Transformation: Burnout

Season after Epiphany 2024

Transformation involves change. Change involves loss. Loss involves grief. Whenever there is change, there is something lost. When loss is unacknowledged, it can lead to the grief feeling unresolved. Transformation is going to involve some level of grief for the ways things used to be, even if things are better now.  

 Last week, I ran into an old seminary classmate who I hadn’t seen in years. I shared that I had moved into chaplaincy after pastoring burnout. His response was flippant and dismissive, along the lines of not being surprised that I had burned out, because that’s not unusual these days. I did not feel seen or heard by his remark. Rather, it felt like he disenfranchised my grief and my pain, as if it was no big deal. I excused myself from the conversation, because here’s the thing:  

I have burned out twice in my life. 

Neither time was a crash and burn.  

Instead, it was a slow landing of an aircraft that was being held together by duct tape and rope, by family and sheer willpower. There was a bump at the moment of landing, but I did not crash. It was a gradual descent, and it was not a surprise.  

The first time was when I finished my first master’s degree. I turned in my thesis and drove home to North Carolina for Easter. My advisor emailed to say that my thesis grade was a ‘B,’ but if I did a couple of her suggestions for improvement and resubmitted it within the week, there was a good chance my grade would improve to an ‘A.’ I had left all of my materials back at my apartment in Philadelphia. None of it was online; this was 2003. I felt guilty for disappointing my advisor by replying that I would be unable to make the changes before the due date and that I was okay with a ‘B.’ At the same time, I was glad that I physically couldn’t access my resources short of driving to Philadelphia, because I lacked motivation to do any more work on it. I was done. I had taken summer classes the previous summer. I went to graduate school directly from college and had taken summer classes one summer in college, too.  

This burnout was not obvious to most people and there was a feeling of it being my fault. I had chosen to go straight to graduate school from undergrad. I had chosen to take the summer classes, which were courses not offered during the fall and spring semesters. Really, I had been in school for so many years and needed a break.  

The second time I burned out was in 2020. This year may feel unsurprising to some people, like my seminary classmate, except that the burnout was in the works by spring of 2019. I knew then that I needed a break, but I was advised to wait a year. I had only been serving that church for two years by that point, not very long, and I had been sick for a good portion of those two years. Frequently being sick, as it turns out, is a symptom of oncoming burnout. Furthermore, I was not fully ordained yet, and the rules around a sabbatical are for the ordained. I had been provisionally ordained for two years and served for another seven years as a three-quarters time licensed local pastor, all of which contributed to the burnout, even if it didn’t count towards “years of service.” So, I treated my burnout symptoms by doing everything except taking a break. I took all my vacation days. I focused on the parts of my ministry that I found especially life-giving. I went to Oklahoma City for a really cool continuing ed event. I exercised and walked and slept and spent time in the sunshine.

The view out my OKC hotel window was intentional and also a form of self-care - I love baseball!

I did everything except take a break, and it postponed the burnout. But it did not prevent it. As I said, it was a gradual, slow landing, and it is evident in the worship videos from 2020. Except, in 2020, I still couldn’t take a break. Quitting meant moving, because we lived in the parsonage, and moving meant my children would have to change schools. So, I stuck it through until the logical end point, even after I burned out.  

I do still have some lingering pain and grief around my burnouts. The only regret I have from the first one is that I declined an opportunity to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at the university-wide commencement. From the second time, I have some intrapsychic loss: plans and hopes and dreams for the future that went unrealized. I didn’t want to burn out. I didn’t want it to end how it did. I did what was within my control to prevent it and avoid it, and it wasn’t enough. My personal transformation from pastor to chaplain came at a high cost and I bear the marks on my face. A few months into the COVID lockdown, I came down with shingles. My eye was almost swollen shut and the first doctor I saw misdiagnosed me. I have one crater just above my eyebrow and more scars towards my hairline.  

Transformation is often viewed in a positive light, and I love being a chaplain. What tends to be overlooked is that transformation is messy and includes a painful component because the change means there is some kind of loss. In the end, it is worth it if the change is for the better. At the same time, I still also wish I had not gone through the pain of the burnout to get there.