A Confession and a Drop of Wisdom

And some reframing

So here’s my confession:

Straight up, I’m exhausted. And I’ve been hesitant to talk about exhaustion because every time I do, someone writes to me about how boring it is - how blah blah blah, we know the world is on fire, the work is hard, ministry is hard, we know, shut up.

Yeah. I know. And so I do shut up about it. I suck it up and power through, like we all do. We drink more coffee, prioritize, remember that others are struggling too, find short-term solutions, and mostly stop talking about the ways in which everything in the world is making things ten times worse than they used to be and a thousand times more exhausting than they used to be. Because it’s not just exhaustion, it’s… something else. Burnout, but from what? Stress? That’s even worse. “A made up, Madison Avenue word” as Jed Bartlet would say.

But I sit down every Wednesday morning with a too long list of topics for this Substack that grows longer every day, because the Congregational Shenanigans™ keep getting wilder and weirder but the energy to write about them keeps disappearing. And still I write, most Wednesday mornings, hiding the exhaustion, occasionally punting, occasionally missing the mark, and definitely kicking topics down the road (and onto that too long list of topics). I do have a plan for some of them; part of my summer will be sorting, sifting, and doing some writing so I’m not starting from scratch every week.

But here, a week before my denomination’s General Assembly, I am flat out exhausted, with still a fairly long list of things to do. I will still write next week, but expect it to be short stuff I’ve heard around General Assembly, maybe some photos, funny things, drops of wisdom. Nothing too in-depth. Because I just don’t know where I - or anyone really - is finding the wherewithal to produce even an ounce of inspiration.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to look far, as my friend and colleague, Rev. Mark Belletini, found these words of Dr. Zelana Montminy. It is the wisdom I needed to understand what it is I’m feeling - exhaustion, and stress, and burnout, yes, but it’s deeper than that:

So maybe what you’re feeling isn’t stress.
Or burnout.
Or distraction.
Maybe it’s grief.

Not for a person, but for a moral
compass we didn’t realize we lost.

For the values you thought were
universal. For accountability.
For the quiet agreements we
once shared but can’t seem
to find anymore.

It’s not dysfunction.
It’s your integrity reacting to distortion.

You may not be able to fix the whole
thing. But you can choose something
real inside it.

Tell the truth.
Tend to your corner.
Anchor to care.

Be a place where clarity still lives.
That ache you feel when you’re awake?
It’s the call to build something
better.

And you are where the rebuilding begins.

See you next week.