Being a Pastor is a Weird Job

By Courtney Pinkerton

Being a pastor is a weird job. I love the freedom to read, plan worship, talk with interesting people, and sit with scripture and the tradition. But sometimes I just have to laugh at myself and at any expectation I have or someone else might have that I can come up with a spiritual word or reflection. Some weeks the consciousness feels clearer, a gift of the Spirit, and usually a result of time spent reading good words, sitting in silence– God’s primary language– or with loving friends. But what about those other weeks, the weeks like this one where I don’t have childcare and I feel my children and their needs pressed up against me, inseparable from the August heat?

I wake up groggy and Perl is cranky, using her “small voice” demanding apple juice in a sippy cup and determined to change out of her pajamas with flowers on them to pajamas with monkeys on them even as I explain that it is daytime and so we should really be putting on regular clothes. In the end I cave and just let her dress herself and she walks around in nothing but soft blue elastic-waisted pajama shorts pulled up to midchest and a pair of lime green sandals. Richie comments that she looks like a retiree in Florida. Later she dons a string of pearls.

I imagine most of us have situations that push us back to our own version of the small, whiny voice within. Our own challenges and frustrations feel like big rock formations encircling a valley of despair, loneliness, and at times self-pity. Ironically the only path I can find up and out of the valley is compassion for myself, what wisdom teachers call ”Compassionate self-observation.” Don’t try to force a change in attitude, just observe the dark stuff and don’t hold on to it. And sometimes, when I do that, life provides situations that help me reconnect to gratitude and the dark stuff shifts at least for a moment and I can see my next step on the path.

On Monday I gave myself permission to do whatever it took to make it through the day with small children, so that meant we went to Taco Cabana for lunch. And I had a large Diet Dr. Pepper in lieu of a much desired nap (sorry new baby). As we left I noticed a dry cleaner across the parking lot and remembered the soiled cushion cover in the back of the car needing some attention after one of the children from our Montessori preschool co-op spread Aquaphor (which is basically non-petroleum derived Vaseline) all over our new vintage chair. So I drove 20 yards and parked, feeling grumpy in the 107 degree heat as I unbuckled my kids again from their seats and we went inside, where it was even hotter. They had all the doors open and no air conditioning on and the poor man who rang up my order was soaking wet.