No is a Complete Sentence

   I’m not sure who said the phrase “no is a complete sentence,” but I can say that I have not always been firm about living into it over the past decade-plus in ministry. I was reminded of that just this past week when I was confronted with a decision about what boundary to put in place around my time.
    Friday is usually my Sabbath. Over the years, it has meant different things to me - a time to rest and recharge. A time to worship. A time to cease to work. However, two things will make me shift my Sabbath day - emergencies in the hospital and funerals.
    A beloved church member had died, and his family wanted to have his funeral on Friday. I readily agreed. The problem, when I looked at my calendar, is that the day I would shift my Sabbath to Saturday was marked with a church fundraiser. 
    I toyed with what I should do for far longer than well-kept boundaries would necessitate. Finally, the tipping point was when a voice in my head said, “Can you work thirteen days straight?” That was a firm “no.”
    All of the guilt and struggle around saying “no” to something as simple as a church spaghetti fundraiser made me wonder how other young clergywomen have grown in their understanding of boundaries, which led to a conversation with Helen and Sandy, two colleagues I deeply admire.
    When Sandy and I jumped on Zoom, the first question I asked was about when she set a boundary that was well-respected by the congregation she served. It didn’t take her long to tell the story of her first maternity leave. Describing the congregation as “supportive and amazing,” she noted that even with their love and care, she and her husband discerned that they needed time to be a family after the birth of her daughter and not feel like she had to step into the care-taking role, entertaining people who would come to their home. Therefore, they set this rigid boundary with the church that they didn’t want anyone stopping by while she was on maternity leave. 
    “How do you say that delicately?” Sandy mused. “We thought we probably sounded like complete assholes.” But her church family thrived with the boundary - going as far as buying a cooler, putting together a meal train, and on the dot, every single day, there would be a meal waiting for them in the cooler on their back porch. 
    Helen had similar stories to tell of her current church, that despite their busy calendar, respected her and her leadership enough to know that she can’t be at everything and that intentions can be quickly thwarted. She recalled recently committing to a women’s circle meeting - only to find that she wasn’t feeling well shortly before the meeting. She knew that she could go and push through the meeting, but that would mean not prioritizing her health. When she reached out to the leadership of the circle, she found that not only did they honor her boundary, but they reached out to check on her the next several days, which led to her feeling loved, as well. 
    Helen also spoke of a Sunday School gathering that happened to fall on her husband’s birthday. When she said that they would be celebrating as a family instead of attending the meeting, members of the Sunday School reached out to wish her husband a happy birthday.
    While I wish that all examples of people holding boundaries as clergywomen would be as encouraging as these, when asked about a time congregants did not respect boundaries, Sandy shared of setting a similar boundary regarding forming as a family when her son was born at another parish. People immediately did not like or respect the need to gel as a family. After three weeks into an eight-week maternity leave, daily text messages came with questions about the church, effectively pushing Sandy back into work. 
    What was the difference? Sandy noted that the statement she and her husband made was similar to that of her daughter: “We are so grateful for your care, and we are excited for you to meet our family, but we need space during leave to become a family.” It wasn’t a wording issue. It was that they were setting a boundary in the first place - which this congregation did not see very often from previous leadership. 
    As Sandy continued to have congregants trample over her boundary, she asked other colleagues with children about the boundaries they held with their families. Some of the advice she received included, “You are the one who can protect your family as a pastor, and your family deserves it.” “Your family is a calling.” And “You can never go back in time to spend time with your family.” Hearing these wise words about boundaries gave Sandy the resolve she needed to hold fast to the created boundary, even amid the pain. 
    Helen shared that she probably played a large part in denigrating some of the boundaries she had placed in one of her congregations. This particular church was busy with a large staff, and the culture was so geared to workaholism that boundaries became too flexible to be helpful. She spoke of setting a day apart for Sabbath and one day a week to work from home, but this was seen as more of a suggestion than an expectation, resulting in Helen disrespecting her boundaries because of the perceived needs of others. “We all played into it and said it was because we loved what we were doing,” she noted. But she has also witnessed first-hand the physical importance of having boundaries because “if we don’t honor our boundaries, your body will force you to take a break.” 
    With me, my struggle was around perception - what would people think if I wasn’t at the fundraiser? When I explained my boundary and why I was setting it, almost everyone was gracious and understanding. And I realized that those that lacked such responses have the same general attitude towards others and their boundaries. 
    Sandy perhaps summed up the best advice I had heard around boundaries beyond “no is a complete sentence” when she said, “Take thou authority, what is said at our ordination, is what comes to mind the most often when maintaining the boundaries I’ve set. There are times you let your boundaries bend or break - but only in emergencies - which are few and far between. So Take authority not just in work we do, but in the lives we lead.” 
    Let it be so, fellow clergywomen. Let it be so.