123: ENCORE: A Little Wisdom from Kathy

Kathy was my spiritual director for about eight years. This means she endured A LOT because she dealt with ME. 
Kathy passed away from Alzheimer's in January 2022. Her illness took her away too early from many who benefitted from her wisdom and wit. Here I'm sharing some of Kathy's best pieces of wisdom as a tribute to her. 
Her influence on the ministry I am called to is profound. For one, I have a spiritual director bent that impacts how I coach others.  I hope you find some treasures in this podcast that will be sustaining. 

Transcript

Margie: 0:01

Hey there, Margie Bryce here bringing you the Crabby Pastor podcast, and I don't think you're going to be too surprised to know that it's too easy today to become the Crabby Pastor. Our time together will give you food for thought to help you be the ministry leader, fully surrendered to God's purposes and living into whatever it takes to get you there and keep you there. So we're talking about sustainability in ministry In this episode of the Krabby Pastor podcast. I am going to take a moment of personal privilege to pay tribute to Kathy Rakowski. She was a spiritual director that I had for about eight years and I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to her as I recently learned that she passed away, and I want to say some things about spiritual directors and the kind of gift that she was to me, and I have not found anyone like her as of yet, so that makes her even more special.

Margie: 1:20

I got a spiritual director because I kept having these classes that talked about the pastor as a person and you needed to have others walk with you and journey with you. For some, that means an accountability group, for some that means a coach, and I had a coach. I was at the time, leading a merger of four and a half churches. But Kathy came alongside me even earlier than that. I was working through my doctoral degree and that's when I had another class that said you better get other people around you. And I had tried before and it really bombed out and I griped at God about that. That's maybe why I call myself a little crabby at times. I was crabby to God about this. That here you go, here's my assignment. I'm attempting to fulfill this assignment and I can't seem to find others who would sit with me, walk with me. So I decided I would look into a retreat and I found this retreat center that a friend had recommended to me and I saw a link on there for spiritual directors and I thought, well, I will give this a go, I will see what happens here.

Margie: 2:35

In my opinion, I really did need a reality check from a spiritual perspective, someone else's point of view. You know I don't trust myself totally all the time. To be honest with myself, all the time I think I'm pretty brutal to myself really and can be a little uncompassionate. That's true, that's true. But I was really hoping to find someone who would be honest with me. I really needed that, and so she was that for me.

Margie: 3:09

We met monthly for like eight years eight years, you know, when I first got connected to Jesuit House where I sought after the spiritual director, I had to interview like three and so I interviewed Kathy first and she was this fun and bubbly neither of which, I would necessarily say, are my top two qualities here but she was fun and bubbly and she was a charismatic Catholic and I have Catholic roots, catholic and I have Catholic roots, I have friends with charismatic expressions and I just like the Holy Spirit part of that. And so I went ahead and interviewed to other people anyway, even though I kind of knew, you know, as Kathy would say, you know when you need to know. So I'm taking this time to just reflect on the gift that someone else can be in your life. I can go on and on about how you ought not to do this alone, and that's true. That's true. We need to recognize and fully embrace the gift that other people can be to you and to me.

Margie: 4:29

So here was the thing I did want to find someone who would be honest with me, and she was. I mean, she would ask the right kinds of questions or nudge me in the right kind of direction. But here was the even bigger thing. The even bigger thing was that I was totally honest with her. I didn't hide behind anything, I didn't withhold what I really thought and felt. I just laid it out there. And you know what this is so important, and I know this develops over time, whether you're with somebody that you're coaching or an accountability group or any of those types of journeying together. But it is so important that you have someone with whom you can really just be brutally honest. You know you can be say to them I just don't see God in this. Or you can say I don't think I should be doing this, I don't feel like I'm a very good leader. Or you can say these people annoy me. You know you can say that there and it's fine and they're compassionate, they're kind, they love you. Anyway, you need to find a place where you can be totally, totally honest with someone and just remember it might take a little bit of time for you. Everybody needs that safe place.

Margie: 6:11

Kathy was the most patient listener probably on the planet because because, as you probably can guess, I can go on and on about stuff and you know that's almost like the curse of the pastor and we just generally can. But she would just patiently listen and in her mind and in her heart and in her spirit, in her heart and in her spirit, she's seeking for God and seeking for God's response to me. Not that she was the mouthpiece of God, but she is seeking to see where God, where she picks up that, where God's in action around me and help me to see that. Because let's face it, people to see that, because let's face it, people. Some days we don't feel it, some days we don't. But she was an extraordinarily thorough listener, truly an in-the-moment person. This is something that coaches learn as well is how to be totally in the moment and totally focused on what the other person is saying. And she was just this tremendous gift to me Towards the end of our time together, right when our relationship was kind of mutating into, you know, a friendship where we just would have lunch.

Margie: 7:32

On occasion she started to have some medical issues where she would lose her words. She called it, so we would be talking and she just kind of struggled to find a word and I would help her and she would explain to me that she was going for testing and she did end up with an Alzheimer's kind of diagnosis kind of diagnosis, and apparently, if you are in your 60s and you get Alzheimer's, it's a pretty fast deterioration, and so Kathy experienced that, and she was a gift not just to me, but to many, many other people. I wanted to share with you, though, some things that she said to me that I will always hold dear, always. They're just a part of me now they just are. The first one is God will let you know when you need to know. Now, how many of us here want to know what's going to happen next? How many of us want to? You know, we just want it all written out this is going to happen and that's going to happen, and that's going to happen and that's going to happen.

Margie: 8:52

Or you think that nothing is going on around you, that nothing's moving, nothing's shaking, and so you know God might be taking a nap somewhere. I don't know. You just have the sense that not much is happening, and I know that Kathy looked at me one day when I was just struggling with those kinds of things. I just was seeking for some direction. It just didn't feel like it was coming, and she just said God will let you know when you need to know. So we need to trust and have faith that God's going to give you the FYI when you need that information, not beforehand so that you can walk around holding it for a week or two or a month, but so that you know it around holding it for a week or two or a month, but so that you know it when you need to know it, exactly at the right moment, and God won't let you down and just not give you the FYI at all. God just doesn't function like that.

Margie: 9:56

The other thing Kathy would say to me is stop shooting on yourself. That's s-h-o-u-l-d. Hyphen i-n-g. Because I would sit there and say I should be doing this, I should be doing that, this should be looking like this, this isn't looking like that, so I should be doing something about that, I need to be this, that or the other thing. And she would just stop me and say you just need to stop shitting all over yourself, just stop. And you know what I needed, that I needed somebody to kind of shake me at that moment and just kind of say hey, hey, you're being a little hard on yourself, because I don't know of anyone that is harder on me than me and that just is who I am, and maybe you're that too, or at the very least. Well, I'm that Enneagram one and we have that ongoing critic thing going on where there's always something. But it's easy to look around and look at other people, other ministries. If you are the average church in America I think we're now down to 69 from 75 is the average size of a church in America. That's the bulk of the ministry leaders serving in a church that size. But then you look at some of these much, much larger churches around us and it's easy to start comparing yourself and it's easy to give into that and think, oh my goodness, I'm just not making that big of an impact compared to there and you just have to understand that you are where you are because God planted your feet there and you do need to stop shitting all over yourself.

Margie: 11:45

Kathy was always great at pointing out when God had a sense of humor about something. She just says he's just. She would always say he's a crazy guy. He's a crazy guy, he has such a sense of humor and I would just laugh at that. Her perspective was very genuine, very bubbly, very compassionate and I needed that and I still need that I think we all need that. We need somebody that has a sense of humor about our situations for sure, for sure she would always. This was one of her favorite things, because I was working on a dissertation on how well pastors understood kenosis.

Margie: 12:30

That's something that I'm very passionate about, about being surrendered to God's purposes in a very spiritual way, and when you're a ministry leader, that's pretty key actually that you are really being surrendered to God's purposes for you, for the people over which God has given you charge and responsibility, in a spiritual way. And so anytime there was an opportunity where I was backed into a corner about this surrender issue in my life or in my ministry, she was so great at saying you are living your dissertation, you are living it, you are just living it, and I thought, yeah, yeah, that's yeah. I mean at the moment I'd be like what, what? It was like a wake-up call, because I think that's true. I think that when God puts something on your heart to live into, you're going to encounter it in life and in ministry in multiple ways, and it's the way that God nurtures that seed within you, to help it to sprout and help it to grow in interesting ways. And I would never, never, ever, have seen that without her guidance and without her chronically I mean chronically pointing that out about how your dissertation work is that.

Margie: 14:03

And when I go back and I look through that material that I worked on, sometimes I read it and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe I wrote this. But at the same token I realized how much that work became another part of my heart and life and my DNA probably my spiritual DNA for sure. And I look at that and I stand in awe of where I am today and how I am now called to help encourage pastors to do self-care. And the spiritual part of self-care is to be sure that you are surrendered to God's purposes. Isn't that just amazing? I wanted to say, isn't that stinking amazing? But I stopped myself. So there I said it. But I think that is absolutely amazing and it just reaffirms you. So she was always great at pointing those things out.

Margie: 15:00

The other one that she would say to me and I don't know this is a moment of vulnerability. I guess she told me you don't have trouble staying on the path, because I think I was telling her one day I don't even know if I'm on the right path. I feel like I'm just, you know, again, I was brutally honest and this was my place where I could be and she stopped me and she says you don't have trouble staying on the path, you have trouble finding peace on the path. Whoa, that was. I had to stop. You know, I'm sure I thought about that for days, you know, in my inability to just settle down and trust God with where I was and to lean more fully into God and to just take a chill pill. Seriously, I hate that, but it always comes back to Margie needs to take a chill pill, or it frequently comes back to that anyway. So it was reassuring that I do stay fairly well on the path that God has for me.

Margie: 16:13

But my prayer had been for years Lord, help me to find rest in you. And isn't that interesting that that was my prayer for years and that now I'm doing what I'm called to do to coach ministry leaders, to encourage self-care for ministry leaders, so that you can find peace, that you can find peace, all of us can find peace on the path. Because, even though I don't have a pastoral role at the moment although I guess I really do, I really do. I feel like I'm your pastor. Any ministry leader that I have the privilege of working with, I feel like I get to pastor them, and we need that. We really do. You know, there were days and times in my ministry where I would say, oh my goodness, I need a pastor. Where's a pastor? And some of us have ministry supervisors. That could be that, and some of us are a little hesitant about sharing everything, and you know all that that whole dynamic of being weak and feeling weak and then having your supervisor know this about you, and all that kind of thing. But my ministry to this day, though, is helping you find some peace on the path. Maybe I can be that for you.

Margie: 17:40

At the moment, I'm still wrangling through how I can honor Kathy's legacy in my life. What can I do? And at the moment because this is actually how I found out about Kathy's passing I'd had some phone connection over COVID, and I was going to come out and visit, and she had some illness it wasn't COVID, but it was like a bacterial thing and they said don't come over, she's not feeling well today, and that kind of thing, and so that led me through last fall and and into the winter, and, and I just I knew she was declining, I knew she was deteriorating, I knew we couldn't have the same kind of wonderful conversations that we'd had over the years. And I was very slow, very slow, and I regret this deeply in trying to connect with her. And by the time I did, I called there. I noticed the answering machine message was just a little different. And I happened to Google her name and I saw her obituary and that was very sad and I've still been dealing with grieving that loss.

Margie: 18:53

And her husband, roger, did call me and talk to me and I have to tell you that one thing that always gets to me is older gentlemen crying. For some reason that has a profound impact on me. And so Roger and I had a good conversation and he was, you know, heavily. He's been in relationship with her for, you know, more than 50 years, and so he was in deep, deep grief. And so far the only way that I can think to honor her is to call Roger once a month it's in my phone now and just kind of do a pastoral checkup. You know, once a pastor, always a pastor. It's almost like you can't shut that thing off.

Margie: 19:42

And so I'm going to be looking in subsequent days for other ways that I can honor the legacy that she has been in my life and in my ministry.

Margie: 19:53

So I am praying that, even though this was a personal privilege moment for this crabby pastor, that I have said some things to encourage you to not walk this path alone to find that person that you can be totally honest with that person that can then be a gift to you, because there's no way I could capture everything that Kathy was to me.

Margie: 20:27

There's no way I can capture everything, but she was an incredible blessing and that would be my prayer for you, for your ministry, for your life, so that it can ripple out into your friends, your family and the people to whom God has called you to serve. Hey, thanks for listening. It is my deep desire and passion to champion issues of sustainability in ministry and for your life, so I'm here to help. I stepped back from pastoral ministry and I feel called to help ministry leaders create and cultivate sustainability in their lives so that they can go the distance with God and whatever plans that God has for you. I would love to help, I would consider it an honor and, in all things, make sure you connect to these sustainability practices you know, so that you don't become the Crabby Pastor.