It's that time again. Here we go...
So, this past week I was able to spend a lot of time on my own: sitting, reading, reflecting, watching TV, and most recently spend a little time with my brother and the rest of my family back home. It's been a good weekend, but it's quickly coming to a close--even though there is still another complete day and then some to live through. Work begins on Tuesday, Summer starts, and the long trek through the unknown continues.
The reason I was alone this week was not my design. You see my wife was able to score a scholarship to go to a 3-4 day conference about identifying and preventing child abuse, and other forms of abuse, in the church. She also took this trip as an opportunity to visit friends and family in the area. Needless to say, I was left home because I still have some substitute teaching gigs to work through, which allowed for a little "stay-cation" of sorts. However, I didn't think it was fair that she got a vacation and I didn't, so I decided to visit my family for a little bit of the Memorial Day Weekend. Not really the same thing, but it is what it is, and I'm not very good at vacation so it is always short lived and I always jump back into "real life" before I've had an adequate time to rest and recover.
However, this isn't about me and my poor vacationing skills. Like mentioned above this week presented an opportunity to do some things on my own, which isn't always a good thing, but there were some highlights that I would like to share and expand on for a short time with you now.
As a part of this project, the entire pastor's husband thing, I really wanted to get back to the roots of my writing. For those of you who don't know anything about me, the true beginning of my interest in writing wasn't until my undergraduate career, where I was given the opportunity to write academic papers following research on some theological ideas: history of the church, post-modern though, life of Martin Luther, and all kinds of other topics. Now, they probably weren't very good, but I did graduate with honors in the religion program. However, the thing was my advisor, professor and theological mentor (of sorts) really encouraged me to be myself and keep up the work--praising my writing ability and the work I was doing. Since then, I've really struggled to tap back into the academic style of writing: developing a question, searching for answers and compiling the information. Since then I have deviated into other forms of writing: rants, raves, poems, stories, Facebook status updates, etc.
I have taken some of the academic steps by coming up with a question and looking for answers, however there aren't very many avenues for finding answers. If you were to search the internet for resources for a pastor's husband, you're not going to find very many. You may find a few articles about a male pastor who's wife is also a pastor, but that's not the situation I find myself in. Other than that, there are endless articles about male charismatic pastors who have wives that run the show behind the scenes.
What about me?
What about males like me?
Who is there to help us?
Anybody?
Not really. I think the issue is that the church culture has not caught up to the social culture in which it is working. Yes, there are church movements that are calling for the modernization of their practices, but considering the church was built up over centuries of sordid histories, it's going to take a lot of moving to get the field leveled out.
With that being said, there are those church leaders who feel as if they know what the issue is; they have the fix; they know what needs to be done in order to prosper their lives, their churches, and their communities. However, they still aren't playing the same game I am; their rules don't seem to apply to me. Now, before you raise your heckles and judge me too harshly, finish reading... or not, either way I'm okay with you--still love you!
So, over the past week I had the opportunity to eat with neighbors, work with students, read some pleasure books, and make an attempt at reading a book about what it means to have a God-centered marriage. One of these things is not like the other....
In my longing to find some more academic resources, I decided to try to find some books pertaining to the role of marriage in the church, or marriage for church people. I figured what better place to start on my journey, than to see what church leaders and, by extension, The Bible had to say about marriage and the roles that people were supposed to play in the practice of being married. Therefore, I went to the local library and picked up one of these "marriage user manuals from God."
I tried...
I really wanted to...
I couldn't...
I quit...
I made it chapter 2 of this book and could not force myself to read any further. At first I was holding out hope that there would be enough material that applied to the life that I wanted to see develop between my wife and I; but it quickly became a one-sided argument about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and it didn't feel good to read. I'm not going to get into details, because there are a lot of people who think differently than I do, and I respect them and I cherish the relationships I have with them--they know who they are, and they know we see things differently.
With that being said, I do not see my role in my marriage to be anything other than a partner, a supporter, a challenger, a lover, and sometimes a jerk (it's bound to happen, so might as well own it). There are all types of cultural differences, social constructs, and ideas about what it means to be married and what it means to be in relationship with God; and I'm not sure we are in the proper place to determine what the later dictates of the former. We can all read the bible verses that refer to women as lesser, as being subordinate, as being the vessels for carrying creation, as being the helper, as being the servant, as being an object of possession, but times have changed. We went through the Suffrage Movement, we went through the Civil Rights Movement, we are still going through these movements in our country because somebody thinks all people are equal.
This does not mean that there aren't roles to be played in society; that certain types of temperament are needed for the world to maintain a harmonious appearance, but this is not limited to gender. I can be a tender hearted, caring male just as easily as my wife can be a authoritative leader. It doesn't matter what is between one's legs, what matters is what's in their heart. I don't need to be the "boss" of my wife--I can tell her what to do, but she doesn't have to listen (nor does she that often anyway). We are working out a system that works for us, and I don't think I need The Bible, a marriage book, or any other resource to tell me what our relationship is supposed to look like.
There will be mistakes.
There will be tears.
There will be hurts.
There will be pain.
There will be love.
We'll figure out what works for us without the dictates of other people. Yes, we'll ask advice; we'll see help when we need it (sometimes); and we understand that we cannot do this alone. However, to be told how to live life together is not the goal of this. To turn around and dictate to other men what their lives need to look like if their wife is called into church ministry, is not my goal. My goal is to document my journey toward God with my wife--that's it.
Eventually, I might come up with good resources, create my own, or just give up and go to seminary myself.
Either way, there will be documentation about my journey. There will be written proof that it is possible to struggle with an identity that is yet to be mainlined. It's possible to find God, while not going to church and loving your wife.
It's possible!
We can do it!
We will do it!
It's going to be okay!
Sincerely,
A [Future] Pastor's Husband
P.S. We have another interview set-up for next week, so here's hoping I am one step away from officially being a pastor's husband (or at least, one step closer!).
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