The thing about discernment is that I have to surrender to the will of God and pray that what I am saying and what people are hearing is the same thing. Yesterday I did my presentation for the discernment committee. I didn’t curse the entire time!!! Mission accomplished.
I decided to talk about music camp because I felt like it was one of those places where I can bring together all my parts and they make sense. And it is where I literally felt called. There were a couple of learnings from that presentation.
- I do need to engage in spiritual direction to clarify which side of the fence I land.
- I am definitely feeling called to an ordained ministry: is it deacon or priest–something I struggle with.
- The was a question about how I thirst for God. And I don’t really know how to answer that questions still…possibly something to figure out in another post. But basically I feel like every time that comes up in the bible, its about a feeling distant from God and then needing to get God back. I have never felt that way. My soul has thirst for the Lord I guess. But God didn’t go anywhere. It was me who decided to turn the other way. It was my choice to do something else, to turn in a different direction, to explore other roots to peace and then realizing that God is the way. I didn’t feel thirsty because I was choosing to suck on my own spit. Not the best way to survive, but it gets through the time.
- Discernment, will inevitably feel like a theological investigation. I know that isn’t the point in many ways. I don’t think that anyone is doing it in a mean way. It just ends up being a part of the process.
- I surrender all, is hard to do. So I played it to start out the presentation because I needed to remind myself. At this point I have done what I need to do. I am now waiting to see what will happen. But I don’t have any control from now until I hear. I do get to make choices, I can freak out for three months while I wait or I can continue living out the ministry of God in my capacity as a lay person. And I can continue to work on me. I could go on a date or two. We’ll see.
- I am realizing that when I say that I would prefer not to do this or that, that what other people hear is, “you don’t want to do this or that.” But its a little more complicated. I don’t like to get up every morning Monday through Friday and go to work, but I do it. And I do my job well. If I have a choice between sitting at home and reading books, watching TV, etc.. and going to work, I would probably choose waking up late. Just because I think something is hard, doesn’t mean that I am not invested in that thing. Just because I a preference doesn’t mean that I am not willing to push and stretch my comfort levels in order to achieve a greater goal. There are things about life that are awesome, and others that suck. I am not afraid to say what is going to suck. Doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize what the fortune cookie says on my desk: we want to have a testimony, but we don’t want the test. I don’t mind the test, but I’ma just let you know that the test is hard.
- Deacon vs. Priest: I know that I describe my call in deaconal ways. Because the work that I would do as a Deacon would be fulfilling and it would fulfill most of what I feel called to do. Performing sacraments would just add something to that deaconal work. So for me sacraments are adding to what can be true in building spiritual communities, but I feel very much connected to the sacraments and I don’t know, but I would feel kind of stuck. Like we went through all this and now, go over there to that person.
- There is this moment when they say, not everyone will be ordained who goes through the process. And that will be ok, I may not like it, but it will be ok. Because:
God is with me, God is in me, God is all around me helping me through the mess.
Pursuing Call 