Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
I recently read an article about the experience of parenting over these past two years, entitled “The Parents (Who Used to Come to Your Church) Are Not Okay,” by Lauren Graeber. She related how she was moved to tears when a pastor addressed parents on social media, writing, “You are not failing. You are being asked to do the impossible.”
Parents aren’t the only ones being asked to do the impossible, of course, but I wonder what St. Thomas’s can do to meet the needs of our families with children, very few of whom I have yet to meet in person.
Graeber suggests three things she as a parent would appreciate from her priest: 1) Being asked to come back. 2) Being asked about the parts of life that have been broken in the last two years. 3) Being asked what we need now.
If you’re a parent, is this what you need? I’m a parent, and I’m not sure it’s what I need. I certainly am hoping that our families will return as soon as possible. And if anyone is struggling with something broken, if you need someone safe to talk with about it, I kind of get paid to do that. And I hope the past few paragraphs have clearly expressed that I really would like to know what our families need.
I’d like to know what we all need, in fact. We are so blessed to have people from every stage of life in this community, and I want to know who you are and what you need. Because one of the most vexing things about these past several months has been how difficult it is to get to know other people, and to become known to others, when many of the normal ways that human beings are used to getting to know each other within a church community have been unavailable to us. And I’m not sure how long we can endure living without a robust parish life that nurtures our flourishing.
For aside from the aforementioned article’s focus on parents, Graeber named a state of being that many of us have found ourselves in, at least from time to time, and which may be a good description of how some of us feel right now: that we are languishing. Graeber links to a New York Times article by Adam Grant, who writes, “In psychology, we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing. Flourishing is the peak of well-being: You have a strong sense of meaning, mastery and mattering to others. Depression is the valley of ill-being: You feel despondent, drained and worthless.” He continues, “Languishing is the neglected middle child of mental health. It’s the void between depression and flourishing — the absence of well-being. You don’t have symptoms of mental illness, but you’re not the picture of mental health either.” Among other things, Grant notes, you know you’re languishing when you’re not functioning at full capacity, your motivation is dulled, and your ability to focus is disrupted.
Given this definition, is it any wonder that some of us are stuck in a state of languishing? Grant writes that many of us “have been struggling with interruptions from kids around the house, colleagues around the world, and bosses around the clock.”
In my own experience, I can be flourishing one day and languishing the next. So it’s not a fixed state by any means. Thankfully, there have been a lot of good things that have happened in my life and that of my family over the past two years. I feel like our family members are more gentle with each other than we may have been in the past, that we have learned how to cut each other a lot of slack, and that we now start from the assumption that we’re doing the best we can with what we have to work with in the moment. And chief among the good things that has happened to us is finding our way to St. Thomas’s, even though this parish is not yet flourishing due to the present circumstances. But we’re not exactly languishing, either, as the many reports for tomorrow’s Vestry meeting clearly indicate. We are more vibrant in some areas than others, of course, and as you can tell, I’m particularly worried most about those whom I haven’t had a chance yet to connect with on a truly meaningful level, which includes both parents with families and older parishioners.
At Vestry on Sunday afternoon, the title of my address will be “Great Expectations.” I think this expression aptly sums up both sides of the equation: The people, neighbours, and friends of St. Thomas’s have had great expectations of me, and I’ve had great expectations of you. Vestry will give us an opportunity to take stock of those expectations, and to recalibrate what we ought to expect of each other as we move forward together in 2022. I still have some pretty great expectations for you all, and I expect (and hope!) that you still have some pretty great expectations of me. The question we need to answer is: What does God expect of us, and can we meet God’s great expectations?
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector