About a year ago I wrote a blog called on walking alone reflecting on the challenges of being a single minister, particularly when moving south, far away from family. It’s been my most viewed blog (nearly 2000 views) and I’ve never been sure why. Perhaps it resonates with people. Perhaps someone accidentally keeps pressing refresh. Who knows?
I’ve been thinking about how I ended up writing that as I’ve contemplated the idea of ending up in isolation on my own far away from family. It’s tough being on your own.
As we went through our church lists and identified people with no close support and visited and talked to people who face the same questions of how might we manage if we lock ourselves away I realised that whilst we’re all in this together when you are in a single person household we’re in it together alone. And that’s hard. As I hear people worry about being locked away with family and I hear the plans for entertaining one another I wonder who is going to entertain me? Who is going to be there to pick the pieces up when the bits of life that have always been stable unravel and fall.
And while this blog may seem self-indulgent, it’s a fact of life for many who are not able to reach out to family, friends and neighbours in the run of every day normality never mind in the new every day changes we’re encountering well, everyday.
As I contemplate how life looks where my social distancing becomes more distant I wonder how I’m going to manage when the world closes in.
Perhaps in the small things, the bird building a nest from my driveway or the flowers that will grow, oblivious to the crisis around speaking of the hope that takes us beyond the what ifs of the storm we are facing head on.
Perhaps in the voices from favourite books or from comfort viewing of Gilmore Girls and Friends or the familiar faces of films we’ve watched a thousand times before.The songs that inspire singing and the faces in old photos that grin freely and speak of a life without fear.
Perhaps in the ring of a telephone, the swoosh of an email, the envelope thrust through the door speaking news from elsewhere. The voices from faraway that remind you that together doesn’t have to be alone, instead a miracle of the drawing together of distance to be a little less than far.
In this alone togetherness we listen, we wait, and we ponder and the one that never leaves us whispers here, I am here.
“Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you” Isaiah 41:10 (MSG)
If you know me well, you will know that I am generally content just the way I am. I don't crave after things I don't have (apart from, perhaps, shoes) and I am quite happy sitting on my own in front of Netflix watching a box set and playing angry birds.....
I love that I can make my own decisions and can just get on with them. I love that I can just go on my day off (ahem) and not tell anyone where I am going. I love that I can get up when I want, leave a mess where I want and not have to worry about what someone else is doing next or what they are doing that they shouldn't be doing or what they are not doing that they should.....
I love that in the Bible Paul holds up the benefits of being single - you can totally focus on what God is calling you to do - and in the last six months I've experienced just that - my call to move has been so strong, so personal, that to factor someone else in would have been really quite hard.
There are times though, that it's tough......
One thing that someone said to me when I began the journey to ministry was that as a single person it would be particularly hard. I have never forgotten this... and as I face the next part of my life on my own and have to make decisions about whether to keep or give away the wine bottle with a glass on the top that has never left its box and have to remember to tell everyone from my mortgage company to my membership of the obscure ingredients in cake club and as I have to wash up because the dishwasher broke and remember to eat sensible food when the fridge is empty, it's hard.
As I pack and am reminded of the stories of failed relationships through the memories I discover it's hard. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely better off single.... my stories of dating disasters and love lost could be enough to fill a comedy set or a a series of episodes of Friends before Ross and Rachel got together. I am happy on my own - I don't regret not having children, as I have ones who I love in my life and who love me back, but I don't have the responsibility of bringing them up in this weird world we live in. I don't crave affection (perhaps a hug (normally one armed) very occasionally, when a wall has walked its way towards me or a tractor has driven into me or when I'm facing a big change, like, say, moving... or work is hard or I have had bad news). I don't even want to go there with the bizarre world of dating.... it's a minefield more difficult to deal with than the Baptist settlement system....
I guess what I am trying to say in this weirdly quite personal blog is that it's hard....and also that I am thankful.... for those who bear with when I am losing my common sense for a while and tell me to eat.... for those who hold me up when I'm tripping up wherever I go.... for those who don't say to me, 'one benefit of moving is that you will have a bigger pond to fish in' (yes, it has been said).... for those who include me and welcome me as part of their family because they like me, not because they feel sorry for me (there is nothing to feel sorry about)..... for those who will laugh at my ultimate dating party piece and not look at me with sad eyes....
One of the problems with church is that too often we have the sad eyes when we look on someone who is single. Questions are asked; 'what do we do with all the single people in church - how can we include them?'. We assume that marriage is the ultimate destination and the singles must have something wrong with them.
In ministry, there are added challenges; 'she can do anything, she has no responsibilities'. When you work on your day off there is no one to keep you in check.... when you are out every night there is no one to challenge, when you work in your holidays nobody tells you off.... when you need to offload there is no one to offload to.
What we can first do is avoid the sad eyes, us becoming an issue (we are not covered in scales, we're people, with gifts and greatness like any other). If church is to be a community that is family, it needs to include everyone - the married, the single, the grandparent, the child, the weird cousin that everyone would like to avoid but knows they shouldn't....
And when your minister is single, just check they're OK occasionally. And when they're not, avoid those sad eyes, and walk with them - because even those who appear strong need a (normally metaphorical) hug sometimes.
"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mentioned and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance"
1 Corinthians 12:25-26 The Message
Last week I visited the childhood home of Mary Arden, mother of William Shakespeare with my friend and her two girls. It was a farm not far from Stratford, full of tourists (probably not at the time of Shakespeare) and farm animals and birds including some very beautiful ginger piglets (their mother, however, did not provide them much hope that in the future that they would keep their looks).
 |
| Fluffy Ginger Pig |
As often happens at these places, there were various people re-enacting traditional crafts - a falconer who spent a lot of time hiding from school coach parties, a man with a long beard and an axe chopping wood and a woman who showed us how to spin wool. We learnt the words tozer and carder and nobbly bobbly (or something like that - that's actually an ice lolly) and others I can't remember.
But one stuck with me - and what stuck with me was not the word, but her interpretation of what the word meant in the era she was currently spinning wool in.
Spinster.
A word, that for many, and for so long for me has been held up as an unwanted state - an old woman past her best who barks as people walk up to her - a woman 'beyond the usual age for marriage' (whatever that is)... perhaps, in many people's eyes... me? (I'm grumpy, single, set in my ways....). At the time the woman who was spinning was working, it was the unmarried women who would be working as spinsters, which is where the word comes from and why it refers to women who are unmarried.
Even in the time that the spinster was supposedly working, she would have been seen as odd. Shakespeare referred to a phrase in popular use at the time that said that women who died unmarried would lead apes to hell (I'm glad nobody has used that one on me when they have been opposed to my calling as a minister who happens to be a woman!). The purpose of a woman is to be married, and any who are not are... well.... destined for something.
However, the way the woman who was spinning in Mary Arden's house described the word spinster made me stop and think. She said that spinsters led the way for women to be independent today. She talked nothing of falling into the way of life that meant she had to spin to survive, but talked about choice, that being a spinster wasn't inevitable but was something else. She talked about how spinning made it possible for the spinster to provide for herself, to live comfortably and to give her purpose where society said she had none because she had no husband or children.
Language is important, and the way that the word 'spinster' has been used across the centuries has not been good. Spinsters are incomplete, lacking and directionless and are left to be living a life of terrible loneliness. My first (guilty) port of call for any info wikipedia is incredibly negative in its description of spinsters, reflecting the language of the world around.
Although we have moved so far on from then, and so far on the attitudes in society that leave unmarried women as oddities, the shadows live on. When I hear language of 'taking off the shelf' and rescuing her from singleness. When I hear people say that I will only be satisfied when I have a husband and children... the shadows of the expectations of 16th century England overshadow the independence and forward thinking nature of my spinsterhood as described by the woman in Mary Arden's shed.
When I read scripture, although they are few and far between, it doesn't take long to find stories of independent women who have, whether married or not, gone on and served God in big ways with the support of their families (or not!) and the community around them - Miriam, Ruth, Esther, Deborah, Rahab, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Salome, Joanna, Mary Magdalene and more.... we might not hear about them much, and some of them are tarnished with brushes that are as unfair (and more) as tarnishing the spinster with the 'useless, frazzled and odd' brush, but they're there, living faithfully, serving God and making an impact.
That spinster in the shed - choosing to live independently in a society that thought she shouldn't. That Mary Magdalene - choosing to preach the good news in a world that didn't necessarily believe her. That unmarried woman - choosing to stay unmarried and pursue her dreams. Why label her as bad? Why label her as wrong? Why undermine her direction?
I came away from that trip to Mary Arden's house wanting to reclaim the word 'spinster', but then I found out that attempts have been made to do that already, and they've not necessarily worked. However, we can work to continue to change our attitudes towards independent women (whether married or not), helping to get rid of those 16th century shadows and embrace us for who we are and what we choose to be.
I take my inspiration from those women in scripture, those women who have walked before me, those women who have stood up against the status quo, and so many brilliant women I know today .... and I walk on, attempting to live faithfully, serving God and hopefully making some kind of impact.
"Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days" Joel 2:29
