The Minister's Helper - an elderly woman in a nursing home introducing me to the nursing staff
Secretary - an elderly woman with Alzheimer's
Pastor's Wife - a congregation member I met for the first time yesterday
Rev. Zeig (I'm not ordained yet) - the chaplain at the local hospital
I think "minister's helper" was my favorite one ... made me feel like one of Santa's elves ... Oh well, explaining an 11 month full-time internship gets complicated, especially to elderly folk that aren't entirely with it.
I'm sure the women at the senior citizen condo community I'm living in are also talking about me; yesterday they were standing around and gossiping about me as I unloaded groceries from my car. I smiled and waved, but they just continued to stare and chat among themselves. Though there are days when I am bored, my life as a whole is not boring.
12 comments:
Ever been called "Pastorette?"
That's MY favorite...
Where in FL are you? I have a close friend on internship in Naples, FL...
as i am a youth pastor, i will never be a "real pastor," i have heard. i've heard lots of times "do you just really like youth or do you want to be a real pastor one day." ordination be darned, i've still not yet made it!
A woman asked me last week (when she found out I was a seminarian) "WHY would YOU do that? Are you going to be a nun or something?" Never mind that...
- I am married
- am not Catholic
- don't even wear a large pectoral cross
A bystander who heard her question has been calling me "REVEREND SISTER" ever since! ;)
My favorite was in my first call as an Associate Pastor. A woman called me the "Junior" Pastor.
Just yesterday some friends and I were discussing the offensive use of the word "priestess" by those who think women should not become Episcopal priests...
My two other favorites - people who wonder what's wrong with my husband when it turns out I'm the seminarian, and people who say "Are YOU REALLY planning to be ordained?" Yeah, like I'd put myself through 3 years of this plus the 3 years it takes to get through the rigorous process to get here if I didn't want to be an Episcopal priest???? Sigh.
The morning it was announced to the congregation (United Methodist) where I was employed as youth director that I (a seminarian at the time) would be leaving to accept an appointment as a local pastor, the 60-ish male pastor said, "We knew when she took the job that [Psalmist] wanted to be a preacher when she grew up." Uh, I was 38 years old at the time.
So when it was grip and grin time afterward, people started asking me all kinds of questions. (They'd never been served by female clergy.) "So does this mean you're a reverend now?" "I understand that's the official title once I'm officially appointed, yes." "But what are they going to call you?" "Probably the same thing you call me: [Psalmist]." (They called their pastor by his first name, after all.) "Oooooh..." "So you'll really be a pastor?" "Yes, with God's help." "I don't think we'd ever be able to accept that HERE." (It was a real "silk stocking" church.) Kind of funny; they'd trusted me with the spiritual growth of their teenage children, heard me preach at least ten times in the course of two years, and generally accepted me as warmly as that bunch was capable of.
People are funny.
Hubby is called Chaplain at the hospital, but my mom, seeing a female friend of ours in her pastoral attire couldn't help but call her "sister", after calling her by her name in other settings. That catholic upbringing sticks!
I am an assoicate pastor, but get called assisstant lots. I am called the youth worker. I do work with youth, and I knwo Katie will agree that youth are people too. But, youth worker is a little odd sounding. Do they need to be worked? Is that my job?Also get called Ben's assisstant (sr. pastor), female Ben, and Ben jr.
Then after introducaing myself as the associate pastor, folks still think I am his wife....he's married to someone else and I am single.
Get lots of the do you want your "own church" one day. God lesson in PCUSA polity, clergy don't own the church(tee-hee, the Presbyterian Women do!).
I get helper a lot to, but I also think of elves, so that one is cool. :)
I job share with my husband- everyone asumes he if=s full time and I am the add on! Wrong!!!Peace and blessings
santa's helper. Oh well - we all need all the help we can get :)
blessings at Christmas whatever your title is (grin)
My personal favorite came from a time when my grandmother (ordained at age 70)and I did volunteer chaplaincy at a federal prison. She became known as "Rev Mom" and I became "Little Rev."
My husband and I used to be co-pastors. When I went to visit a member who had been hospitalized, he greeted me by saying, "Oh, the Lady Preacher is here!" To be fair, he was pretty drugged up and thought his IV contained a chicken dinner. We had a good laugh about it, and the title stuck with him. I normally would have cringed at it, but in this case, I knew there was no judgment that I was any less a pastor to him than my husband.
Many blessings!
The name thing just doesn't seem to get resolved. "Preacherette" and "priestess" provoke me although I've been called both through the years. I think those titles stink. "Female pastor" sounds like some farm animal designation. "Lady Minister" is the most common here and there is a compliment somewhere in it because of the use of the label "lady". Not much of one, but some.
Urghhhh
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