Tradition, Tradition!

People are always talking about traditions at Christmas time.  I had dinner tonight with a family whose tradition is fondue on Christmas Eve.  They asked me if I had any family traditions for Christmas.

We always had pickled herring on Christmas.

Pickled herring is pretty much the only seafood product that I don't like.  At all.  I will eat almost anything that comes out of water.  I cannot stand pickled herring.  Seriously, pickled fish?

We had a lot of transition in my family, and thus, not much tradition.  It equipped me well for ministry, which is change, change, change.  Not so much for the congregation (if you want to keep your job), but for the minister.  We move.  We adapt to the traditions of our congregations.  If we don't, we cause trouble.  I've actually come to appreciate tradition, although I don't really get it.  The stabilizing force in a community is tradition.  The things we share, over and over.  I'm very good with change, but not so good with continuity.  It's taken me eight years to realize that most people's faith journeys are built around the things they do every season, every year, every week.  I don't have that.  I have change, and pickled herring.

My family is 1,500 miles away, and this is the tradition they have gotten used to: I won't be there.  They will work out their plans with my brother and sister who are married and now have other traditions to be part of, and they will all know that I am not part of those negotiations.  If I'm good, as I finally was this year, I'll manage to send boxes of gifts that contain the hope that my nieces and nephews will remember who I am, that I can somehow be a part of their lives even though they see me once or twice a year.  I don't think it's working.

I don't want to move back there, and I can't - I've made a name for myself as a troublemaker, a liberal.  I've made myself an east-coaster through and through.  Where I grew up, I would be abrupt, aloof, rude. I'm the outsider, now.  And I've started to put down roots where I am.  When one of my kids fainted in the Christmas Eve service tonight, I thought, "This will be the thing I remind her of when she's a senior and moving on."  I'm having a hard time imagining leaving, and that is the hardest thing of all, seeing myself as someone who might stay.  I have a life here in a way that I haven't before, anywhere, and that in itself is scary, because what do I do when I have to leave?  And even scarier, what do I do if I stay?

One of the many things that is hard about it is realizing that I might never be at another Christmas gathering where there is pickled herring, where it is the people who have known me my whole life, where they will put out crazy fish products because we're Scandinavian but know that I won't have anything to do with it.  I haven't been there for twelve years.  Chances are, I'll never be there again.  I am, through and through, a minister.  Even if I could be away for Christmas, I wouldn't.  I've spent the last three years with a friend's family; this year I wasn't invited.  It reminded me that I am still a guest.  That's not my family.  If I flew home tomorrow I could still show up, unannounced, for my own family's pickled herring day.  Here, in the life that I could very well have for the rest of my life, I will have to be invited.  There is always that chance that I may have nowhere to go.

It's Christmas, and more than any other day of the year, I don't know who I am or where I belong.  Home is my apartment, my dog, my roommate, the life I've created for myself.  But I come home on Christmas Eve and I wonder, why is there no pickled herring here?  Or something else I come back to on a holiday, something I can call my own, something I don't have to be invited to?  Where is the thing that will hold me together?  What is my tradition?  

  

Annual Celebration of Exhaustion and Inadequacy

Sometimes I wonder why we continually subject ourselves to modes of celebration that seem specially engineered to make us feel bad.  Christmas is the prime example of this.

We spend hours/days/weeks shopping for the perfect gifts, so that we can worry about whether they're good enough (probably), whether they capture exactly what we're trying to express (no, it's just an object, you might have to actually say what you feel), whether we've spent equally on everyone so that no one feels bad (yes, but someone will still feel bad), whether it will arrive on time (probably not, as the postal service seems surprised every year by the amount of stuff that people want shipped), and whether we will ever be able to pay off our credit card bills (no, that's the whole point of credit card companies).

We create "traditions," which I have come to know alternately as "excuses to get mad when people don't do what I want."  So instead of being happy about the celebrations we do get to have, we get to be angry because so-and-so has to work instead of coming to the family dinner, or Rev. Changeverything has picked the wrong carols for the Christmas Eve service, or the new sister-in-law is making roast beef!  When everyone knows you're supposed to have ham!

Or, if we are me, "we" get to be a little depressed because somewhere, many miles away, there are family traditions happening without us, and all around us there are other people's happy gatherings happening, and every five minutes we are reminded of the fabulous gift someone else is getting, while we know that what we will be getting is a pound of Caribou coffee (which we love and look forward to for months, don't get us wrong) and some sort of decorative item from the parents, and that's about it.  (Okay, I'll stop speaking in the royal we now.)  And it's not really about the gift-getting.  The fact is that no matter how much I hate all those diamond commercials, because diamonds are socially irresponsible and absurdly expensive and have no actual bearing on the quality of love between two people, they still remind me that there is no one in the world who loves me enough to even consider such a gift.  That I will come home after working a bazillion hours on Christmas Eve to just my dog, and spend Christmas Day semi-awkwardly attending someone else's family festivities.  For about a month, several times a day, I get the supreme joy of remembering that, despite the fact that I do have a lot of friends and a pretty active social life, there just aren't that many people who care all that much about me.  

And if the self-pity gets to be too much, I remember the clergy who have spouses/kids/closer families and how their holiday is so often spent juggling church and family gatherings, feeling guilty about sacrificing family time for work or vice versa, and not really getting that reprieve that I get when all the services are done and I can just sleep and not worry about being "on" for anyone else.  And the other people in the world who don't just feel a sense of aloneness, as I do, but genuinely are without family, friends, or a faith community (all of which I have and am grateful for, when I can get over myself).

Its all just a lot of pressure for a holiday that got its start in a stable.

I wish I could be a like more Jesusy about the whole thing, a little less self-absorbed, a lot less sad.  I'll get there around Christmas Eve.  And there's something very Advent about feeling the darker side of the holidays, something very "in sin and error pining" about experiencing some sense of loss and lacking before the celebration of hope and joy.  At least that is what I'm telling myself.       

Advent Schmadvent

Like a lot of clergy I know, I'm quite attached to Advent - as in, observing Advent before we celebrate Christmas.  Like a lot of churches I know, my congregation is not so much into Advent.  They want to sing Christmas carols in, like, July or something.  I've been fighting the good fight on this one for quite some time, through a college chaplaincy and three congregations, and I've gotta say, I'm about ready to throw up my hands and just let them sing "Jingle Bells" every Sunday from November on.  I'm tired.  It's exhausting trying to convince people that delayed gratification is a good thing, that a time of contemplative waiting is in order before we pull out all the bells and whistles, that we really are still a people in waiting for God, that the assumed happiness of the holidays is difficult for many people, that sometimes we need a little quiet in the midst of all the cultural pressure to be jolly.

I don't want to explain these things anymore.  I don't want to spend Advent fighting over every little thing.  And it seems that in order to do that, I may just have to step back and say, "Fine, rush right into presents and parties and jumping for joy, and forget all about the reason it all happened in the first place."

Yes, I am feeling cynical and annoyed today, why do you ask?  I have something more constructive brewing in my mind about Christmas traditions, but it'll have to wait until I can stop rolling my eyes.

War on Christmas

So apparently there is a War On Christmas happening.  Have you heard?  The poor, beleaguered Christians are being subjected to such violent acts as - drumroll, please - having store clerks wish them "Happy Holidays."  Children in school may be forced to endure generalized seasonal festivities instead of being taught about the birth of Jesus by public school teachers who may or may not know or believe anything about that event.  How very appalling.

'Tis the season to be cranky and demanding, it seems.  I can't turn around or log onto Facebook without someone complaining about "taking the Christ out of Christmas."  Since I'm a minister, a professional Christian if you will, I wonder to myself, "Is this something I should be upset about?"

So, I go to the Rite-Aid, where the woman at the register cheerfully wishes me happy holidays, and this feels to me like a pleasantry, not an attack on my faith.  At the same Rite-Aid, I can buy a button that says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season," a nativity scene, and ornaments with angels, Jesus, and Mary on them.  "Joy to the World" and "O Come, All Ye Faithful" are piped over the speakers.  If I were a celebrator of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, I'd be out of luck in the music and product departments.  My visit to the store doesn't make me feel persecuted for my faith; if anything, it makes me feel unnecessarily privileged.

The kids in my youth group have holiday parties instead of Christmas parties at school, it's true.  They also have their major school breaks structured around their religious holidays, so they never have to worry about how to manipulate their schedules to allow for both school and religious observances.  And they learn about their faith from their parents and the church people who have taken baptismal vows to them, people who know and care about Christian faith, not from teachers whose training and jobs are to instruct kids in academic subject matter.  In return, I don't have to teach them about math, for which everyone is grateful.

This country that is supposedly waging a war on Christmas is also a country where a presidential campaign is peppered with discussion of whether a Mormon is Christian enough to be electable.  The last election involved accusations that Obama was a secret Muslim.  We've had some Unitarian, deist, and non-affiliated presidents, but it's been quite some time (80 years or so, if my brief Google search is correct).  Now the assumption is that only a Christian would be electable as president, even though the we have no law regulating the religious beliefs of any elected official.

All of this is to say, we're not exactly being persecuted.  Despite separation of church and state, despite declining church attendance, Christianity is still the cultural norm.

Which leads me to the thing that really bugs me about all this "war on Christmas" business.  Christians complaining about being persecuted.  Not because they're being imprisoned or killed for their beliefs, but because a store dares to ask its employees to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone passing through their lines will be Christian.  Because the government protects kids from having religion - any religion - forced upon them in what is supposed to be an environment where all kids are welcome.  Methinks the definition of persecution may be a bit skewed here.  And really, you're going to whine about corporations and government agencies persecuting you because of your Christian faith?  Have you ever read the gospels?  Remember that Jesus guy?  It seems to me that we shouldn't be surprised not to have everyone go merrily along with our beliefs, since we follow someone who was killed for his.  Just a thought.      



 

Ministers and Movie Stars

Yesterday at the salon I saw an article about Leonardo DiCaprio being mistaken for a thief in a jewelry store because he was bundled up in a sweatshirt and hat, trying not to be recognized.  Apparently it worked, until the police showed up.

Sometimes I roll my eyes at famous people going all crazy to avoid notice.  Those millions of dollars you make: they come because you are recognizable.  Being unrecognizable is ostensibly not a good thing if you're an actor or a musician.

Yesterday, however, I did not roll my eyes.  Instead, I nodded in sympathy at this poor guy who was just trying to buy a gift for his mom and had to dress like a potential robber to avoid being chased down by fans and paparazzi.

I don't have fans, and no one is trying to take my picture.  However, I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon of being recognized when you don't want to be.  For example, last week I got off of a plane after a few days of intense meetings.  I was starving, so I went to my home base bar to grab something to eat.  It was 10pm on a Saturday night.  I looked like absolute hell, hunched over my food after hours of travel.  So, of course this seemed like a good time for someone to talk to me about church business.

From her perspective, it makes complete sense: she needs to talk to me, I'm there, what else is there to it? Meanwhile, I am scrambling to find my work brain and not say something completely idiotic.

Fun clergy fact: The likelihood that you will run into a parishioner is directly proportional to how exhausted, frustrated, sloppily dressed, occupied with things other than church, or otherwise unclergylike you are at a given moment.  Ministers cannot just run to the grocery store or stop into the pharmacy or go out to dinner like normal people.  Perhaps we need to pile on hats and hooded sweatshirts and go incognito.  Then again, it didn't work so well for Leo.

The War of the Blogs

I occasionally write for a blog that my denomination hosts.  Usually I limit myself to writing during our annual assembly unless something big is happening, but every once in a while I get a yen to write about something denomination-specific.  This happened just last week, after I had attending the meetings of our executive committee and commissions.  I'm the moderator of the Commission for Women, which means that I spent three days talking about all the injustices women face in our in-progress denomination, which affirms women's ordination in general but provides an "out" for those who aren't down with the equality thing.

I've been living with the consequences of that "out" since I joined this denomination in 1999 and was rapidly disabused of my initial delusion that this would be a happy, accepting place for women (I was fleeing from a reactionary fundagelical experience at the time).  As a member of the Commission for Women, it's been part of my task to hear the worst of the stories of what women have experienced.  Hearing all that crap so consistently can sometimes make one maybe the slightest bit bitter.  So, I did what I do: I blogged about it.

And then the firestorm began.

There are now around seventy comments on that post.  Many of them are from anonymous authors.  In fact, I think only one of my detractors identified himself.  All the usual accusations are there.  I'm angry, I hate men, I'm not to be trusted anyway as I'm a supporter of the evil gays, blah blah blah.  There are lots of threats that they will leave the denomination if they're not allowed to be nasty to women candidates and ministers, which is apparently supposed to bother me.  I'm not sure why the exodus of a bunch of people who harass me and threaten my ordination would bring me a tremendous sense of loss, but whatever.

I'm more or less used to this sort of thing, although it's been a bit more concentrated this week than most.  But I'm starting to think it's just the warm-up.  My church just voted to allow same-sex marriages, and our regional assembly will be discussing it tonight.  A minister who was disciplined a few years ago for performing a marriage has just been reinstated, so tensions will already be high.  On Saturday, I found lists of biblical quotations about sexual immorality posted on the church doors, which I'm guessing may be some sort of commentary (again, anonymous) about our recent decisions.  I suspect we are in for a rocky ride in the months to come.  Because what we need is people verbally beating each other up again for a while, that being such an effective way for the church to function.  I can't help but think that the powers of evil are chuckling with glee while we distract ourselves by ripping each other apart while the injustices of the world run rampant all around us.  

Rev. Fatty Fat Fattikins and the Vicious Parishioner

My church is currently running a stewardship campaign, which we are actually treating more like a relationship campaign.  Members are calling other members and talking about church.  What's going wrong, what's going right, what could be better, how might you get more involved, etc.  Sounds like a good idea, right?

A woman came into the office this week to tell the senior minister that she didn't want to do this calling thing anymore.  The feedback she had heard on her first call was nothing like she was expecting, and she didn't want to deal with that sort of conversation anymore.  What was this troubling feedback, you ask - this complaint so crucial to the life of the church?

I'm too fat.

Yes, the secret is out.  My tremendous breadth no longer fits in the pulpit.  I'm far too ginormous to climb into the driver's seat of the church van and take work groups to flooded areas.  In fact, I can no longer find clerical robes made in my size.  And after I broke my office chair, they had to buy me one of those circus balls that elephants balance on.  

Seriously?

So there is the plain old sheer meanness of this comment, of course.  Fortunately, my self esteem is fairly high and was only slightly shaken by this useful piece of information.  It was a little worse than it might normally have been because I had spent the week with my family and was a bit emotionally raw.  My first inclination was to get defensive, but there is no one to get defensive to.  I don't know who this person is, and the bearer of bad news certainly doesn't deserve the diatribe that is in my head about genetics, health, enjoyment of life, and the unrealistic societal expectations placed on women.  So, occasionally I think about this episode and allow myself a moment of irritation at people's often thoughtless and sometimes vicious behavior.  

I swear, I will never understand the degree to which some people believe that they own the appearance (and by extension the body) of their minister.  I'm fairly certain this happens more to female clergy than it does to male.  I am constantly fending off comments about my hair, skin, clothes, shoes, nail polish color, tattoos...if you can see it, people feel free to express an opinion about it.  Sometimes it's caring and well-intentioned, sometimes not so much.  But it's nearly always annoying.

More importantly, there is the fact that I now know there is someone in the congregation who is not thinking about whether we are loving people, or pointing people toward God, or working toward peace and justice.  I know that when I talk about these things, she's worrying about whether my fat ass will break the preacher's bench, or worse yet, that I won't look good enough to represent the congregation.  And that, my friends, really chaps my hide.  Excuse me, my fat hide.