Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer. –Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Opening Credits

The author’s desk, with companions Buffy and Jesus

The author’s desk, with companions Buffy and Jesus

At first glance, the life of a the Slayer is pretty different from the life of a young clergy woman. The Slayer is in high school, for one thing, while we have graduate degrees. She fights vampires and demons, we lead Bible studies, write sermons, visit shut-ins and attend committee meetings. And while the cross is central to Buffy’s life and to ours, the cross she wears on a silver chain around her neck serves purely as a talisman; it has nothing to do with Jesus, and everything to do with its function as a weapon against vampires and their ilk.

There’s something about Buffy and her –verse, though, that rings true to this calling as a young clergy woman. There’s some reason (beyond simple escapism) that I keep coming back to this story and these characters. When I feel helpless and ineffectual, overwhelmed and heartbroken by the needs I can’t meet and the problems I can’t solve, I find strength and comfort in Buffy. When I am frustrated and enervated by lengthy meetings that have accomplished nothing in particular, when I am filled with despair that the institution through which I intend to serve God is becoming increasingly irrelevant and out of touch, I find inspiration in Buffy. When I feel the loneliness of holding in confidence the heavy burdens others have shared with me, when I can speak to no one of the holy moments that have left me teary and trembling, I find companionship in Buffy.

Buffy taught me about what it means to have a calling. In the opening episodes of the series, we see Buffy resisting her call. The television series begins with Buffy relocating to a new town and starting a new school, hoping to turn over a new leaf and escape the supernatural happenings that plagued her previous life. As soon as she enters the school library, she is greeted with a dusty volume of demon lore and a new Watcher (mentor) eager to hone her evil-fighting skills. Like the reluctant prophet Jonah, Buffy longs to escape an inescapable call. Her Slayer identity can’t be escaped; she cannot remove it, flee from it, or ignore it. Like many young clergy women, she wishes she could choose an easier and more normal life. Like many of us, she finds that her calling has chosen her, but that she can choose how best to live into that calling.

As Buffy embraces her identity as the Slayer, we see that a calling by itself is powerful, but not always sufficient. As the Slayer, Buffy has natural gifts and abilities, but she becomes more capable as she hones her skills through study, training, practice, and mentorship. So it is with a calling to ministry: we hear the call, we find in ourselves the natural gifts that will help us to serve the church, but that isn’t the end. We have to steward those gifts carefully, building them up through ongoing education and collegial relationships, nurturing them through prayer and self-reflection.

As Buffy grows into her calling, it changes her in ways we young clergy women might recognize. We see how saving the world every week builds her confidence. We see how constantly confronting evil, death, and pain burdens her with more than her share of sorrow. We see her growing hubris as she discovers the power and the responsibility of her calling as “one girl in all the world” who can do what she can do.

But she can’t do it alone, despite what she might sometimes think. For all its rhetoric about “only one Slayer,” it is telling that Buffy is an ensemble show. Buffy’s calling is unique, certainly, but she needs all kinds of support in her work as the Slayer. She turns to her friends and mentors for research and logistical support, for encouragement and advice, for comfort and for laughter, and to check her ego. Her calling is unique, but that doesn’t mean she’s called to be a “lone wolf.” She—like of all of us—needs a community in order to do her work well and faithfully.

I first encountered Buffy as I was discerning my call to ministry and preparing to apply to seminary. I count it as God’s grace that this story found me at that moment, offering images of another young woman finding her way on an unusual path. As Buffy resisted and accepted her call, grew into her role, learned to be both Slayer and daughter, sister, friend, she modeled for me how I might start to live into the call I felt in my own life. She, too, walked a path that the world thought was not appropriate for a young woman, and she walked it for some of the reasons that I did, and with some of the same wonder and trepidation. We have our differences, of course: Buffy’s job is to save the world; I believe that the world has been saved, and not by me. But ever since those early days of discernment, Buffy has been one of my companions on this sometimes-lonely road. This story has continued to nourish me, to teach me about vocation, about sin and evil, about repentance and reconciliation, about grief, and so much more.

The first time I watched the series ending, I was less than impressed. [SPOILER-ISH WARNING] In that final episode, Buffy finds a way to share her power, to stop being “one girl in all the world,” and to instead become one Slayer among a great multitude of Slayers. I was initially disappointed at Buffy’s loss of uniqueness. Her calling seemed somehow diminished because it was no longer hers alone. But as I’ve grown into my vocation, refining my own understanding of what it means to be an ordained minister, my perspective has shifted. Now, when I watch that last episode, I see echoes of the verse that has become my own mission statement as a pastor:

“Equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” -Ephesians 4:12-13

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Kinda looks like Santa, no?

It’s the time of year again, when we try to figure out what to do with Santa around here. And this year, I’ve reached some new clarity on the issue, with the help of Zora’s continually astute questions and a little assist from my dear John Calvin.

To review, we never really told Zora about Santa. She caught on when she got to preschool. Now in her third year of formal schooling, she asks if Santa is real. My stock answer is, “Well, what do you think?” (Good, huh? Feel free to steal that line. It’s definitely one of my finer parenting techniques.) I’m with my good friend Martha on this (well, truth be told I’m not quite as freaked out by the whole thing as she is, but I like her thoughts about gratitude.)

Around here, we do stockings. We also do shoes on the eve of St. Nicholas and give the kids one early toy (instead of a bunch of candy or crap they don’t need). We read the Demi book, The Legend of St. Nicholas. I recommended it to my friend John a couple years ago. And while he enjoyed it, he did point out that the stories about Nicholas from ancient Christian tradition are much much stranger and freakier than the creepy old guy who invades your house by chimney.

There are things, though, that bug me about the Santa tradition that I haven’t always been able to articulate.

But Zora, perceptive little being, helped me identify my  biggest issue with Santa this week. We were walking home from school and she was describing the class “trip” to Holland that day. (Her class is “travelling” to different countries to learn about holiday traditions this week.) Now, I don’t know exactly what was said in class, but, while there was no direct discussion of Zwarte Piet (aka Black Peter), there seems to have been some kid who brought up some version of the idea that someone travels with Sinterklaas and punishes the bad kids (curiously, it was also a different version than David Sedaris’s treatment of the subject in his hilarious description of Dutch holiday tradition).

So this gets Zora into discussing “the naughty list”.

And it hits me. I hate the naughty list. First off, it’s an empty threat. I mean what modern, with-it parent is going to actually act on the naughty list threat? This is basic parenting, folks. Don’t propose a consequence you have no intention of following through on.

But, I don’t believe in the naughty list.

Now, don’t get me wrong here: I don’t think kids should have “Santa” as their main model for how God is. But, at its best, the Santa tradition does embody something of the truth about God. Demi puts it well:

Throughout the world today, whether he goes by the name of St. Nicholas, Sinter Klaas, or Santa Claus, this figure who shows enormous generosity, a love of children, deep care for the poor and needy, and a completely selfless nature is considered to embody the spirit of Christmas and the true spirit of the Lord.

And I don’t completely agree with the argument that a kid whose parents lie about Santa will make the leap to an idea that the parents are lying about Jesus.

But, I do think that we get some of our image of what a benevolent higher power is like from the cultural version of Santa.

And I would prefer not to have a God who keeps a naughty list. We’re accountable, of course, for the awful stuff we do. But the naughty list comes without a hint of grace.

We don’t get gifts (or “graces”) because we’re good. We get gifts because we are loved.

These thoughts all coalesce in my brain in about a half block of walking. I have 2 blocks left before we get home. And I have to figure out how to explain it to Zora.

So, here’s what I say:

Me: “You know, Z, I don’t like the naughty list. I think that’s just something parents tell their kids to try to get them to be good.”

Zora: “So, is Santa real?”

Me: “What do you think?”

Zora: distracted by water in the gutter…water is a novelty here in California

Me: “And, here’s the thing: I think you should be good not to get on a list, or because you’ll get presents. You should do good things because you’re glad that there are people who love you.”

And that, friends, is Calvin’s Third Use of the Law (*see brief theological explanation below), right there, boiled down to first grade level (yes, it is more complicated than first grade level, but we have to start somewhere).

God doesn’t keep a naughty list that determines whether or not you are graced (gifted) with the presence of Jesus. God just loves you.

And being good isn’t about getting on the right list: you’re already on. You’re good because God loves you, and you’re thankful.

And that’s my biggest gripe about Santa. The naughty list. I can keep hedging a little on whether Santa is real or not, mostly for the sake of Zora’s classmates, because she doesn’t need to disillusion them quite yet. But there’s no way I’ll be propagating the myth of the naughty list. I just like the idea of grace way too much.

* Here’s an oversimplified tutorial just to get you up to speed theologically:

John Calvin, sixteenth century theologian who is one of my intellectual ancestors, had a way of thinking about the purpose of “the Law” (i.e. the stuff the Bible says we should or should not do) that has come to be called “Calvin’s Third Use of the Law”. Luther (who came before Calvin) said that the Law’s function was mainly two things: to remind us that we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing; and to keep us from doing even worse. Calvin added an additional use: it’s a guide for living thankfully because of what God has done for us. Different Protestant traditions used to fight about this a whole lot, but in my household (Presbyterian pastor married to a guy who was raised Lutheran; family currently attending the Lutheran church down the block) we mostly joke around about it. Because we are nerds about theology.

 

It really is a shock that there aren’t more TV shows about clergy. Doctors, lawyers, police, firefighters, college students…honestly, they have nothing on the wonderful strangeness of our careers. In what other profession can one day encompass breakfast with a group of teenagers, an office crisis situation around the location of a set of church keys, a bittersweet visit with a dying 97 year old, a session of coloring with the 2 preschoolers whose parents are late to pick them up, adjudicating an argument between two people over carpet color in the fellowship hall, and maybe, if you’re really blessed, 15 minutes of prayer?  And that’s just the day at work…add in family or a social life, and you’ve got several seasons of wonderful material!

Clergy people are always on the lookout for portrayals of our profession, partly to be reminded the world knows we exist, partly to see ourselves, and, usually, for the fun of critiquing the accuracy of the portrayal. Sometimes, we cringe and hope our church people don’t watch these shows and get the wrong idea. Sometimes we wish we could force them to watch so they would understand what we really do. And sometimes, we aspire to be like the clergy we see on TV, even if we know it’s impossible to hope for.

Here, from a recent online conversation about TV shows between young clergy women, are some broad categories of TV shows that attempt (or, don’t even attempt!) to portray clergy. Happy watching!

Shows Where Clergy Are Conspicuously Absent

Several hospital shows seem completely oblivious to the existence of chaplains. ER didn’t have a chaplain character until the bitter end. And several of us note that Grey’s Anatomy often leaves us wondering why someone doesn’t call the chaplain.

Six Feet Under, though, is particularly at fault. Clergy spend a lot of time in funeral homes. They barely play a role in that show (except for a brief appearance by a young, female Rabbi).

Shows That Don’t Quite Get It (Or Maybe Get It a Little Too Much)

The classic TV show about clergy that completely misses most realities of church life is Seventh Heaven.  Among other errors, I can confirm, as a the daughter of a pastor myself, that working as your Dad’s associate pastor is about the unlikeliest thing (unless we’re talking about a mega church).

The Book of Daniel didn’t make it through one season, and was controversial for all risky moral issues and twisty relationships it portrayed. Maybe it was exactly what people don’t want to believe about clergy. And sometimes, satire is so funny that it’s true.

Many of us knew a guy in seminary who was just a little bit too much like the Rev. Casey Peerson, Mindy’s love interest on The Mindy Project.

And on those days when you just need to laugh? Father Ted  is pure humor. Inappropriate, and nearly always the complete opposite of any clergyperson you’d hope to encounter, but exactly what’s needed when you need something ridiculous after a long Sunday.

True to Life Pastoring

Two recent series from the UK do an incredible job of portraying ministry. Both are so real that I know of people who have stopped watching because it cuts too close to real life. Rev. was two brilliant seasons portraying the life of the priest at a struggling urban church, the Rev. Adam Smallbone. It is honest, funny, sad, and human. If you’ve been a pastoring for awhile, you know that even the scenes that might seem bizarre could probably happen. And Adam is by no means perfect, but he’s a good guy.

Call the Midwife was tender in its portrayal of a clergyman as he courted one of the young midwives. But the real honesty about ministry in the show comes from the wisdom of the older nuns and the hands-on ministry that the nuns and the young midwives do with mothers and families in their neighborhood. I wonder, as well, if it resonates with clergy because it portrays a group of people residing together and then going out to do ministry: when we are off on our own, scattered about in parishes, we often miss the camaraderie of seminary.

Clergy We Aspire to Be

It’s only one episode of The West Wing, but when President Jed Bartlett brings in his former priest to help him reason through the ethics of a decision, it provides a glimpse into some of the hardest and yet most rewarding moments of ministry: helping people work through God’s call on their lives. And this priest does an incredible job of it.

Firefly gives a futuristic possibility for clergy (giving us hope that we will continue to have calls in the future, perhaps to steam-punk-esque space ships!). The character Shepherd Book is a good person, but with a hint of mystery to make it interesting.

But, for most clergy women, there is no TV clergyperson we would rather be than the Rev. Geraldine Grainger on The Vicar of Dibley. She is funny, and smart, and pastoral. And she is confident in her role as pastor, through success and failure.

There’s Hope for Romance

This category is especially dear to many young clergywomen, and not just single ones. Shows that portray clergypeople as desirable partners are a reminder that we are very real, looking for companions just like everyone else. The sweet romance between a priest and a midwife in Call the Midwife isn’t that contemporary, but it’s adorable. The Mindy Project portrays a much more contemporary Rev. Love-Interest, imperfect a pastor as he may be.

But then there are the shows that have clergywomen as the object of someone’s affections. Lucinda, in The Goodwin Games; the chaplain Julia, in ER (who is pursued by John Stamos!); and, of course, The Vicar of Dibley, who marries Harry (in spite of her parish’s predictable accidental attempts to derail the wedding).

 

“Blessed are the crazy for we shall receive mercy.” – Sarah Griffith Lund

Blessed Are The CrazyIf you have ever struggled with mental illness or loved someone who has, then you know that we have a cultural problem. There are many misperceptions; high-profile, violent events have become the face of mental illness. Yet most people with mental illness are not dangerous. People don’t want to be labeled; we want to be seen as “normal.” In our world, so many people are affected by mental illness but don’t have the tools and language to talk about it. Sarah Griffith Lund has written Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family & Church, a book that will transform our perceptions and give us tools to deal with the reality of mental illness in our lives. She even proposes that mental illness is a gift.

This book is poignant, relevant, and profound. It responds to the stigma of what Sarah rightly calls “brain disease.” Sarah is a young clergy woman who is also trained in social work, and she has a very personal, beautiful testimony about mental illness. She provides genuine theological reflection about how individuals and communities can respond to mental illness in healthy ways. This spiritual journey teaches the reader true redemption and reconciliation from one who is deeply affected by mental illness.

Sarah offers several stories about mental illness that draw the reader into her personal experience. She shares about her childhood with her father who lived with bipolar disorder and how his brain disease significantly impacted the dynamic of her family. She continues her testimony with her oldest brother’s bipolar disorder and what she discovered through loving him and caring for him. Sarah then describes what it was like for her to offer spiritual guidance to her cousin who was convicted of murder, lived on death row, and was eventually executed. She reflects upon her own spiritual journey – from faith formation in her family, to atheist, to evangelical, to progressive Christian. She examines the life of Jesus as God entering a painful world and offering healing and forgiveness for all ailments. Sarah challenges the reader to think about how God is working through those who suffer from mental illness; she infers that we can learn and grow from greater understanding. The conclusion of Sarah’s testimony integrates her personal experience with practical ways that the church can bring hope to individuals, families, and communities overwhelmed with mental illness.

As I read Sarah’s book, I couldn’t put it down. Her words are comfort to me in my personal and public life. As a pastor to some who live with brain diseases, and as a woman who has struggled with her own depression and anxiety, Sarah provides a courageous testimony that frees me and others to be honest about our own “crazy in the blood.” What I love about Sarah’s book most is how bravely she writes about the complexity of her journey, and her experience of God in the midst of human brokenness. She truly has an insightful spiritual walk that can teach us all.

Blessed Are the Crazy is a valuable tool for pastors, lay people in the church, and unchurched people. I would be eager to use this book, with the study questions provided on Sarah’s website, with an adult book study group. I also plan to have extra copies of this book on my shelves for those times when people who live with mental illness walk into my office looking for comfort or hope. Sarah’s eager authenticity gives us hope that we are not alone nor do we have to feel alone. This book, Blessed Are the Crazy, can and will change the ways that we talk about mental illness.

BeachReadPastors, by nature of their calling, are word-lovers. We are story-tellers, readers, and writers. We spend time with our noses buried books, but it’s a great mistake to think that we only read the Bible or books about church and religion.

Fidelia’s Sisters asked the current members of the Young Clergy Woman Project’s board what they’ve been reading this summer. There’s got to be something in this list that will fit your needs for the last few weeks of August, whether you need to study up on church leadership before the fall program year kicks in, or are blessed with the need for one more beach read.

Caroline East Berardi: I’ve been re-reading the Ender Wiggin series, which holds a special place in my heart. I’ve also  just finished the book Crazy, by Pete Earley, his family’s experience of the criminalizing of the mentally ill.

Diana Carroll: I’m reading the first book from our Chalice Press imprint: Bless Her Heart, by Ashley-Anne Masters and Stacy Smith. It’s been out since 2011, but I hadn’t picked up a copy until this year’s conference. I highly recommend it for any young clergy woman (and anyone trying to understand us and our lives better). The stories and reflections are a powerful reminder that we are not alone. It would make a great ordination gift, too!

Christine Davies:  I’m reading The Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison. The author served as a medical actor and wrote about those experiences and how they crossed with her own medical issues. It’s a take on how we demonstrate and experience empathy, which, as a CPE nut, I’m always interested in learning about.

Kelsey Grissom: I’m reading Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier, about an ancient languages professor uprooting his settled life to track down a long-dead author. The jury’s still out on this one.

Jessica Harren: I’m in the middle of When Not to Build: An Architect’s Unconventional Wisdom for the Growing Church, by Ray Bowman, Eddy Hall, and Charles Arn.  This book has been very helpful in preventing my church from taking out too much debt, but using our space well.

Molly Field James:  I just finished Crazy Christians, a collection of sermons by Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry. He is a dynamic preacher (more Baptist than Episcopalian in style) whose style comes through even in the written text. It is inspiring to read the sermons of someone whose style is so different than mine and who is excited about the future of the church.

Meg Jenista: I just finished Slow Church, by Christopher Smith and John Pattison, which riffs off the Slow Food movement to present an alternative to the Church Industrial Complex. Slow Churches are aware of their location, organically cultivated, hospitable, patient and spend *a lot* of time gathered at table, sharing life and food together.

Julie Jensen: I loved my college literature class called Americans in Paris in the 1920s. It was all about Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, and the artists who were in France with them. I am currently reading The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain, a fictionalized account of the experiences of Hadley Hemingway, and I’m really enjoying it.

Brenda Lovick: I’m (still) reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, which is really good. I’m pretty sure it’s a Zondervan book, and is a similar genre to Rachel Held Evans and Sarah Bessey.

Amy Loving: I just finished reading Iscariot, by Tosca Lee. It is a fascinating novel that presents Judas as a complex, passionate character, forcing the reader to re-evaluate the assumptions that so many of us make about this disciple. It would make a great book for any book club or study group.

Sarah Moore: I’m reading Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and The Search For Identity, by Andrew Solomon. He explores how children and parents process the experience of a child being very different from their parents in such a way that it impacts on children and parents having a different horizontal identity to their parents, e.g. children who are Deaf, have Downs Syndrome or Autism. The author is a gay man who puts homosexual identity into this mix, too. The book examines how wider society has a tendency to medicalize these experiences and see them as something to be cured rather than being integral who someone is.

Lesley Ratcliff: I’m reading God’s Long Summer, by Charles Marsh. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the summer of 1964, which was the peak of turmoil in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. We have a book group reading it at church.

Erica Schemper: I had so much fun watching the World Cup and cheering for the Netherlands that I’m reading a book called Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Soccer, by David Winner. I’m not a huge sports fan, and I know next to nothing about soccer, but this book is fascinating. Winner picks apart the Dutch style of play called “Total Football” and explains it in the context of Dutch post-war history, culture, and art. I love peeking into a culture and topic that I know almost nothing about…it’s a like a vacation for my mind!

Kelly Shriver: For fun, I’ve really enjoyed J.K. Rowling’s mystery novels, Cuckoo’s Calling and  The Silkworm, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.  They’ve reminded me how much I enjoy a thoughtful, flawed detective, and a twisty story. With that reminder, I’ve  just reread my all-time favorite, The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin, another excellent mystery. It’s a bit campy, totally doesn’t hold up in a world of modern technology, and wonderful.

prisonMy three-year-old loves me: he aptly timed a few sick days of moping around the house with the Netflix release of Season 2 of Orange is the New Black. While he was settled in to nap or watch cartoons, I moved through the house with my iPad and binged my way through the whole season.

Orange is the New Black follows the prison time of one Piper Chapman (It’s based on the book of the same title by Piper Kerman). At the beginning of the series, she’s living the super-WASPy, affluent dream: educated at the best schools the East Coast has to offer, engaged to a writer, living in a lovely home in New York, planning a business making homemade soaps and lotions with her BFF. And then, she gets busted in the takedown of the drug ring her ex-girlfriend was involved in ten years earlier, and winds up with a 15 month prison sentence.

It’s one of those shows I’m not always sure I can discuss with my parishoners, but I’m convinced its edifying for my ministry, and that its a must-watch for female clergy. Here are five reasons why: Read more

Seamless_Faith_cover_5th_proofThere is a proverb in Spanish: “En la casa del herrero, cuchillo de palo.” It means “In the blacksmith’s house, a wooden knife.”

In English we express the same idea when we say some variation of the proverb “The cobbler’s children are barefoot.”

In Chinese: “The woman who sells fans uses her hands to fan herself.”

In Arabic: “The potter drinks from a broken jug.”

It seems to be a universal idea that those with a particular expertise often neglect to use it in the most important ways.

As a mother and a pastor, I am constantly worried about this. Will I spend so much time caring for other people’s families that I neglect my own? What does it say about my family’s work-life balance when I ask my nearly three year old son where he’s going in his pretend car and he says, smiling, “I’m going to a meeting!”?

As many of my clergywomen sisters know, I recently published a book called Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life. (Chalice Press: TYCWP Series) It’s a lot like a recipe book that gives families easy ways they can incorporate faith practices into their lives. Lesley Ratcliff wrote a lovely review of it in April. Since then I’ve written and spoken a lot to families about how to use it to deepen their spiritual journey together. I’ve talked to ministers about how to empower families in their congregations to incorporate simple faith practices into their daily life.

It’s been a great joy to share the ideas with so many people, but the irony is not lost on me: when I take time to talk about my book or ideas I am, by definition, not spending that time with my family. I wake up at night sweating and wondering: Am I the cobbler? Are my children going to be barefoot? I know I’m not the only clergy mom who worries about this.

So for all of us I offer these four simple thoughts for incorporating faith practices into family life.

  1. You have time – Barna Research group put out a study last year that said 42% of pastors wished they had spent more time with their children[1]. Aside from working to keep to reasonable working hours, I would suggest that the quality of the connection matters as well. It only takes a few minutes to slow down and bless your children before bed. It only takes two minutes to say a prayer or sing a song. I just flipped through the practices in Seamless Faith and 8 out of the 50 can be done in less than 4 minutes. Nearly all can be done in less than an hour. 
  1. It’s an imperfect journey – Tonight I was singing the doxology with my sons. It was a beautiful moment of connection and a glorious experience of faith… right up to the part when my older son, Clayton, started screaming at the top of his lungs “Stooopppp with the church song! I want twiiiiiiiiiinkle!” Trying to practice faith at home is just as difficult any other aspect of family life and there are good days and bad days. We keep trying, we write off some moments as lessons learned and we move on. 
  1. You don’t have to teach or lead everything – One of the fundamental principles of Seamless Faith is that it’s a journey for the whole family. The best way to teach children gratitude is to practice gratitude together as a family. Parents need it just as much as children do. 
  1. You are forgiven. You are free. You are enough. We all know that the answer to the question “Who pastors the pastor?” is “another pastor,” so let me be your pastor for a moment: When you make mistakes in parenting your own children, you are forgiven. In Christ you have been given new life and you are reconciled to God not because of anything you have done, but because of God’s great mercy. You don’t have to do anything. You are enough.

 


[1] https://www.barna.org/barna-update/family-kids/644-prodigal-pastor-kids-fact-or-fiction#.U4VZsZRdWop

baby footI didn’t subscribe to Netflix until the beginning of this year.  When I finally did, I knew what I would be choosing for my first TV-show binge-watch:  the BBC series Call the Midwife.

I had read the first of Jennifer Worth’s memoirs, on which the series is based, at my sister’s house in London in 2011, and as a longtime birth geek (who delivered my own son at home) I was looking forward to seeing the subject of birth tackled with more directness and accuracy than is typical on television.

What I didn’t anticipate was how powerful I would find the show as an expression of faith.  Of course, I knew that the midwifery practice was based out of a convent, and that everything the nun-midwives do is inspired by their vocation of love and service.  But I’m so used to TV and movies depicting religious commitment as, at best trite and sentimental, and at worst as misguided and damaging, that it was hugely refreshing to see the realistic, respectful way in which the sisters’ Anglican faith is portrayed. It is a source of resilience, courage, and deep sympathy with the people they serve, and it is an integral part of the formation of the young nurse-midwives who work with them, and on whom the series focuses.

Without (much) sentimentalizing or preaching, Call the Midwife shows a community of women whose work is the primary focus of their lives, and who understand that work to be a God-given vocation.  It is hard for us today to understand how radical that would have been in the 1950s, and it is a highly unusual thing to see on TV even now.  Near the end of season 1, Jenny matter-of-factly tells Jimmy that her work is most important thing for her right now, which is one of the several reasons she cannot contemplate getting involved with him romantically.  And one of the most moving storylines in the first two seasons is the ongoing evolution of Chummy, from a terminally shy, clumsy, failed debutante to a self-confident and first-class midwife.

The nuns set a powerful example as professional women, whose confidence in their skills and authority comes from an unshakeable conviction that they are doing God’s work.  And the young nurses, regardless of the details of their own faith lives, follow that example and grow in authority and commitment to the people of Poplar.

The Sisters of St. Raymond Nonnatus (based on the real-life nuns of the Community of St. John the Divine) are exposed to every aspect of human life on a daily basis – the heroism of slum women, the suffering of those brought up in workhouses, the back-breaking labor of the dock workers; destitution, filth, vermin, disease, disability, teen pregnancy, racism, abortion, incest, prostitution, madness; as well as the affection of families, the joy and laughter of children, and the thousand and one everyday acts of love and self-sacrifice that constitute life in the slums.  This has given them a broad perspective and sympathy that means that they are the opposite of puritanical or judgmental.  In fact, Sister Julienne often shocks Jenny by her matter-of-fact acceptance of realities that Jenny’s middle-class upbringing has left her totally unprepared for.  The sisters emulate Christ in their acceptance and tolerance of every kind of human foible, preaching the gospel by example, rather than browbeating their patients into accepting their version of morality.

The centrality of faith in the series is symbolized by the fact that in almost every episode, the nuns are shown at prayer in the chapel, their ethereal singing led by the soprano voice of actress Laura Main, who plays Sister Bernadette.  The unalterable routine of the Daily Office provides a reliable glimpse of the sacred in the midst of the backbreaking, draining work of midwifery and nursing, and the young midwives are often shown sitting quietly in the chapel chairs, meditating or weeping over the latest crisis in their lives or those of their patients, and finding solace in the peaceful beauty of Anglican liturgy.

Of course, the series isn’t perfect.  I do find myself wishing sometimes for a bit more energetic and articulate wrestling with the intersection of faith and life, rather than the generally brief and trite sound bites of a TV script.  In season 2, episode 4, when the Roberts baby is born with spina bifida and the mother wonders aloud whether God is judging her for something, there is a huge missed opportunity for Jenny to say something about how God doesn’t punish babies for their parents’ sins.  And throughout the plotlines about Chummy’s and Peter’s departure for Sierra Leone and Sister Bernadette’s eventual departure from the Order, I was hungry for some more in-depth discussion of the nature of discernment (especially in Sister Bernadette’s case; she and Sister Julienne, having gone together through the years of Sister Bernadette’s novitiate and postulancy, would certainly have discussed her ongoing journey in much less simplistic terms than they are shown as doing).

Overall, though, I found that my predominating thought as I watched the first two seasons was, “Why on earth doesn’t my denomination (the Episcopal Church) find a way to be the “presenting sponsor” (or some such) when this series airs in the US??!  This is the best publicity we’ve gotten in two generations!!”

In the first episode, Sister Julienne asks the newly arrived Jenny “Do you have a faith, Nurse Lee?” and Jenny replies, “Not really.  I’m Church of England.”  It’s a laugh line, but it accurately represents the real Jennifer’s state of mind upon arriving at Nonnatus House (which she had not even realized was a convent; she thought it was a small private hospital).  By the end of the books, Jenny, having lived with the nuns’ example for years and obeyed Sister Monica Joan’s imperious command to “read the Gospels!”, has come to a real and living faith, which sustains her through the rest of her life as a nurse, wife, mother, musician, and human being.  My most profound prayer for the millions of people who watch the show, in the US, UK and beyond, is that some of them may be inspired by it to go in search of the God who is always calling them by name.

Some of the details in this article were supplied by Heidi Thomas’ book The Life and Times of “Call the Midwife” (Harper, 2012).

seamlessfaithbanner-2“May God bless you and keep you while you sleep, May you rest in God’s mercies, and wake to God’s grace, May you dream of God’s blessings, and know that you are loved.”

Each night, my spouse whispers these words to my daughter as he tucks her into bed.  It is one of the most meaningful moments of his day.  Every day.

“Are we doing enough?   Will her faith life be integrated with the rest of her life?  How can we help her to recognize God’s presence in her life? Is her spiritual being developing as well as her mental and physical being?”

Each night, I wonder.  I sit in the chair where I have just snuggled with my not-quite-2-year-old listening to my husband’s blessing and I ask myself those questions.  As a mother and a children’s pastor, it is one of the most disquieting moments of my day.  Every day.

For that reason and others, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Traci Smith’s Seamless Faith: Simple Practices for Daily Family Life.  Traci has written a practical guide for helping family’s integrate faith into both the ordinary and celebratory moments of the family’s life.  Built on the premise that “faith is learned when it is woven seamlessly into the fabric of everyday life,” the book is divided into three sections:

  • The tradition section provides ideas that draw the family to encounter God in rituals for daily life and holidays.
  • The celebrations section invites families to remember God’s presence in the major transitions of life including everything from the birth of a new baby to moving out for college.
  • The spiritual practices section offers ways to implement prayer, almsgiving, hospitality and numerous other practices into family life.

Each outline of the fifty practices in the text offers a two-to-three page description with an introduction, a how-to, notes and variations.

The creativity of these practices is wondrous but each is presented in an accessible format.  Traci has thought of all the little details.  In “Traumatic Current Event: Sheltered under God’s Wings” there is a pattern for the bird used as part of the exercise, and also a thoughtful guide for talking with children of varying ages about the traumatic event.

The mother in me is thankful for this thoughtful, practical resource.   But the pastor in me is even more grateful for a resource that I can place in the hands of families in my congregation to help them adapt spiritual formation at home.  More than giving lip service to the idea that faith must be practiced in the home in order for faith to be fully integrated into the child’s life, this text gives busy, uncertain parents the tools to help their child recognize God in the ordinary and the stressful, the celebratory and the mundane.  Though the instructions are detailed, there is enough flexibility to adapt this text to a variety of faith traditions.  I want to give a copy of this text to every family in my congregation, and I will be giving a copy of the book to acknowledge births and adoptions.  The bottom line is that Seamless Faith is an invaluable resource in creating opportunities for children to encounter God and the mystery of faith.

This week, following the instructions in the outline titled “Anxiety: Wash Away Worries,” I am writing my concerns about my daughter’s spiritual formation on the driveway in sidewalk chalk.  My daughter and I will have a wonderful time playing in the water hose, and I’ll watch those aforementioned worries wash away, knowing they have been released to the Holy Spirit.  I’ll probably pick them back up later but I have a creative, thoughtful, practical text to help me not worry so much.

Seamless Faith is available for purchase through Chalice Press.  Receive monthly articles, tips and resources on faith and family by signing up for the Seamless Faith Monthly Newsletter.

praying handsI know I’m a little late to the game, but two weeks ago my husband and I went to see the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. I thought it was a decent movie, but not worth all of the awards it has won. That being said, there was one part that struck me particularly hard, and that I believe has implications for Christians.

Sandra Bullock’s character, Dr. Ryan Stone, is a scientist turned astronaut on her first mission. Things go horribly wrong, and she ends up as the sole survivor after a series of disasters. At one point, she is in a Russian space capsule, trying to get to a Chinese station, to get back to earth. The only problem is that she is out of fuel and can’t reach Mission Control in Houston. She hears a man speaking in presumably Chinese, and tries to communicate without much success.

At this point, Dr. Stone starts a monologue, convinced that she is dying, and concludes with: “I’m really scared. Nobody will mourn for me, no one will pray for my soul. Will you mourn for me? Will you say a prayer for me? Or is it too late? I mean, I’d say one for myself, but I’ve never prayed in my life, so. Nobody ever taught me how. Nobody ever taught me how.”

No one taught this woman how to pray. And I began to wonder how many people in our churches have never been taught to pray? Or perhaps are not comfortable praying? Praying is simply being in conversation with God. It may happen verbally, through music, art, cooking, gardening, sewing, silence, walking, and so much more.

It’s easy for me as a pastor to say, “praying is simple conversation,” yet, every week at Bible Study or at a meeting when it comes time to pray, people sit and stare at one another. No one will look at me. It’s like being back in school when none of the students did the homework and are hoping against hope the teacher will call on someone else. And I wonder, where have I as a pastor failed?

Growing up, my pastors, Sunday School teachers, other church members, and my parents modeled prayer for me. I learned by watching and participating. I learned by experience. Prayer became a part of me and my life. I thought others who grew up in the church learned the same way. Little did I know that this isn’t true.

Somewhere along the line, we as pastors have stopped expecting much from our laity. Perhaps it was after families started needing a two-income household to make ends meet. Perhaps it was gradually over time as ministry became more and more of a professional field where we pay a pastor to do the ministry on our behalf. Or maybe it was as a result of trying too hard to make church accessible and lower the bar of expectations in an attempt to seem “hip” and “cool” with a society that was rapidly leaving church in the dust as the religious “nones” grow faster than any other religious group. Regardless of how we got here, the fact is that somewhere along the line we stopped teaching discipleship.

However, I think that all hope is not lost. Sandra Bullock’s character is the quintessential American who has a passing knowledge of faith, but doesn’t truly understand anything about it. Her character is facing what seems to be imminent death, and all of a sudden she is concerned with the afterlife and the state of her soul. Faith becomes real in the midst of tragedy.

And therein lies the beauty of this situation. Dr. Stone is opening herself up to the possibility of something more, something greater than herself. She is curious and desires more. As a Christian, whether pastor or lay member, it is our job to help her and people like her. It is all of our jobs to pass on our faith to others. We don’t have to have the “right” words to say or a special knowledge of the Bible or prayer. All we need is the ability to share our own story; the story of what God has done and continues to do in our own life that has transformed us from what we used to be. If we can’t share our faith with others then we will be seeing many more people like Dr. Stone, people that we have forgotten or neglected, wondering who will say a prayer for them, since “I’ve never prayed in my life…Nobody ever taught me how.”