Strike a healthy, hopeful balance as a vocation minister

IT HAS BEEN FOUR LONG YEARS since I last watched the sun come up and the tide roll in along the Atlantic coast. It is indeed one of my “happy” places, and my heart and spirit sing when I am in the company of this great blue cathedral. Being in this place, on this piece of holy ground, helps me to breathe and to clear my head and my heart of both the good and the bad, the joys and the sufferings, the questions, concerns, and creative ideas. We all need time and space to do this very essential act.

As I write during my time along the coast, some members of the National Religious Vocation Conference have just completed workshops to begin vocation ministry. Others are across the ocean accompanying young people at World Youth Day in Lisbon; others are making their annual retreat and planning the coming year. At the same time, some are feeling overwhelmed with increasing responsibilities and multiple ministry roles. Some are struggling to discern the future of their institutes and whether to invite new membership. Some are feeling the pain of emotional, spiritual, and physical burnout and the lack of peers with whom to connect to rekindle the fire inside. Wherever you find yourself on this spectrum, I hope my thoughts about maintaining balance in the midst of vocation ministry will speak to you.

Love yourself

A foundational step toward equilibrium is a question. Ask yourself: Do I love myself enough to ___? Fill in the blank with what you most need, be it extra sleep, time with a friend, or a day of prayer. Showing ourselves the necessary and life-altering love and tenderness that is God’s gift to us is not selfish or ego-serving. Rather, it is essential for our continued growth in wholeness, which is ultimately, holiness. As earthen vessels, our potter-God wants to mold and shape us to be the Christ-bearers we are meant to be. How do we lean into this God who is holding us gently as we turn and move through the seasons of our lives?

I get the feeling that many of us have a love-hate relationship with the “B” word: balance. It’s such an easy thing to say, yet so difficult to achieve. Perhaps we are going about it the wrong way. Author Jana Kingsford suggests, “Balance isn’t something you find, it’s something you create.” We spend a lot of time seeking solutions, as if the secrets and mysteries of healthy balance are outside of us. If we can begin by seeing ourselves as the protagonists in our own stories and in our own efforts to live happy, passionate, harmonious lives, we may rekindle a friendship with this word.

Motivational speaker and writer Danielle Orner reminds us, “Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot; learn to live between effort and surrender!” What wonderful wisdom. Daily, we face situations and circumstances that lie beyond our control, yet others are very much in the realm of things we can act upon. Being willing to wade through the murky waters, only seeing the next right step, is a good way to approach our daily realities.

Part of the key to keeping balance is knowing when we’ve lost it. If you’ve ever had the fun of watching a squirrel attempt to keep his footing while hanging upside down on your bird feeder, you know that squirrels seem to beat all odds, but every now and then they slip and take a tumble. Amazingly, they know how to gracefully stick a landing! Can you think of these little creatures when you feel like you are slipping out of balance? Remember that it’s not about falling but about how you land and get back up again.

Strengthen your core by taking inventory

Yesterday morning, as I enjoyed watching the sun rise over the Atlantic from my perch high up on a pier, I noticed a man paddle boarding. From far away, he appeared to be simply standing on the water and moving with the tide. As he got closer to me, I saw how perfectly he was balanced on his board with a paddle in one hand, keeping rhythm with the waves, seeming to skim the surface and float above the water. As he passed close to the pier, he looked up, and we shared a smile. This little glimmer reminded me of two important facts. The first, which I learned after months of physical therapy, is that if you want better balance, you have to strengthen your core. Yes, that means discovering and working muscles you never knew you had. Second, as learned from the great Albert Einstein, “To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

On a purely human level, we know that our most basic needs are for nourishment, shelter, sleep, and movement, but equally essential are the needs for bonding, relationship, and love. Moving higher on the list are needs for purpose, meaning, direction, and generativity. These needs constitute our “core,” and giving them proper attention enables us to live a vibrant, dynamic, passionate life. What are some of these core areas that need to be strengthened and nurtured in you at this time? Where do you feel a tightness or resistance? Taking time to do an inventory might help you understand what you need to do to move toward greater harmony and balance.

As you look at your core, you might discover some areas of stagnation, feeling stuck or mired in a particular pattern of behavior or thinking. Perhaps it’s a feeling of helplessness at not being able to meet expectations or to use the gifts and talents you possess to minister as you feel called. What do you need in order to keep moving? Ironically, it might mean stepping back, resting, and taking time out for your spiritual and emotional health. 

This stepping back is an essential movement that many of us in vocation ministry don’t nurture until we feel exhausted and burned out. Movement is not equal to busyness. Movement is a much gentler way to keep us in life’s flow, to keep us connected to the movements and rhythms of God’s Spirit in our lives. Even if the movement comes in the smallest of steps, it’s still movement. Having someone in your life to help you to keep moving is a great blessing, whether it is a good spiritual director, counselor, peer minister, or soul friend. If you are blessed to have this kind of person in your life, take a minute to write him or her an old-fashioned thank you note. Expressing gratitude for goodness received is one of the best fuels to rekindle your inner flame.

Rooted in hope

Besides emphasizing movement, a focus on hope is also essential for balance. Hope is a little orphan with curly red hair singing, “The sun’ll come out ... tomorrow! Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow ... there’ll be sun.” Hope is a caterpillar that asks, “How do I become a butterfly?” And a butterfly who responds, “When you want to fly so much that you’re willing to give up being a caterpillar!” 

Wikipedia tells us that hope is an “optimistic state of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes” and Merriam-Webster tells us that hope means “to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true.” Scripture tells us that hope is a strong and confident expectation; a trust in what is yet unseen.

Striking a balance in hope is honoring the process as much as the outcome, seeing each step along the way as the way, and believing that the providence of God is always greater than our limited vistas. With this in mind, I used the letters in the word hope to share some of the elements I find helpful in striking a healthy balance in prayer, community and family, ministry, mission, and self-care. Those elements are home, help and humor, order, outlook, peace, and expect. 

Tend to your home

Striking a healthy balance in hope begins at home. Where is your home? I am not only referring to your physical address on the GPS, but what constitutes home for you in an expansive sense of the word? When I was in full-time vocation ministry, I was grateful to live in a large community with sisters of diverse ages and ministries and with living space for me to host small groups for retreats and activities. Hospitality was one of the defining characteristics of our home, whether it was welcoming friends and family members of our sisters, housing employees from our hospital during weather emergencies, or making room for giggling groups of high school girls for an after-school evening with the sisters. Creating and respecting healthy boundaries; inviting others into activity and prayer; and showing genuine empathy, care, and support to one another and to others made this a sacred place for me that I will forever treasure. 

Even when my ministry kept me on the road, I knew that upon my arrival back home, I would be warmly welcomed and expected to pick up where I left off. The anchor of a life-giving, nurturing home life sustained me through many joys and challenges, losses, disappointments, and successes. What is the quality of your home life? Is the time you spend there quality time where you participate actively in the life of those with whom you live? Does the quality of your home life nourish you for ministry?

Help and humor

Help and humor are essential in striking a balance in hope as a vocation minister. When I start to feel locked in on my needs, wants, ways, and desires, I realize it’s time to get out of myself and to look around for opportunities to help others. For me, helping others in small, often unnoticed ways helps me to re-focus and widen my lens. Helping others helps us to gain necessary perspective and can re-energize our efforts for things that are more challenging and time-consuming.

 Helping can take many forms, but one in particular that I’ve found especially meaningful is visiting with my sisters in our infirmary, listening to what’s on their minds and hearts and being refreshed by their wisdom and authenticity. When I am with them, there is usually a lot of laughter, even in the midst of their aches, pains, and burdens. Humor is a most beneficial medicine, and we would all do well to take a daily dose of it. A good belly laugh actually burns calories and releases endorphins, making for good feelings and positive vibes. It’s even more valuable when shared with a friend. Surrounding yourself, whenever possible, with light-hearted people who can laugh at their own foibles and imperfections and spread joy by their very presence can turn around even the worst of days.

Order

I often joke about being a pile versus file kind of person, and it works well for me, but there are times when even with the greatest amount of resilience, I can’t take another minute of my piles. Whether it’s rearranging the spice rack or balancing the house checking account, putting things back in order is a non-negotiable. Keep order in your living and working spaces, not with museum-like rigidity but to foster an atmosphere that is peaceful and inviting when you or others are in that space. 

When you feel frustrated and don’t have energy for the task at hand, go and “make order” somewhere—weed the garden, clean out a closet, or reorganize your workspace. Making physical order helps forge a way for us to make spiritual and emotional order as well, leaving us feeling more connected and balanced.

Ordering the hours of our day also helps us to stay in rhythm. The song “In Every Age” by Janet Sullivan Whitaker includes the line, “Teach us to make use of the time we have; teach us to be patient, even as we wait.” These words are like medicine for me when I start to feel like there aren’t enough hours in a day to accomplish all the tasks. We all have the same 24 hours. Try to keep certain daily or regular routines, especially prayer and worship, sitting at a table to eat, planning time for fun, going to bed and getting up at a consistent time, and pre-determining the amount of screen time you can handle in a day. All of this contributes to a healthy balance.

Outlook 

So much of our self-concept centers around our outlook. How I understand myself is often a reflection of how I see the world around me and vice versa. Do you sometimes see through a narrow lens, one that sees scarcity, impossibility, and diminishment? Other times can you see through a wide lens that sees abundance, possibilities, and opportunities for growth? Which is the lens that you most consistently look through? If your outlook leans toward the narrow lens, what can you do to expand your view?

Peace

Striking a healthy balance in hope requires peace of mind, body, and spirit. Remember, Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Peace be with you!” Who breathes peace on you? Do you breathe peace to your world? Peace isn’t simply a passive virtue that helps you maintain stability, but it is a generative gift that sustains you in difficult times and allows you to support and encourage others.

Expect

As you look at your life, are you checking your expectations? Are they realistic? Too high? Too low? Here are two challenges to consider. First, expect that no matter what comes your way, there will always be an open door or window—maybe even just a crawl space—for possibilities to bear fruit and bring joy. Second, expect that there will be chaos; that’s what the universe was born from! Let these two expectations permeate your mindset and learn to live within the necessary tension, suspending judgment long enough to really listen to your life speaking.

Expectation also has to do with how you think about your ministry. When ministry seems overwhelming and all-consuming or unfulfilling and lifeless, it’s good to remember that you are more than your ministry. As Pope Francis proclaims: “I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.” Opportunities to be mission abound in the most ordinary experiences of our daily lives. There is never a moment when we are not in mission. Claiming this reality for ourselves gives us permission to see everything we’re about as sacred mission, as a bush afire. If you are struggling to see successes in your ministry and are beginning to lose hope, wake up to the mission that you are by simply being a child of God. 

In Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel) Pope Francis reminds us: “We have to regard ourselves as sealed, even branded, by this mission of bringing light, blessing, enlivening, raising up, healing, and freeing.” These words are full of hope and can restore us to healthy balance. Remember, no matter what your ministry, you are always in mission. Go, be mission: in prayer, in community, in relationships, in service, and in caring for yourself. 

Sister Michele Vincent Fisher, C.S.F.N. belongs to the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. She is the continuing formation minister for her province, a member of the vocation team, coordinator of the Delaware Valley Member Area for the NRVC, and a board member of the National Fund for Catholic Religious Vocations.