They didn’t even know me.
Last fall, I volunteered at Iona Abbey on the remote Isle of Iona in Scotland. I also managed to contract a corneal ulcer. Nothing catastrophic, but not something they could treat on an island off an island off an island.
I took a ferry, and a bus, and another ferry, and a train, and a taxi to the hospital in Glasgow. At the end of a long, long day, I arrived at Petra and Sabine’s house.
In 2003, 75,000 Verizon employees threatened to strike. In preparation, management employees, like me, were to be trained to fill the positions that would be impacted by the strike. I was assigned to “working aloft” or to be a repairperson who climbed telephone poles.
Although you’re reading this in February, I am writing to you on what feels like the 53rd of January, when I should be working on my statistical tables. The past few weeks are a blur of trying to begin the administrative year and care for my congregation, while preaching and living amid the fears and uncertainties of our current political situation and flurry of executive orders from our new/old President. I’ve always identified with Jonah, but rarely have I identified more with the Jonah of Jonah, chapter 4:
While I love the initial glimpses of fall, I am more grateful for a world where there are Januarys. A new year begins with blank paper, new pens, and a crisp sense of possibility. Well-trodden paths of challenging habits are smoothed, and repeated reflections on negative experiences are lifted and left behind.
There have been times in my life when I have stood before a board table full of men to plead my case or that of another. Nine times out of ten, I knew more about the topic and had more firsthand experience than they did, yet just standing in front of men who all looked alike…I could feel myself shrinking. Even now after twenty years of public service, I am still watching women shrink. In 2024, I ask each time a pastor calls me to speak, “Is the congregation alright with a woman delivering the message?”
I cannot say that I’ve felt much like laughing as of late. Between feelings of general “church weariness,” election angst, charge conference season… it all feels a bit like living in a giant woodworking vise. The pressure keeps increasing, and with each twist of the handle, I wonder if this will be the one that ultimately breaks me. Maybe you can relate. I haven’t run the numbers in any sort of clinical manner, but from casual conversation, most of my friends are feeling a bit squished at the moment…
