I've been rereading old posts on this here blog. Rereading with a more critical eye. Recognizing that, just as the newest public service announcement on TV suggests, one should be "careful of what you post," lest others...well, lest others...do what? Judge me? Find me? Resonate with me?
It's humbling to reread your blog. You find entries that you'd just as soon erase (geez, why'd I write that comment about my cat's bowel function?), and you find entries that remind you of why you started this blog in the first place (see most any blog about one of my Hospice patients).
I've been doing a lot of contemplating about where this blog is going (as I am the contemplative chaplain). And while the last nine months or more have been spent in more reflective writings on pregnancy and parenting, I realize that there is more than that within me. More than that which needs to be said. And so my resolution has become this: while I am on maternity leave it's fine to be Contemplative Mommy, but that is not the only label I want affiliated with my name. And so, this blog will represent all of that...the parenting, the partnering, the chaplaincy, the feminism, the Christen who is and the Christen who will become.
I continue to commit myself to being myself. Which means, not being, in this space, who my agency or my denomination want me to be, but simply being me. Irreverent, confused, hopeful, agitating, empathetic, exhausted and exhausting me.
So there. There it is. Let's begin again, shall we?
4 comments:
Christen, your latest post is a good reminder for anyone in ministry. We ARE more than what we do and we need to do and be other than how our jobs would limit us.
I caught myself answering work email from the home computer today and got "Are you here today?" from a co-worker. No, not physically there, but my brain is still there. It's my day OFF. I don't need to be checking in. I do need to be paying attention to the rest of my life.
Shannon
i am glad to see that you are going to keep the blog going. i enjoy hearing about what happens in your world. and am honored that you share it with the blog world.
Do you think everyone struggles with an identity attached to his/her work? My guess is yes, but mainly if one loves it and is called to it; I struggle with it, also. I love my job. (I am not ordained.) There is hardly a day when I wake up and dread going to work and I know I am blessed in that. So when I find myself too wrapped up in it, I try to back up and ask myself, Who are you, first? My own personal answer is "Child of God."
Good for you for seeking to becoming more of that.
Christen,
Thank you for being you. I, too, do not fit the stereotype of chaplaincy/ministry. It is some times difficult to recognize the boundary between who we are and what we do, because isn't that how the world defines us.. by what we do. (This is usually the first question that we ask in small talk.. classification purposes I guess.)
I needed to read your blog entry today, to remind me that our life is about more than our work, even though somedays it seems there is nothing but our "work". I look forward to more "musings" from your contemplative brain.
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