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More from Fidelia:
I miscarried very, very early after I became pregnant for the first time. For one brief evening, my husband and I were naively dumbfounded and excited by the potential of a new baby in our lives. The next morning, I began showing symptoms of a miscarriage. Within a few days, we knew what we had hoped for was not going to happen. I can’t even begin to describe the feelings I experienced, but I can say that one emotion seemed to outweigh all the others—shame. I feared I had done something to cause the miscarriage. I felt as if I had failed somehow. I felt ashamed for feeling ashamed.
At the time, my husband and I were each new pastors serving little rural congregations 13 miles apart. I was vehement about keeping this news from our congregations. I already felt like I was living on display. To be that vulnerable with our parishioners (and, subsequently, two small towns) was unthinkable for me. I didn’t want our painful situation to be some entertaining news for the early morning coffee group at the local café. I protected myself fiercely, and soon found myself feeling increasingly isolated and alone (at a time when I was already feeling isolated and alone).
The next Sunday morning I presided over a baptism. It was for a beautiful, plump, pink little baby girl. Her parents hadn’t gotten around to scheduling the baptism until she was a few months old, so she felt heavier and more solid than the infants I had previously baptized. In my arms, she felt so alive and real. I felt the physical symptoms of the miscarriage while I baptized her in front of the congregation. I knew life was leaving my body at the same time I blessed this new life given to another family. Read more
You’ve read Stacey Midge’s witty articles for Single Rev’s Guide to Life. Did you know she is also a musician? Click below to hear her play “Long Road Home”:
Long Road Home from Stacey on Myspace.
After services one Sunday, I walked into the sacristy to thank the altar guild for their work. The acting altar guild chair said those words we all long to hear: “Are you tired? Because you look really tired.” I was, in fact, really tired. I hadn’t taken a day off in nearly a month.
I hadn’t meant to not take a day off. It just happened. What with a diocesan convention here, a religious arts festival there, some pastoral care emergencies, Lenten planning, and of course, the weekly parade of bulletins, committee meetings, and sermons, it had just been easier to keep going. For me, taking time off sometimes feels like one more thing on the never-ending to-do list.
The local Barnes and Noble is just waiting for people like me—poor little overworked professional white women, desperate for guidance. There are a myriad of new self-help resources that could be used to justify why any of us should love ourselves by doing things like taking some time off. However, a desire for ways to take care of ourselves doesn’t have to take its cue from an increasingly individualized, consumerist culture. Though I’m certainly not above leafing through O magazine (ahem), I try to think theologically, too.
My own rationalization theology of self-care, of doing things like taking time off, when I’m actually able to do it, that is, stems from “the greatest commandment”:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (NRSV, Matthew 22:36-40; Leviticus 19:18).
In other words, love of God and love of neighbor are inextricably intertwined. These verses are most often read as a call to curb the self-centeredness that seems to plague humanity; I know sometimes I need to hear it that way. However, some people, often women, are socialized to put others’ needs and wants first. Self-annihilation rather than selfishness is occasionally the default. Read more
