i remember the very first time a friend and fellow seminary student introduced us both as ministers. it was jarring. i wasn’t quite ready to make that pronouncement. but there it was. i couldn’t take it back. i don’t think i would have if i could have. but it changed me. that was about 17 years ago- give or take. fast forward to today. i very much claim that ministerial identity but have little in the present to back it up. i left my former place of ministry nearly a year and a half ago and have been searching for my next place of service longer than that. i am lucky. i have a job that helps me pay my bills and provides my medical insurance at little cost to me (please know how grateful i am for that). but it’s not ministry. not officially. early last summer i had to go to a doctor’s office (following the horrendous sting of a wasp that had been hiding in my black dansko and got me between the toes) and while i was there they asked me what i did. i said, almost without thinking, i work at *another local doctor’s office*. immediately, i felt tears welling up. in that moment i felt like i had lost a big part of my identity.
so many times in the last year plus i have had to explain that yes, i am a minister. yes, i work in a doctor’s office. no, i didn’t really leave my last church because i wanted to leave but no, i really didn’t want to stay either. and they didn’t give me that option.
i have had more emails, phone calls, skype interviews and visits to unknown churches than i care to count and, still, it doesn’t seem to be enough. i am still looking. goodness- i’ve said that a lot too. i have been told “no” in more ways and more politely than i ever thought possible. once or twice i have even said no. at times i have wondered if it is more difficult to be told no or to speak that work myself. i don’t believe there is some magic place for me out there that God has waiting for me, but i do believe there are places that will be a better fit than others. there are places where i can give of the best of what’s deep inside me and places where i can receive something in return. not just a paycheck. but in all this searching it is often a challenge to be present in.this.moment. still, just because we don’t always see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. the holiness. in her newest book wearing GOD, priest, teacher and theologian lauren winner says,
“Jesus, after all, specialized in asking people to steep themselves in the words of the scriptures and then to look around their ordinary Tuesdays to see what they could see about holiness and life with God.”
even when it seems we’re living in a fog, even when we’re so busy seeking what comes next, it is still there. the holy. the sacred in the ordinary. whatever you want to call it. most of the time, we just aren’t looking for it.
kneelingbywildflowers 