Jesus said that you can't put new wine into old wineskins because the new wine would stretch the old wineskins too much and they would burst, and the wine would be wasted. I have wrestled with that parable for many years, and it always "dogged" me, as if there was an important lesson for me to learn. I never preached on it.
It's been two years since I left the Church and began my job at Aseracare Hospice. It's been a wild two years! Fortunately I was unaware of the journey ahead of me when I made the decision to hand in my ordination. Though it's been a tough one, downright tumultuous at times, I know I needed to go through everything I have as there were many profound lessons for me to learn. I'm sure the learning will never end!
I've literally had to Get a Life. Often I have felt like someone who just crash-landed from another galaxy altogether and now have to learn how to speak, relate, live among earthlings. The Church literally consumed my life. The Church was my life. My entire life. I lived, breathed, ate, spoke, thought... Church since the womb. And the church for a pastor and their family is the universe in which they live. They have their own language, their own rules and the pastor is in that role 24/7. He/she never gets to be just a human being. It is nearly impossible to have friends when you are a pastor. It's an unspoken rule that it's not recommended. Parishioners will get jealous if you're friends with other parishioners. If your friends are pastors, well, there's always the competition dynamic and the dreadful reality that one day your friend could be your boss. Pastors in general do not have deep, real, honest, intimate friendships. It conflicts with The Role.
I did not realize fully, until I've been out for awhile, the extent of loneliness, isolation and lack of basic human relational skills the job nurtures. There have been many moments in these last two years where I've wanted to scream, "I don't know the rules out here!" Meaning in the vast, diverse world outside the Church. Now I know why so many pastors are afraid to retire, and why so many take another church long into retirement. They don't what else to do. In the pastorate, you have no time or energy for such basic human things such as hobbies. I've known many pastors who suffer deep depression after retirement if they don't continue pastoring. They are no longer needed. They're no longer the center of attention. They are isolated. Especially since pastors are also encouraged strongly by DSs not to retire in any of the communities in which they pastored. Which means they end up settling into places where no one knows them and they have few resources as to how to meet people.
I know of only one pastor friend who retired well. He took up a lot of new hobbies in retirement, taught himself how to build furniture and enjoyed his freedom! He is an anomaly.
And so, I've struggled too. At the age of 46, I'm still learning a lot about how to make friends! How to relate honestly and intimately with friends. Growing up in the parsonage and then continuing my life in the parsonage, you learn also to hedge the truth about what you think and feel. You get to be a good politician. I've had to learn how to be more truthful since leaving the church. That disturbed me!
But all in all, I had to leave the Church, because the Spirit was and is doing all kinds of new things in me, and I no longer fit the church. I was bustin' out all over, and it was finally killing me. I couldn't continue to grow and learn and trust and ultimately be at peace if I stayed in the Church. What a relief and joy to make friends and relate to them honestly and trust them to love me even if we disagree! What a relief to be myself without wondering when I'm going to hear the next complaint. I kept trying, for many, many years, to cram myself into all the little boxes that the Church assembles for pastors, and it was suffocating. No one is meant to live in isolation. No one is meant to have their entire identity wrapped up in their job. No one is meant to take all levels of cruelty and meanness all in the name of Christian "love." Even Jesus couldn't handle more than three years of ministry on this planet!
God is so much bigger than the Church. There is so much profound truth outside the Church walls, many precious souls that radiate with the Divine Light of God. God wants to radically change the world with Love, but God can't do that as long as we spend all our time bickering about who's right and who's wrong and who's in and who's out. Does a mother abandon her children when they reject her gifts? Does a mother subject her children to cruel and violent punishment when they disobey? Of course not.
It's scary to think for myself. It was easier to just find out what the party-line was thinking, and just think it. But getting out of the Church, I also got out of my head. I was completely in my head all those years, because the Church is really afraid of the body and all of it's mystery. All those feelings and emotions that are so darn messy. But I'm trying to live more from the heart, from the grounding of Love, and it's so much more rewarding. Scare as hell, but Life-giving.
My wineskins burst two years ago, and I will probably always bear the scars. But I'm told that healed scars are stronger than the original skin. I don't regret any of it. The Church gave me a place from which to launch, like my parent's house. But I couldn't stay in my parents' house and truly grow and become who I'm meant to be. Now, I am truly living on faith.....
And so it is.
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