Under the title of my blogspace I have written a phrase I often quote: 'not a job, a lifestyle'. It was a phrase a very wonderful priest called Grace Clunie taught me when I was her student during my ministerial training. It is at once a comforting and yet fear-inciting phrase. Most people would love to be able to wake up at 8am and have breakfast, say their prayers and get to their desk by 8.30 or 8.45am and not even have to leave their house. Is it a kind of false attractiveness? Sometimes I think I would much prefer to have to get up at 7am and have breakfast and journey into work for 8.56am. At least then I wouldn't have distractions like the kettle, the tv, the bookshelves or the guilt factor that I am becoming idle (something which St Benedict warned against in his monastic rule). But yet, the extra half an hour in bed is a God-send, especially on a Monday morning. Yet how many other jobs would allow their bosses to phone them at home after 9.30pm or on a Saturday at 9am or how many people would work on a Sunday from 8am to 10pm. And have 1 day off a week, which is often spent at home, where you often spend your work time. And with the prickly thought in the back of your head that someone, anyone could phone you at any time, because their loved one has just died.
We are told in post ordination training that for survival its all about boundaries, all about the sense of yourself, all about not answering your phone during meal times (which I am slowly learning). Its all about 'developing a thick skin', and not worrying about the fact that Marjorie or Hattie (false names) say, 'honestly that curate's never in'.
The answer to it all is: its not a job, its a lifestyle. Maybe I will 'work' 15 hours one day, maybe I will 'work' 5 hours another day, but as another wise person once said to me, 'you are paid to pray, not paid to make money or to meet targets'. Amen to that.
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