We’re welcoming another big influx of new Dana, Defrocked readers this week! Hey, y’all! You can find a little bit of the origin story of the newsletter in this post from December. I usually share reflections on weekly scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary on Mondays and then write about whatever else I feel like on Fridays. I’m glad you’re here.
I made what felt like a final decision this week to officially opt out of church drama, which is - obviously - good for both my body and soul. The problem is that church drama has consumed most of my being for the last twenty years and I am now a 41 year-old, mid-career, over-educated and under-employed person with lots of time and energy and intellectual bandwidth and…nowhere to apply it all.
I’m not idle. I’m writing and gardening and applying for jobs and finding new freelance clients and hanging out with my family and going to my nephew’s baseball games and making new friends and volunteering around town and guest preaching every other Sunday. There is so much beauty, here in this season of life. But there’s no coherent direction, no context to learn and work from and within, no clear way to BE OF USE.
And every bit of my formation has drilled into my brain and my being that the purpose of being alive is to BE OF USE. My college reminded us regularly that we were part of a legacy of devoted statesmen and public servants who BUILT A NATION. My seminary kicked off orientation before classes even started by taking us on a field trip to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, telling us THIS is what theologians do. And my religious tradition is so bent on the spiritual value of SERVICE that it has, in the last decade, driven at least a dozen institutional leaders trying to practice that virtue to mental breakdown, months-long ICU stays, ethical corruption and shocking, unexpected death.
There’s nothing wrong with being of use. But there IS something very, very wrong with the idea that a human being’s worth and value depends on whether or not they are being useful at any given moment. There is something wrong when we can’t figure out what to do when we’re…not. It’s the irony of the modern mainline Christianity’s focus on sabbath and sabbatical: preachers and writers quote Abraham Joshua Heschel and Deuteronomy and then turn around and work another 12 hour day, forego another vacation, say yes to more unpaid labor all in the name of “service.”
I have been trying, for a while, to opt out of that hypocrisy. It is not easy. It’s uncomfortable. It leads here, to feeling like I am floundering, wondering whether my own worth and value has taken a big hit because I am no longer willing to sacrifice my entire life for an institution or idea. I am not a statesman. I am not Marin Luther King, Jr. And now, I’m not even a pastor or a church leader. My worth and value no longer come from how good I am at my job, or how well I understand a particular institutional system, or how many invitations to (unpaid!) leadership come my way. I’m just a person, doing person-things, forced to locate my worth and value in places that have nothing to do with whether or not I am OF USE.
So, here are some other questions I’ve started to ask, instead of “was I of use today?” These questions are harder to answer, harder to practice. I am struggling with them. But I’ve had too many front row seats to the deathly ends of the alternative, and, to be honest, I don’t want to die. If you’ve got other questions for choosing life, I’d love to hear them.
Did I notice beauty today?
Did I connect with someone?
Did I rest?
Did I move my body?
Did I learn something?
Did I pay attention?
Did I create something?
Was I honest?
Was I in tune with the state of my own heart?
Did I belly laugh today? Was I kind today?
Did I laugh? Did something make me go “hmmm”? Did I say “thank you” God? Love this post and struggle with overcommitting now in retirement. Going to let some things go for 2025 as some commitments end. Thing is, I enjoy so much of what I’m doing but I do get weary. I think we also need to look at how the organized church is sucking the energy out of people. Why should we maintain huge buildings at the expense of energy for ministry? How can we simplify “church” without guilt while maintaining worship, fellowship and service?