Reflections from a Retired Clergy: Guilt and Peace Edition

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The Guilt Factor

I’ve been retired from formal ministry for nearly three years now. Frankly, Christianity looks a lot different from the pew–and away from the church bubble.

I just wrote a resignation letter to a non-profit agency where I have sat on the Board of Directors. I believe strongly in the mission and appreciate the excellent work they do. But I moved from the immediate area, making it nearly impossible for me to be the kind of Board member they need and that I want to be.

All logical reasons, and the other Board members have wondered if I would need to leave.

But . . . I find myself consumed with guilt. I could still do the work if I were willing to spend a lot more hours from home, from my writing and, mostly, from my husband.

In other words, if I were still being the good Christian woman, I would sacrifice my own personal pleasure, the leisurely hours together my husband and I treasure, and my own meaningful work for the sake of this ministry.

That is what women do. More: that’s what clergy do. We are routinely called to sacrifice family on the altar of ministry.

A clergywoman asked once in a clergy forum for some tips as to how to model the life of Jesus better in order to avoid ministry burnout. I thought about it a bit and realized that the model of Jesus–three years of intense ministry and then die–may not be the best one for most of us to model.

I doubt clergy burnout is any worse than say, physician burnout, but for one thing: we’ve got Jesus held up as the standard by which our ministry is to be measured. We need to feed people, teach people, challenge people, lead people, and then, ultimately, to die a horrific death for people, offering forgiveness at the moments of our greatest agony.

I had kept myself busy with ministry for a ridiculous number of years, pretty darn sure that if I didn’t do all those things, the teaching, the caring, the leadership, the visiting, the studying, etc., that there were people who would not come to Jesus. In other words, their “salvation” as I understood it then was dependent upon my actions, Nothing like a bit of hubris!

Retirement Enlightenment

Retirement came early. A bundle of forces had pushed it.

When that stuff wasn’t there, and when the relationships that circled around church/ministry just disappeared, quietness engulfed me. I discovered the extent of my spiritual and physical exhaustion. I learned how dependent I had become on the adrenaline push to get me through the day rather than paying better attention to more healthy bodily rhythms.

I discovered I was not very important in the big scheme of things–and, frankly, in the little scheme of things. It hurt. I wanted people to miss me, for things to fall apart because I was not there because that was where my validation was.

I found myself immediately looking for other opportunities to be in ministry, to be needed and important and necessary to the lives of others.

For me, it exposed deep soul sickness.

I am still healing, and discovering that I am not yet ready to enter into other ministry work yet. That is why I needed to resign from the ministry board. The mission is dear to my heart BUT my soul kept screaming, “You’ve got to leave this. You are not bringing health to them because you are not healthy. You want the prestige of being a Board Member because you think that will fill you up. It won’t. You must go inside to find your wholeness.”

I struggle terribly with feeling selfish for doing what I genuinely love doing: my time with my husband and planning our travels, my thriving garden which offers much neighborhood beauty, my slowly emerging writing, my renewed enjoyment at simply being a bit domestic and keeping a smooth household so my husband can do his work supported and undistracted.

Finding Joy

These things bring me joy. I’ve been greatly influenced by Marie Kondo’s “The life-changing magic of tidying up” and her insistence that any object we keep must offer us joy. So I’ve discarded many, many items in the last few years. They had ceased to bring joy and instead drained my energy. There is peace with this for now.

I hope to engage in some sort of ministry, volunteer work, etc. in the next few years, but I sense that this is not the time. I will teach a series this fall at a local church, but all they’ve asked is that I bring some of my favorite “Ask the Thoughtful Pastor” columns for further discussion, so it will be relaxed and lighthearted.

I do occasionally fill the pulpit for a vacationing pastor and totally enjoy it–and then know I don’t want to be doing that again regularly ever again.

Mostly, I just am. I’ve learned to appreciate my aging body in new ways. I delight that I can put my feet on the floor in the morning, in the aches that follow the hours in the garden, in the hunger that accompanies intense physical exercise.

I’ve never just “been” before. I still have much to learn; I still want to value myself on what I do, what I produce. But that’s starting to fade.

I am enjoying the view from the pew. Very, very much,

The Rev. Christy Thomas is a retired clergy member of the North Texas Annual Conference. An author and newspaper columnist, this post is republished with permission from her blog, Ask the Thoughtful Pastor on Patheos.com.