Tag Archives: Singlehood

Class Reunion Trepidations

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

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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.

 

 

 

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

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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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 – For the Record, I’m Fed Up Too

14 Thursday Jul 2016

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aniston memeThis week, brave shero Jennifer Aniston wrote this brilliant op-ed on the Huffington Post regarding her frustration with the media for scrutinizing her body and family structure.  She has previously spoken out on these frustrations and chose to write a public post after some elaborate false reports that she was pregnant were plastered all over the internet.  In her most recent piece, Jennifer noted:

Here’s where I come out on this topic: we are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child. We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone. Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own “happily ever after” for ourselves.

While the interrogation of my life never usually includes whether or not I’m pregnant, there are similar questions circling me whenever I’ve been in a significant relationship for a while:

Have you started talking about getting married?
Do you think you two will get married someday?
Do you think he wants to get married someday?
When do you think you’ll get married?
You think he’ll propose during (fill in the blank)?

Admittedly, being interrogated like this was much much worse in my early 20’s when everyone around me was pairing up and getting engaged.  When I wasn’t dating, I was being grilled with the “are you dating someone” questions.  And if I was married, I would be asked when I would be starting a family.

All I want to say in my increasing anxiety and frustration is “BACK OFF!”

Now, I don’t mind a question like this from my six year old niece because children have no filter to their curiosity.  But a thirty, forty or seventy-something should know better.

I get it: people really want to see me get my “happily ever after.”  Or maybe they are just curious.  Or maybe there are one or two people out there who really want to know how my life has not come together.  Who knows…  Overall, it makes me feel invaded, odd and, in many ways, shamed for what I have or have not done yet with my life.

I must confess that I’ve taken part in a system that places expectations on other people.  I read tabloids that steal moments and fabricate stories about celebrities.  I’ve asked people about the relationship in the past.  And for being a part of a system that tries to pigeonhole women, I am truly sorry.

Almost two years ago, I wrote this post about Jennifer Aniston and her frustration with this checklist everyone thinks she should have accomplished.  Yesterday, I watched a video of the “Magnificent Seven,” or the seven U.S. women gymnasts who won the gold medal for gymnastics in 1996.  They were all in one place, updating the world on their lives and reflecting back on their stunning achievement.  As one of the Olympians stated “Twenty years later, it’s good just to see that everyone’s happy, everyone’s healthy, everyone is married (and) either starting families or have families of their own.”

What if they hadn’t all gotten married or planned on starting families?  Would they have been incomplete as an individual or a group?

It comes down to what we believe full completion is in a human being – especially a woman.  It isn’t enough that she just is a human being caring for other human beings in the world.  It isn’t enough that she is made in the image of God.  She must also be married and have children.  And we will keep asking those questions and begging to read more until her life finds this level of completion.

Jennifer and everyone else, I’ve grown tired of this narrative too.  I’m tired of feeling like I need to explain or justify to people the progression of my relationship.  I’m tired of trying to fit into the world’s expectations of what I should have accomplished by 43.  It’s no one’s business except mine, my significant other’s and God’s.  When the time is right, we will take our relationship to the next step…

You know what?  I don’t even need to say that.

And like Jennifer, I will be the one to tell you when I’m engaged or when I’m getting married.  I will be the one who tells you when anything big happens in my life… if and when I feel like it.  Like Jennifer, there are things I want with my life as well.  But life doesn’t happen in a prescribed time, and sometimes we just want to live without the painful reminder of what we should have.

Every time one of these questions pops into our heads about our cousins, co-workers or celebrities, maybe we need to change focus.  As Paul says to the Thessalonians “we urge you, beloved to (love) more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs…”  It’s time for us to love one another where we are at right now without setting our minds completely on the future and what they may or may not bring.

In the meantime, I will work to enjoy the valuable small moments in life – with my significant other, with my friends and with myself.  Life isn’t about waiting for the big moments.  It’s about cherishing the sunshine in between the clouds.

 

Single in the Sanctuary: To the Table of Moms

17 Friday Jun 2016

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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: To My Never-Existed 18-Year-Old

28 Thursday Apr 2016

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merrygoround2When I was young, I thought I was going to have children.  I thought I was going to have my first child at 25 after getting married at 22.  I was so sure that this was the way that my life was going to turn out.

For years I wanted to have children.  And then something changed.  Maybe it was turning 40 before meeting an appropriate significant other.  Maybe it was enjoying my child-free life the way it was.  Maybe it was meeting someone who I could see spending time with as a couple… not a family.

As I see my friends’ children growing more and more as each year passes, I think to myself “there is no way that I could be a mom of a child of this age.”

And then it hit me: if I would have had my child when I planned on having one, I would have an 18-year-old now as I am now 43.

I would see her or him graduating high school and making decisions on where they would go for college.  I would see them getting ready for their senior prom.  I may be facing the beginning of empty-nest syndrome.  I’d be warning him or her about the dangers of drinking too much, setting your drink down at a bar or party, making sure to call when they got to where they were going and reminding them to be safe when it came to sex and driving.

I would think about how quickly those childhood years went and hoped it would have gone more slowly.  And a small part of me would be relieved that they were finally an adult and I could begin the next chapter of my life.

Instead, I don’t have any of this.  Do I wish I would have had these experiences?  Maybe?  Probably?  Do I feel sad that it never happened?  Not too often at all.

Will I regret the way my life turned out?  Probably not regarding children.  Occasionally, twinges of wonder rattle my soul.  And occasionally the musing that I may have missed something sacred.  But I’ve found mothering moments.  I’ve given birth to dreams.

And I look forward to watching my dreams grow from their infantile stage into mature realities.

 

Single in the Sanctuary: Blue Easter

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

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easter lily2In 2008, I attended Easter morning worship with my mom and dad at a progressive United Church of Christ congregation in the greater St. Louis area.  The sermon was engaging.  The music was magnificent.  Everything about this Easter morning worship was spiritually meaningful.

But I was distracted… and distraught.

Family three rows up.  Family six rows up.  Family in the second from the front row on the other side of the sanctuary and two rows behind me too.  People of approximately my age sitting throughout the church with their spouse and their two or three small children.

And here I was… nearly 35 years old and sitting with my parents on Easter morning sans husband or children.  Even though I was with my lovely parents, I had never felt more alone.  At no point that morning did I feel anyone made me feel bad about being single or childless.  While some people at some congregations may stereotype people in my situation, I absolutely didn’t feel as if people were looking down upon me.

But I was looking down upon myself.  What’s wrong with me?  I would wonder over and over again to myself. Of course, when we are emotionally raw for any reason, it’s easy to place blame upon ourselves.  Life and love hadn’t happened in the way I wanted it to by the age of 35.  It was as simple as that.

Nonetheless, my feelings were very real that morning.  And they threw me for a loop.

Between 2008 and the time I met my boyfriend, I began to make some peace with this singleness in the sanctuary.  But it never became 100% easy, and Easter morning just happens to be one of those times I wonder if I missed out a little by not having children.  Bubbling youth bring about a certain energy into families and congregations, and even those of us who are 85% sure we are fine with not having children get a little emotional when surrounded by what we once wanted.

Which makes me wonder: How can we truly experience the resurrection if we are so distracted by what we don’t have, what we haven’t accomplished and in what ways we don’t fit with our congregations?

Easter morning may be a time when we hope that God will lead us to new life, new possibilities and fresh beginnings.  But there could be people in our congregations that feel like an odd person because they believe their marital status or family structure stands out from the crowd.  They may feel alone even though people surround them in the sanctuary.

Bless them with a greeting, with the peace of Christ, if you see them sitting alone.  Bless them with an request to sit with you as they may feel just a little less alone.  Bless them with an invitation to lunch or coffee hour.

The sealed tomb in which they find themselves in may start to crack open as beams of light begin to find their way beyond the shadows.

Single in the Sanctuary – A Prayer for the Lone Ones on Valentine’s Day

14 Sunday Feb 2016

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God of the broken hearts And the lonely souls, On this day reserved for those “loved” Those who seem so “whole” Give us the peace of knowing we are complete.

Source: A Prayer for the Lone Ones on Valentine’s Day

Join the conversation for progressive unmarried Christians and friends at https://www.facebook.com/groups/singleinthesanctuary/

Single in the Sanctuary – Holiday Hospitality

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Being away from your family during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays is horrible.  Being single on top of this is even worse.

I’ve spent many holidays away from my family.  The first Christmas was the toughest.  I was 23 years old, living in Florida by myself and had a number of invitations to join other family units that day.  And while I did spend some of the day with others, I managed to get one of the worst headaches of my life, no doubt from the stress of being alone on Christmas day.

Fortunately over the years, I believe that God has provided me with people whom I celebrated these major holidays.  From hanging with a pastor’s family at Busch Gardens in 2001 to spending Thanksgiving with an ex-boyfriend and his parents in 2005, I’ve had some interesting opportunities, conversations and company while absent from my family.  Days were less lonely because there were others willing to open their homes to me even though I wasn’t part of their family.

As a single person, especially when I lived in Florida, I would often be given the gift of sitting at the table with other families.  This is a gift I hope I am able to pay back as the years progress.  Through friends’ open doors and plentiful tables, I was able to feel less alone when my family lived 1,000 miles away.

I think most of us do a phenomenal job with making sure those who are hungry are fed.  But what would it be like to not only feed those who are hungry but open a table to those who have no one in their lives?

Can you think of friends who may not have families in which to spend the holidays?  How can we invite them to be our family for part of the day?  That’s our responsibility as people of faith and as people with the gift of family.  We are called to open ourselves up to those who may be alone on holidays and special occasions to be an honorary part of our families.  Just like Jesus asked his followers “who is my mother and who are my brothers,” we are to expand our families to include others into our fold.  Many of his followers had to rely on the generosity of others while on their ministry journey.  How can we be like the families who opened their houses to Jesus and the early disciples and make sure they become parts of our families, even for a day or season?

What will you do this Thanksgiving or Christmas to make sure the widow, orphan, single guy or gal, newly divorced person or individual away from their family to make sure they are at your table too?

Me. Christmas 1998 in Florida at the age of 25. Sans family.

Me. Christmas 1998 in Florida at the age of 25. Sans family.

 

Single in the Sanctuary – Marital Status Marginalization

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

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By E. W. Russell, Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Starting today, I will be posting a new weekly feature called “Single in the Sanctuary.” The recurring topic will focus on what it means to be a non-married progressive Christian in the twenty-first century.

I doubt I’m the only one who has felt a bit left out of the church based on the fact that I’m over 40 and still not married.  Even when I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s, I felt out of place because I don’t have the traditional family structure.

We look around our churches and, most of the time, only see certain demographics, namely

  • Married with children
  • Married, retired with grown children
  • Widowed

Only on occasions like the Christmas and Easter holidays or weddings, baptisms and funerals do I see my demographic: the never-married person.  I don’t see many divorced individuals, single parents, co-habitating couples, LGBT individuals and couples either.

In reality, people are getting married later.  Many marriages do not last.  Couples are choosing to live together for a while before deciding to marry.  So why don’t they feel comfortable being themselves in our sanctuaries?  Are we welcoming enough for these demographics?

Could it be that our sanctuaries become a sanctuary for those with an “ideal lifestyle” as set by the Christian right – a life which promotes purity, a nearly-desperate desire to get married and a postcard image of a husband, wife and two or three children?

Let’s start this conversation here and now.  How have churches made you feel comfortable?  How have they made you feel extremely uncomfortable based on your marital status?  And would the church you currently attend make you feel welcome if they knew you were single, cohabitating or divorced?

Is there a topic you would like to see covered in Single in the Sanctuary?  Let me know your interest below.