Tag Archives: Single

Mother’s Day Free Spaces

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by in Church Life, Current Events, grief, Holidays, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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How many of our churches are Mother’s Day free spaces?

I ask this because many women do not want to come to church on Mother’s Day.  We don’t want people to talk about it, or reward moms or even just celebrate a roll that we are supposed to embrace.  There are many people in our churches who can’t have children or don’t want to or had awful parents.

They do not want to come to church on Sunday.

And yet, we look at this like a holy day.  While parents are holy people, Mother’s Day is not on the liturgical calendar.  Granted, the Law tells us to honor our mothers and fathers.  But scripture also gives us many instances when women were hurting because they couldn’t conceive.

Would Sarah, Hannah, Rachel, Rebekah, Tamar be welcome in our worship places this Sunday?  What about Elizabeth, mother of John?

Ideally, it would be wonderful to stop with the Mother’s Day gushing in sacred spaces – because women who want to worship but who also are triggered by this day won’t show up.  They aren’t welcome because they do not feel safe in the space.  Their emotions are not strong enough to carry them from the beginning to end of the service.

We may even give all of the women flowers or candy.
We may even pray for all women – including the ones hurting and enduring loss.
But they do not feel safe.

So on this Mother’s Day – even when our churches will go ahead with handing flowers and candy to women – please remember the following:

Not all women are mothers
Not all women are able to bear children.
Some moms in the room may have lost a baby.
Some have had miscarriages.
Some are facing fertility issues.
Some women have not had the opportunity to have children because life happened.
Some do not want to have them.
Some people in the room have had traumatic relationship with their moms.
Some people lost their mom in the past year and didn’t realize how this day in church would be triggering to them.
Some people have two dads or never had a mom because of family structures.  A day like this brings awkwardness – even if we honor the fathers a month later.
Some women came to church just to worship and not focus on this.

So acknowledge this day if you must – but do so in a way that is inclusive in nature.  Honor all women because it takes a village to raise children.  Honor families who have lost mothers in the past year.  Ask families who hurt on this day how can we make worship more welcoming of them.  If you have two services maybe keep one Mother’s Day-free.

It’s our job to make sure to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.  Our call is to ensure those who hurt are comforted, those who celebrate feel joyful and to challenge preconceived notions and stereotypes when the opportunity arises.

And sometimes all of that happens on Mother’s Day.

See my other stories regarding grief on Mother’s Day:
Between Childless and Childfree
Affirming All Women in Church on Mother’s Day
When Cheesecake is More Than Cheesecake
The Plans We Make

 

 

Remembering the Newly Single – Single in the Sanctuary

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in grief, Holidays, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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pexels-photo-327131 (1)

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that this would be the first Valentine’s Day without my dad.  While that makes little impact on my life, it does, however mean that my mom is without a partner for the first time in about 48 years.

I’m not exactly sure how my mom is feeling today, nor do I want to assume those feelings or explore what traditions she may be missing.  But since it’s been less than six months since the death of my dad, a day like Valentine’s Day has the potential to stir up feelings in people who have recently lost their significant other.

And she is not alone in this life transition.

In our groups of friends as well as the people in our congregations, there are always people changing relationship status – and sometimes not for the better.  Our neighbors are experiencing breakups, divorces and losing spouses to death.  When a relationship has made a huge impact on a life (whether the team was married or not), there remains a large hole in the lives of those who are grieving.  Valentine’s Day can be another sharp and blazing reminder to this recent loss.

With all of this being said, it’s also our job as the Body of Christ to be present in the ashes of people who have been single for years – especially friends who do not enjoy their singlehood status.  Every year when Valentine’s Day rolls around, the aches of singlehood intensify, leaving them to wonder what is next.

Whether someone has recently lost someone or has been single for years, there is one less person to bring them flowers, candy or a nice fancy dinner.

So this is the challenge to the church: how will we be there for our single siblings in faith today?  How can we recognize that new losses could be extremely uncomfortable on a day like Valentine’s Day?  How can we deliver to them a bit of love – especially when delivery trucks will not be coming by their homes today?

A Prayer for the Newly Single on Valentine’s Day
Divine One whose son showed us how to love,
On this day filled with sparkles and glitter,
Help us to remember our siblings who sit in the ashes of relationships.
May those of us in romantic bliss exit our bubbles for a little while
To show love to those abiding solo among us.
May their hearts feel full and complete today.
May they see a love that fulfills them.
If their hearts yearn for their own partners,
May they find the one who will love them as they are
And may their future Valentine’s Days be ones of joy.
Amen.

 

 

Class Reunion Trepidations

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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meAdmittedly, I weigh more than my last class reunion.  I have additional gray hairs and wrinkles.  My success to failure ratio isn’t all that phenomenal.  I didn’t expand my family in any way since the last time I met with these people.

Basically, my vulnerable, 43-year-old self is heading into the den of expectations known as the class reunion.  And for some reason – maybe nearly reaching some new level of self-actualization – I care slightly less than I did at 38.

I really can’t describe what group I belonged to throughout high school.  I was definitely a band geek with some flavoring of academic nerd and artistic flair.  At the beginning of high school, I was extremely dorky.  Having a father as a civics teacher at the same school didn’t quite help my reputation.  I dated very little – probably due to a unhealthy mix of subpar self-esteem mixed with standing in my strict father’s shadow.

By junior and senior year, I had found my rhythm – identifying with the overachievers at the school, hanging out in G-rated situations and pretty much getting along with most people.

After graduating high school, I lived at home during some summers and holiday breaks.  A few months after graduating high school, I left my hometown, only to return for vacations and occasional nights away from seminary.

Life happened – lots of it, and not in the way I was hoping.  My mom would clip out photos of engagement and marriage announcements and send them to me –  none of which were my own.  I stayed safely away in single-Floridaland while my classmates coupled up and had children.

Sometimes, I challenge my expanding body and nervous soul to attend alumni gatherings in which I see everyone I knew from the days when I was some fantastic 95 pound overachiever with much more of my life ahead of me.

Yet, I think we’re reaching that point when we don’t care as much about how much we haven’t done or how fabulous we are compared to someone else.

We’re reaching the point in which we are just happy to be alive and happy that our friends and classmates are well and still alive.

We’re happy that we’ve all taken time out of our busy schedules and traveled many miles to set aside this weekend to connect in 3D instead of social media.

We are all in our middle years, facing the aging of our parents, their deaths, transitions with our health and understanding that life constantly takes turns for good and bad.  And, yet, we are all still standing.

We are happy to see that many of us have set aside our cans of ozone-reducing hairspray to attain bangs of great heights and chopped off business-up-front-party-in-the-back mullets – although it’s all good if that’s our hairstyles of choice.

We are happy to set aside time to feel like our inner 18-year-olds still exist even when our bodies feel every second of their 43-year-old lives.

I thank my God every time I remember you.  I thank my God every time I can cross the miles to see you.

 

 

 

Single in the Sanctuary -The 50th That Never Will Be

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Church Life, Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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single balloonThere’s a moment in many of our lives when you realize you probably may not celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary.

I’m 43 years old.  Granted, I could live to 95 or 100.  But that is banking on both people in the couple living to 95 or 100.  The average life expectancy is 79.68 here in the United States.  My oldest grandparents were nearly 86 when they died.  I would be ecstatic to live until 86, but that would mean I would “only” have a 35- or 40- year marriage, for which I would be blessed.

And still – not a 50-year marriage.

Our society as well as our churches get excited when we see couples celebrating their 50th, 60th and even 70th anniversaries.  We herald it as the way to live, as the optimal lifestyle.

But what about the people whose lives were turned over by one spouse’s death?  What happens to the wife who needs to leave her husband because the marriage is abusive?  What happens when the husband and wife grow apart, or when one spouse wakes up one morning and discovers their spouse is gone?  What happens to our LGBTQ friends who were only able to officially get married when they were 50, 60 or 70?  What happens to those of us who decide to take our time finding the right significant other because we want quality of years over quantity of years?

When I think of short marriages, Anna the prophetess comes to mind.  Luke 2 says that she “lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four.”  After the passing of Anna’s spouse, she dedicates her life to worshipping God in the temple.  Anna’s is a life worth celebrating.  Her seven year marriage was worth celebrating.  The decades of unmarried life is worth celebrating because they were spent answering God’s call.

We should still ABSOLUTELY celebrate anniversaries – like we merrily recognize birthdays and other life milestones and everything happy in life.  But we should not necessarily place quantity of years married at the top of life’s ideal.  Instead, we should place happy and healthy marriages – even short ones – as the goal of marriage (for those who feel called to get married).  We should place our own physical, mental and spiritual health and safety above what society thinks about the length of marriage.  We should place our own calls – whether to be single or married – over one particular ideal marital status.  We should marry when we feel ready to marry, not fitting ourselves into our world’s expectations.

Guess what?  This means many people will never celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary.  And that’s ok.

Churches: It’s our job to make sure that everyone is celebrated whatever they’ve achieved or milestones they have reached.  But we shouldn’t just value long marriages.  We should value relationships that are healthy.  We are called to value people of all marital statuses.  Let us celebrate all of our congregants wherever they are at in their lives and whatever they desire to celebrate.

Single in the Sanctuary – If Disney Made a Movie of Me

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

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imageTrending on Twitter at this very moment is #ifDisneymadeamovieofme.

So what if Disney made a movie about me…

Unlike Ariel, I would have my voice all along and it would have grown stronger.

Unlike Jasmine, I would say who I would marry and when it would happen.

Unlike Belle, I wouldn’t (and didn’t!) stay with an emotionally abusive person.

Unlike Cinderella, I wouldn’t have to fit a mold on what women are supposed to look or be like to attract a man.

Unlike Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, I wouldn’t need someone to wake me from my tired single days or rescue me from another person.

Instead, I would be the princess who wore flannel and t-shirts around the house, said what I thought, and rid myself of toxic people in my life. I would not lose myself in an attempt to find or keep a man.

Sure, there was a time when I believed in Happily Ever Afters. But we discover as we age that there is not one formula for being happy. There are both single, divorced and married people who are happy, and those of all marital statuses who aren’t. Being married does not guarantee a Happily Ever After just as being single does not mean we are incomplete.

If Disney Wrote a Story About Me, there would not be a Happily Ever After… just a Happily in This Moment.

Single in the Sanctuary- Eating Alone

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

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imageI remember when my sister would see an older man or woman sitting alone. She and my mom would remark how sorry they felt for that elderly person dining by themselves. Maybe there was an energy surrounding them that reflected sadness.

Does there exist a lack of sadness for the thirty or forty year old who eats alone? Did an older person’s more-likely involuntary solitude beg for more empathy? Are younger people looked as having more resilience or is there a mentality out there that we are somehow defective or choose to be alone or fully content in our solitude?

I’ll say this: sometimes solitude is welcomed, even by this extrovert. Nowadays, we have the beauty of smart phones to give us the look of preoccupation in our aloneness. But sometimes the silence of solitude is so overwhelming that I ache from the lack of conversation.

I don’t want to be pitied for my solitude as my life is fairly full. But I wonder: does a person whose age is far greater deserve more empathy? Maybe so- especially if they just recently lost a spouse or partner. While sometimes the only option is eating alone, but do those of us who settle for solo meals sell ourselves short by settling for company-less dinners and lunches?

For faith communities: What can we do as a church so that solo people of all ages have the company they desire for more of their meals?

Single in the Sanctuary: To the Table of Moms

17 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by in Life, Pop, Single in the Sanctuary

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Dear table of moms at my favorite coffee house,

It was a lovely day. I needed to complete some work and I chose to sit outside. But after a very short while, I had to move inside.

You see, your conversation was breaking my heart.

I’m a childless women. It wasn’t something I necessarily chose for myself. Due to life’s timing and reproductive health issues, having children doesn’t seem like the best option for me.

But you didn’t take into consideration when your conversation was loud enough to hear on the patio.

You first complain about the childless women who make judgments on parenting. I’ll give you that one. We don’t have the right to be a Monday morning quarterback when it comes to your children, especially since we don’t know what challenges your children may have.

But then you started talking about the women who look at their pets like children among some other snide comments. While I’m not one, I know women who do consider their pets like children. There are a number of reasons women don’t have children- out of choice or out of circumstance. But just like you don’t want us to make fun of your parenting styles, we don’t want you to make fun of the way we live our lives. We don’t know what you go through; you don’t know what we go through either.

The condescending tone was too much for me. I haven’t quite transcended the way life has happened for me and attained peace with it.

And that’s when I moved inside.

I thought about chatting with you about your derogatory tone. Maybe I would start a conversation about how difficult it is to be unmarried without children or married with children or married without children and with two dogs.

But sometimes we don’t have the energy to educate you through our pain. So I moved inside on this beautiful day. It was my choice, but it was the healthiest choice for me.

So, if any of you happen to read this, just be sensitive to the women surrounding you. There may still be a piece of us who are envious of your life, of your privilege to connect with mommy groups, of being able to attain the family structure you dreamed of when you were a child. You don’t know what the roads we’ve been on and the dreams dropped along the way. You may not have a cycle or biology that has reminded you on a monthly basis that bearing children would be an uphill battle.

Women of family structure privilege: complain about us or make fun of us if you must make yourselves feel better this way, but just do so in private spaces. Know that there are people surrounding you that are trying to heal and your voice is reopening wounds.

 

Single in the Sanctuary – The Many Stories

14 Tuesday Jun 2016

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red-love-heart-oldEver since starting the Single in the Sanctuary group on Facebook as well as lead a couple of speaking engagements, I’ve had people share their stories with me.  It’s been an amazing experience to learn about the roads our friends have been on over the course of their lives.

After hearing many stories, I see that there are some overlaps to many of our stories.  We share similar sentiments of loneliness.  Often, we wrestle when hope is lost.

But while a few of our stories are alike in many ways, each of our stories of being unmarried has distinct differences just like our DNA and fingerprints.  Because of these vast differences, we can’t speak for someone else.  Again, I was reminded of this – especially in light of the shooting at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando as well as what safety and sanctuary mean to LGBTQ people.

I can only speak for myself: an educated, straight white never-been-married cis-female.  Granted, I’ve gone through some tough times being single throughout my twenties and thirties.  Just by being a woman, there have been times when I’ve felt extremely unsafe.  But my issues have minimal intersectionality issues, and I am extremely privileged.  I’ve never faced what it means to be a person who is queer.  I’ve never experienced what it means to be a single woman of color.  Being a progressive Christian, I’ve also never experienced what a Jewish or Muslim woman has experienced.

As I reflect, some questions have come to mind: How would a person of color experience never being married?  What would it be like to be a person of another faith who is getting divorced?  How many more layers of difficulty in dating exist for a transgender person?  How do lesbian, gay and bisexual people navigate the healing process for abusive relationships?

Of course, no one is required to tell us their stories unless they are ready to talk and they feel safe speaking with us.  But what we as people of privilege within the unmarried spectrum need to understand is that there are friends who must deal with many additional layers of challenges.

All that any of us as people of privilege can do is allow space for all unmarried open-minded Christians to speak without interruption or trying to explain their experience for them, especially those whose stories are vastly different than ours.  And my job, in return, is to learn as much as possible from them when they are ready to share.

I will continue to tell my story.  But it is only one story in the sea of many.  My experience is only my experience, and it is one that is fairly privileged.  May the God in whose image we are all made give us the courage, strength and power to tell our stories and the patience to listen to the narratives of others.

 

Single in the Sanctuary – Living the Fiercely Independent Life

31 Tuesday May 2016

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IMG_4476 (2)This coming Wednesday will mark the 20th anniversary of living completely on my own.  June 1, 1996, I moved into my small, five-hundred-and-something square foot apartment in Largo, Florida.  The space was tiny, and while I only intended to live there months to maybe a couple of years, I resided there for over eleven years.

In August, 2007, I moved from Florida to a one bedroom apartment on the seminary campus in St. Louis.  I felt a bit less alone in that apartment as seminary friends surrounded me for three years.

But school ended in 2010, and I needed to move again.  It was a torturous year because I moved three times, eventually landing in Cincinnati.

Each of those apartments represent the single Michelle – no roommates, no significant others, no family members on any of the leases.

I’ve learned how to kill spiders, usher lizards out the door, open any type of bottle – including the wide salsa containers, get my garbage disposal working again, know when I needed to light the pilot light on the gas stove and plunge toilets.  I can’t say that I’ve never needed help, but for day-to-day operations, I feel confident to be on my own.

And I feel that God has given me what I needed to be fiercely independent.  Psalm 68 says “God gives the desolate a home to live in.”  Through the grace and mercy of God, I’ve had people, strength and comfort to get me through the solo years.

And through my fiercely independent life, I now know that eventually moving in with a significant other will not have anything to do with “need” but “want.”  I want the merged life, the person with whom I spend my evening and weekends whether we are working in separate rooms or sitting together on the couch watching TV.

There is an emotional tug of war with the ideal of living full-time with another person.  As humans, I believe we are created to be in relationship with others.  Ecclesiastes 4 states:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

And yet, I know that it will be an adjustment to live with another person someday.  Being solo, I have my own system of life.  Sometimes, I’ll fall asleep on the couch and sometimes in my bed.  I have my TV or some online streaming video service going during every waking hour because I love the noise.  I will sit in front of my TV and work on various type of crafts and arts – spreading my work out as I know no one will care if a few things are scattered on the floor.  One season four episode on “Sex in the City “calls it “Secret Single Behavior.”

From time to time I do wonder: What would a significant other or roommate think of my life?

I don’t feel like I’m too set in my ways even though I’m used to solo life and being fiercely independent.  I’m willing to compromise and change some to merge my life with another person.  But in the meantime, I will watch the Kardashians, eat dinner while sitting on my couch, color in my coloring books while lying down in bed, stay up until 3 AM working on cleaning out a closet and keep my clean laundry in a bin instead of sorting, folding and placing in a drawer.  I may always partake in these secret single behaviors.  At 43, I’m allowed to be authentic whether alone or with another person.

I love my life today.  And I would love to merge lives with someone someday too.

 

Single in the Sanctuary: In Search of a “Normal Life”

10 Tuesday May 2016

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sw

© 2004 Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

True confession: I have had many moments when I wish I was a Stepford Wife…

Now, 90-95% of my life I wouldn’t want to be a cookie cutter girl.  And if you know me, you know that I’m far from being cut from the same cloth as everyone else.

In my twenties, I was a member of the Junior League.  As most of the members were wives with husbands who made upper-middle to lower-upper class salaries, my single self who made a lower-middle class non-profit salary felt extremely out of place.  There were more times in those early years when I wanted to have the lives of the women who surrounded me.

The harder I tried to have lives like theirs, the more I was being called away from that lifestyle.  I was a trapezoid-shaped peg attempting to fit into a round hole.

Since my twenties, I stopped caring about living the rich or semi-rich life and having a bazillion square foot house – especially now that I’m a pastor.  I appreciate being able to support myself and take pride in not “needing” a man to take care of me but rather having a man in my life to walk besides me.

Being single past your early-to-mid thirties is hard to swallow – mostly because we’re different than most of society.  Some days adapting to this is not exactly easy.  I remember questioning God and shaking my fist to the Divine.  Why can’t my life be as “ideal” as most of those around me, God?

Of course, ideal is what it looks like on the outside… We don’t know what happens offline…

Remember when Carrie Bradshaw says to her friends in a season two episode of Sex and the City “The world is made up of two types of women: the simple girls and the Katie girls.  I’m a Katie girl.”  The “Katie girl” is in reference to Barbara Streisand’s character in The Way We Were.  Carrie was another trapezoid-shaped peg trying to fit into a round hole.    There are people who follow social graces, speak well, dress impeccably, have perfect home and look like a polished human being.  That was not Carrie Bradshaw.

That is not me.  And at 43, I’m pretty resigned to the fact that it will never be me.

I wasn’t made to be a Stepford Wife or president of Junior League or a simple girl or a cookie-cutter life.  I wasn’t called to have a life that mirrors most everyone else.  I wasn’t made to be the same as most of my friends and colleagues.  I am quirky, nerdy, weird and wonderfully made.

I aspire to one day own a townhouse.  I hope to have a smaller wedding someday that reflects who we are as a couple and looks much less like a production.  I hope to keep preaching, keep writing, keep advocating and keep being just slightly more quirky than most people I know.

Simple Girls, Stepford Wives and normal people who fit the mold of a cookie-cutter (if they truly exist) are just as much made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God.  And those of us who are “Katie girls” who don’t fit molds and are weird and nerdy and complicated in almost every part of their lives are also made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God.  We are all just asked by God to share God’s love in a variety of ways.

In the words of Oscar Wilde “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”