Real Families: Meditations on family life

My life this year is full of surprises. I have followed my spouse to a new location, adjusting to new circumstances and seeking to discern the ministry opportunities that unfold here. I didn’t ask that a job solution be negotiated for me before Sara agreed to tackle her new role in leading a major institution of the church. My consistent and strong encouragement for her to take the invitation seriously was never contingent on what opportunities would emerge for me.

What has been surprising? I’ve been caught off-guard many times by the question, “So what will you do?” Doing, it turns out, counts for a lot in our culture, especially for males. With a quick reply, I claim this year as a “spouse-sponsored sabbatical.” That usually evokes a grin of appreciation or a smirk tinged with envy.

Yet there are some things that wouldn’t happen to a female in the more frequent reversal of the roles. At midafternoon I’m in an obscure aisle of a grocery store, and someone I don’t know chuckles: “You’re out doing the grocery shopping while your wife is over at the campus, running the seminary.” And an older woman says: “It must take a pretty strong ego for a man to go such distances just to hear his wife preach.”

I have chosen to keep Sara company where possible, appreciating opportunities to visit congregations and communities I have long heard about but not seen firsthand. So far, Alberta, Ontario, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Ohio, Illinois and Florida have come freshly into view; more journeys lie ahead. And there is much to explore in our new geography—Indiana and nearby Michigan and Chicago.

After more than 30 years teaching in academia, I was ready for this kind of break. I am cultivating a nonanxious approach to the new and different possibilities that may emerge in my new context. But for those who need to know that I am productively engaged, the next comment is often most helpful: I’m teaching a college course as an adjunct professor, plus another course online with my previous seminary. With that, the picture seems to snap into place, and my profile is again secure.

This is not idle curiosity, for the most part. People need to know how things fit together, and the plight of a professional career disrupted by a spouse’s major dislocation is not new, even for males. “I have a lot to learn in her new job,” I am fond of pointing out.
Real families, it turns out, have seasons of switching roles and sharing burdens according to different formulas from what our predecessors maintained. My own experience is not unique, yet somehow it still seems unusual enough to evoke frequent inquiry. I appreciate the care and well-meant efforts to help discern the paths ahead.

Like me, some retirees and caregivers in dramatically changed circumstances also need to recalculate their profile and direction in life. Some of these adjustments are to be expected; others are jolting and abrupt.

What comes clearer to me that I should probably be telling my hardworking colleagues is that stress levels in our society have been rising more than we generally recognize. Jobs are tight, hours are long, wages are flat and the pressure to produce and perform keeps rising.

Stepping back for a season of reflection, I am attending more to the birds in the backyard and the neighbors out front. I have been enjoying breakfast with the men from a nearby congregation who gather at a local cafe on Wednesday mornings. I shovel the snow, push the reel mower, build some furniture and delight in the squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, deer, hawks, geese, ducks, swans, herons, owls, woodpeckers, cardinals and juncos. I arrange for appliance repairs, sell a car and consult by phone when family members need someone to confide in. I have also resumed the quaint ancient practice of reading books (real books). I do a fairly good job on the grocery shopping and have come to count on hearing good sermons, too.

Today I took a stroll along the bay next to the Gulf of Mexico. I am reminded that our true calling, our vocation, starts long before the trek we make through the job market and lasts far beyond it as well. To find our true north, to will the one thing that God purposes for our lives, to fit into God’s work in the world—that is our finest hope. And to support each other, our families and true-love partners in the new chapters as they unfold along the way—that is my joy. That is the framework that makes sense of our seasons of intense concerted work and also our finest stress-reducing sabbaticals.

Gerald Shenk resides in Goshen, Ind., and is teaching an online seminary course.