As a chronically ill clergywoman, sometimes I’m afraid the Great Physician is just another dismissive doctor waiving off my debilitating symptoms as normal and it’s up to me to manage on my own time. A bit more communion and intentional daily prayer so easily becomes the sacred equivalent to diet, exercise, and better stress management, […]
When I think about self-care, I think about the things that I do: activities, how I spend my time, spiritual practices, how I deal with stress. Recently I have been thinking instead about how my space shapes and influences me. This pondering was sparked by My Hygge Home by Meik Wiking (hygge: pronounced hoo-ga). Hygge […]
It’s that time of year: Christmas. And as clergy, we are often tasked with making sure everyone else’s Christmas goes perfectly. Sometimes, that means we forget about our own Christmases. In the spirit of giving (and preparing, re: Advent), here is a list of 10 things to do as we get closer to Christmas. Whether […]
If you feel like your feed is infiltrated with reminders about the importance of self-care, you are not alone. The $1.5 trillion self-care industry is expansive and pervasive in its influence. It isn’t an accident that you are receiving reminder after reminder of the ways that you can ensure that you are taking care of […]
“The work of real self-care is to hold pain and hope together.” -Pooja Lakshmin Back in December at a pastors’ gathering, my local denominational body used a polling app to ask the group a series of questions about stress and burnout. The consensus was clear: this was a group of people reporting high amounts of […]
I’m re-doing my CPE. That’s right. I did it already: not just one unit, but four, and now I’m doing it again. That story will be told in a separate article. This article is about a valuable practice I learned about in my second-time-around second unit: Cognitive Based Compassion Training, or CBCT.
For years I have joked about what I would do with my life if this ministry thing didn’t work out. As with all jokes, there has always been a part to it that is tragic and true. In February of this year, I swore off congregational ministry. As a pastor, I experienced a type of […]
The other night in Bible study I posed the question: Is anyone happy? People are not OK right now. Whether it is ongoing pandemic fatigue, financial stress, job dissatisfaction, or general feelings of ennui, many of us are feeling burned out, surrounded by other burned out people. It’s not a very life-giving situation. If you […]
My dear, weary, fierce colleagues in ministry, It’s been a year, hasn’t it? None of us knew going in to 2020 what would come; none of us expected to spend the majority of the year figuring out how to minister to and with people we couldn’t be within an arm’s reach of. And yet, here […]
“Would you ever consider doing something like this?” I asked. I was sitting with my friend Jeff in the balcony seats of the Wilbur Theater in Boston. “Nooo!” he replied. “Do you think Hannah would?” I asked. “Nope,” he said. “What about Luke?” “No way,” I answered. It was intermission at a Mainstage production of […]
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