Rough month

It's been a really rough around here.

Everything is uncertain, including the basics - work, housing, etc.

Friends both casual and close have left for new jobs or summer internships.

My husband is studying for the bar exam from until the end of July.

There are so many other details and issues, but I'm not going to blog them. Sometime in the near future I hope to return to regular blogging. In the meantime, prayers that everything settles down and gets worked out would be appreciated.

Oh, one thing I forgot - the ordination to the diaconate was AMAZING. Hopefully I'll blog that sometime.

stream of consciousness

Focus. That's what I need. The ability to think about one thing at a time. I need to compartmentalize, to put things in nice sealed up little boxes where they won't bother me for a little while. But how, when there is so much to ponder?

I'm job hunting. I'm noticing lasts - last time doing this, last time doing that. I'm finishing classwork. I'm looking forward to two weeks of literally a party or special event every day. I'm reviewing, processing, thinking through everything that's happened in the last seven, five, three years. In the last year. I'm overwhelmed with a flood of grief, joy, nostalgia, hope... and gratitude. More than anything, gratitude. So much to celebrate. I want to spread my arms wide and gather it all up, all the people, the days, this place, the big new york church, the tiny small town church, the songs, the nights, the stories, the images, the voices... please let me remember it all, all of the agonizing wonderful painful moments of this process, of this becoming... May these three years of time outside of time, of rest and retreat, of catechesis give me strength, courage, patience, compassion on the road ahead, for the journey, for the forever that has been and is and starts two weekends from now. Ordination - a change, something totally different, something forever - or an exclamation point, a codifying, a declaration of who I am, have been, will become, was born to be? Of who we all are and what we are about? Scary? Reassuring? I'm so ready and so unprepared...

Released

This past week I found out I'm now permitted to search outside my diocese for jobs.

I wish they had let me know sooner.

Friends were thrilled for me, but it has taken me some time to get there. I'm suddenly... free. So free I'm not sure what to do or where to start. And even after being released, the reality is that I can't work in places without decent public transit and pedestrian-friendly downtowns. I just can't. Not being able to drive has never frustrated me as much as it does right now. I used to think it was not possible to be more angry about not driving than I was at whatever age... 17, 25, etc. The frustration now really tops all the other days and years...

I'm just not sure how God is planning to make this work. I'd really like to know soon. Preferably before my friends who have jobs already move out, and before my closest middler friends leave for summer adventures elsewhere. I don't want to inhabit an empty Close for another summer.

On not getting what I asked for

In my last year of college
My life was a mess
Broken engagement
No job prospects
No idea what I wanted to do with my life
Nothing I wanted or hoped for was happening

But I met this one person who was
An instant friend
We laughed and cried and joked and were
Completely and utterly inseparable
Unstoppable together

She taught me everything, at least that's how it felt at the time
To believe in God
To believe in myself
And the world was, and is, always better with her around

She later became the first female clergy member I ever knew well
I was so delighted when it finally became time to call her rabbi
I looked to her when imagining what it would be like to be clergy, not to my own tradition

We are still the best of friends
We survived her year in Israel thanks to AOL instant messenger
Oh, and some very cheap AT&T rates
There have been coast to coast flights
Long drives
Amtrak tickets
Facebook
Calls from the one in the car on the way to a meeting
To the one walking through the city on the way to a church

As time has gone on, so has life. With -
a coming out
jobs
spouses
moves
advanced degrees
babies
family emergencies
an ordination - and one on the way

And I am eternally grateful for her presence in my life.

But when I came to seminary, I asked, no, begged God for another friend.

The priesthood process had been
Long
Lonely
Confusing
Exhilarating
Life-changing

And I wanted to share, really share the journey with a friend
Who would understand
And who would take some pressure of putting up with me off my
Patient
Kind
Long suffering husband

So I looked for her
That bright young woman
About my age
Maybe married
Who would be my instant seminary friend
Who would laugh and cry and joke with me
We would be inseparable
Unstoppable
And she would "get" me
And teach me what would seem like everything at the time

But I couldn't find her.

I kept looking

I was surrounded by people
Most I liked
Some I loved
And they taught me a lot
And many were friends
I am so glad I met them
No idea what I would have done without them

But I still couldn't find her.

And sometimes I would miss her, this friend that didn't exist.
I was mad at God
I hated walking this path without her
Junior year came and went and she wasn't here
Where was she?

I thought - maybe she's in the incoming class.
That's it.
She'll be a junior
While I'm a middler

And so I went to CPE
Hoping to survive the summer
And putting this imaginary friend out of my mind
Because I only had room for figuring out how to get through each day
Each week of CPE

So somewhere between IPR sessions and verbatim presentations
And all the craziness of Clinical Pastoral Education
I started having lunch with this CPE colleague
She is my age
And my denomination
I had heard of her
It is a small Church after all
But had never met her

She was from a different seminary
A year ahead
And her story was totally different than mine

But we laughed and cried and ate lunch together almost every day
And we often skipped riding the subway and walked and walked and walked
And we became inseparable
And unstoppable
And almost ruined the group dynamics with our friendship

We don't get to see each other often these days
And our crazy schedules are a mess
But after a CPE summer together there is little we don't know about each other
And we have kept that honesty and openness
And our long phone calls
When we can schedule them
Are about laughing
A lot
And the truth
The I-don't-care-if-this-makes-you-mad truth
And she taught me, is teaching me, what feels like everything.

And so I came back to middler year a little less mad at God
Because at least I had someone to call
Who was young
And in this process
And "got" me
And would tell me the truth
Or reassure me that it is the Church that is crazy, not me

Still, I demanded the friend I had asked for
I was very clear with God this time
She was supposed to be ON CAMPUS
Not in another state most of the time

So I looked in the new class
And there were some nice people
And some actual young women this time
But she wasn't there

And I thanked God for my female friends in the senior class
Who were actually very good friends
And funny and cynical and easy to talk to
But they weren't her

And time went on
I was given a sacristan team to be in charge of
Every Thursday at 7 AM there they were
My middlers

Each so different
I loved them very quickly
And we worked well together
And laughed and joked
Showed up early so we could enjoy time together
Before the rest of the world got there
Instead of just working
And we were a team

My middler summer came
With it a lot of loneliness
My senior friends were gone
My husband was working for a high powered firm
And there I was
At home, mostly
Bored
And reeling from a rough semester

And still the prayed for friend hadn't appeared.

In fact, I had pretty much given up on finding her.

Most of my immediate classmates were away for the summer

But the juniors were on campus
Lots of them
Doing CPE

So I decided to try to be
Useful
Needed
Pastoral
or something
To the folks going through CPE

There was one junior who intrigued me
More than the others
We knew each other reasonably well
From those early mornings in the sacristy
And he could always make me laugh
And could stop me in my tracks with a word or phrase
Here was someone who had an uncanny ability to read me

He had endeared himself to me with a little bit of compassion
At the end of the semester when I needed it most
And he is
Smart, really really smart
Near my age
Real
Married (well, the rest of the world would say partnered)

His story is so very very different from my own
And our friendship hasn't been instant
But more gradual
Maybe that of two people who have been around
Enough
That we don't just share instantly with anyone anymore

We don't have time
Or lack of commitments
To be inseparable
But to my great delight we seek
Time to talk
And laugh until we just about cry
When we can amidst the craziness of our lives
And he "gets" me
And knows when to confront me
And when to be more kind

And recently we crossed some imaginary line
Into the realm
I can hang out with you
For no good reason
Ignoring you
Typing a paper
Doing chores
And it's better than hanging out alone

And he is teaching me what feels like everything.

I never did get that female seminary best friend I asked for.

Instead I got two friends, neither of which met the demographics that
I specifically handed to God
On that old memo I wrote back in 2006

I could never have imagined them
Wished for them
Made them up
Dreamed of how they'd change my life
If I'd tried

But here they are.

I didn't get what I
asked
begged
prayed
bargained
pleaded for

And I am eternally grateful.

Because now I can't imagine it any other way.

Easter Vigil sermon

I preached at the Easter Vigil at field ed this year. Our vigil isn't the most popular of our Easter services (It hasn't quite caught on in this particular parish just yet) but it's my favorite. The clergy selected every reading they could find that mentioned water when choosing the readings for the salvation history this year. So I preached about water. The following isn't long because I think there are too many other things going on at an Easter Vigil to make a long sermon a good idea. I also don't really like Easter Vigil sermons; I think we should focus on getting the rest of the service right so the liturgy speaks for itself. All that said, here it is.
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We shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation.

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As human beings we probably have a more complicated relationship with water than with any other substance. Water is a deceptively simple molecule; just two hydrogen atoms bonded to an oxygen atom, yet to us it is the stuff of life and death, of joy and sorrow, of suffering and delight. Our bodies are mostly water. We must consume a certain amount of it every day in order to survive. We cook with it, bathe in it. We have countless names for water in its many forms. We talk about rain, drizzle, snow, sleet, hail, ice, steam, fog, frost, downpours, torrents, spitting, mist, and flurries. We have rivers, lakes, streams, springs, pools, gullies, creeks, ponds, waterfalls, oceans, bays, seas and lagoons.

There is something about water that enchants us. For those of us who have power and resources, water is a source of great delight. Real estate on the water is generally worth more than land without a water view. Many of us can sit on the beach and stare at the waves for hours. We loved running through water sprinklers as children, and even as adults many of us love to swim, or wade in water. We enjoy fountains, spend days at water parks, and crave the chance to spend time on the water in the vessel of our choice, whether that be a kayak, a sailboat, or a cruise ship.

Without water there is death. Nothing grows, the ground dries up and turns to dust, and fire, famine, and often war descend. In some parts of the world the daily search for drinkable water consumes most of the energy of the average woman or girl, the never-ending struggle to find enough swallowing up time that might otherwise be used for education or employment.

And as deadly as water can be when it can’t be found or when the rain doesn’t come, it is also deadly if the balance is shifted the other way. We fear water as much as we love it. We may find joy in swimming in it, but if you’ve ever gone body surfing in a rough ocean, you know that a fun experience can quickly turn scary when you find yourself trapped under a breaker, wondering which way is up and running out of air. The images of tsunamis, the flooding after Katrina, and the recent flooding in the Midwest remind us that too much water causes devastation. Water destroys, drowns, decays, uproots, wears away, and tears down.

+++++

From the very beginning, remembering that Jesus was baptized in water, Christians have used a rite involving water to bring new members into the faith community. For almost 2000 years converts to Christ, followers of the Way, have been baptized in the name of the triune God who created us, saved us from the power of death, and who sustains and inspires us day and night throughout our lives. In baptism we use water to symbolize our death, burial and rising to new life with Christ. Water is the stuff of life and death, and in baptism it is transformed into death overcome and new life begun.

++++++
Just a little while ago we renewed our baptismal vows, and water was sprinkled, well maybe more like thrown, or splashed, on all of us. You might still be feeling a bit soggy; well, in fact, I kind of hope you are.

Here’s why: In our worship we use lots of words… we use words that are familiar and comforting, words that are inspiring, words that teach and challenge and embrace us with their power and their meaning. But we are incarnate creatures, mind, spirit, and body, and so in our worship we are given chances to experience what our words describe. Especially on this night, in this a worship service that has remained unchanged in its central elements since the early church, we live the story of our salvation. In the darkness we remember the despair and the sealed tomb, and in the kindling of the first fire of Easter we remember the first light of dawn and the joy of discovering that He Is Risen! Soon we will share the bread and the wine, and whether you’ve been to the communion rail hundreds of times or never before tonight, as you taste the doughy sweetness of the bread and the sharpness of the wine, you will become one of the disciples, a close friend, sitting at table, sharing a meal with Jesus. And with the water that was splashed on each of us tonight, we remember our baptisms… regardless of we were sprinkled with water from a delicate little shell or immersed in the ocean. So feeling a bit soggy tonight helps remind that baptism is the foundation of who we are, and that our response to the love our God has shown for us in cross, tomb, and resurrection is embodied, encoded, in our baptismal vows.

Because we have been buried and raised with Christ we renounce evil and turn our ways towards the ways of God. Because death no longer has a grip on us, we are free to live new lives, striving for peace and justice, promoting the dignity of every single fellow human being on this earth. Because through baptism we have been transformed into the Body of Christ in the world, we leave this place and go out to be his hands and feet, bringing compassion and mercy to a desperately thirsty world.

And because on tonight of all nights, we celebrate Christ crucified and risen, we live without fear, but instead rejoice, crying out Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, and from now on drawing water, the water of life and not of death, from the springs of salvation.

Gratitude

Yesterday evening I joined a group of friends for what has become my favorite part of Lent this year - a dinner following our community Eucharist. These dinners have truly felt like family events, with the hosting couple making something vegetarian and delicious (soup, rice and beans, or curry, for example) and others bring appetizers, wine, bread, and dessert. At each dinner the host has posed a question to the group, and those questions have given the gathering a bit of focus in addition to socializing. We've talked about our Lenten disciplines, named a surprising thing that happened during the week, and talked about how we understand sin. Last night was particularly intense. Our host asked us to name what we are most and least grateful for. People took it very seriously and revealed a lot about their lives.

Naming those things which one is grateful for is part of the practice of examen prayer. I have always had so much to be grateful for that I usually have trouble getting to the next part of the examen. But not last night. I had trouble last night thinking of what I am grateful for, By this I mean what I am especially grateful for right now, not just those things I am always grateful for like food and safety. This speaks to my general level of stress and my struggle to deal with the uncertainty and transition. And I really hate that it's happened. It scares me.

So I want to try again. Here are some things that I am particularly grateful for at this very moment.

-The return of spring and the bulbs in bloom on the Close.
-My desk, which was a steal at Ikea and has tons of space to spread out.
-That I got a phone call today indicating I haven't fallen off the diocesan deployment radar.
-My discernment parish which is allowing me to host family and close friends there for lunch after ordination.
-A dog that loves me.
-The photos from the year we were engaged that I found tonight, including the trip we took so my husband could see my alma mater for the first time.
-My alma mater, a place whose every brick I once knew and which is carved into my memory almost as strongly as my seminary.
-That we are going to be able to attend my niece's birthday party this weekend in spite of Palm Sunday rehearsals, etc.
-That when thinking about having someone feed/walk the dog while we're out, we had multiple friends to choose from.
-For the medical science that has saved the lives of friends who in the not too recent past would not have survived a variety of things - cancers, a virus, serious injuries...
-For my iPhone. It is one of my favorite possessions in the world. Really. It's like an extension of my body.
-For NYC. Never has anywhere made me feel so free or alive or powerful. Not being able to drive doesn't matter here. I am grateful for that every single day.
-For my fantasy of getting a tattoo to celebrate ordination. It might happen. Or it might not.
-For my vocation and for the promise of a lifetime of work that will ask everything of me.
-For naps, sleeping, rest, and my warm and cozy bed.
-For a warm and cuddly person to curl up with every night.
-For my hair iron. It really is the little things. I love making my hair smooth and straight.
-For the coming of Easter.
-For the fact that my favorite vestment maker keeps measurements on file. I hate being measured.
-For cute shoes.
-For earrings.
-For lipstick.
-For cheese, chocolate, tomatoes, and pasta.
-For singing.

Update

Wow - I'm writing it again - "I haven't posted in a while."

So, let's see what's going on.

-Two possibilities for assistant's positions in my diocese (one at a smallish parish in a county seat and another in Big Rich Parish) haven't panned out. Very few parishes are hiring. Vestries have pulled back on expenditures and in some places actually panicked.

-I am being considered for a deacon in charge/priest in charge position in a small urban mission parish. This is the sort of work I'd really like to do but had not planned on doing it this soon. I am unsure of whether to be excited or terrified. I keep fearing I'm seriously underestimating the learning curve. I should know more after Easter. I do know that the package is reasonable, they have housing, the city is accessible to me, and it would be a good commute for my husband to many places.

-My husband does not have a job yet either. This graduating at the same time thing sounded great at one point... but no longer.

-We are running out of money and trying to figure out how we will make it stretch through the next few months. I'm liquidating our last remaining assets (an IRA) this month. I sure hope God has a plan to get us out of this.

-Field ed is going well. I finally feel like I've almost gotten a sense of the place and now it's time to go. Recently I've led a well-received quiet day on grief and loss, preached without notes at the evening service (practicing what I'm learning in my extemporaneous preaching class) and provided ideas and moral support to the committee that's trying to re-make the alternative service. I just recently discovered that had I wanted to, I could have had a real impact on the Sunday evening service. It is, in many ways, its own little congregation. One of my regrets is not having discovered how much I could have done as part of this group earlier.

-In other field ed news I'm preaching twice during Holy Week - for Good Friday and the Easter Vigil. My first Easter sermon, as my associate rector keeps reminding me. Wow. I LOVE the Easter Vigil. I am so excited to preach for it... and nervous.

-Emotionally, this has been the hardest semester of seminary so far. I am a mess dealing with all of the transition stuff and the not knowing and the grief of leaving and the things left to do here. I'm struggling even more than I thought I would.

-I get ordained to the diaconate in 6 weeks. Wow. I am trying to figure out to "prepare" for this coming reality. I'm not even sure what I should be doing. I'm very very excited and overwhelmed and nervous and grateful...

-I seem to be using run-on sentences a great deal tonight. Oh well.

WIshing for an angel with a burning coal

Isaiah 6:1-9

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’
The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’

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A classmate gave a sermon on this passage in preaching lab today. It made me think of the following, which is something I have been wrestling with for months.
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In November the spiritual director I worked with throughout seminary moved out of state because the order of nuns she belongs to is consolidating at their mother house. We had a couple of closing sessions to sort of wrap things up. One of the things she asked me was "what are the most important things you got out of seminary? Just name two or three."

One thing in particular that I've been thinking about over the past 9-12 months is that seminary gave me my voice. I am, in many ways, much more confident than the person who started seminary in the late summer of 2006. I now know that I have something to say and a story to tell. I now know that I can speak with real authority. I now know that people listen to me.

Or do I? Being listened to is not something I'm particularly used to. As a deeply thoughtful, introverted kid in a more practical, more extroverted family I was often the one with the crazy ideas about what things mean and the fascination with the eternal struggle between good and evil. I was also the deeply sensitive kid who got picked on for not being able to see like the other kids. Early on I learned to keep my emotional depth to myself and to cover hurt feelings with throw away lines of sarcasm. These were coping mechanisms both at home and at school.

But for some reason I kept talking. I never actually shut down. I always talked to anybody who would listen. I corrected people when they were wrong about facts. I dished out advice. I found that with a small inner circle of friends I could be funny, entertaining even, and also in charge.

But then after college I had a number of crummy administrative jobs where nobody listened to me. My job was to get paperwork done and phones answered, not to be innovative or thoughtful.

It was a shock to me when I came to seminary and my peers actually listened to me. A classmate in a small group floored me one day at the beginning of junior year by quoting me back to myself. Yet I cannot claim that this caused some sort of drastic change in how I dealt with people. I wanted so badly to be seen as competent. I kept at the sarcasm. I acted like things didn't bother me. I tried hard not to let anyone see when life started to get to me.

Things were different in CPE. Not only did my patients listen to me, but my group members listened to me. My supervisor listened to me. But my group and my supervisor did more than that. It seemed to me that for the first time in my life, people really wanted to understand not just what I was saying but also what I was thinking and feeling. The chasm between these things - between what I said and what I was feeling - decreased greatly in CPE. I stopped trying to "play with the big boys" and was just myself. Really, truly, purely myself. My sarcasm became rare. My peers experienced me as a very integrated person, one for whom emotion and intellect work together.

It was then that I started to realize the power I have when I speak, both to do good and to do harm. If it is true that people listen to me at all (and I often forget that they do) then I need to be much more careful what I say. Sarcasm becomes a big problem. It occurred to me that people might have been listening to me all along but avoiding me because I acted like it never mattered what I said. Back when I thought nobody was listening, I thought I could just say anything, because who would care?

So I've been working on this issue for months, this remembering that despite my own insecurities people do listen to what I say. Sometimes I manage to be intentional about what comes out of my mouth; more often I feel that I've been rude or insensitive or sarcastic and I've screwed up yet again. Sometimes in seminary people have pushed back at me, and pushed back hard. Once my sacristan team called me out on something I said, something stupid that I just threw out there, thinking nobody would care. One called me judgmental, and others agreed. And it hurt, because when it comes down to it I am really just a very warm, very affectionate person who cares deeply about people. But they were right. Taken at face value, my remarks indicated nothing but obnoxiousness and a judgmental attitude.

That was an awful experience, but what is worse is when people don't push back. I sometimes replay what I've said over the course of my day in my mind, and I cringe. I wonder what I could possibly have been thinking when I was talking to people and said things I didn't mean that sound completely ridiculous. Some themes come back repeatedly - feeling insecure, feeling less intelligent than the other person I'm talking with, wondering where I stand with someone, trying to be seen as competent.

It's so frustrating and disappointing. And I wonder what to do with it, as I contemplate Lent, as I prepare to be ordained and as I struggle with my emotions in day to day interactions, where I catch myself making sarcastic comments to people when I'm actually thinking "do you have any idea how glad I am that I got to spend time with you here in seminary?" Where is the seraph with the coal held in a pair of tongs??

A post

It's been a long time since I blogged. I'm not really sure what to blog about.

I guess first I should do an update -

I've been cleared by the bishop and standing committee for ordination to the transitional diaconate.

The last retreat with my class has come and gone. I experienced it as a sad, low-key weekend where I did a lot of mourning for what is coming to an end. I also experienced the strangeness of not having all of my closest seminary friends there. I missed a handful of middlers terribly. I also missed some folks who had graduated last year. This made me feel a bit isolated and not completely tuned into everything that was going on.

I now have my deacon's stole for ordination. In fact, I am now the proud owner of stoles in red, white, green, and purple. I'd like a blue one too but that would really just be icing on the cake.

I'm still trying to find clergy shirts I'm willing to wear in public.

I've been to diocesan convention and talked with lots of people, including the rector of a little church that would love a curate but can't afford one, and the rector of Big Deal Rich Parish where they could easily afford a curate but they're not sure they want one. The bishop still hasn't released me.

Ordination is 2 1/2 months away. It recently occurred to me that I need to be preparing for it. Not that I haven't been preparing for ordination for the last five plus years, but now it is really going to happen. After all this time I am really going to become a clergy member. This reality, and the seriousness of it, has overshadowed some of my fears and sadness about leaving this place. I've begun to think of this Lent, this last Lent as a layperson, as a bit like the final stage of preparation for baptism in the early church. Easter will come weeks before my ordination, but it seems like the time to do serious preparation work is now, before things get even busier in the lead up to graduation and ordination.

This is quite possibly the most boring and least inspired post I've ever written. But the blog is updated. Hopefully I'll write again soon. The lack of inspiration does not at all reflect where my thoughts and feelings are right now, but for some reason I cannot make them transfer into the written word tonight. Maybe next time.