If One More Person Tells Me I Need to Take Care of Myself…
Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11, CEB translation)
I have an interesting pastoral transition this year. I am headed back into the local church from the denominational offices. More significant than that, though, is the fact that they are eliminating my division altogether from said offices. This means that I do not have to help someone get trained for my position. I just have to close things down. I do have to get ready for another church, though. And as I have mentioned, all of us preparing to go into new contexts are being shared details from the pastors we are replacing, but they are details based on so many unknowns that who knows if anything we share is even applicable anymore?
And then there is the very real continual reality that church in these pandemic ways has still tripled our workloads. I covered that in the beginning of this series on the pastoral transitions.
And then there is the mental and emotional and spiritual drain. We are all going through this. It does not matter if you are clergy or not. Everyone is sitting on the edge of exhaustion and insanity right now. This comes from two things: we were not created to live in isolation, and we have had to learn so many new ways of doing things we are tapped out on mental capacity. Our bodies and our brains and our souls are going on strike. For me, what that means is that I am still working, and I still have work to do, and it keeps piling up, but I have less and less energy for it so it is taking me more and more time. And it doesn’t matter if I take a day off, which I have done a couple times in the last 3 months. I come back not refreshed and recharged, but still drained. In fact, it takes me a few to get my energy going again, so it is almost like a day off sets me significantly back, which is little incentive to take a day off.
And yet in this vicious cycle we find ourselves in, well-meaning people keep telling me I need to take care of myself. I know they intend it to be kind and caring, but just telling me to take care of myself at this point is starting to feel like a condescending lecture. Or like they want me to add one more thing to my to do list. Even God’s word is starting to feel condemning. Yeah, I know I need to Sabbath! But who knows what day it is anymore, much less which is the seventh one, and when exactly is all this rest supposed to happen?
But the other reason I don’t want to hear it anymore is that all anyone is saying is, “Be sure to take care of yourself!” They are not giving any concrete ways for how that can happen. And we are too mentally tired to think of ways. Most pastors (and others) I know are just choosing to self-medicate instead. Even I, normal teetotaller that I am, have finished off a bottle and a half of wine and half a bottle of rum in the past 3 months. And no, that is not a lot, but since it equals about the sum total of all alcohol I had had in my life up to that point (excusing that summer I lived in France), I would say it is pretty striking. In fact, even as I sit here I really want to pour myself a glass. If that’s where I am, trust me when I say others are struggling significantly with such temptations.
In light of that, I want to say, “We should all take care of ourselves!” and then I consequently will want to punch my own self in the face. But we do need to take care. So instead of just saying that, here are some ideas I have for how to take care of yourself (these are aimed primarily at pastors, since I am still confronting the pastoral transition for another month):
1. Easiest pulpit swap ever: For those of you who have been pre-recording your sermons and editing them into worship, find someone else who is doing that and “pulpit swap.” Have them send you a file of a sermon from a few weeks ago, and you send them one of your sermons, and you preach for each other this week. And if you want to cut out filming the rest of worship too, share specials with each other and recycle some prior week’s filmings of your musicians. We sing the same hymns over and over when we are face-to-face. Why not do it online? Oh, and what if someone has already stumbled on that pastor’s sermon? Really? What are the honest-to-God chances? If that’s the case, that person is either already following that pastor, so they might as well own up, or they are a church nerd and they will not mind hearing it again. Honestly last week I preached at 2 different churches simultaneously by sending them both the same sermon.
2. Shoot your sermon series in one day: Plan out a sermon series and shoot it all in one day. Then you don’t have to keep scheduling a day every week for that to happen. Worried about being seen in the same clothes for the whole series? Wear a robe then. That’s expected. Or bring a change of clothes. Though I will warn you if you do have to go back and shoot something unexpected, it is easier to just have to remember one outfit than 3 or 4. Likewise, do the same things with your musicians. They would probably appreciate having to just have one longer session than keep coming up over and over and over. And again, feel free to mix in old footage. Again if you are worried about the clothes, my guess is you are more concerned about that than most of your people are.
3. Livestreaming? Maybe take a week off: You don’t have to livestream, you know. If you are all getting tired, rerun something. Churches do it on TV all the time. It is not the end of the world.
4. Find out if you have free counseling available: Our conference works through Methodist LeBonheur hospital to provide 6 free therapist visits to clergy each year. Please, for the love of God, find out if you have such an option yourself! Then take advantage of it!
5. Keep up with your peeps: Make time to connect with other clergy. Not just to talk shop, which we all know we will do, but to be human. That means laughing and being goofballs, and also giving each other space to be angry and sad. Get together by Zoom, or even outside in small groups if that is possible. Or call. Or text. Something. Just don’t go it alone!
6. Let Spring spring: I mean, one very surprising side effect in all of this has been the purported healing of the earth. I do not remember a Spring this moderate and overall beautiful in decades. Maybe it is because I didn’t take time to notice. But maybe it is actually different. Go outside. Study after study after study reveals that connection to the outdoors is healing to our souls. Leave the computer screen regularly and go outside.
7. Let yourself crash: I mentioned that my days off have not been the best. They have been days when I wasn’t sure I could get out of bed. My mind whirls with warnings that such things signal depression. Well, guess what? I am depressed! I am just going to own that. I am going to stay attentive to the fact that I don’t need to slide down the slippery slope to the point of incapacity, but that I do not have to be some superhuman either. Crash is inevitable right now. For all of us. Let it happen when it needs to happen.
8. Take stock of what you actually have accomplished: Writing this blog, I have realized that I have moved some pretty big mountains in the last 3 months. No wonder I am tired. You have moved mountains too. The world has taken a tectonic shift, the church maybe more than any other entity on the planet, and we did that. We did that in record time. And as I sit here, knowing how far behind I am, I also realize that I have let nothing critical drop. I am still letting nothing critical drop. Yes, I am behind, but so is everyone else. So how about we take a chill pill for a minute here and celebrate what amazing work we have all done here.
9. Take the last 2 weeks off: Just do it. Either film in advance, or teach your people how to start the livestream, or do 2 weeks of pulpit swaps. Something. If things fall apart, then 2 things potentially happen: your congregation realizes all you were doing for them that they didn’t even know, and/or they will be really happy to see the new person coming. Either one of those is a fine result. Shake the dust off your feet and give yourself the space. The globe will not stop spinning if you don’t work to the very end date of your appointment. In fact, to give your next appointment the best shot it has, you may need to do exactly that.
I would also tell you to make sure you are making time for God, but in the first place, you know that, and in the second place, people telling me to do that hacks me off more right now than people telling me to take care of myself, so I will spare you the condescension. I spare you, even as I acknowledge that also if you are like me, that is suffering deeply right now as well. Perhaps my next blog should be on that. But not today. There is enough to worry about today.
You are in my prayers, my friends. At the forefront of all my prayers…
P.S. Also, apparently looking at cute pictures of puppies and kittens also makes us happier and heals us. Not wanting to pick between cats or dogs, I connected both to this blog. May they bring you peace and at least a little smile.
Photo by Sophia Kunkel on Unsplash
Photo by Maxim Drobkov on Unsplash
Photo by Roby Allario on Unsplash
Photo by Anna Dudkova on Unsplash
