I slept well last night. Thank goodness, because it was a rough day. A rough couple of weeks, actually.
About 2 years ago, I wandered into a church. Now, I’m not a churchy girl. In fact, I was raised to be disdainful of all things spiritual, and I’ve noticed that this seems to be the cultural norm for the part of the country I am from (the Pacific Northwest) and for the sort of family I come from (middle-class and over-educated). This is a pretty non-doctrinal church, and has a great music program as well as really friendly people (but not in a glazed-over cult-member way). Notice how I am qualifying the fact that I go to church?
Like I said, I really loved the music, and I found that being in community each week to focus on the spiritual was nourishing. So I kept coming back, and I got to know other congregants and the minister, who is a delightful person – authentic and heartful and supportive. Over time I became quite attached to her, and it was a comfort to know that if I did have a life crisis, she would be there.
Several months into my attendance, a call for volunteers was published in the bulletin. I’ve always believed that you get more from serving an organization than just taking, so I responded to the request for a minutes-keeper for the Board of Trustees. I figured it might be interesting, and I know how to keep good minutes from my daily work.
Little did I know twhat I was getting myself into. First, the Board was populated in large part with whichever personality type it is that’s good at processing and terrible at staying on task. Really great people, but things took time, and not just the difficult decisions, but regular reports and soforth. The first meeting I attended was 4 hours long.
Second, the Church was having financial difficulties. Most of them seem to me to be avoidable in hindsight, but difficult to have predicted up front. They were doing their best and things looked like they were getting better.
After about a year of keeping minutes, I was asked to run for the Board. I was trepidacious about the committment, and also because, as noted above, I have issues with being churchy, but in the end I did it because, well, it’s not like anybody else was stepping up. An organization can’t exist without leaders, I wanted this organization to exist, and it seemed to be my time to serve.
It’s been about six months and for the first four it seemed that we would be able to lower our rent to a reasonable level, leaving the funds and energy to concentrate on better things. Then stuff started to fall apart. Recently, it became clear that we will likely need to pursue bankruptcy.
So, last weekend was our Board retreat, right before which our minister recommended (asked) that we not renew her contract, which might leave enough funds for the organization to survive. We spent the weekend discussing that possibility and the surrounding details. In the end, it was clear that this was the best decision.
I feel terrible – I was charged with partial responsibility for the care and feeding of this chuch, and my best efforts have come to this – disaster. I’ve gone over and over every decision of my tenure, wondering if we could have stopped it, but the whole thing just feels like a train wreck, and the train left the station a loooong time ago.
Today we had an all church meeting to announce that decision and to give the congregation a chance to ask questions. It was, again, very emotional. I’m wiped out. I don’t know what will become of this community and I’m grieving that which will not be again.
This has nothing to do with the little one living in my belly, except that he was there with me. Hey little one. Mommy’s feeling sad right now, but don’t worry, it’s not a murky sad. It’s the sort of sad that makes all of the good in my life shine really clear and bright.
