doing good work, we have made lots of adjustments. Now we need to give ourselves some time to adjust to the adjustments.

It's OK if this is still hard, or actually harder.