advent. again.

I used to love Advent. Along with Lent, it was my favorite church season: short enough to be tightly woven with text, song, and imagery; a place apart from the frantic nature of the Christmas-Industrial Complex surrounding us; a time full of promises and babies and hope and joy.

Yep - I used to love Advent. Used to.

I'm not sure whether I hate Advent now. I think 'hate' would be a bit too strong. There are still things I love about Advent as a pastor: that text/song/imagery thing is still awesome, and I love the hymns especially, and I love preaching during Advent. (Mostly.)

But those babies. Those damn babies. They're everywhere during this season, this freaking baby-centered season, damn babies showing up right and left, born after long times of waiting, born before they were ever expected - they're omnipresent. Like fruitcake.

I know what you're saying: who hates babies? Who is this woman? Who hates babies during Advent?

Infertile women. Infertile women hate babies during Advent.

(Please note that I do not actually HATE babies. But sometimes it feels that way.)

This is, in case you were keeping track (like me), my fifth Advent sans baby. We are now officially beginning our fifth year of trying to get pregnant. Which, if you were counting months (like me), would bring us to a grand total of 48 consecutive non-baby months. (Except for last April, when I was pregnant for about 24 hours until it turned out to be ectopic. I don't count that.)

Yesterday, my brother and his wife sent us a card to tell us that they are pregnant. This is very nice, in theory. The card thing was very thoughtful and indeed, did give me space to react (i.e. rage and swear until the paint practically blistered off the wall) in my own time. I appreciated that.

I was doing pretty well until that announcement. We are gearing up for another treatment cycle starting in January, so I was focused on that. It felt good to be hopeful again.

And now, it's just another Advent where someone I love is pregnant, and it's not me. And where the thing I hate the most, much more than said pregnant person, is my own hideous, self-centered reaction to the news. Another Thanksgiving where I have to stand up in the pulpit and talk about gratitude, which today feels a million miles away. Another Advent where I will watch other people's children dress up in old bedsheets and fall over themselves trying to get up the aisle to be shepherds so that their parents can smile and take their photo and then go home and put their sleepy shepherds to bed. Another Advent where I will preach about Elizabeth and Mary and secretly curse them both during the hymn of the day.

It's Advent. Again. Without child. Again. And today, I wish I could fast-forward to January 1. Again.

Good luck with me, God. You've got your work cut out for you this year.

on being patronized

Nearly eleven years into ordained ministry, and I still run into this problem.

Today, I was visiting with some people from a neighboring congregation. They'd come over to see our seniors group, since they're thinking about starting one of their own - we started chatting, and then suddenly they were asking all sorts of questions. Our conversation went something like this:

Patronizing Ladies: "So, are you the senior pastor here?"

Me: "No, I'm the associate."

PL: "Oh, that's nice. So how long have you been here?"

M: "About two years. And I was in Old City for about nine years before that."

PL: "Oh, my goodness! You don't look old enough for that!" (and here one of said ladies put her hand on my arm in that SUPER PATRONIZING sort of way, the whole, "you just look so young" kind of thing.)

(Let me say that, in fact, I do take some steps to keep myself looking young. Or, young-er. Young-ish. I take care of my skin. I, yes, I dye my hair, because I am seriously prematurely grey and would be very, very salt-and-pepper hair if I didn't, and I'm just not quite ready for that at age 36. However, my grandmother - who gave me this super-curly hair in the first place - had gorgeous silver hair, and my goal is to slide into that in my 50's or 60's. I refuse to be the old lady with suspiciously black hair. It's too weird.)

Anyway. Interestingly, I find that this sort of patronizing, "but you're so young!" behavior comes almost entirely from women. I can't remember the last time a man said that to me. Maybe guys just don't notice age the way women do. Or maybe they have decided that commenting on a colleague's appearance in any way is dangerous territory, and they're staying out of it. (Probably wise.)

But I think there's more to it than that. Why is it always women who insist that I'm so young, that they "could never have been a pastor" at my age (yep, I've gotten that one), that, well...let's finish today's conversation.

Patronizing Ladies: "So, what year did you graduate from college?"

Me: (Dreading probable response) "1995."

PL: "Oh, my goodness - you're just a baby!" (Insert Patronizing Arm Grip again here.)

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT? First of all, I'm two months away from being 37. I'm freewheeling toward forty here, people. I'm still young - you bet. But a BABY? What is THAT about?

Would it have been okay for me to say to her, "you're getting pretty old, aren't you? Are you STILL working? Wow - you're no spring chicken."

Obviously that would be bad. I would never do this. Because it would be irritating, and rude, and I would probably get beat up a lot.

I have no idea where to go with this, which is probably why I came here. It's just that it really bugs me. It bugs that it's women that do this (at least to me). I've made it a personal creed not to do this to women in ministry who are younger than I am. Does this ring true for anyone else?

one of those days

I'm having one of those days. You know, the kind where it's raining and dreary and you are about to welcome a speaker for a class you are pretty sure no one will show up for, and also you screwed up and double-booked yourself on a Sunday and had to admit your foolish mistake because there was no way out of it, and also you're suffering from pretty serious jet lag. You know, one of those days.

At text study today, we got into a discussion about general lack of participation in our churches. It seems to be something of an epidemic at the moment, people saying how much they want a certain program, or class, or worship opportunity, but then never actually showing up for the stuff you put together. This gets old. Fast. Because of my jet lag, I woke up at 5:00am this morning with DOOM, DOOM thoughts running in my head - this is the sort of thing I usually do at 3:00am, when it's possible to go back to sleep and then wake up and realize what an idiot you were, but when you do it at 5:00, there's not much time to clean the slate. So I got up, and I'm still spinning in a vortex of worry and frustration.

It's partly exhaustion, for sure, but it's also the trail end of the honeymoon period in New Congregation. They just don't show up for the stuff I do at the rate they show up for the stuff my colleague does. He's been here 25 years, so this makes a lot of sense when you look at it from a purely objective perspective (at which, let's face it, I suck). And right now a few no-show-things are coinciding, along with the jet lag, which makes me much more negative than I really am.

Sometimes the minutiae of ministry - the administrative stuff, the human-resources stuff, the petty arguments and the anxieties and the ego bruises and the tiredness - just gets you down. It always passes. Sleep helps, for one thing.

And sometimes you just have to admit that you're having a crappy day. Nothing dramatic; nothing life-altering. Just crummy. This too, shall pass. Soon and very soon, I hope.

damn yankees.

Sigh.

I guess the value of the widow's mite doesn't apply to major league baseball.

Stupid Yankees.

That is all.