Today the theologian’s cafe asked: “Do you pray before you eat your food?”
My answer was that yes, I do, sometimes. If it’s just me and my husband, then I don’t, but if it’s with other folks, then yes, I do. And I’m very sure it’s got something to do with being a priest.
Imagine being married to a priest — I mean, it’s a hard thing to be married and have a good marriage to begin with, albeit that the benefits outweigh the difficulties, or at least they do on most days. But for a priest’s partner, and I’m completely generalizing now (with all the warnings that contains), there’s the expectation that you will participate in worship at the same church. And that you will participate in the life of the parish — after all, that’s now your church, and you would most likely participate in the life of your church anyway.
Add to that the greatly increased visibility that goes along with being married to the priest. Before, you could fade into the background as much or as little as you liked. Even as a married person, both of you could choose your level of visibility and involvement. Howsomever, when you are married to the priest everyone knows who you are because everyone knows who the priest is. You have entered under the microscope, and everything you do becomes public.
So, you end up having to walk the talk chosen, not by you, but by your partner. Now, women have been coping with that for years, granted, but it is not easy. You never said that you would try to model Christian behavior. You never said that you would become a mainstay of a parish. You never said that you would become involved in parallel ministry. And yet, because your partner did say they would, because they answered “yes” to God’s call, now you’re stuck with it. Most partners are glad to support their priest-spouse in this call to ministry, but that doesn’t stop it from being hard.
My husband understands that my commitment to God includes taking the best possible care of God’s good creation, and that means being as green as possible. Even though he might prefer only to attend one service on Sunday, he comes with me early for the 8AM service, and stays until well after the 10AM service as I usually have meetings that extend until the early afternoon. Sometimes, like Holy Week, he ends up feeling all churched out. So saying thanks before a meal in a formal prayer can be too much for him. Grace on those occasions ends up being a spoken line of “Thanks for this food and the hands that prepared it.”
When other folks are present, however, there comes into play that unspoken pressure of expectation > Of course a blessing will be said over the meal, after all, she’s a priest, for God’s sake!
Trying to walk one’s talk in a way that’s genuine to one’s self is much harder than you might think… 
How do we, as people of God, respond to the complex issues surrounding immigration? God puts it simply: “You all have been there and done that. You all know how hard it is to be away from home. You know the challenges of being a foreigner in a strange land. So you ought to know better. Be good and help out the foreign people in your midst.”