Or, a very long story during which I am hoist with someone else’s pitard.
It’s been a real weird fucking year. Like, for all of us, I realize, but certainly each of us has singular struggles heaped on top of the dumpster fire of 2020 and onward.
To be honest, I’ve felt a little guilty throughout the pandemic. Because my kids go to school relatively far away, virtual learning has replaced twice-daily hour-and-a-half commutes every other week. I’m generally quite a homebody, so it has been less of a struggle for me than other, more social folks. I’m also married to someone who I genuinely love and like very much, so the opportunity to spend more time together has been a treasure.
I’ve also been trying my best to use the newfound non-commuting time to get healthier, generally. After putting on quite a few pounds after my hip replacement a few years ago, I finally feel like I’m on a better track forward. All things considered, my pandemic hasn’t been too shabby.
There was, however, this… one… thing.
I’ve been employed by one local church for the last twenty years. Both of my children were baptized there, my family sings there, and I have considered my choir family just that - a family.
Now, let me be clear. I love music, I especially love Anglican choir music, and I love some parts of the Episcopal services (Evensong, especially). I do not, however, consider myself especially religious or even spiritual. You could call me a lazy atheist, perhaps. I could get on board with some sort of unifying force in the universe, but if you expect me to believe in a man with a beard in the sky and that an actual virgin gave birth and that a human being died and came back to life three days later, you should settle in for a good long wait.
With that said, I can’t deny that there were times when I felt especially open and reaching out for something, and could almost convince myself that something was there, something intangible and beautiful. This is my long-winded way of saying: I don’t believe in God, but my experiences singing choral music have given me a taste of the “spiritual,” or as close to that as I have felt.
My father is a fabulous organist and possessed of a rich, chestnut baritone voice. I have heard my mother sing all my life, and one of her solos can still bring me to tears. Suffice to say, my brother and I were raised with church music. As children, we attended a different church from my parents. They were both employed at the local Methodist church, which didn’t offer a children’s choir, so Matt and I spent our formative years at an Episcopal church with fabulous boys’ and girls’ choirs. The church is so woven into the fabric of our lives and family that it has always felt like a given to me, no matter my own beliefs.
You might recall a particularly contentious election from a few months back. You know, the one where the shining Delawarean knight defeated the heinous orange cheeto. You may have also noticed that folks have put a lot of insensitive stuff onto the interwebs, memes-n-thangs about the insurrection at the Capitol, Agolf Twitler, Nazis, all that kind of fun stuff.
How do these two disparate things connect, you ask? WELL. Let me spin you a tale, children (picture an old, 40-ish crone rubbing her very dry winter hands together).
I have a master of jurisprudence degree in compliance. I have a pretty good idea of the baseline a business needs to run legally and ethically. Most big corporations take that stuff pretty seriously for a lot of reasons, but like everything else that motivates entities beholden to shareholders, it all comes down to money. When you run your business ethically, it saves money long-term, especially in legal fees (or the lack thereof) and customer loyalty.
Here’s the thing, though: churches aren’t businesses… are they? They don’t pay taxes (which is absolutely asinine, although I won’t expand on that here because no one wants to read all that shit on top of all the shit I’m already writing), but they certainly need revenue to succeed. We can consider the parishioners shareholders, in a way. Unfortunately, churches have been pretty slow to come around to compliance. Without doing a deep dive into data - by which I mean I am sharing an opinion that is coming straight out of my ass and could have literally no foundation in reality - I can reasonably assume that part of that is likely due to the perception of pastors as social workers, in a way. And certainly social workers know how to act ethically, right?
Not quite. Business ethics are different than personal morals. They’re rooted in the law, and understanding how to run an ethical business takes more than a community college psychology degree - or a doctorate in religion.
The church where I was employed for the last few decades was not immune to scandal, certainly. It didn’t seem as though anything particularly egregious had happened, but there were some red flags over the years. I never had enough information about the incidents to form an educated opinion about whether they were handled well. That changed when, a few years ago, another church employee made disturbing advances to several women in the church. Not only did this employee remain on staff for some time, at least one of the victims was told to speak with their harasser directly to “sort it out.”
I should have been on higher alert, I guess. And I think I was, in a way, but I was still blindsided by how it all went down.
On a lovely Sunday afternoon, I received a call from our choir director. I was at the barn, hanging out with my kiddo and about to get on a horse, so I let it go to voicemail. The voicemail he left was fairly innocuous and asked for a call back.
Later that afternoon, the church rector sent out a scathing email about social media use. The gist of her email was that, as employees, we are all representing the church, even on our private social media accounts. She referenced an employee handbook which none of us had ever seen and certainly had never signed, and requested that we respond with a verbal commitment to temper what we put on social media.
Fun.
The next morning, I spoke with the choir director. He told me that he believed the impetus for the rector’s email was a meme that I had posted on one of my husband’s Facebook posts (it was, admittedly, in poor taste, but I stand by its content) about the Capitol riot. He also said that he believed the person who had complained was another of our choir members who is a far-right, conservative Trumpster.
Funner.
He told me that he had a meeting later that day with the rector. I asked him to confirm with me either way after speaking with her. Later that day, he texted “FYI - I was correct in my assessment across the board.”
Just buckets o’fun, you know what I’m sayin?
I gave it some thought. I slept on it. I shed many tears. I decided that it would be best if I simply resigned. I was uncomfortable with the thought of going back and singing alongside this person, trying to pretend they hadn’t thrown me unceremoniously under the bus. I was uncomfortable with the fact that, rather than simply contacting me, the rector found it appropriate to send an email to all employees, setting off days of angst among people who were afraid they were the culprit. I was uncomfortable with the fact that the person who had complained was someone who had no problem putting his colleagues in danger by refusing to wear an appropriate mask when we were together for a recording session. Someone whose far-right views don’t align with the church’s views - at least, I didn’t think they did.
I emailed my resignation the following morning. The choir director responded later in the afternoon, accepting my resignation.
I cried. A lot. I talked to my husband, my family, my friends. I cried some more. It felt more like a breakup than a resignation; it felt like giving up a piece of myself, sacrificing something vital and precious for someone or something undeserving of such a sacrifice. The days wore on.
My dad spoke with the rector. The rector, with some surprise, told him that it was not, in fact, my meme that had triggered the complaint. It was the choir director’s comment.
I’ll repeat that for the folks in the back: No one complained about anything on my social media, THEY COMPLAINED ABOUT THE CHOIR DIRECTOR’S COMMENT. THE SAME CHOIR DIRECTOR WHO TOLD ME I WAS 100% TO BLAME. The same choir director who, even by his own account, has repeatedly been “in trouble” about his social media activity.
Cool, I’m glad you’re all with me. For the record, 99% of what I post on social media is ridiculous memes and cat videos.
Remember that “this feels like a breakup” thing? Yup, all of that balled up and crashed down on my head anew, with an even healthier helping of “you are the fucking sacrificial lamb, you are the collateral damage no one cares about.”
After a week of that, I got an email from the rector, copying the choir director, asking to chat.
Just so that really sinks in, I’d like to again state that, after the rector found out I was told it was my fault, and that it specifically led to my resignation, I heard nothing from anyone for a week. A week.
We spoke. I cried. She apologized. I said I needed to talk to the choir director to sort things out. She said okay, keep her updated. Okay.
Now we circle back to my aforementioned aversion to conflict. There was this one time back around 2003 when I worked for a fashion design outfit run by a crazy person, and she was arguing loudly with a salesman next to my desk. I broke out in actual hives.
So, after hemming and hawing for a few days, I finally decided that I simply don’t owe anyone anything. From my perspective, I was left to have a breakdown, not knowing the true story other than no one seemed to care. That coupled with the known history of this very church responding inappropriately to other situations gives me enough information to know that the high-enough likelihood of this happening again means that I am not safe there. I guard my mental health with my life, because I have to, because depression and anxiety are literally life-threatening. The most difficult pill to swallow (it’s okay for me to make suicide puns tyvm) with this decision is that while I know it’s healthiest for me in the long-term, I have to deal with the immediate hole left by what has always been a constant in my life. I have to live with the knowledge that I may never get to sing the music I love with the people I love ever again, and those who stole that from me neither care nor face consequences.
I sent one final email to both rector and choir director confirming my intention to resign. It has gone unanswered. Color me surprised.
I’ve gotten some funny looks over the years when people find out I work for a church. I always felt that, no matter the damage the Christian church has done across human history, I believed in MY church. I didn’t believe in God, but I believed in the message of good, and in the good works I saw in the community.
I don’t know if I can say that anymore. The older I get, the less useful and more toxic I find religion. I used to think that my own anecdotal evidence was enough for me to believe that it can be helpful, but now I’m not so sure. And remember that compliance thing I mentioned earlier? It wasn’t the women who were harassed, and it won’t be me, but someday, a situation will arise that won’t result in the victims slinking away quietly. I hope that when it happens, the church can look back with keener eyesight, and have the grace be unsurprised. I also hope that by that time, the shareholders will have asked for better. After all, the church is its people more so than any for-profit corporation - or so we’re told.
Be careful, friends. Guard your hearts. And if anyone wants to sing some Howells or Byrd, hit me up.