“It doesn’t feel comfortable, I have no idea where I am, but I’m twisting, praying I land on my feet.” – Simone Biles on the “twisties”
I stepped into the pulpit. The sermon was ready, and I had felt some mild stirrings from the Holy Spirit when I wrote it. It was an ordinary Sunday until I began preaching. Suddenly, there was a new, small voice in my head. I was pulled out of the moment as the voice asked, “Are they even listening? Does this even matter?”
The voice was mean; the voice was mine. I continued the sermon, pretending as if my message did matter, as if my congregation was listening. But the voice shook me. I felt like a fraud — with a deep rift between the words of my lips and the state of my soul. Something wasn’t connecting and I did not know why. I had the “preachies.”
I felt like a fraud — with a deep rift between the words of my lips and the state of my soul. Something wasn’t connecting and I did not know why. I had “the preachies.”
I am, of course, riffing off Simone Biles’ description of the “twisties” that afflicted her during the Tokyo Olympics. The preachies can cause spiritual angst, emotional turmoil and burnout. I have just invented the word, but the concept is something well known to preachers.
In gymnastics, the twisties can cause great injury or even death. Biles is not the first gymnast to get the twisties. It is understood that they are usually a symptom of something deeper, something that causes the connection between the brain and body to glitch. Nothing is safe; anything can happen.
Powering through is not an option when your life is at stake. Biles spoke with journalist Hoda Kotb in 2021 naming the source of her twisties, saying, “It’s like the weight of the world on your shoulders and I’m very small, so I feel like, at times, it’s very overwhelming, but whenever you get so overwhelmed and have triggers, it’s just like — I have to focus on my mental wellbeing and that’s what I did.”
Our culture, deeply marked by capitalist impulses of production at any human cost and rugged individualism, could not understand an Olympian putting her mental health before all else. When she withdrew from competition, Biles was met with heavy vitriol and labeled selfish. But she did not back down — and as her outstanding performance in Paris demonstrated, therapy sessions can be as important as gym time in the training of a professional athlete.
Preachers are not Olympians. We do not put our bodies at risk when we strive to achieve our purpose. Yet, as my preaching professor Dr. Anna Carter Florence used to say, preaching is a matter of life or death — it matters that much. Sermons, and the pastors who write them, should engage material bodies in the life-or-death conditions of poverty, injustice, racism and bigotry. Beyond the physical, preaching speaks to the vitality of our souls. When pastors lose the connection between mind, body and soul, when we get the preachies, we risk the health of our souls and the health of the body of the church. Prolonged unchecked preachies can lead to deep harm of the pastor’s physical self too.
What happens when preachers stop believing the words they’re preaching or slip into pure performance?
What happens when preachers stop believing the words they’re preaching or slip into pure performance on Sundays with little to no soul connection to Scripture, to God or to the people before them? Maybe preaching becomes something we measure for ourselves like Olympic scorecards. Maybe we become addicted to positive feedback and preach what we know will inspire it instead of following the Spirit’s promptings. Maybe we become speakers of the Word, but not doers. Maybe our souls begin to shrivel within us. Maybe we, like many before us, leave this preaching ministry altogether.
Or maybe there is another path, one Simone Biles pulled into the conversation, knowing the world was not ready for it: the path of unashamedly championing of our mental and spiritual well-being. The path of ensuring that preachers come as whole people when we step into the pulpit, people who model for church folk what a balanced, sustainable, joyful life of faith can look like.
Whenever I find myself getting the preachies or feeling disconnected from God and my calling, I return again and again to William C. Martin’s The Art of Pastoring: Contemplative Reflections. This little book pays equal homage to Sixth Century BCE Chinese sage Lao Tzu and the author’s wife Nancy, a United Methodist pastor. On preaching, Martin writes,
“To consider your preaching
of more importance than the opening of a flower
is to leave the narrow path. …
To meet the needs of others
and ignore the whispers of your own soul
is to succumb to the illusion
that there is a time more precious than now
and a place more heavenly
than here.”
Preachers, can you hear the whispers of your own soul? Do your Sundays feel more like going through the motions than a connection with the endless well of the Spirit? Does empathy feel like a luxury you can’t afford? Is your every waking (and resting) thought consumed with church matters? Do you even remember why you said yes to this odd and wondrous calling in the first place? Have you been to a therapist and spiritual director recently?
It is not a time to “push through;” it is time to gather back all the pieces of ourselves we have given away.
The preachies are symptoms of something bigger, and we know the danger they pose: that ever-rising clergy burnout brought into stark relief by the pandemic. We will all get the preachies at times. We do not need to fear that disorienting disconnect between the word spoken and the indwelling Word. But when we notice them, it is time to dial down the pressure we’ve placed on our preaching and dial up the whispers of our own souls. It is not a time to “push through;” it is time to gather back all the pieces of ourselves we have given away. It is time to listen to our bodies and find honesty with God and ourselves. It is time to remind ourselves that as people of (however fragile) faith, none of this is all up to us. It never was. It never will be. God will not let us fall.
