Friday, August 14, 2009

Temptations in Unemployment Wilderness

Almost three weeks into the gift and blessing of my "hermitage", being in the wilderness does not seem so hard. I wonder if Jesus felt this way at some point during his time in the wilderness just after he was "driven out" by the Holy Spirit. (I sometimes wonder what the Holy Spirit drives: a Honda Accord, so people could say they were all together in one accord?). Of course Jesus did not have the option of driving into town to go to AA meetings, or coffee shops for internet access, or lunch with good friends when the isolation was too great.

But if I can put myself in the same company as Jesus, I do believe I have been tempted in this wilderness of unemployment that I've been in. And as all spiritual lessons seem to come in threes, I, too, feel I have had three different temptations.

The first temptation I experienced was the temptation to be a victim. After that first breathtakingly bewildering experience of realizing, oh my god, I won't have an income soon. I don't know what I'm going to do to "make a living", there is the overwhelming urge to run around screaming from the rooftops, and get others to say oh my god with you. Since it was the church that I was talking about, I knew it wouldn't be hard to find people (who later found me) who would say, "I wouldn't think the church would lay off anyone," as though the church was somehow exempt from the rules of economy, and that when the church's expenses were greater than its income, a God-flow of money would just fill its accounts again. This type of thinking was what got me in this position in the first place: people who considered the church a place for solace and comfort, but didn't feel responsible to help keep it afloat financially.

One woman in AA actually said in a meeting, "wow, it's bad when you get fired by God," which made me laugh, but touched a really deep fear deep inside me that God was trying to tell me I should leave the church and the priesthood, and that if I didn't, it was like someone in an abusive marriage who stayed in the marriage out of fear of the unknown and the fear that the real world was a lot scarier than anything the relationship could dish out. I still don't know for sure that this is NOT God at work, but friends who seem to see things deeply keep steering me away from this thought, and keep telling me I AM a good priest, and the church needs me.

But this reassurance did not keep the second temptation at bay: the temptation to believe that I am not of value if I d not have a job. Now, this is probably a very common belief in our culture. What we DO, how much we MAKE, how many people we INFLUENCE, how much power we have is the way the world measures a person's worth. But I'm a spiritual person who believes in God's love, and tells people all the time that they are ALREADY loved by God before they ever get out of bed and make a dent on the problems of the world. We can't earn that love, and we are priceless by our very being alive. I tell other people that, but when the rubber meets the road, or when the fears come and roost, the temptation is to feel a lot more like a failure than a beloved child of God.

This particular temptation has taken an interesting spiritual twist, though. I know, even at the heart level, that I am worth more than just what I do. Where I feel as though I don't measure up is that right now I am not contributing any work with the poor or comforting someone who is feeling downtrodden, or giving BACK to the world. I fear that I will become a self-absorbed narcissist who does not care about the needs of the world, which by any standards are worse than anything I am experiencing. We liberals do believe, more than we might like to admit, in a works righteousness world. And it comes back to bite us.

The third temptation hasn't hit full force right now, but every once in a while I can see it peeking up over the mountains surrounding my hermitage. That is the temptation to despair. You could say that so far, I keep telling myself not to go there, not to allow myself to entertain the thought that maybe I'm supposed to experience going completely broke, or the humility of having to work at Walmart, or even having to declare bankruptcy and give up my dogs and go to live in a shelter. Why shouldn't I? There are certainly plenty of people who have had to do this, and God doesn't love me any better than them, so why not me?

There. It's out there. I named it, and it makes a lot of sense, rationally. So do the worst of temptations in our various spiritual wildernesses. They are cold, hard and rational, and don't leave any room for grace or miracles or people who swoop in generously like the friends who are letting me stay in their home right now. I'm also doing my part, and applying to every position for which I might remotely qualify in the church, on Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com and even Boulder County unemployment, which I don't qualify for, by the way, because the church doesn't pay in to unemployment insurance, because the church almost never lays anyone off, I guess. Don't get me started; it might set me off into being a victim, which I was hoping I had left behind me securely.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

A hummingbird hovers just outside the window, vainly searching for nectar in my ceramic pepper plants, a souvenir from Arizona where I lived 12 years. She darts off as I turn to look at her, just inches away. The wind rustles the leaves of the birch tree planted just off the deck. It will be a warm day, in the upper 80s, and I laugh to myself, realizing that I now think that is hot.


In this second week of life in my hermitage, I am feeling very creative. I had gotten settled quickly into the 2000 square foot home, occupying only the family room and a bedroom, and bringing only the basics for the kitchen. Already I had had to buy an iced tea pitcher, a basting brush so I could marinade meat as I cooked it on the gas grill I had decided to bring. It was like a summer bungalow in some ways, and I liked the free feeling not having so much stuff gave me.


The rest of my possessions were crammed into a Packrat container, one of those portable steel storage containers that can be loaded onto a truck and put into a warehouse until I know where I’m going next. Unless it’s Hawaii, I remind myself. If I end up at Christ Church in Kealakekua, they will have to unload and re-pack my things into wooden crates and ship it across the Pacific. I try not to project too far, even as I feel a slight tinge of excitement. I imagine the older congregation on the “Big Island” as being a little less driven, more appreciative of the things I am experiencing during my hermitage and its slowed down pace. Maybe that’s why God sent me here, I think to myself. To get me ready for Hawaii.


Or there is Rochester, NY, also Christ Church. I have a phone interview with them tomorrow evening, and will have to go into Loveland to make sure I have phone reception. I had decided to use only a cell phone and not get a land line, but found it impossible to get a connection many times each day. My ability to communicate was dependent on having enough “bars” on my phone – at least two, and even then that didn’t guarantee that a conversation wouldn’t be cut off in mid-sentence because the satellite or something shifted slightly.

But this morning I am appreciating the chance to pray, meditate, read, write. I had never had so much time alone, despite the fact that I had lived alone for most of the last nine years since my husband’s death. This was different though, being 15 miles from the nearest wifi connection, 18 miles from All Saints Episcopal Church in Loveland that I had attended Sunday. Sitting here in my recliner in the family room of 14151 N. County Rd. 27, I could see two houses, but mostly just green foothills, and the hummingbird and birch tree.

In the quiet spaciousness, the only sound is the breeze rustling the leaves of the birch. In such openness, it was not hard to imagine a universe with vast possibility. Who knew what my future would bring me? For now it seemed God wanted me to be receptive to the possibilities outside my door.

Summer Breezes and Winds of the Spirit

Theo, my Westie, trots ahead on the dirt road, happily sniffing the various thistles and plants along the way. I do not know their names yet. It is my first full day in my “hermitage” as I am calling it, and I am exploring the 70 acres on which the house sits that my priest friend and his wife are letting live in.


It has been almost three months since I was let go from my position as assistant rector at St. John’s because the budget needed to be balanced. The severance they offered me would run out the end of this month. The parish had been generous and had taken up a collection for a “purse” as well, and I have figured that it would last me another couple of months since I did not have to pay rent. I have this deep abiding sense that I will be okay, that something will materialize from the applications I had sent out on line, applications I had filled out for various parishes, Hospice chaplain positions, a couple of addictions treatment chaplain positions.


Like the sparsely planted plains and hills spread out before me as I walk down the road, the responses to my appeals had been few. Of 20 packets of information I sent out to parishes listed in the Church Deployment Office Positions Open Bulletin, I had never heard anything from several; I had been told by more than half of the parishes that they would be in touch once they collected all of the applications; and of those, five had eventually sent polite form letters saying that I was no longer being considered for the position. I was still waiting, though not very optimistically, to hear from a few more. I would send out another batch of applications this week


Perhaps it was the summer, when most church employees take vacation, that had slowed down the process for so many people. Almost as a reminder of that fact, I feel perspiration trickling behind my ears, as my head begins to sweat characteristically. Or perhaps it was General Convention, our national convention held every three years, and which was attended by every bishop and deployment officer for every diocese. Diocesan business would have ground to a halt around the country during the legislative gathering. It was over now. Maybe I would hear something from one of the remaining parishes.


I did not expect them to realize the urgency of my need for a job. This was not really “their” problem. But being the church… I caught myself in the midst of what was beginning to seem like a very naïve way of looking at life in the church. If anything, it seemed, being the church meant that we operated less efficiently AND less empathetically than organizations in the secular world. I would no longer continue to insist that maybe this time the church might be pastoral in its response to my being unemployed.


Passing the manure pile where my friends had dumped their wheelbarrows when cleaning out the barn, I catch a whiff of the sweet/acrid waste. Jesus had a preference for those cast out and in the margins, those considered unclean and rejected by the world.


Watch it, I tell myself as I enter into the territory of self-pity. I cannot not afford to go there, for my spirit, nor for my motivation to discern where God was calling me next. But I feel embraced by something hidden, even as a luscious summer breeze plays itself around me. God is there. And for now, that is enough.