Last week I was working on my sermon on the Transfiguration. A large part of that sermon focused on identity. Who are we? Who are you at your deepest core? Under all the veils of social acceptability and under calls to various things, our faith, our relationships, our jobs, our personalities - under all of that, who are we? And as I wrote the questions, I found myself considering them, as I often do, for myself, and to reflect in a slightly different way on who I really am, when I am most truly myself, and who I am called to be at my core.
The week before, we had had our clergy boundary training. This is a required event for all Presbyterian pastors. We go and are reminded of all the important ways in which we keep boundaries within our congregations and communities. We talk about the obvious ones (sexual boundaries), but also boundaries that may not be as obvious: money, gifts, time, energy. We discussed the differences in relationships with parishioners as opposed to people we might friend outside of our congregations, the boundaries that must exist in our sharing and in our behaviors, the rules around what happens when a pastor leaves a congregation and what they can and can't do for and with that congregation or its members once they are gone, etc. All of it is very important stuff. There is a power or authority differential between pastors and congregants that needs to be recognized by pastors so that they do not use that authority in inappropriate ways. It is extremely important that we remember that vulnerable people who come and share with us are exactly that: vulnerable, and we have a responsibility to have appropriate boundaries with them so that they can work through whatever it is they are experiencing without the fear of being taken advantage of or further damaged by their time with us. I agree with everything we were taught at the training. And I promise to continue to uphold appropriate boundaries.
But I'll tell you the truth, which has nothing to do with the training. And that truth is that I left feeling like a big fake.
What I mean is that as I sat with all of these other very powerful, very authoritative and professional clergy members, I felt that I didn't belong to them. I had a hard time seeing myself in the stories that were told of people with power. I had a hard time imaging myself in the stories of people with authority using that authority for good or bad. My self-image is not of a powerful, authoritative individual. My self-image is of a person like everyone else I encounter who has struggles and issues and times of sadness and anxiety, and times of crabbiness and times of confusion about everything, including my faith. I understand, from a practical place, that the role of "pastor" innately has within it a certain power and authority, which then must be used with great respect, caution and awareness. I understand that and I am careful because of that understanding.
But I'm also aware of how that role ends up isolating us as the real, human, broken people that we deeply and truly, at our core, are. This, too, was discussed at the boundary training. Clergy are usually, are often, are inevitably lonely. We spend a great deal of time with people, but we are limited in how much of ourselves we can share in those situations. We are therefore encouraged, strongly, to make friends outside of our congregations, the same as other professionals who also must maintain certain boundaries and who do that in part by forming relationships with colleagues at their same level of authority. But for clergy, who spend 90% of our time not only working but socializing with parishioners, finding the time to work on, build and nurture those outside friendships is often difficult.
It is also confusing because there are two very different images of pastors. In the first image, the pastor is distant, and authoritative because he/she does not show any vulnerability or personal pain. The second image is one of the "wounded healer". This model shows a pastor who does share their personal experiences of wounding and healing. And yet, even within that model there are boundaries: usually you don't share until after a crisis has ended, or after you have a handle on how to deal with it, for example. If you share while you are in crisis, you need to do so in a way that does not leave parishioners feeling they must take care of you. But again, that often can mean walking the path, the hard path, alone. And there are times when the personal crises are big enough that this isolation from our real struggles and real lives is an impossibility.
It's a strange place to be, this place of being a pastor. It is a weird calling: trying to be prophetic and pastoral at the same time: speaking truth but in a way that doesn't alienate or isolate our parishioners. We have to wear many hats: that of counselor, that of friend, that of prophetic leader, administrator, speaker, teacher. Sometimes it feels very artificial. After all, we believe, those of us Presbyterians at least, that all people are ministers, one to another; that our role as pastor is only different in that it is a different job from what someone else might have, but not a less valued, less "called" or less holy one. We cannot put ourselves on a pedestal that says we are important or holy where others are not. And yet, we also have a public role and that role has to be treated, at least by those of us who hold it, with the respect it deserves. After all, we are told, "If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."
I love my work, but I also struggle at times feeling that I don't quite fit into the role, or the image or the personality of what it is to be a pastor. I struggle as I recognize some of my own faults that pop up and at times make my work challenging for me. I see the ways in which I am not an ideal pastor. I see areas of my ministry that are lacking. And all of it causes me at times to doubt this part of my identity, especially when I am with other pastors who don't have the same areas of challenge or inadequacy.
Add to it that there are other parts of my identity as well, and some of those are in conflict with my role as pastor. Parenting as a pastor, for example, is not easy at several levels. My kids live in a fish bowl. At my current church my eldest two have dealt with it by maintaining a bit of distance: they have not been as open with who they are in the same way they did in previous churches. I had a counselor of one of my kids tell me straight out, when I was at my last church, that the best thing I could do for my child would be to change careers. Pastors who are moms, especially, are constant targets of parenting critique: critique that would not be given to other parishioners. And that constant watching of how one lives one's life is a challenge, not only for the pastor, but for the entire family (spouse included). The role of pastor also puts limitations on the spouses of those pastors. For example, it would be hard for a pastors' spouse to join a support group that assumed open conversation about the personal lives of the pastor and their family.
I love being a writer, but in that, too, I feel some boundaries and limits with what I can say, or how I can say it, because of my role as pastor. And that, too, presents challenges for me.
People are complicated. And the question I asked of my congregation, "when you are most truly yourself?" is not always met with a simple answer. I am most truly myself as a pastor in some ways. But in other ways, I am most truly myself when I am a hundred miles away, anonymous and being a total goofball mom with my kids. So for me, I think the question is changing a bit. How can I be a more integrated person and still live up to the codes of my profession? And if that is not a possibility, what does that mean for me and where do I go from here? Perhaps this question, too, put forward in a public format, is a crossing of boundaries. But I share it in the hopes that when other struggle with these questions, they will know that they are not alone. All of us share questions of identity. And all of us struggle with the answers at times.
Go in peace. Be the most "you" you can be. Find God where God is calling you to be. And invite God into that process of becoming more wholly and fully yourself.
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