Lots of ladies I know like to choose a word for each new year that they are going to focus on. It’s a fine idea, but one I’ve never resonated with. As a teacher, that’s probably because my new year doesn’t really start each January, it starts in August.
If I were going to choose a word for this next school year, it would probably be sustainable. I can’t do what I did this last year during pandemic teaching and my Master’s degree again. I can’t live at that rate. My health has taken what I worry will be a permanent toll. I’ve had no time to pay attention to my heart or soul, which are in shambles.
This is no way to live.
But there are ways that I was living unsustainably pre-pandemic. Like trying to go to two churches and meaningfully participate in both. My husband is Presbyterian and I am Orthodox Christian. We decided we would both go together to both churches. This idea only works because we were fairly confident we would have no children; and we didn’t.
Right before the shutdown in March 2020, Jim and I had hatched the plan of attending St. G for the Lenten Presanctified Liturgy, and Eastminster on Sundays. That way, we were able to be with all our loved ones each week for a period of time. But then, the shutdown.
Since my vaccine, I am experiencing again how hard it is to keep up with both.
I’ve learned that going to two churches is like having two sides of the family. I love them both. I need them both. I find God in both, and my heart/soul/mind/life seems to require the ministrations of both. (Not everyone is such a wretch that they need two churches constantly speaking into their lives; but I am.)
Like two sides of the family, both churches cycle through taking up more time than the other. Orthodox Holy Week. Keeping up with all the (completely) Protestant family’s holidays: Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, family visits in town…. That stretch of time gets busy on the Protestant side.
And even though we don’t have children together, we do have children whose church attendance depends wholly on when/where we go to church. They don’t go to church independently. This feature is complicated even further by Jim’s hospital work schedule which means that he isn’t at church at all one or two Sundays per month. And those are times that I can go to my church. But if I do, there’s an eighteen year old that just stays home. With him under our roof, we are still responsible for his soul a bit, yes?
In the meantime, I have godsons and goddaughters I don’t see enough.
This Twister game of liturgical logistics is eased by attendance at Wednesday night classes at my church. We have been able to join a delightful small group at Jim’s church. These times outside of Sunday morning help us stay connected.
And I just don’t know.
The school life sustainability is eventually just going to look like my setting a boundary, putting my laptop away, and refusing to let work be 85% of my life. I can find habits that will make me more efficient in the classroom; they will assist this. But eventually it will be a matter of establishing healthy boundaries and simply walking away from the continual press of all the things.
Church is harder.
And I just don’t know.
Since this ecumenical life is like participating in family, I don’t think there’s a way to streamline it into “sustainability.” It has to be lived organically, with the needs of all thrown into the pot and honored. And nurtured. But addressing those needs will cycle, like needs in a family do.
Entering back into my post-vaccine life, I need to just enter into that organic flow again.
And to all my friends at both churches: I love you guys. I need you guys. I miss you guys.
Heaven for me will be when we’re all in Eternity with Him; finally in one church.
