Up on the roof (or in the woods)

Paul Roberts posted on his blog* three essays about the stresses in clergy life. In his first comment on clergy stress, he writes:

"Many non-ordained people struggle to believe that being a priest can be stressful. Some even still believe that we work for one day a week, visit a few people and spend the rest of the time reading theology and collecting butterflies. However, in many cases, particularly those who are responsible for one or more churches, a working week well in excess of the legal working time directive is the norm. The other factor behind clergy stress is the lack of the work/life boundaries which most people would take for granted."

I don't think that the folks in the congregation I serve think this (perhaps not because I am 2/3 comp/time); they don't begrudge me time off because they understand that if I get down time, I can be more productive and present to them when I need to be.

Roberts continues:

"Despite trying my best to keep my working time within bounds, since the start of November, I have been working roughly 70 hours per week. This is achieved by having four days which begin at 7am with the email and end with the closing of a meeting around 9.30 or 10pm, then a lighter day (8 hours), a day off, then a 12-hour Sunday. I live in my work environment, in the house and outside the house. Every time I go into the supermarket, I meet people I know for whom whom I carry pastoral responsibility. A chance meeting inevitable bridges the boundaries - I ask them how they are, I may be aware of issues that it would be appropriate to ask after. To do otherwise would be churlish and bring something false or unnatural into the relationship. Like most parish priests, I have an office at home and I also use the house for meetings. I am immersed in my work context. I don’t have a place to go ‘home’ to which is outside of those work responsibilities."

My work days aren't anything like what he describes but the sloppiness of boundaries, particularly with increased use of email (largely at my creation because I am so bad about making phone calls), does sneak up and pretty soon one realises that one hasn't really had a guilt-free day off in weeks, and hasn't goofed off and let go of things in a long time. Early on in this blog, I wrote about my parking lot conversations, those 45-minute trips to the market to buy five things and end up being pastoral sessions. Like Roberts, I don't resent those interactions because I know they are vital. But even priests need time off and even Jesus got into the back of the boat and fell asleep.

Unlike Roberts, I am fortunate because I can escape the rectory and go downstream to our little bitty house.

James Taylor redid the old song, 'Up on the Roof' (When this old world gets to be too much... I go to where it's sweet... up on a roof, or something like that). For me, it's outside.

Two days ago Compa and I went out snowshoeing (on the minute ground cover we have). I took my camera, wanting to linger at the curiosities that winter gives us, like cattails by the frozen-over pond or what I call stekkelvarkens (Dutch for porcupines, even though there are no such things in the Netherlands, or at least weren't any when I lived there with my cousins 35 years ago).

Actually, this 'porcupine' is a downed pine tree — a real pain to chop up. They are best left to rot in the woods, but when they come down by the house, then it's out with the chain saw to chop them up in piece to haul to the burn pile or woods because the wood is not any good to burn. Since the branches stick out on all sides and inevitably stab you (thereby bruising you), I took to calling them stekkelvarkens.

In any event, such a walk is restful and helps restore some sense of boundaries. It's so funny because in Theory and Practise of Ministry classes, even when I went to seminary, self-care, setting boundaries (of all sorts) was so much a part of the curriculum. You know it in your head, you know you should be more careful but the erosion happens and then it's rebuilding some sort of jetty.

Mind you, the same thing happened when I taught full-time. I never left work at the office. It came home with me and I spent as much time working after school at night at home as I did in school between teaching, supervising sports (when I taught at the secondary level), and study halls. Sunday afternoons and nights were always dismal because I would realise how little work I had actually accomplished. A highly developed sense of guilt always characterised the school year, compounded by the knowledge that I wasn't working on my dissertation when I wasn't teaching. So, loss of boundaries isn't unique to clergy by any means. I suspect more people than not struggle with the fluidity of demarcation of job/work/home/leisure these days, thanks to computers, email, Blackberries and all those things that are supposed to make our lives easier.

So, the question for me, and for countless others is: How do I re-establish healthy boundaries between work and home, work and play so that I can be a better priest/teacher/doctor/etc.? Figuring the answer out is a life-time occupation, ¿no?

*Robert's blog can be found at
(http://alternativeworship.org/paulsblog/?p=146)