Rather Unqualified, Jerika Perthuis

The most still spaces in a mind and heart often seem the most threatening; the threat of valuing hope, in spite of failure, the threat of remaining still, and at the same time, draped in vulnerability to a past that continues to knock at our door, unravels and unsettles. Yet, the still remains, inviting us to move forward, despite an overabundance of feeling like we are rather unqualified to enter that said race onward. 

I sit there, in the wooden pew, allowing the hardness of the room to enter my body. I am visiting Michigan, for the first time, as Kevin has decided to take on a Youth Pastor position in Flint. We have not yet married, but we are engaged, I am in between spaces in my mind but the physical presence of the church sanctuary wallops over me with dated artifacts. Someone had invited me to sit in the front row of these impossibly wooden pews, I smile, nod and decline. I am in no way someone special, and would feel quite disingenuous if I inclined. I fold into a middle aisle, watching Kevin as he sits on a rather pompous stage. I am immune to any sense of formality; much more in tuned to the upcoming lunch hour.  

I sit, in between a compromise and a naive blindness; as I have no idea what I have gotten myself into, yet understand there is no real path out. As the Pastor brings the sermon to a heated pitch, his words of how unwed mothers and those with tattoos make up a lot of the wrongs in the world float around me. I sit alone, in a sanctuary full of people, they make no moves to tear at their proverbial sack cloths to disagree with their Pastor. I think this whole bag may not be what I had envisioned, but in reality I had not really envisioned anything other than supporting Kevin’s want to be plugged into ministry. Kevin literally represents a "Career Christian," attending Christian University, and participating fully in "Christian Culture." I fall radically outside of this spectrum, as a young adult I have participated in Christian activities, and services, but never with serious sentiment or vigor. I fall again much further down on the totem pole of understanding about what my role as Wife will mean to others. I have virtually no idea. 

 

As service closes I do not feel any overwhelming urge to right any sort of wrongs; I don’t feel called or moved to promote any sort of change. I am a stranger, in a strange world; I purposefully maintain a good amount of distance from those actively participating inside. 

When I was 18ish I studied the wife of my Pastor as service trudged along. She read specific scripture and prayed at the beginning of every service. She sat dutifully in the front row, embodied every portion of support for her husband. She was rather tall as well. I thought, sitting on another hard pew, that I could do that, I could be a Pastor's Wife. But I don't remember any sort of reasoning behind this weight of understanding.

 

I was not close to the said Pastor's Wife, she never mentored me, or had any abundant influence over my life. She did drive a compact convertible, silver, and I often wondered how she fit her whole self inside. Yet, as I sat observing her then, the same stillness of knowing what was possible, and the acceptance of the possibility, remained. As the bits of the day unfolded years later, after I had left that hard pew in Flint, avoided a multitude of hugs, I felt still. A path forward would be where I would go, I could be a Pastor's Wife, but, I would be rather unqualified. 

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