I have been feeling unproductive lately. Honestly, like I am
failing as a parent and a pastor. My to do lists do not get shorter but I feel
like I am working nonstop. I have seen some inspirational internet quotes about
how we cannot gauge productivity in the same way. How we can’t do it all. How
we are being asked to do the impossible. So I decided to take notes about the day,
I am starting at about 11 am.
Despite my stress and exhaustion, you should know how
profoundly grateful I am that I still have my full time job, that I work with
people who understand I can’t come into the office all day. Today, every day,
forever, I am grateful for my child, an answered prayer and it is that deep
sense of gratitude for her very life that propels me to another day. I know so
many who long to have a child to interrupt them all day long.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
Day ?? of at home learning while pastoring
We had a better start then yesterday when the Chromebook
was lost (again) and while I showered I was informed the internet wasn’t
working. RESTART THE COMPUTER!!!!!
I was trying to write my sermon when I was confronted with
breaking news, “It’s art day and we have to go make dough right now!”
I may have audibly groaned at that point. Don’t get me wrong
my kiddo and I are all about at home art projects and science experiments even
when there is in person learning. I am confident that she will rock this project.
It is just that once a week it is art day and on art day huge messes happen. My
dining room table has been covered in recycling to do a found items sculpture
(which turned out amazing), I have moved furniture to help create a reinterpretation
of an art piece. Art day is SO much work and my kiddo LOVES it! I am exhausted
by it.
Imagine her reaction when I replied: “You need to finish
your other work first.”
----
It’s an hour later, I stand up to go to the bathroom. No
sooner does my bottom hit the toilet there is pounding on the door.
“How long are you going to take in there?”
“Uh, as long as it takes to get the job done.”
This continues every two seconds for what I am sure is a
lifetime. Finally, I ask, “What do you need?”
“I finished my writing assignment on personification. I want
to read it to you.”
“Ok, when I am finished.”
You all, I ended up in the bathroom, trying to do what we do
in the bathroom, listening to a freshly written poem about a personified jaguar,
through the bathroom door. Then I was quizzed to make sure I was listening.
----
Another twenty minutes passes, I have some good tunes on, I
am trying to find my sermon writing groove.
How can there be so many emails and texts I need to
respond too?!?
“Mom, did you hear that big thump?”
“No”
“Both pets heard it and they ran off. What could it have
been?”
In my head: Listen Nancy Drew, I don’t know what it was,
I didn’t hear it, and I am not solving mysteries today.
“Well they are doing road work outside.”
“But I didn’t see any big trucks outside.”
“It can echo.”
She carries the cat, who is protesting loudly, back down the
stairs, as she comforts her from the scary noise.
----
Tomorrow is my day “off”. I really want to get these sermon
notes started so I am not working on my day off, again.
I remember I have phone calls to return and I need to go
to the church to check the mail.
I look at my to do list for the week, I still haven’t
emailed out the liturgy for this weekend. Did I finish it?
I also need to edit the music for Sunday in to one
playable file.
I look at the bottom of the list, where I have written
two projects that I haven’t had time for but thought I might during this time because
surely things would slowdown. I laugh out loud to myself.
“I don’t want to write responses they are so stupid.”
“We aren’t doing art until it’s all done.”
“UGGHHHHH!”
Where was, I? This is the sixth Sunday of Easter right?
No wait it is the fifth.
----
How is it two hours past lunch time already… I better get us
fed.
I venture downstairs and I make the mistake of asking the
kid how she’s doing on her work. “I’m done with all that mom!”
Into the kitchen I go. Time to make lunch appear. I see the
side of a carton of eggs and for a moment I think somehow, magically there is
take out in my fridge. I pull out some stuff leftover from taco night. My kid decides
she wants just rice and cheese. I mean I watched the entire Hunger Games series
with her last week, I no longer have parenting standards. Fine I concede but
eat some of the watermelon in the fridge too. She goes to get the watermelon
and vinegar has spilled on the lid. The world did not end, but it came close.
Did I get all the copyright things straight for Sunday?
I make myself a taco bowl and she’s already done with her lunch.
I turn around to discover she has tied a string to the dog’s collar because it
is hilarious when the cat chases the string/dog. She has not encountered
another child in person in 8 weeks. This
morning I told her she was like a compressed spring ready to explode with cabin
fever. I see this for the next hour. I turned on the TV during lunch and there
is a news story I want to listen to. Instead I read the graphics as I get a
play by play of the cat playing with the string that is now not tied to the
dog. I am pretty sure for the duration of my taco bowl, she didn’t breathe, she
just said words in my direction.
She goes outside with the dog. I decide to make a quick fruit
salad. As I come up from picking some bad grapes out of the fruit drawer, I
rail my head into the handle of the freezer. I can’t believe I have done this
again, how do I not just have a permanent bruise on my skull? I make random
noises to ease the pain.
Kid comes in from outside and I discover she took the cat
outside again, which she isn’t supposed to do. She proceeds to tell me all
about how when the cat goes outside, she is particularly and exclusively
intrigued by the FedEx truck. I get a play by play of the what happened when the
FedEx truck passed by and learn the cat does not do this for UPS or Amazon
trucks.
I wonder do animals ever achieve sainthood? I think our
pets should.
She realizes at this point that I am getting frustrated and apologizes.
I tell her to go get some energy out.
I am met with mom it’s time to make the dough.
Let me go out to get the mail and then go upstairs to type
some notes. Then we can make the dough.
The sun feels fabulous as I get the mail. Did I mention our
mailbox lived on a road construction island for the past several weeks? This
week the workers moved it and we actually get the mail again. I notice at that
point I haven’t put the new mulch around the rose bushes yet and the creeping
phlox still isn’t creeping and the lawn needs to be mowed if it will just stay
sunny long enough to dry it out.
Did anyone call the insurance company about what
guidelines we have when we return to worship in person? How will people react
if we have to wear masks? What technology do I need for Sunday? What if we can’t
sing together in worship when we return? I am really grieving not having the
preschool the rest of this year. What can I do for the teachers and students?
I drop the mail, clean my hands and come upstairs to type these
notes. Now I am going back down to make the dough. I have already been warned
it’s not as easy as is looks in the instruction video and tears were flowing in
another house this morning.
It is now nearly 3pm. Pray for me. I am about to make dough
when all I can think about is sermon notes and pastoral care phone calls that
aren’t finished.
Wait there is an urgent email…
An hour and a half later I have pretty much mixed the dough,
fought the dough, and used a shot glass to help hold up the structure. Then we
are to microwave it at ten second intervals, of course it sort of melts as it
sets.
After washing my hands three times, most of the smurf blue
is gone. I notice this dark spot on my face in the mirror, crud I forgot the
special cream for that again. This spot has been with me for years, I have had
it checked out by a doctor, it never really bothered me until I was looking at
my face on camera all the time, I am so tired of my own face.
Oh look an email stating she hasn’t turned in any of her
phys. ed lessons. She literally dances along to videos… I guess I will have to
figure out what’s happening there later.
Did I mention on Monday the governor declared the kids will
not go back to school buildings this year? Or that on Wednesday the school
district sent out the calendar for next year. We have an extra week of summer
break because Labor Day falls late. I wonder again if there will be summer
camps and if so will I feel safe sending her. If not how will I juggle work and
her high energy with no school work to focus on?
----
I sit back down at my desk again where two windows overlook
our yard aka the swamp because it has rained so much it is mostly one giant
puddle. The cat curls up nearby. I see the dog laying in the mud, again. Then I
see my kid literally in a pile on the patio. Oh my God, she has passed out. I
open the window and she springs up instantly. I ask are you ok? “Yeah I am just
sunning myself.”
Will I ever get to preside at the funeral for the dearly
departed who left us two months ago?
It is 4:20 pm, I have finally begun to push through my to do
list. If I want to honor my boundaries, I have 40 minutes left to work today,
plus a brief zoom call tonight. I still have four pastoral care phone calls I
wanted to make, it won’t happen, I won’t be the pastor I want to be today. I
just remembered it’s Mother’s Day this weekend and I need to choose a prayer
that include all sorts of mothers. I haven’t emailed out the liturgy yet or
written the sermon or edited the music or found the prop for the time with
children. I have a second church I work with sometimes that I need to check in
on with something.
Tomorrow is my day off. There will be no lessons tomorrow
because it’s field day… oh my goodness we never chose our field day activities.
I didn’t take out anything for dinner.
I need to remember to look in the mirror before the zoom
call.
------------------------------
No wonder I can’t get anything done. I have been a stay at
home mom and a full-time working mom. I have never been a full time stay at
home and full-time working mom at the same time. Probably because it is
impossible! I know I am not alone in this all my mom friends have been keeping
me company on this journey. I have several strings of text messages full of our
laments, our tears, our frustration, our desire to drink wine at noon, and our
small victories. (Maybe Dads have similar thing going on?) I am exhausted and overwhelmed,
and I have one ten-year-old child. I cannot imagine what this would be like for
parents with toddlers and preschoolers. At least at some point in the day my
kid is outside sunning herself like a cat.
I think a good number of us feel like absolute failures
right now. We get short with our families easier than we want to. We drop the
ball on something at work. For those who suddenly had to move all their work
online we had to learn an entirely new way to be in the world and make our
contributions. Pastors are now doing pastoral care with out any contact and its
heart breaking and frustrating and energy draining because we can’t read body
language. We have become fulltime one-person production companies to make
worship happen. We are learning the nuance of copy right law. Loosing sleep
over church finances, no matter what our budgets and giving levels are. We are
working on regular church administrative matters and learning how to keep people
safe when we can gather again. Prior to this my contract was for 48 hours a
week, I worked that easily if not more. Since COVID-19 I work significantly
more especially those first few weeks as there was so much to get up and
running. Part of that is the new demands on my time both at work and at home,
which both take place in my house now. Yet no matter how many times I have been
interrupted today. No matter how many weird dreams kept me up last night. No
matter what pastoral care situations arise. I have to “go live” on Sunday
morning with something to say about God and God’s word. That pressure is always
there but in times like these it feels a little bigger. What is God calling me
to preach to help people make it through another week of this?
No wonder I am exhausted!
Something has got to give.
So I am wondering fellow parents pastoring through a
pandemic can we give ourselves permission to breathe a little. I struggled with
it a lot until I read my own notes about this day. My house looks like Taz from
looney toons went through. I am pretty sure several of my kid’s friends have
seen my bras on the laundry pile via video chat. During Holy Week, there were
days no schoolwork got done until the evening. There are more of those days in
our future. There have been days where I just let it go and went outside for a
while.
I am enough, I am doing enough.
You are enough, You are doing enough.
As pastors and parents there are just some things we aren’t
going to be called to and that is alright. I said earlier this week, I am
working to accept there are just somethings I am not equipped for.
Tonight as I push the laundry pile aside and sit on the
couch with a glass of wine exhausted and stressed, waiting for the tears that
just won’t come, I will toast to you, because you are killing it!
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| Here is a relaxing picture from last summer, may you find peace. |
