23 September 2009

Tall dude who lives in my house

Parish life is, for me, much easier with kids. I always have something to talk about. How well I remember sitting awkwardly in the pew or the narthex or Bible class while my husband was on official field worker business during seminary--the boring wife to whom no one knew what to say. The solitary thing that got easier when our first baby was born was dealing with the church social requirements of vicarage (not least because I sometimes had an excuse to get out of them). Now I have an ever-increasing number of conversation pieces and reasons for being late, leaving early, saying no, or not knowing what's going on.

There is another advantage, too--I don't have to figure out what to call that one guy any more. I call him Dad, both directly and referentially. I know no one else from church will appropriate this familiarity for personal use. I won't be suspected of affecting formality in these highly informal parts by calling him Pastor. Everyone knows what I mean and it keeps us all very human in a place where it's important to be very human. And I'm partial to the paternal nuance. ;)

3 comments:

Ewe said...

When I was teaching at a Lutheran school, the headmaster's wife was very good about always referring to her husband as Pastor. I didn't realize at the time that she must have worked hard to say that. After my husband took his first Call, I used her example. I sort of go into another role when I step in the church building, I talk about Pastor. Sometimes when I'm talking to my boys there we talk about Papa, but most of the time church=Pastor.

Dawn said...

I usually say "my husband" or "Dad" when in the company of the many sheep who refer to my husband as "Pastor." But I say "Pastor" when in the company of those who use his first name and who do so simply because they were on a first name basis with all of their previous pastors.

Politics. Fun.

Rebekah said...

At our previous parish, which was both first-namey and more formality-loving (strange juxtaposition, I know), I used "Pastor" when speaking to offenders. >:(