Ministry

Me and Pastor Nadine. The masks we wear.

How would you describe yourself to someone?

I know how OTHERS would describe me. It’s much harder from my perspective. Whoever  provides these writing prompts asks questions I’d dare not explore without invitation.  I wasn’t going to write about this one, in fact I vowed to avoid it, however, since completing my morning obligations, I’ve been sitting here on my couch with my phone, doing NOTHING at all to help my spirit. Maybe this will stir me to do SOMETHING. My blog, Nuanced Niddy, has become something of a journal and confessional space that I find FREEING.

I am on my ‘day off’ from my PAID work.  I’m always the mom of 4 teenagers and wife to a hard working man. He’s also very stressed and does his best at the end of the day to do his part. Thank God he cooks. We’d live on toast if he didn’t.  

There’s a lot to do. Every room of my house is dirty, the refrigerator and the bathrooms need serious attention and the yard is a disaster. It all requires so much energy. STARTING is too overwhelming. 

Time spent focusing on my WORK work keeps me from tackling THIS embarrassing mess.  I feel bad for my kids. They live here too. I’m not sure why I don’t enlist their help.  As it is, I don’t ever let anyone from OUTSIDE past the porch. My family doesn’t care.  They let anyone see. This mortifies me.

As a churchy public ‘celebrity’ of sorts, I carry myself mostly in my ‘SWITCHED ON’ position. It’s exhausting but weirdly easier to be ‘HER’. Pastor Nadine doesn’t need to be so concerned with the rest of herself.  Not that she’s inauthentic, but when I am ‘her’ I don’t have to be me.  I have a hard time with ME.

While Pastor Nadine is jolly, intelligent, strong, chatty, likeable, funny, experienced and interesting, that’s really only a well practiced MASK.

I am often depressed.  I am mentally ill.  I don’t fit in. I don’t believe people like me or respect me. I’m anxious, terrified by things that better adjusted people can do with ease. I’m a horrible judge of character.  I am either too quiet or I share too much (like this).  I’m impulsive (like cutting my own hair at midnight). I’m never satisfied with my body, I’m moody, I’m high maintenance. I like attention and I hate attention.

Pastor Nadine and I share some important qualities.  We care, A LOT.  We want to be helpful.  We have deep faith in an all LOVING God.  We love our family. We love being in God’s good creation.  Working for justice and peace drives us.

I happen to have Borderline Personality Disorder.  It’s complicated. It is a very uncomfortable condition.  It’s not something that attracts people, that’s for sure. EVERYONE wears different masks for different situations.  I think we all have different PARTS of ourselves that contribute to the WHOLE of oneself. A part of me always insists that I keep smiling, keep working, keep surviving. A part of me desperately wants me to RUN or to QUIT.  Having a personality disorder doesn’t mean I’m so different. It DOES mean that my ‘parts’ are not functioning properly.  Mental health and physical health EQUALLY require relief. Some ailments need surgery, some need medication and counseling.  ALL health issues need our empathy and compassion.

When I was born the nurses likened me to a tiger lily.  I appeared so tiny and fragile like a lily but I was strong like a tiger.  I still like that description.  Strength and vulnerability marry well.  How would I describe myself to someone else? I’m just like you.  I’m someone doing the best that I can to follow the way of loving YOU and all people, including myself.  God willing.

Cry Laughing (mental health)

It seems I am always tired, angry, and laughing too loud.  Depression is EXHAUSTING. During this current bout of it, I listened to an audiobook for the first time. If you’re wondering, I find that it takes just as much focus as actually reading the words.  The lovely part is that there is a storytelling presence. It feels intimate. It feels like a connection, like someone sitting next to you, keeping your heaviness in check, engaging in a relationship. Listening to this voice feels like you have a FRIEND.

It disturbs me that I was listening to the authour of a ”TELL ALL” memoir narrate her own words this week, and I was feeling all kinds of validation and solidarity with her when I heard about the death of Sinéad O’Connor.  GULP. It was HER voice, HER memoir, “Rememberings” that I’d been listening to.  It makes me shiver in shock.

I’ve admired Sinéad since I was a teenager.  Back then, she was mesmerizing and terrifying. She was so angry on behalf of the causes she supported that she stopped at NOTHING to clearly advocate.  She was about the age of my older brother.  It wowed me that she was so young and passionate about things I’d not given a thought to, if I was even aware of them. 

I’ve just invested hours into getting to know her, to understand her more, to LOVE her, and to look forward to MORE from her.  My respect for her has done nothing but expand. She endured SO MUCH.  And now THIS.

Despite abuse and misogyny, she spoke TRUTH. She did everything she did on her own terms.  Despite multiple mental illness diagnoses, she kept on keeping on. She was a mother, a woman of faith, and an advocate for the helpless.

My parishioners are familiar with what I call our Godsparks – the Holy Spirit dwelling IN each of us. Sinéad expressed that she strongly felt the Spirit, the Comforter whom Jesus promised, in and around her.  She said that when she was speaking, the divine in her spoke to the divine in another. Her music was her ministry, and  she followed her Godspark wherever it led. 

During coffee time after church this morning, a friend and I were discussing how no one goes untouched by trauma.  We may not be aware of what influences our behaviour or that of others. I know I wasn’t.  We are so quick to label and judge.  Mental illness is still so STIGMATIZED that we who have serious risks often go unchecked.  Even under close supervision, disaster can strike.

No medical cause for her death has been offered, but we know Sinéad O’Connor lost her son to mental illness by suicide.  I lost my brother to mental illness by suicide, too.  Suicidal ideation is sneaky.  I’ve always maintained that I could NEVER go through with it.

This week reminded me of my own vulnerability. There WAS a time in my first pastorate when I was young, I was married, and I held the world.  YET, one snowy night on a back road, my little sports car started to get hard to handle. I was sliding and DECIDED there was nothing I could do. I didn’t even try.  I GAVE UP.  I just surrendered to the darkness. I let go of the wheel and let whatever was coming COME.  I denied being clinically  depressed.  I hadn’t sought diagnosis, treatment, or any help at all.  Thankfully, the car slid off the road, cleared the ditch, and sunk deeply into the snow just inches from a tree.  I liked the adrenaline rush and the attention I got when I shared the carefully edited story about what happened.

Mental illness, unresolved trauma, impulsive behaviour – it can MESS with your brain even unto death.

We do a lot of praying in church. I pray almost constantly wherever I am.  When things go sideways, my impulse isn’t to blame God. Instead, I CONVINCE myself that I must be praying WRONG, or I’m so BAD that God’s not listening. Really awful theology, I know.

Two things that will stick with me from that memoir I listened to this week. First, Sinéad O’Connor thought ‘cry laughing’ was the best expression of the mania and depression of so many mental illnesses. “Nothing feels better than cry laughing,” she said. She also said, “God doesn’t always GET to answering our prayers IN TIME because sometimes God is TOO busy WEEPING.”  Indeed.

Look after yourselves.  Pray. Feel your Godspark at work and let God answer prayer in, with, and through you.  Peace friends.

Dispirited Deliberation. Faith & Depression

I was out shopping for yarn the other day (it was July 20th – I’m crocheting my first dress), and my daughter took the picture you see above.  It’s JULY.  I’m just not prepared to shift to Halloween. 

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving first.  I’m not even ready to think about the Fall holidays. Seeing this had a hugely negative impact on my day, my mood, and my view of the world.  What is wrong with people?  I sound like Charlie Brown (I often feel like him, too).  All this commercialization, this rush to start the party early, leaves little room to appreciate the liminal space, the time between the now and the not yet.

Please take a second to breathe. Inhale, 2,3,4,5. Hold 2,3,4,5. Exhale 2,3,4,5. Notice your breath, your beating heart, each muscle, tendon, and joint.  Breathe in again. Feel the rush of newly oxygenated blood pulse through your veins.

THIS, THIS IS our personal miracle. Every breath depends on the mechanics of our body, intricately laced together and given life by the energy of our great SOURCE.  For me, this translates into GOD.

In church today, I preached on Jesus’ parable about wheat and weeds growing together, treated EQUALLY, only to be separated by the owner of the field at the harvest.  We each have a tangled up bunch of weeds and fruit in our hearts.  On the last day, all that causes sin in the world and inside of us will be burned away as we come into the full GOODNESS intended for us.  

Waiting sucks.

I’m prone to depression and I’ve had a hard week.  Smiling on the outside.  Dispirited within.  Preaching victory. Living in torment.

How do you suppose we can be both Spirit-filled and dispirited?  If God is dwelling in me, why am I so miserable? It doesn’t make sense. Suffering doesn’t make sense.  I know my suffering pales in the face of the war, disaster, and fatal prognosis endured by others. But I’m a long-suffering woman. That’s what I’ve concluded, and I come from a long line of the same.

Long suffering has changed what I believe about God. God makes me extremely frustrated.

The hope I’m supposed to glory in just isn’t realized fast enough. Why must we ENDURE life rather than LIVE it with abundant blessing?

Have you heard of Job? (J-oh-b).  He’s a Biblical Old Testament Prophet who could write the book on enduring pain. In a very short time, he lost everything. His 10 children were suddenly killed.  All of his livestock was also killed. Then, yup, all of his servants were killed. At the same time, he lost his wealth, his health (he was covered in boils), and the support of his grieving wife. His friends blamed him for his suffering. “You must’ve really made God angry. Sucks to be you, man, ” they said.

Like his friends, Job thought that all suffering was divine punishment for sin. Job hadn’t sinned – but boy did he suffer – not for punishment, but simply because pain is in the human experience.

Why the *!#*!#! doesn’t God fix this?  God’s wisdom is far beyond mine. Like Job, I can make the choice to trust God and draw strength from that divine spark in my heart.  I can choose to persevere. I’m a stubborn one.  I will continue to voice my disapproval of the vacuous gods of consumerism.  

Yup. I am despondent, I’m melancholy.  God didn’t defend the reality of pain or explain why it remains in the order of things. God only tells Job to have faith. Be patient, live, love, and leave the rest to the divine.

Deep breath. 2,3,4 5

Good grief, Is this enough?

God, I hope so.

“And now my soul is poured out within me;
    days of affliction have taken hold of me. The night racks my bones,
    and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.  My inward parts are in turmoil and are never still;
    days of affliction come to meet me. I go about in sunless gloom;
    I stand up in the assembly and cry for help. My lyre is turned to mourning and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

Job 30:16-17, 27-28, 31 NRSV

“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” 

Job 13:15

Frolicking Faith (paired with Depression)

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” 

Philippians 4:8

I woke up this morning with a heavy head. It didn’t take long for the familiar gnawing to start in my gut and radiate to behind my eyes where tears sit at the ready.  I want to eat, eat, eat, (I’m eating right now – but I’m not hungry), and I just can’t DO the THINGS. If I have to see anyone today, they won’t know that I’m stuck in this cloud again. I should’ve been an actress because man, am I GOOD.

There is comfort to be found, if not in my lived moment, then in scripture. I think, in my young adulthood, the big draw to ministry was the realization of the Spirit’s indwelling in me and a desire to help relieve suffering. As a person who lives with borderline personality disorder, I fix myself on God’s unchangeable love. I do not need to fear abandonment (even though I do) because God will never leave me alone.  We all carry a divine spark. Knowing this brings relief, even if only at a cerebral level – it’s a good starting place.

I feel low today. St. Paul wrote his letter (quoted above) to the church in Philippi while he was in PRISON. Certainly he was in an uncomfortable place. Somehow he rejoiced ANYWAY.  His words remind us that reflecting on the good things, being thankful in each moment – whether marred by clouds or brightly lit – is to live out the incarnation of Christ.  

From my experience with depression I know that sometimes remembering the happy yesterdays can provide at least an iota, a small flicker of hope. Things won’t always be like this. THINGS WON’T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS!

Yesterday was Sunday. It was a GOOD day.  In the middle of leading church, a childhood song popped into my mind.  It worked with my sermon about Jesus’ parable of the sower from Matthew’s account. Can you imagine God sowing seeds like a jolly farmer? God is like the sower who uses a ridiculous method to scatter seeds. There’s God, frolicking along, not worried about what kind of terrain on which the abundance of seed land. Imagine Oprah Winfrey and her joyfully anticipated giveaways – “Seeds for you, and seeds for you, and seeds for EVERYBODY!”  There goes God, frolicking along.

Anyway, the song in my head seemed appropriate. 

“Everyday, lambs at play,  in the fields where lilies grow.

 Frisk about, in and out, they are  happy, so!

Jesus’ little lambs are we, and he loves us, you and me. 

As we share in his care, we will happy be.”

Frolicking lambs across fields of plenty. That’s God’s picture of us. We mustn’t forget how it feels to frolic.

My depressed mind is clinging to the wealth of blessings from yesterday. Congregants indulged my need to sing said song.  I held a baby at coffee time, unbidden. He was placed in my lap. Bare toes, soft hair, that milky smell. That alone made the day a winner.

I was invited out to lunch with a couple of matriarch types and another ‘youngster’ like me. A lady in her 90ies DROVE us to a fairly new local restaurant I hadn’t been to yet.  The staff were lovely. The ladies at my table knew EVERYONE there and anyone more that entered. They laughed and shared their secrets with me (I think they were confessions). The trust, the fun loving, and the community felt like a good frolic.  We NEED each other. God is so, so good.

This bout of depression may last a while. By God’s grace, I’ll SURVIVE. I’m grateful for the ability to pull goodness into the deep pit. It will mingle with my Godspark and keep me company until I rise up again.

12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Philippians 4:12-13

Who’s Procrastinating?

On what subject(s) are you an authority?

It’s Friday night. I’m a minister. I haven’t started to write my Sunday sermon yet. I mean, I have ideas. I’ve been thinking about it all week. I can see it in my head. I’ll do it tomorrow. For sure. It’ll be my last chance. I’ll be editing until 10 minutes before the service starts. It’s fine. I do my best work under pressure.

I get all the unnecessary things done while I’m NOT writing my sermon. I reduced our living room furniture by one couch and a chair. Everything is nicely rearranged. I have a floorplan ready to bring in and move around some more stuff – my piano is a biggie – what good is a piano if it’s tucked away and blocked by pet habitats and all their paraphernalia?

Did I mention that I organized the medicine cabinet and a book shelf? I took a quick drive to look at the lake. All’s well there, by the way. I dumped the contents of a junk drawer on the counter and sorted through it. I found the cassette tape of our wedding and the little light bulbs for the salt lamp. Impressive finds! I took a little run to the pet store to get poo bags and dog treats. All ready for our walk tomorrow!

I love all the reading and the research and the mulling of everything over while the words I will preach are simmering. I love writing, and I love preaching. God always has something fresh to add at the last minute. God is helpful that way. It’s all good. I know how it will end. Whatever comes out will emphasize that “You are not alone. God loves you just the way you are!”

This kind of procrastination is a process, a routine. Living my moments, savouring all the little Gospel connections, feeling the Spirit’s sparks, forming the stories and illustrations that will pop so that hopefully, maybe, someone might be moved in Spirit when they hear the delivery of the final draft.

I am informed by my own delaying tactics. My thoughts need time to vacillate and ruminate. I’m really good at this. Procrastination is a necessary tool. Perhaps it is a subject for which I can speak as an authority. Procrastination is my superpower. Thanks be to God!

Bigger Than Us

GAIA, touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram as displayed in Exeter, ON

I feel so blessed to have been able to visit this GAIA exhibit. It’s an extraordinary to-scale replica of the Earth, which has been suspended from the ceiling of Trivitt Memorial Church in Exeter, Ontario as part of the ‘Huron Waves Music Festival’ during the town’s 150ieth anniversary.

The resin sculpture is lit from the inside and slowly turns to the sound of ethereal music, the actual voices of astronauts in spacecrafts as they experience the real thing, and the artists rendition of the mysterious sounds of the universe.

I think the emptied out sanctuary of a large Church is THE PERFECT PLACE to display it. 

When you LOOK UP, the peaked nave (above where the congregation would sit) of the church is reminiscent of the inside of the bottom of a LARGE BOAT. It made me think of Noah’s Ark and God’s promises of eternal love and protection. Here, the Ark domes over the delicate, breathtaking earth, like a rainbow, suggesting to me the everlasting presence of God holding our tiny planet in the enormity of space.


The narrow carpet which us usually the sanctuary aisle, forms a line extending from the earth to the BAPTISMAL FONT, which marks the exact distance the earth is from the moon. Viewers behold the planet just as astronauts have really viewed it from the moon.

Standing there brought feelings of humility and awe. The planet is astoundingly beautiful, and when you think about it realistically, in all its beauty, it is terrifyingly small in the vastness of the known universe.

I think it is very FITTING that the FONT is placed as the spacer for the MOON. The baptismal font represents the cleansing work of God’s Spirit that is forever guiding and accompanying us like the steadfastness of the moon.  As the MOON reflects the light of the SUN on the EARTH through the night, WE reflect the brightness of GOD’S LOVE for all creation through the indwelling of Christ’s SPIRIT. 

I doubt any of this was considered in the setup, but it certainly preached to me!


I will treasure the photos taken, especially of me in communion with earth. We must REMEMBER our God-given RESPONSIBILITY of stewardship for the sake of the environment and the SACRED BALANCE humans so thoughtlessly damage.

Moody Mess

😊😬😐😔😪😶

At my monthly check in with my psychiatrist, I told him that my mood has actually been OKAY for a while. It WAS true. I saw him while I was still riding a wave of adrenaline after a surprisingly positive weekend among the people of the church I minister to. 

With all my mood and personality disorders and my frequent depression, it is really something when I wholeheartedly feel hope, love  and connection with them. Having a good, relaxed time socially is always a challenge. But I was feeling it.

Maybe it’s because my ‘Mommy senses’ tingled when I held the new grandson of parishioners who are integral to our faith family. A measure of their joy rubbed off on me and I am still so thankful.

Yeah!  I held a perfect bundle of baby in my arms! I have longed for the pre-pandemic ease in which our interactions with the most vulnerable among us were not blanketed in fear. What a gift to count his tiny fingers and toes, to feel the warmth and weight of him and to marvel, to bask in the created perfection on my lap! God is good.

This was at a summer social so graciously hosted by members at their home.  The sound of the giant Jenga blocks falling, the giggles echoing, the joy and exuberance of the children diving, somersaulting, and splashing in the pool.  The watery trails of drips that followed them to their towels and snacks was nostalgic of when my own kids were small.  I found it deeply satisfying to witness.

Sitting together with leisurely chatting, roasting marshmallows singing together around a fire, not to mention the perfect weather was just fantastic! God is good.

The next day followed with our Cemetery Decoration service. I was overcome by the turnout and hospitality shown to the bereaved. The mingling of relaxed laughter and vulnerable,  unhidden tears was breathtaking.

How the sun, the breeze, the great outdoors, so comfortably provided us with a fittingly natural cathedral to do the work of remembering together. We stood on the holy ground of grief and faith together. Our church family graciously helping one another, teaming up to unpack an unrehearsed, gorgeously human service full of organic, heart felt love and tenderness. God is good.

So WHY, as I rode to my appointment did that familiar nagging ache of sadness and hopelessness clutch at my gut?  Believing in God’s love for me and the goodness so evident around me DOES NOT fix my mental health.

It’s weird, but after each high, I seem to go right into a low. I came home from that appointment and sucked back my extra pills that are designed to curb the nagging feeling.

It doesn’t negate the wonderful feelings of the weekend but it does stir up anger and questions I’d rather not dwell on.

Onward and upward.

You’re not alone.

, ,

Being

Favorite camping spot.

How important is spirituality in your life?

My spirituality is informed by my Christianity. However, you can easily be spiritual without being religious. I think it’s all about how we interpret our awareness of BEING.

I live and breathe my personal spirituality. It fuels my interpersonal relationships, my worldview, my faith, and my pastoral ministry. I believe in a Greater Power, the Uncreated Source of everything, a consciousness of something bigger than all of us. As a Christian, I’m referring to my God. The awareness of goodness, love, intrinsic worth, purpose, and eternity enacted in and through daily life is my spiritual goal.

My soul is always seeking the eternal who IS LOVE, who loves me. The energy, the supernatural vibration, the divine in me, my Godspark, keeps me constantly and eternally connected to God/the Source/ the All-Knowing and everything else that is also in energetic union through life and in death.

It’s important. Spirituality is my life’s purpose. Connection and unity is its desire. Spirituality makes me care about people, other creatures, and the environment. It drives me to seek kindness and justice in this world of pain. It helps me to act with humility and notice all the amazing things I’d miss if my mind wasn’t always head to head with God.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well…”

Who is your favorite historical figure?

I am really inspired by Julian of Norwich. She was a Christian Mystic who lived in Medieval England through both waves of the Black Death.  She became an anchoress (well respected non-clergy theological expert) after surviving a grave illness in her 30ies.  True to form, she lived her life secluded, sealed in a cell attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich. The cell had a window looking into the church and another looking out to the people in the street to whom she likely gave advice and wisdom.

She was kind of a cool, badass, preacher who walked the walk without limit. She had feminist and inclusive tendencies before feminism or the like even existed. She was the ultimate nobody of nobodies who had a  superhuman ability to see a holy connection and the good in everything.

I am fascinated that no one really knows anything about her, probably not even her actual name. But, somehow, her writings about visions she had of Jesus while she herself was suffering a grave illness are full of theology and ideas far ahead of her time. She called Christ the true mother who birthed us through suffering. Our suffering, she said, is a reflection of Christ. Glory comes through Christ’s suffering, not in spite of it. We suffer to experience a share of God’s unconditional love for us and everything God created.

I’m a pastor and a nerd. My favorite quote from her is,

And all shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian of Norwich