A Weekly Mid-Life Musing?

The snarky idea I had at church that I think might actually work.

Sincere apologies if you have any difficulty hearing the recording. I was using my noise cancelling headphones outside a coffee shop where I posted up to work while my kid was at camp because the traffic is so bad, it’s not worth going home for three hours. Yeah, see why I needed to go to church?

I went to church on Sunday.

I don’t often do that. In fact, I’m a staunch Christmas Eve churchgoer and occasionally sunrise Easter service. I could squarely be called a “Chreaster”, but I’m not even sure I’m committed enough for that.

Having been raised Baptist (not Southern Baptist, which would come with a whole different set of psychoses), I could write an entire Substack about the complicated rationale for why I don’t go to church regularly but still go to church at all, particularly on those two holidays. It’s not a new tale, and not particularly relevant to this story, but there’s some shit to unpack there that I should probably explore another day.

AI’s interpretation of me as a Creaster.

I went to church this past Sunday for the simple reason that someone invited me. I must admit, I never thought evangelism light would work on me, but apparently, if you peg the audience right, that is, someone who is already teetering on attendance, your win ratio increases exponentially.

I’ve been dancing around a revival of this Sunday ritual for a while now. Every time I get a hankering for a good organ hymn and an uncomfortable pew, it almost always harkens back to two things - the yearning for community and the desire to be intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually shoved by someone with more depth, more intelligence, or more woo than I.

As a mid-forties woman with an elementary aged daughter and a husband in graduate school, the monotony of our day-to-day life is something I struggle with mightily. It all feels so…superficial. I find joy and meaning challenging when the crux of my day comes down to whether I can manipulate the Pottery Barn Kids website so I can get a replacement lunchbox strap shipped by bitching out the chat bot instead of having to call Customer Service so I don’t waste my 6.75 hours of child free work time on hold.

Dare I say I was excited when the sermon started this Sunday? I was ready for some shoving. I thought about taking notes in my phone mainly because the pastor invited me to download their app to do just that, but I hate taking notes and I hate apps, so I just decided to listen.

The sermon boiled down to the importance of keeping your focus on faith despite the distractions of the world. I must admit that I did not feel shoved. Nudged, maybe. Poked, possibly. But we did not achieve shove status. However, as often happens when I put myself in places where I expect the speaker to deliver a shove-level soliloquy, what I experienced instead is what I lovingly call the side step. It’s a sneaky way the Universe has of lobbing its real message for me right in the strike zone while I’m still thinking I’m about to hit a homer.

Like any good speaker, the pastor had three recommendations for how to achieve this eye-on-the-prize focus. One mechanism he suggested is spiritual discipline accomplished via a “simple” 10-minute daily practice of scripture reading and prayer.

The rambling internal monologue I experienced following that piece of advice went something like this….

“I hate the phrase spiritual discipline. What a trigger phrase. Like, can we say “Catholic guilt” or “God dieting” any louder?

“I mean, I do pray, but for 10 minutes? And isn’t prayer basically the same thing as meditation but without the genuflecting and God speak? Oh wait, I can’t do that for 10 minutes either. Silence is so hard.”

“You know, but I kinda liked those daily devotional books I used to do. I gotta give it to him, there is something about starting the day with more than just coffee. But, who wants to do a Jesus devotional every morning? I’m such an asshole. Of course people want to do a Jesus devotional…YOU just don’t want to. 🤦‍♀️ You know what would actually be amazing? A daily devotional for mid-forties perimenopausal women who are trying to figure out how the fuck to find meaning in their lives beyond lunchbox straps and soccer sign ups.”

I smirked to myself, having effectively dismantled the sermon in T-minus three minutes.

And after another three minutes of noodling on that, I rolled my eyes at myself and realized the Universe had done it again. The side step.

Although conceived by my snarkiness, it’s actually a really good idea. I’m sitting in church because I want to find more meaning in my life, more depth, more….something. And the reason I yo-yo my way to church and away again is this exact problem. The language gets in the way. I can’t get down with reading my Bible, which I’d have to find first, and praying for 10 minutes a day. I’m not knocking it, but it’s not what I need. But, the practice, the, ick, “spiritual discipline”, is something I do need. Why throw the baby out with the bath water? (Side bar - who came up with that idiom? I know 🙋‍♀️, an overly tired 40-something woman with an infant. A German woman, that is. In the 1500’s.)

Stay with me here. What would a daily devotional for a human two standard deviations on either side of 50 look like? To be fair to the term “devotional”, it should likely include a verse of some sort. We’ll take the suggestion that it comes from the Bible loosely. Follow that with a question to prompt deeper reflection or introspection.

A few potential examples:

• Day 1 - “I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do” - Phyllis Diller. You used to be fun. You used to do things, go places, see people, experience life. Your back is fine. How can you bring back the fun, not for anyone else, but for yourself?

• Day 2 - “Laundry is the real Neverending Story.” Laundry is a metaphor for adulting. It is literally never ever done. If we can’t change the fact of adulting, and certainly can’t change the fact of laundry, how do we change our perception of both?

• Day 3 - "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Real things aren’t shiny. They are subject to accidents, breaks, falls, mistakes. But, we tend to love our things the more real they become. How do we do the same with our marriage?

It’s wild, right? I’m on to something here. And if none of that landed, then you are either twenty-three, single with no kids, or Jesus, so just stop reading. There is nothing here for you.

If you’ve ever heard me speak about writing, you know I am a proud non-journaler. Like, I just don’t do it. A blank page is my nemesis, and while I know forcing myself to put down 100 words, any words, would be a good growth step…blah blah blah. I don’t want to. But, I’d write an answer to the above. Even if that answer was something like…

Stella got her groove back by falling in love with a man half her age in Jamaica. That is not in the cards for me, so how do I find my fun again? I have NO FUCKING CLUE. I’m not even sure I know what “my fun” is. I used to love a good night at the club. Now, I have no idea where a club is, I get a headache the instant something neon green passes my lips, and staying up past 10pm requires an afternoon coffee of the Venti variety. Can I find somewhere else to shake my ass to 90’s rap inside a circle of women (no boys allowed!) God, I hope so.

I had fun writing that. Joy giggling up inside me as I imagined my group of friends slaying a dance floor at 7pm on a Tuesday to “Back That Azz Up.”

I need someone to ask me these questions. I need a discipline around answering them. I do need some spiritual direction, even if it doesn’t derive directly from the Lord’s book. And, most importantly, I need to keep my focus on joy. Despite the distractions.

So, I’m curious. Lawd (not the Jesus kind, the colloquial Southern-drawl inspired kind) knows I have no idea how to write a daily devotional. But, what if it was something less serious than that? A weekly mid-life musing to bust through the bullshit, hold us accountable, and keep us focused on something more than laundry. Would you do it? Would you at least read it and let your brain roll it around? Would it matter to you? Would it bring you joy?

Let me know what you think in the comments 👇. As my mother used to say, a simple “No thank you” will do if this isn’t your cup of tea. But if it might be, tell me what you need, what you’re looking for, what “spiritual discipline” calls to you. Maybe we can all take a little Cha Cha slide to the left to allow the Universe to lob some joy over the plate.

And if not, there’s always church.