I am a horrible wife. And/or I am a woman of deepening faith, refusing to enable or regulate the spiritual work of my beloved. Both, it seems, in this case.
I rarely self-identify as ‘wife,’ though I have been blessed with our union for over 25 years. I regularly pray and discern how to be a more loving partner, how to meet him where he is, how to receive him when he tries to meet me where I am, how to surrender to the sacred force that somehow lives between us while neither of us can control nor contain it. But marriage is an historical institution with a sketchy history for women’s gifts, benefit. Its misogynistic history is in its social DNA, which I abhor. Had it not been for Brian's feeling to lead in the church, I might not have even submitted to the institution of marriage. Over 25 years ago, we had a conversation about choosing instead to live as soul-hitched beloveds in a consecrated covenant, just not a marital-social-ecclesial bond. Clearly, we went ahead with the wedding. While I love my husband, I rarely accord the social words or customs that accompany ‘marriage’ in our world today.
But my opening words get at the bind in which I find myself this morning – dueling/dualing ecclesial covenants in which to be faithful I become a bad wife. In order to open to the movement of the Spirit as I sense forward, I step into behaviors perceivedly/seemingly unsupportive of my husband and a possible communal obstacle/threat to him, his work.
The basic backdrop: The denominational church–in my world, the presbytery, specifically the Committee on Ministry (COM)–has inserted itself into my husband’s congregation’s upcoming vocational-discernment work as one associate retires and the community begins to listen to God’s leadings in who may become the new associate. After nearly 12 years of complete lack of interest or collaboration with this particular congregation (healthy, as it is), it chose now to insert/manifest ‘interest.’ Or ‘oversight.’ Hmmm… The COM had received the formal congregational letter of request to form the Associate Pastor Nominating Committee (APNC)--with accompanying documents of congregational self-study and theological rationale for discerning the call at this time. The COM Chair acknowledged the remarkable depth and breadth of this document in the committee discussions. The COM ultimately decided not to approve immediately the formation of the APNC, but to send the EP and COM-liason to the church to meet with the Session to ask “Where is God in this formal process?” This, in contrast to the last time this church wanted to begin looking for an Associate eight years ago, which was handled via fast-email-discernment-response by the then COM-Chair. Last night's decision was not what my beloved wanted, nor how we wanted our evening out for fajitas to be spent.
Knowing myself as I do–and unknowing as I do–I could feel the anger, disappointment, frustration, fear, weariness that accompanied us to the restaurant. I could feel the long-traditioned habits of holding space for my beloved’s emotional challenges, weather. I could feel habits of the familiar pathway of digesting this undesirable happening with my own emotional intelligence and empathic capacities. Except…
One could also say that the more extended community of faith in which we live-work-serve as connectional Presbyterians is finally beginning to add its own voice to the spiritual discernment–which is always collaborative in our ecclesial tradition. One could wonder aloud Is there ever a bad time to ask the question “Where is God in this moment, this process?” What if now is precisely the time to take 4 brief weeks for weaving a larger community of faith into the local community of faith conversation? Not for heavy-handed oversight or obstruction, but for deepening of congregational awareness that Godde is an active Agent/Presence beyond the what and how we habitually accord spaces for Godde?
While inconvenient to my beloved’s congregation’s timing, while landing in my husband’s anxieties, mistrust, and fears of working as a solo-pastor in a local congregation when he can only work in a staffed-situation with his gifts…these broader, theological questions and the request for conversation feel Spirit-led to me. This gentle delay has potential to heal a very wounded relationship between this congregation and any larger community of faith for connectional identification. This gentle delay forces my beloved to consider Godde an agent underneath and beyond his conceptualization of such Agency. [To be clear, my beloved understands all he does in duty to God, in sacrificial service and obligation. He also rarely (if ever) experiences Godde’s presence or agency through other people, myself included. He serves faithfully but he knows not how to let Godde draw close outside of linguistic/verbal/conceptual means. When you learn of his earliest formation and his ancestral lineage wounds, you will not be surprised at this].
This intrusion/extension of the larger community of faith confronts all of us with what needs healing, in other words. I cannot help but see what I have found to be true again and again: everything that comes has potential to heal what rises, i.e. deeply embodied trauma always wants to be healed.
Knowing myself as I do–and unknowing as I do–I asked the Spirit as I drove to the restaurant, as the chips and salsa were placed on our table, if I was to mirror anything of how I was experiencing this unfolding. As wife, I knew it could infuriate him and lead him to feeling I was rejecting him, not supporting him, abandoning him. Even wanting to solely–soulfully–honor my beloved’s emotional weather, was I yet the most immediate one to reframe what he would be willing to receive because it was from me, because his covenant with me is non-negotiable and strengthened over years? Could hold this ecclesial-covenantal challenge? Was my becoming a woman of deepening faith inviting him to the same, inviting us both to deeper trust in Godde as active Presence beyond our anticipations, desires...even in presbytery that is non-connectional and basically non-functioning in our experience?
His questions are still my own: how does accountability dance with trust and relationship in either/both covenant(s) we share? How does connectionalism allow others to thrive and when does it obstruct deepening faith and trust in Godde beyond? How does a willingness to be a "bad wife" empower new possibilities? How does being a wife inhibit my calling as a presbyter? (I doubt these last two are his questions, come to think of it).
My beloved’s congregation has a powerful vision to be a force for its local community in sacred proclamation-living, civic development and connectional collaborations. But it is a congregation in today’s ecclesial ecology, shaped to be for itself, for its own. Presbytery has been a non-factor for years. No resources during COVID-19. No leadership-companionship for healthy churches (while the unhealthy, dying squeaky wheeled churches get the focus, attention). No previously expressed interest in being spiritual companions in connection. Except now. And the congregation is supposed to trust? Without acknowledgement of wounds past? Without any container held tightly enough to be vulnerable and honest at the same time? Denominational church cannot hold such containers.
My beloved’s call to ministry of teaching eldership–preaching, sacraments, organizational development and care–is indisputable. You can sense it anytime you’re with him in the sanctuary, in the meeting rooms, in the church-Zoom-classroom. You can see his eyes light up as he prays, exegetes texts, teaches, preaches…except he has never really known communal faith. He is a solitary-extraordinaire, a faithful who would have thrived in the desert with the ancient fathers and mothers. And Godde made him such that his way of feeling connected in community is in leading, serving, teaching. He knows not how to receive–gifts or compliments, connection or companionship. He knows not a peaceful life amidst the fears, anxieties, and deeply embedded shames his body holds. I wish his ancestral inheritances were lighter. I wish his body experience could be freeing. I wish he knew he was worthy independent of anything he does or will do. I wish his faith could become communal, trusting, not requiring his duty-service-obligation at all. But I am a woman of faith who knows no wife can alter any of that.
Perhaps I am both a faithful wife and a woman of deepening faith then, to be just as I am, letting him be just as he is, both of us acknowledging all the flaws and real wounds inflicted in communal contexts unable to foster trust or true spiritual companionship AND leaning together into trusting the Spirit of Godde has all of this in precise Purpose and Light.
So as faithful wife, as woman of deepening faith, I pray for the freedom of release, forgiveness, within my beloved, within myself. I pray for his soul as he navigates the wounding and unredeemed ways of the world in our church(es). I pray that he would grow in his capacity to trust, to know his own worth outside of his work, to know deeply the gift of his body for being in this life. As presbyter, I pray for the awakening and deepening of care in all those who cross the threshold of our local church. May they face their own shadows, and repent of all participation in the woundedness around and within us. May they recognize their own limitations and learn to trust this congregation to do its holy work, just as it is. And may the process for calling the next colleague in ministry move quickly, clearly, with deepened faith in all.
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