What Do You Do?

We get this, we priest and pastor types. "So, what do you do?" At dinner parties, at bars, at the grocery store, even at church.

"What do you do?", which may encompass everything from a random line at the local watering hole from a guy who wears his jeans very well to a parishioner generally interested in what you do the rest of the week she doesn't see you in church saying prayers on Sunday.

Now, you can be very holy and righteous, and explain with great reverence the detail of what we clergy actually do during the week: pray, listen, read the Bible, read other scholarly material, gather with other clergy and pray some more, be prayerfully present with people, and practice discernment.

Or you could have fun, wink at God just a bit, and enjoy the fruits of imagination and laughter.

I am a holistic listener. I have no real idea what this means, but doesn't it sound impressive? You can get a certificate in holistic listening from some Tony Robbins guru-institute, I'm sure, where you gather with others and increase your emotional intelligence while becoming change agents for integrity in the wider community. Or create your own definition by simply stringing together any series of impressive sounding yet nebulous words. Make sure you include key phrases like self-realization, learning environment, and intentional focus.

I am a hostage negotiator. Any clergy person worth his or her salt has ended up in said position, be it the dispute between the Altar Guild and the Choir, the bishop and the vestry, or some other situation in which both parties are holding guns at each other while you attempt to figure out what will solve this dilemma with little or no help from either party. One side wants the church to be painted purple; the other wants the roof to be glass. You've got twenty minutes before hymnals are thrown. Go.

I work as a general contractor. No, I'm not licensed, but people seem to think I am capable of dealing with the air conditioner that isn't working and the faucet in the sacristy that won't turn off. And, for some reason, I go flip switches and turn knobs like I have any idea what I'm doing. Then, when there's an explosion, I call in the real professionals and hope no one was seriously injured by the fireball.

I work for a non-profit.What kind? One that doesn't make a profit and serves human needs. This is my preferred one for the guy who wears his jeans well. That answer suffices until at least the second date.

I hang out. Yep, I spend a great deal of time hanging out with people, getting to know them, sharing about our journeys. I do that, because relationships matter, especially in a culture where far too many people feel out of touch or ignored or devalued. I wish the best of my job sounded more impressive, but there you go. I hang out, drink coffee or soda or wine, and build friendships so that when God tells us there's work to do, we're ready. Oh, and I'm also a certified holistic listener with a degree from a college accredited in Guam and some of the contiguous United States, depending on how the attorneys general apply the regulation.

What Lady Priests Say They Do on Vacation and What Lady Priests are Really Doing on Vacation

Often, before I leave for a short vacation people love to ask me questions about what I will be doing with the time off. Being a lady, I feel it is important to answer these questions in a ladylike manner. So here are my answers (and here are my answers):

Question: What are you going to do on your vacation?
Lady Priest answer: Oh, I am just going to take it easy.
The real answer: First I am hang-gliding over a live volcano and landing on the beach of an island paradise that is controlled by an evil but incredibly handsome dictator. I will seduce him, per my orders from the National Church (that’s right, Dan Brown, all Episcopal priests are trained as spies and assassins in order to promote the Gospel), free that poor island nation, and establish the local chapter of the Junior League.

Question: Where are you going on your vacation?
Lady Priest answer: Just out of town for a few days.
The real answer: I am meeting up with Pierre, my French lover, in Paris. I will swing by London for a snog fest with Andrew, Prince of Wales, after that. Finally, I will spend two days in Shreveport visiting my grouchy great aunt and uncle.

Question: Are you going to do any reading?
Lady Priest answer: I am going to try to catch up on some reading, a few academic journals. There are some great articles that I want to read, one about Epistemology.
The real answer: I will be reading the contents on the can of aerosol cheese that I am squirting into my mouth as I watch every Law and Order episode until my ass sticks to the couch (which is a really long time because the couch is cloth).

Question: What are you most looking forward to on your vacation?
Lady Priest answer: I will most enjoy taking in the local color and cuisine.
The real answer: I am checking out every hot guy who passes my stool in the Tiki bar as I sip my pina colada from a coconut with an umbrella in it.

Question: Are you really looking forward to your vacation?
Lady Priest answer: Yes, I really am.
The real answer: You have no idea.

Do Something Wonderful for Your Soul - Nothing

Electricity brought human beings out of the dark ages. Not great philosophers like Descartes or Rousseau. Not hefty theologians a la Aquinas or Augustine. Not even the guy who invented indoor plumbing, although I’ll give him a nod.

Nope. The massive structural system of electrical wires and substations and transformers, all of which failed tremendously during Hurricane Gustav a few years ago in the almost entire state of Louisiana ushered humanity into a world with refrigeration and Lean Cuisine zapped in a microwave in three minutes or less. Power helps us wash clothes and dry them and keeps us from killing one another because it’s simply too damned hot in southern Louisiana in August. The Governor’s Office made a press conference about the number of homes in Louisiana without power, close to one and a half million. Insert the bad joke about not knowing that many homes in Louisiana had electricity to begin with. After all, I live in a state filled with swamps, alligators, and the people who love them.

I, however, live in the state capital, with boutique shops, amazing restaurants, and a major university, none of which had power. If you’ve ever been in a long, drawn-out, power outage - I’m talking weeks here, not a day or so - you quickly realize two things. One, it’s really, really dark without street lights, so I can easily see why streets before lamps were death traps, because I couldn’t see my own hand in my living room after ten at night. And two, most bathrooms don’t have windows, which makes one’s toilette a bit challenging.

Oh, and tuna and peanut butter get old very fast.

I also realized a few other things, too. All the time I waste during a day on bad television shows and checking my email and doing laundry or even simply browsing in shops dissipated into total and utter free time. I could now honestly have the time to meditate, pray, and sit quietly.
I have this image of myself as Mother Laurie, Amazing Prayerful Priest, sitting in the lotus position for an hour or more, simply being in the presence of God.

Which I did for exactly twelve minutes.

Perhaps not the most accurate image of myself.

Then I decided to read. The afternoon light through my windows gave me enough to engross myself in the pages of a book, which I did.

Did I read Augustine’s Confessions or even some reflection on God by the current favorite spirituality writer on Oprah? I am, after all, a priest. Surely priests and those Godly-types read about God.

Sometimes, but not now. Nope.

I went straight for the trashy romance novel.

One I’d actually purchased a few days before Hurricane Gustav gave me this great chunk of free time. In the bookstore, in my collar, I trotted to the register with my newly-released, long-awaited book in a series about vampires and Roman gods and the women they have great sex with in completely implausible circumstances. The sales clerk looked at my book, then looked at me.

“I didn’t know clergy read books like this,” she said, with great seriousness.

“I skip the sex scenes,” I replied.

She laughed that awkward, please-pay-and-leave laugh and handed me my book, sex scenes, Roman god, and all. The same one I buried my heart and soul in now.

A disclaimer: I actually read many different types of books. I love mysteries and historical novels. I have tons of books on spirituality. My library is way too eclectic, but it’s mine. There, now I’ve stated I’m not a bimbo.

Maybe I read these novels because I’m not married, and sometimes they are the most action I see in a month…or a year or two. Maybe the handsome, dashing men saved from eternal emotional damage by their female soul mates sets me up for failure in the real-life romances between human people who are far less than perfect. Maybe I like nice resolutions in 323 pages, because in my gig, life resolutions are far from quick or easy, and usually take 323 years or so, give or take a few.

I don’t delve too deeply into my mindless reading entertainment. I simply enjoy it, which isn’t a bad reason to crack open a book. So this summer, hurricane or not (and let’s pray for not), spend time in mindlessness, just enjoying something each day that doesn’t seem to involve the salvation of the entire human race. Read People magazine or a mindless book, enjoy an ice cold Coke over gerbil-food ice (you know, the kind Sonic sells) or polish off a pint of Ben and Jerry’s without the slightest twinge of guilt, or sit for some time doing absolutely nothing (or watching any of the Real Housewives on Bravo - God won’t tell). We humans seem to be better people when we’ve spent time doing nothing.

Because it does something wonderful for our souls.

The Peace of Wild Things

Andy is marginally spiritual. And I mean, marginally. He comes to church to appease his parents when he visits. We talked about our surfer days on the Florida coast, both of us much younger and cooler than our middle-aged selves. But revisiting those summers of board shorts, Sex Wax, and the perfect wave (or lack thereof) was fun, especially now that we'd grown up to become a doctor and a priest and neither one of us had stepped on a surfboard in years.

We had coffee over hours and talked about slipping over a wave on a surfboard, as close to flying as one can get without actually leaving the ground for both of us. I wondered if surfing was what the spirit of God did over the waters of creation. Andy explained the physics of the act. We talked of the freedom of what being outdoors was for each of us, either hiking in the deep, brambly forests or watching the sun set softly into the deep ocean.

"Yes, the peace of wild things," I offered. Andy shrugged and asked me if the two versions of the Bible were the King James and the New Testament.

A scientific mind with marginal spirituality, indeed. But he's a presence in my life, one of those people who stays in the margins of my life with intermittent emails and sporadic conversations when one or the other thinks to call, which may range from weeks to months to many, many months. I long-ago quit worrying (most of the time) about who God moves in and out of my life. Some people are permanent, those I want holding my hand when I slip from this world into the next. I want Brad and Mary each to hold my hands until I release them and take the lovely hands of God in my last breath. I have a wonderful group of those friends from years, even decades, whom I can call and sob or laugh with, and they take my call, whenever, and love me, however. Some people are newly-around, and they may be around or may not. Friendships need time and trust and space to see if they have the proverbial legs for the long run.

Still others are those acquaintance friends. We meet them, say we'll keep in touch, may even do a fair job for a while. We'll Facebook friend them, post on a wall, but fall away after a while because life is life and only the best love survives the impermanence of life. They live in the margins of our lives and loves, yet they are there, waiting for God to pull them in when God needs their particular voice.

"You look thin. Too thin," he said when he saw me last.

I agreed, then explained how I'd lost weight and couldn't sleep for whatever reason, and the twenty-seven vials of blood I'd recently donated at my doctor's office didn't explain. And life had been crazy. He asked all the scientific medical questions and gave his opinions. I nodded. He said he'd email my doctor to see if he could help. Tired of talking about whatever might be wrong with my health, I told him thanks, and that I'd talk to him later. Later for us usually meant months later.

Later for him meant enough time for me to get home from church. My phone rang.

"You have exactly thirty minutes to get your boots on. You need some mud on the tires." Then he hung up.

Mud on the tires, for this Southern girl, means getting dirty, running in the wild until dust covers you and dirt is in your hair and on your skin. It's being in the freedom of wild things until you remember how to be wild and free and release that part of your soul that needs to be healed by the God who moved over the face of chaos to create order. You either get it or you don't.

Andy showed up, right on time. I had my boots on.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To let you run," he said, and turned up the radio. Paula Poundstone and Roy Blount, Jr. opined about the latest politician caught saying something about Arizona's immigration law that made no real logical sense - the law or what the politician said. Forty minutes later we drove up to a horse barn. I climbed out of Andy's too-expensive sports car, and he grabbed his camera equipment.

"Riding?" I asked. "Riding?" I repeated, when Andy kept walking toward a man mucking a stall. They'd obviously met, discussing whatever plan they'd concocted between my "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord" over an hour ago and this moment when I stood in hay and horse shit.

The stable owner motioned me over to a mare. "She needs to be run. She tangled with some barbed wire a while ago. She's still healing, but there's some open pasture there." I ran my hands over her scars, still visible, still healing. The wounds still looked deep to me.

"No, she needs to run," he repeated. We saddled her, and I climbed on her back. She stepped backwards, not sure she should walk out of her stall. After all, she'd been healing in there, safely contained from all that was out there. Her pain had been contained in a small space.

Andy took the reigns and walked us both to the pasture gate. I sat on the mare, watching Andy close the gate to the wide open space. He climbed on the fence.

"You're not riding?"

He shook his head and held up his camera. "I need to take a few test shots. New camera. And I'm a better surfer than rider. But go. I'll watch."

"You're a terrible surfer," I yelled as I turned the mare toward the open. She didn't want to go at first. Neither did I. Whatever injuries we have, at first they are too painful to move. Even after they're healed enough, we're still not sure they won't sear with pain. Staying in a small space seems safest. Not moving at all seems safest. She stuttered and stopped, and I let her. I wanted her to stop. I hadn't been on a horse in a while, and I didn't know if I could ride at a run anymore.

I wasn't sure what I could do anymore, actually. Simply being on her back, resting in the saddle, seemed to be enough. Maybe a slow walk. Maybe that would be enough. A few steps. A few more.

Then a canter. She decided that. She decided to see what she could do, and I was along for the ride. I took a deep breath and let her run. A full, free run. She ran, and I held on and let her run for me. I let her run with me.

She ran so I would remember the freedom and peace of wild things, so I would remember how to run even with the scars, even when I felt like staying still.

After our run, after I helped settle her back into her stall and said a blessing for her gift to me, Andy and I sat on the fence together. He showed me the pictures he'd taken, of her running, of me leaning forward into the wind with the breath of God storming around us as she held me in her run, as she reminded me of what running wounded felt like - that it could be done, with power and life. Life is running wounded, because unless we stay alone in a stall, we'll tangle with the barbs of circumstance, love, and humans. Godly life is remembering, even wounded, we can run and live and love.

Some of the pictures were just her black mane and my auburn hair, soaring together. The last photo was me, leaning against the wooden gate, covered in dirt, smiling. "Told you you just needed some mud on the tires," Andy said.

"That's your professional opinion?"

Andy shrugged. "Sometimes healing is about remembering you're okay, just as you are. What is it you say, the remembering the peace of wild things?"

I looked at the photo of me again, the one of me dirty and laughing after running wild.

"Thanks, Doc."

"Anytime."


The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Price of Love

I haven't been laughing much lately, and I miss that part of my soul. The part that laughs with all I am, that sees humor in the most mundane, stupid, and even holy moments of life. Her partner is the one that sings, but when laughter becomes too difficult, singing from the soul exits the building, too. She got tired and weary a few months ago, after that year. And she said, "Enough."

That year, that began with the arrival of a new priest in the parish, one that brought his own joy and laughter and energy to Holy Mother Church and the people that gather. John came to St. James with joy and life and beauty. I would sit in his office for hours discussing the wonder of life. I told him he was the priest I wanted to be when I grew up. He told me to never grow up. Then he got a cold that never went away, and the cold wasn't a cold; it was cancer. And then he began to go away. While John took his last, grand journey, the parish life went along, short one priest. While we tried to love our friend and colleague to the last seconds of his life here, the parish life went along. And while we stood at his funeral, life went on.

I went on vacation to get away, from the grief, if I were honest, only to have to end the escape a few days early because my grandmother died. John and Granny began their journeys to death within a month of each other and went to rest in the arms of God seven months later, within a month of each other. I officiated at her graveside. From the waist up, I was steady and the priest I had been formed to be. From the waist down, hidden by my vestments, I could barely stand.

I cried that night, in my niece’s bed, when no one could hear me, for her. Who would I tell about my travels, I asked, because she loved to travel. A gift she gave me was a love for the world that lay beyond the horizon. When her health prevented her from traveling the world, she would listen for hours to my stories of places I’d been. I showed her pictures of the stained glass windows of St. Paul’s in London still left unrepaired from the bombs of World War II. She would tell me of her life during that era. I told her how cold the Atlantic ocean was, but I waded in it anyway, so I could say I had walked in the water of both oceans. She would share about her childhood trip to California with an aunt who could only drive a car in forward.

I breathed deeply and went forward, only to be met with the unexpected death of my other grandmother. Four months. Three funerals. And a dear friend’s divorce to add to the mix.

I breathed deeply and went forward as the fall church year began, working, staying busy, and living. I was a priest. I had work to do. I was fine. I even got distracted by a really nice guy for a few weeks, before my grieving soul demanded more of me.

I breathed deeply and stopped moving because the broken, grieving part of my soul said, “No more.”

"No more laughing or singing until you give grief space to be."

Grief, that part of love we would all rather ignore, medicate, and distract ourselves through. When we sign onto this great power called love with our friends and family, we skim the fine print and would rather ignore that aspect that says, "Parts of love will hurt." Grief exacts a price. Love exacts a price. We love people, and then they may leave. Our arms can’t hold them anymore. We can’t hear their voices. I dream about people who have died, still feel their love, but it is different.

At the year anniversary of all this loss, I finally had the courage to pay attention to my grief. A retreat at a monastery in the middle of nowhere seemed like a good idea, until I got there, and realized I was the youngest person there by a few decades. I wanted to stay in my cell, call it a day, and just try something else, something easier, until the Abbot walked over to me at dinner, introduced himself, and asked to show me the church. We walked and he talked until I started to speak and cry and breathe and cry and tell the stories and ask the unanswerable questions and get really, really angry and cry.

The Abbot told his stories, too, about his grief, to share those he was privileged to love and miss, as well. He reminded me that priests are human who are often called to be more than human, but we need to grieve and feel sad. He assured me that one needs courage to grieve, because all too often, we avoid it by all sorts of unhealthy means. And on my last night of retreat, he offered the church to me and God for me to say goodbye to those I love.

Late that evening, in front of the Marian altar, I talked to John and told him I missed him and love him. I talked to my grandmothers and said the same. My friend Mary called me on my phone, and together we prayed the Burial Office. She prayed when my tears were too great. And then I prayed the final prayer and offered the Easter blessing. I realized in my soul that my loved ones were home, and the amazing love I shared with them still filled me. I recognized the great irony that John would love my prayers in front of the Marian altar, and my grandmothers would be appalled at such a "Romish" thing.

I laughed.

Then I sang.

Signs

The Neville Brothers wailed on stage, as I navigated the crowd. It was one hell of a party. People dressed in business attire shook their grove things all over the dance floor. I made it to the door and as I walked out, my newly minted ex-husband was walking in with his date. I think that our expressions mirrored each other-shock.

I knew he would be at the mayoral inauguration party with “a friend.” I just figured that in a crowd of over 4000 we probably would not run into each other. I guess I figured that “friend” was just a friend, not some auburn haired petit hottie, in an almost electric blue halter dress. We said hello awkwardly and kept moving.

I am not sure how I am supposed to feel about seeing him with her. Did I think that he would slink away, into the outer darkness, a broken, lonely shell, never to date again? Shouldn’t I be happy that he met someone after all the sadness of our marriage? I guess so, but I did not want to see it, yet I guess that I needed to see it.

He seems to be moving forward with his life, and so should I. I think that I have been waiting for the blessing, and there she was, wearing an almost electric blue dress. I have been waiting for permission to toss off the garments of mourning and go forward. Now, it appears I have my permission and blessing, but I am not sure which direction I should go.

I am not sure why I have been waiting to move forward with my life, but at that moment, I realized that I had been waiting. During my marriage, I was looking for the sign from God that I needed to stay married. Before the separation, I was looking for the sign from God that I needed to end my marriage. After the official divorce, I was looking for the sign that I could move on. Each time the sign came, but not exactly the way I wanted it.

I was looking for the sign, and I got it. Frankly, I would have preferred the sign be something like Jason Stratham showing up on my front porch with roses. Instead, the sign is less subtle, not horrible but not what I wanted to see. Maybe signs are less a gentle nudge and more a slap across the face.

Had I missed those signs from God earlier, perhaps the more subtle ones? Or had I ignored them because I wanted them to be just the way I wanted them to be? I would have liked a letter from the Almighty stating: “Get moving, girl! Great stuff down this road!”

Nope. Instead, God gives his sign. There is no indication what lies ahead, but the sign stands in the fork of the road. Where do I go from here? I guess first I have to crawl out from under my desk. Then I have to open my eyes and see the signs that indicate the ending of one road and the entrance to another, and start again down the road.