I’ve done a few interviews of other people like me: people who are or used to be pastors, ministers, or some kind of religious professional who are doing something different now. All of us are scarred in some way by our time as full-time pastors, and as we deal with those wounds, we are finding new ways forward.
And many of us are writing the truth about the institution(s) as we watch them crumble. There are a few people who wrote about this years ago, like Barbara Brown Taylor’s “Leaving Church,” but this is a new phenomenon. I suspect it’s because people my age have watched as institutions have ignored them, underpaid them, betrayed them and, at worst, abused them. We’ve been the “pick me” girls, the oldest daughters who wanted validation, and the women who were told we could have it all if we worked all day at work and all night at home. But even though we’ve done what we were supposed to do, it hasn’t been enough. So we stopped trying, and started writing.
Recently I connected with Dana, a former pastor who was defrocked for officiating a wedding for an LGBTQ+ couple. As I’ve said, my denomination has a multitude of issues, but thankfully, being able to officiate gay weddings isn’t one of them. It’s the saddest thing to me when a joyful celebration turns into this sadness. In her latest Substack, she writes about the protests on college campuses and how it’s a visual reminder that institutions mainly exist to serve themselves:
And it still hurts, to recognize how much of my life I have spent bolstering institutions, believing institutions, casting my lot with institutions, spending my money in and on institutions who cannot love me or anyone else, who are incapable of prioritizing people over polity, who will always - necessarily - snap right back to the status quo because maintaining order is what they were built to do.
It’s a betrayal, and it’s so, so painful.
On the same day I read Dana’s story, I read another one. This one has also stuck with me, because of the extent of the betrayal that happened to this pastor. She is beginning to tell her story, and it is terribly painful to read…I’m sure it was infinitely more painful to experience. I highly recommend reading her whole story here, and I hope she continues to write about this experience as she is able. As I’ve said several times, it’s healing to tell our stories and to have someone hear and relate.
Near the end of her post, she says:
I regret that my story, my truth, my narrative was taken from me and so many times I acquiesced to be “good” and not rock the boat. Being good got me nothing.
If we’ve all learned one thing, it’s that lesson. It’s so, so painful, but it’s the thing that sets us free. If you don’t have to be “good,” what amazing things can you be?
I’ll end with an old favorite from Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese.”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Peace,
Beth
P.S. Both Substack quotes were used with permission of the authors, and I’m grateful for their generosity.