Most Wednesday mornings are taken up with our midweek Eucharist—an hour or so of preparation, then a half-hour celebration at 10 AM. The congregation is usually around six or so. It's one of the highlights of my week.

On fourth Wednesdays, the celebrant is one of the honourary assistants, allowing me the opportunity to sit in the pew.  Question: do I worship on these days? I certainly attend the Eucharist, but that's not really the same thing. 

I attended a workshop on clergy self-care some years ago, at which the leader said that the traditional disciplines of prayer, scripture reading and worship, taught to generations of the faithful as the primary mode of spiritual feeding, do not work in the same way for clergy. The problem is that they are "work" for us, and our participation in them gets skewed.

The preacher sits down to read the Bible, and finds him/herself thinking about homiletical possibilities.

The priest's own prayers get lost in the mountain of intentions "on the list."

The liturgist goes to the Eucharist, and finds the mind distracted by questions like, "Why did he do that?"

So what does feed the feeder? The workshop leader suggested that clergy need to find alternative disciplines to nourish our souls. Did I worship this morning? Maybe not—I don't turn off critical thinking very easily, but I need to do it in order to truly enter into a worshipful space. It's not easy. A retired bishop I know refused any liturgical engagements for almost two years after his retirement, saying "I need to learn how to worship again."

So, yes, I struggled in worship this morning, internally fussing about the mechanics of the service, wondering why the celebrant did some things, and trying turn off the noise so that God could get through. It was only partly successful. But thanks be to God for the part that succeeded!