Time and Work

This Lent I am using a resource provided by the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Mass.  Today’s meditation was on time and priorities.  When work was mentioned, it took me with it to a reflection on my life and work.  The speaker talked about time in five categories: stop, pray, work, play and love.  I realized that when I was working as a rector full time, I allowed my work to consume the disproportionately largest part of my time.  I even convinced myself that I was tending to the other areas within my life’s time as sub categories of work.  I stopped, but it was on a retreat whose time and cost was borne by the church.  I would pray, but on church time and fully justified.  I would play, but most often with church people and in the context of a church program.  I loved others and most of those others were members of the parish.  After all, isn’t one of the job descriptions of a rector: “a professional lover of the people of God.”

Now time is reordering itself in a new stage of life and a new context.  Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and we had the church service.  But I am also taking time to pray at home on my own time.  Not work related.  In two weeks I will make a silent retreat at Holy Cross in West Park, NY.  But this year it is on my own dime and for no particular “professional” purpose.  I hope to listen to what God is saying about my life now in my new setting and circumstances, much of which are not necessarily focused on parish life.  Not work related.  This morning Judy and I “walked” across the river, using our new snow shoes.  The woods were white and silent and the snow was many feet deep with a new half foot of powder overnight.  This play is spiritual in nature, and “in nature”.  Not work related.  And the relationships of my life are spreading across new boundaries of community, family, history and geography.  Not work related.

I realized only too well how aptly the SSJE meditation applied to my life of work.  “Many of us have a disordered relationship to time and work, and work drives us and consumes our time in ways that we experience as unhealthy and unwholesome.”

Although I am coming to this new awareness in the context of “retirement” I know it needn’t have waited.  I could have been better at balancing out the life and time God has given me.  That balance can mitigate against unnecessary burnout.  We clergy often think of our work as so very essential that no excess of it can be a source of complaint since it is all so very holy.  But holiness includes wholeness and that holistic way of living inevitably involves limits, boundaries and balance in addition to self forgetting and passionate commitment.  I wish I knew then what I know now.  But all we have is now.

A Mindfulness with a New Name

With Heather Cook’s indictment comes an awakened mindfulness and concern.  Her problems and its consequences have brought me to question and reexamine my own behavior.  I have a history of using alcohol.  It has been a help when I was shy about dancing or going out.  As someone who is socially insecure, I have used alcohol to bolster my courage at a party.  I also enjoy a drink at home before dinner.  And of course, there is beer and the Super Bowl.

Heather has been the occasion for me to reexamine these patterns.  And she has also brought up the many ways that alcohol has been a less than healthy dynamic in my experience of the Episcopal Church.

I learned about sipping sherry in seminary.  I discovered that social drinking was required at most of my interviews for positions in the church.

The first clergy conference I attended as an ordained person was in North Carolina.  The conference was entirely funded by a gift to the diocese at no cost to the clergy or parishes.  We arrived to be welcomed by an open bar serving hard liquor.  We all acted like we were at an all you can eat buffet trying to get our money’s worth.  At dinner there was a large bottle of wine at each table.  Out came the shrimp.  Then they served the prime rib.  Then we enjoyed the dessert, drinking all the while.  Then they lowered the lights and the bishop addressed us.  Many of us slid down in our seats and either fell asleep or passed out.

Fast forward one year to the next conference.  No open bar.  There was wine on the table.  The shrimp was served, followed by dessert.  No prime rib.  Then the bishop spoke.  He reminded us we misbehaved the prior conference and these were his steps to address our adolescent behavior.  In an ironic way, it was my first experience of being called to accountability by my bishop regarding alcohol use.

In Louisiana the Mardi Gras traditions were occasions for liberal partaking of alcohol.  So much so that some took it upon themselves to fast from alcohol (and sex) during Lent.  It certainly put extra drama into the Great Alleluia of the Easter Vigil.  But it also made people mindful of the role alcohol played in their lives.

Over the years, I have led vestry retreats where nearly every attendee brought a bottle of hard stuff for the social hour.  I have been at conventions where the afternoon session ended as people nearly stampeded to the bar, and others met in small groups in hotel rooms for drinks before dinner.  And I have supported serving wine before dinner at midweek Lenten Series Programs.

When Heather’s tragedy began to sink in, I was discomforted.  I was angry at her irresponsibility and its consequences.  I was angry at the Nominating Committee and the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Bishop and now the Presiding Bishop.  I was one of those who voted for her at the electing convention.  But I refused to accept any responsibility and kept putting it elsewhere.

Yet she has been the occasion for me to ask myself some hard questions.  What do I drink and why?  When do I assume I am OK to drive and is that assessment correct when I am the one making it and I have been drinking?  Am I dependent on alcohol?  So initially I just stopped drinking altogether.  I was going to prove that I was OK.  And I was.   But was this like the many diets that have never become new lifestyles?  And was it even necessary?

Now I am mindful when I drink.  What am I doing and why?  It is still a source of pleasure and socialization.  But is has a darker side I dare not ignore.  Drinking at home in the evening when I’ve no place to go is one thing.  Drinking at a party or a restaurant when I have to drive home is another.  And am I drinking because I want to or because I need to or because I feel pressured to?

I was recently instituted as the Priest in Charge of a parish in Maine.  The event included a luncheon after church.  The bishop’s guidelines stipulated that since people would have driven some distance to the event and had to drive home, no alcohol was to be served.  I consider this good leadership.

On Saturday coming we will host an afternoon open house for the parish and for a House Blessing.  As we put together the shopping list, we considered wine and decided not to serve any.  We saw this as our first opportunity post Heather to make decisions about alcohol and church.  And I will let people know why we made this decision.

I will continue to use alcohol.  But Heather has made me mindful of this substance and its consequences.  In most cases it will be OK.  But sometimes its risks just won’t be worth it.  As the Apostle Paul wrote, “If eating meat sacrificed to an idol causes another to stumble, I won’t eat meat again.”   

This is the new mindfulness and awareness in my life, and if I had to give it a name, it would be . . . 

Heather