new post after hiatus

i decided to start writing here since i have all of this shit inside me and i am not sure what to do with it.  i stopped writing here when i came out on my other blog.  but i am jealous of some who continue to blog with no link to their identity.  i decided i want to do that.  for nothing other than self indulgence.  if anyone is listening, fine.  but i have a feeling i may be blogging alone on this one.

first things first – i am very sad today.  i did something i have not done in a long time – i got on an antidepressant.  there is something i always find so sad about getting on anti-depressants – i ahve had this feeling before.  it is a feeling of – “i cannot do this” and “i need help”.  it totally sucks, and a part of me wants to figure it out without drugs.  i want to figure out how to fix my life without doing the pills thing, but i realize that i need help and while i am fixing it, i am also hurting people i love and i am losing track of what is important.  in essence — it can very much feel like i am spinning out of control.

let me catch readers up on my life – i am now working in a non profit in town because the church i was employed at could not keep me on staff because of financial woes.  i looked for another church where i could serve and be “out”, but i could not find one.  i will say that i limited my search to some place close to my state b/c my partner was here. and i have to remind myself of that because i am now “out” and i am in “circulation” across the country but i am still not receiving phone calls.

i like my job, but it feels so awful not to be doing what i want to do. and the pay – it sucks.  i am paid teh same as my partner who is an intern.  i am paid considerably less than my co workers because they have a masters in this field… and my masters seems to only help me in a field that does not want me to be their minister. 

money is so related to justice. 

i would say justice can be defined by money.

and from the marrow of my being i am pissed at the injustice.  i am okay to think about what i am paid until i think about the unjustness.  it is so unfair.

and it is hard to believe that it will get better.  it is hard to believe i will find a place where people will listen to me as a minister and where i can serve.  i have certainly proved myself to one congregation, but because i am both a woman and a lesbian, the church universal has made it abundantly clear that there is no qualification that will allow me to be part of it.

and i just end up feeling like a complete heel, knowing that the voices of “i told you so” ring so loud and true. 

i recently went to a thing with ministers where they are trained on how to do funerals with a speaker there – tom long.  it was a wonderful experience because i love discussing a good funeral.  but something he said affected me.  he said that your job as a minister is to say that there is a voice here that says death wins – death always wins.  no matter who you are and who you were, death will win in the end. and the job of the minister is to say – no – that there is more.  that death does not win, and that god and love have the final word.

i think that line because it does not feel like god has the final word.  it feels like the church does. it feels a lot like the church is killing god and taking the final word away from god.   i see the gay issue and i see a church that is NOT READY TO ACT.  i see a community that is afraid of what “division it may cause”.,,, and i see people who will not risk to save their lives.

and let me be clear – the ones that have to risk are the ones that have put everything that they have into the church.  it is the ministers, the elders, and the members that sit on boards.  it is the people who care if the instituation lives or dies.

everyone that is so fucking outraged along me and that often thinks i am full of shit (and i am talking about very good friends here) are the people who are never going to be those people.  they are not going to be the people that hold the purse strings.  they are not going to be the people who are doing anything because they have no power.

well audrey – i would change things if i could.

or audrey – you have to be patient -

or audrey — it is just not that bad.

those voices are the voices of the past that i wrestle with and wrestle with and wrestle with to the point that i am not sure what and who i am supposed to be wrestling with any more.  i wonder how much i am just supposed to let it go and then pursue some other career that will feed my family, allow me to live my life, allow me to have a pension, and to save to travel and do the things i want to do.

would someone help me fully process this anger and hatred and tell me where to go next?  that is what i need.

so instead, today i start with therapy through pills and i start with a slow attempt.

i am in the wilderness and the only comfort i know right now is that jesus has been here and will be with me. the only comfort is that nietzche has said it and no one listened then so why would i expect people to listen now.  the only comfort is that the world is alive and “on” and there are plenty of other ways to battle this stuff without killing myself – my piece of mind, my health, and my relationships.

my prayer today is to find a way that i can fully experience this pain so that i can then let it go and see whatever is next.

i will not let the church name and claim what is next.

i will not stand in the way of people who do.

a part of me is ready for a new religion and i wonder if i should be attempting life with the unitarians.  i wonder if i should go some where new.

but for now, i write to me and you and god and i cry and i thank god i do have health care so i can get some meds.  we will see what this does.

surprising sadness

after my weepy entry on friday, i got a call late in the day that i got a job at a local non profit.  it is something i felt called to do when i was in the interview.  it was something that felt very right. and i accepted the job with joy.

today – after a very good church day – i went to the non profit to meet with my new boss and as he told me about my job, i tried to picture it all.  i was just struck with incredible sadness.  i thought in the middle that i wanted to end the intro conversation to this new job quick so i could go home and cry some before doing the rest of my day.

wow – i had no idea i had this kind of sadness welling up in me.  wow.

working with this new boss who i will like, will not be working with my best friend, and senior pastor now.  getting to know volunteers will not be like loving and knowing my congregation.

i am very sad.

my new boss is friends with my senior pastor.  he told me that he knw this month would be sad and that i needed to give my attention to my church and then afterward my attention would go to this new place.  it was like mentioning a dying relative and i felt robbed of my peace and calm when he just mentioned the grief.  yes, i have a lot of tears to shed. 

to not be able to work on church stuff all the day long; to not dream about the way church can be during working hours; to not know what i am doing in this new place; to not work with S___

it makes me so sad.

 

i told C that i would ride my bike to work from here on.  i think i will keep with this pledge – i think that will make my life a bit easier – to think of my life different… besides in saving gas with the huge pay cut!

 

i will need ways to process this grief and to go about my life in new ways.  i think for starters, i will start a new blog in july.  i think that will be a way to say goodbye and not to live in the grief.

it feels very dark and sad.

no job still

i did not get a job today that i really wanted.

well, i thought i wanted it. i got the phone call and the biggest pisser of it is that i had to call them yesterday to get them to call me back that i did not get the job. they told me that they were to tell me the end of last week and they never did do that. i am so pissed at that fact on principal and i am sad i did not get the job also.

i got off the phone and i thought – well, that makes my decision easier. i was thinking about this job versus a non profit job i had interviewed for. i had not been offered either but i thought if i were offered both, what would i do? the non profit seemed a neat way to use my gifts, but i also have wanted to stay in my own church and my own fold. this job i interviewed for was a way to stay connected.

but they did not hire me.

 i was surprised how sad i was to learn about it. it surprises me when i get upset by things.

 it is always because things mean more than how they first appear. it is more than not getting a job that was probably not that perfect anyway. it also meant that i would not be able to stay in the church over the next year or so and i would have to make hard decisions about my life. how would i honor my ordination vows? how would i worship god? how would i grow?

it was more of disapointment as i thought of all the people who had prayed for me to get this job and so many who thought the opening was a sign of some sort of hope left in the world… and it to be shot down… felt really bad.

i am still abit sad about it, but perhaps i am less sad. my therapist has convinced me that i am not a “depressed” person and with that convincing is the ability for me to cry and let stuff out knowing that it will not be the end; knowing that crying to me does not mean i will never be able to stop crying. instead, i just need to be sad for right now because this is a sad and hard time. i need to let myself feel the emotions – it is okay because this, too, shall pass. it is hard feeling this way when you are in a relationship. it is hard knowing what you are supposed to share with your partner and what you do not need to. it is clear to me that i can be hard to be around because i am sad, so i try not to be too sad around my partner, but then again – where am i to express my grief if i cannot feel it at home? it is difficult thing living with someone period.

so that was this morning and it is very disapointing. my mom called and told me that it might be good for me to have a break from the church. a dear friend called and told me that that church that did not hire me was a bunch of bastards. that is a good friend. by the time she was done ripping them apart, i certainly did feel better and i even believed her a little bit!

but here i am thinking about it all. and it does upset me.

my good friend who i talked to shared with me about the last week. her grandmother just died and she told me that her version of God grew a little bit over the whole thing. she told me that she watched her grandmother die after she said the word “amen” while in a circle with her aunt and cousins praying for her grandmother to have the strength to let go and to go from this circle of love and into the circle of love of God on the other side. while she shared this, i momentarily thought of her mother on the other side who passed away about four years ago. i could not hold the thought long as i welled up with tears. i knew that my friend held that thought somewhere within her but i did not want to call attention to it too much because i knew it would be too dificult. i simply said, “i know this is very hard for you too, though…” and it was enough that we were both silent on the phone for a short spell while we both cried.

yes, her god became a little bigger over that she told me and she shared with me that it was going to be alright.

 it is going to be alright.

 it is amazing to think of this god who is lord of us all who is patiently loving us and filled with joy and love for us on this side and the other side. it is amazing for me to think of how much grattitude that we can have when we think of this life that has been given for us.

it is going to be alright.

my friend’s thoughts stay with me as i also wearily wonder what is next. i do not want to think of myself as another person who has “left the church”. fuck leaving the church – that is so fucking over-rated. God never leaves people, how can we have the gumption to think that we could ever leave God? and the church is god’s people – visible and invisible – it is the community of god on this earth. i will never leave the church. and i do not want it ever stated that i have left the church. but there is no doubt that there is no position now that i will be able to fill within my fold where i can serve my particular denomination. and there does not seem to be any other church i am able to serve either in the area. but i am not leaving the church. but while i try to find my footing, and i try to find where i will belong for this time, i will need to cry.

i will need to mourn the place i have been. i will need to mourn the position i was in, and the familiarity with the people i felt. i will need to mourn because i will need to move on. i need to cry so that i can put one step in front of another and continue in this walk in this invisible church – wherever it may lead.

it is so fucking unfair.

i know it is.

and i will mourn that too.

but in the meantime, i am holding onto the belief that god is big enough to hold all of this and show godself in ways that i will be completely unaware.

 i saw a great movie and evalutated it on my other website (audreythoughts.blogspot.com). it basically brought to my mind the importance of giving my life for doing right more than just for survival or living. i think that what is happening in my life is right. i feel i am doing right by not allowing myself to get entrapped by these other churches into pretending i am somthing i am not – whether that is pretending i am straight or pretending i am a children’s minister or pretending whatever else.

 i will not pretend.

 i will mourn

but i will stand tall knowing that i am following the One who gave his life to all and not myself and not the people who think that are leading us in God’s ways.

My prayer today is for a peace to be with me. a peace that i might know god’s presence during this difficult time. i am also praying that i might be able to see with god’s eyes what god will have me to see. help me to keep myself open so that i am able to be the church you call in the world – not the church that we have morphed into our own making – but the church that you have called into the world. the church where all pain is shared lifted into heaven before one another; a church where we all know that god is good and will take care of thigns – even when we cannot find a way out; a church where we are open to one another in love and closed to one antoehr because of fear of what they may say or do.

god help me to be brave, to share with others, and to be your church in all the places you call me.

i also pray today for so many minister friends of mine who are trying to create this church in their own difficult systems. i pray that they do not become burnt out and that they take care of themselves.

i pray for your love and hope in their lives. open us that we might feel you speaking, hear you teaching, and create in us all a new church that we might actually touch your spirit this day and always. amen

movie review “state of play”

from my other blog:

 

I just saw the movie “state of play” last night.  i had read some about it and knew that it would be suspenseful and that was what i wanted: something to sink my mind into and forget about life for awhile.  i didn’t feel like having a bunch of deep residual thoughts – just a good entertaining movie.  that is what the movies are for, aren’t they?

as soon as the movie began, my mind was straining to see what the plot would be, who the protagonist was, and how the “bad guy” was going to be brought down.  russell crowe, ben affleck, robin wright penn, and rachel adams did a great job showing many dimensions to their characters so that it was hard to know who to feel sorry for, who to envy, who to love, who to hate… 

a summary: there are three murders at the beginning of the movie: a politician’s aide (who he is later found to be having an affair with), a petty thief, and a pizza boy in the wrong place at the wrong time.  journalist russell crowe is covering all the stories with a young associate, della, and crowe is in the middle of the story because he is also the college roommate of this politician whose life is falling apart. 

i was pleased with the ability to keep me in suspense. there were moments when i was hiding my face and jumping in my chair a little – a bit embarrassing when you are in public, to be sure.  overall, it was nice to be watching a movie where the writers were always one step ahead of me and its unfolding was understandable yet not predictable. 

after the movie, i talked to everyone i knew about how good it was.  “there is a good movie you should see – you would like it because of suspense,” i told my sister.  to another i said – “i didn’t know time passed while i was watching it!” (for that <a href=”followthepowells.blogspot.com”>sister</a>, one needs no other endorsement! 

despite the fact that one of my friends who i watched it with said afterward, “what a downer,” i just thought of it as a great suspenseful flick.

now here’s the thing – today, i cannot stop thinking about this movie!  the theme that played out throughout it was something about the depths of people’s deception – to themselves and to the world.  without giving a spoiler, suffice it to say, i am appalled by the depths of people’s deception in general and this movie did a nice job portraying characters who are able to justify themselves constantly through lies and using of people…. how convincing they can be to their friends and acquaintances!

this movie was not just a suspenseful action film.  it took the characterization of people who are able to allow their ego to constantly lie  and cheat in a very convincing way to hurt others – probably without them even knowing it.  and we saw ultimately what can come of such self deception: people can be hurt and even killed and truth can be buried… for awhile.

it is not often that i spend time wondering about the goodness of humanity.  as a christian pastor, my understanding of humanity is at the heart of all that i do, and yet do not always think about the ultimate sinfulness or goodness of humans directly.  but this movie has me going there.

this morning, i was catching up on lawn mowing as i considered the character in the movie who in the end was unable to come “clean”.  just when you thought he might confess, we discover that there is another layer of lies he is covering up that would not be revealed until someone clever could figure it out.  i have close friends for whom this same behavior was seen in intimate relationships.  sometimes we think we know we can trust people but either their ego, or their addiction, or their need for something else, takes over and we are no longer in relationship with that person.  instead, we are in relationship with a user or a person that no longer sees us as a person, but as someone else to manipulate to get what we want.

what a horrible telling of human nature;

but yet so real; i do know people who operate in this way.

so as i mowed my lawn this morning, i considered my own ability to trick myself into believing things.  i considered martin luther’s belief that we are all ultimately sinful and while one person might seem more sinful than me, i should know not only my own sinfulness, but my capability of also committing sin.  i like it because it points ultimately to our creator as being the only way that we can step out and away from this sinfulness.  to luther, i remember there was a path to sanctification, and to calvin, we will never truly step out of it … theologians, forgive me if i am getting this all wrong.  regardless, i know that there is a goodness in our living we can get to if we just understand our sinfulness and embrace God.
i considered this, and i wondered if this is true.

the media would have us believe something different than this.  in my humble opinion, the media would have us belief that there are just simply some  bad apples.  we are not all inherently sinful, but some people are.  so rather than have compassion for people who fail, we really need to nail them to wall for the ways that they sin because they are putting our lives in danger…  people like John Edwards or Michael Vic or Mike Tyson or even Saddam Hussein…  Some people are just evil.  and it is good to name it and move on with those people no longer earning money or serving the public.

i considered this too, and wondered if it is true.

when i was in divinity school, i took a class in the prison.  my classmates were prisoners and div school students alike.  we studied the theology of prisons essentially.  it was a fascinating class but what i took away from most were the the medium security prisoners who i met.  i remember most the men whose lives were thrown away for 99 years for crimes committed when they were 18 (that was one guy who was then in his 60s) and i remember a man who was getting out relatively soon after serving around 10 years because of a robbery where someone was shot by accident (obviously we only heard one perspective) and i remember a man who had been a priest who was there because he could not control his sexual urges with young boys.  i learned a lot being in that prison that i still try to understand more fully. i remember having a conversation with a dear friend about the ex-priest who shared his story with us and i had compassion for him.  the church had known about his problem and had put him in an institution run by the church to learn to control himself and he had been given pills.  as long as he took the pills, he could control his urges, he told us.  when the scandals broke out, he was defrocked because the church was distancing themselves from these priests they had once ignorantly helped. then, when he had no support, he did not take care of himself and did not take his pills and then he “slipped” and ended up in prison.  my friend told me this: “he was taking advantage of people with less power.  not everyone who is abused does this.  what he did was wrong.”

i think about this priest a lot.  he never admitted that what he did was wrong, and he did not win many fans in my prison class for this.  most were disgusted by his ability to blame someone else for what he did.

but i also think about how easy it is to assume that one person is evil and the rest of us are not, and i know that is a danger that we even do with sexual predators. 

let me be clear: i am glad this man is locked up.  i am glad that justice is being served. 

but i wonder about the rest of us.  i wonder how the rest of us can take care of our sin when we cast all of our own sinfulness onto other people for whom we know to be sinful.

this i feel is the danger.

there is no doubt that the depths of people’s deception can be unnerving. and certainly as a people that prefer not label our own sin within us, i wonder how much we are participating in the self deception of others (and ourselves). 

i heard once that the job of the church is to point to the places of god in the world.  to “name” them.  that person helping that other person – that is God working in the world.  that place that is working to eradicate homelessness – that is God working in the world.  i think something that the mainline and more pointedly – the liberal church – often fails to do is to name those places of sin in the world as well.  that person who is taking care of his own needs before considering the needs of others in his life – that is sin.  that person who is using that other person for self gain with no thought to his or her needs – that is sin.

this movie was way more of a “thinking” movie than i had planned.  i had not planned on spending my morning considering humanity’s sinfulness versus humanity’s goodness.  but i suppose when i am reminded of the ability of people (so many people) to deceive themselves and others, i need to remember to also have a theology around that as well.

I pray that we might all be able to be those mirrors of god’s love and presence in the world to each other.  i also pray that we might be able to see honestly how we are stopping god’s light from shining on the world.

a moment of beauty in a tough time

I have been going high and low lately as I listen for where God is taking me.  Surprising turns of events have made me less and less certain of prospects.  Through this time, I have found myself thankful for a space to “be” and most of my shit does not seem to affect: a lbt group at the local uu group.  i am thankful.  at our last meeting a woman shared with us a song she wrote which describes her life.  she is learning to play guitar and she puts herself into it.  hearing her does not cause a person to run out to the record store to buy her songs.  it feels more like we are waiting with her to see where this gift of song writing will take her.  her unsure footing can make you listen with apprehension, unsure of whether her attempt to sing her song will be a success or not. 

at our last meeting, our friend brought her guitar to a night spot that we went afterward to drink a beer together.  with great encouragement, she went to her car to perform her song a last time for the evening.  she was excited because a small group of “welcoming folks” at the other uu church where she worships asked her to play for their meeting in the coming sunday.  as she dawned the guitar again, i felt a bit ashamed of my impatience because i had already heard her once that evening.

when she started playing, our group of seven people were still talking a little in side conversations, but soon, they were all silent.  we listened to this new friend perform and perhaps we all heard our own stories in the words she had written.  our friend has had a more difficult way to go to discovering her sexual identity than me, but her expression of it hit me with beauty.  i could see so many people who were hurting as she sang in this country who were in need of her healing words.  i watched the healing happening right there at our table as our group of seven women performed the act of “holy listening” (as i like to call it). 

those moments are hard to come by, but i was thankful for it.  i knew that if i were to have a movie about my life during this trying time, her song would play for one scene as a foreshadowing of the healing that would soon occur in my life.

it has been an interesting road so far as i listen for new friends that were once strangers.  a road of lessons about the infinite need of god’s love for us all.  as my faith deepens, i know that i am loved by god and that all will be well…

 

here is the link to my friend’s song (i think most of the ones that peruse this website were there), but i post it anyway for my own edification.

 

audrey

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4kSyWifoJA

quotation from other blog

i have another blog and i wrote this after my previous entry here…  hehehe 

 

I have never considered myself an artist. I know many artists and I appreciate the eyes they bring to life. I appreciate the ability to create in ways that many of us cannot. But recently, I have fallen in love with the idea of minister as artist. I have read a few things that described the job of the minister as a resident artist, and I cannot come up with a better way to understand the pastorate. As a preacher, teacher, and general meaning maker in a community, artist is the best way I know to explain what we ministers do on a daily basis.

With this in mind, I have really taken to a book my mother gave me years and years ago. It is called Affirmations for Artists by Eric Maisel. It is alphabetical and just defines different words as affirmations for artists. Let me share with you all the one that I enjoyed most recently:

Feeling:
“What do artists at their best communicate? If we had to choose between feelings and ideas, we might be wise to choose the former. Not the idea of injustice, but the horror of it; not the idea of love, but the warmth of it; not the idea of grief, but the pain of it. The artist, clever and quick-witted, may suppose that ideas are his [sic.] chief currency; but unless he is also attuned to feelings, in life and in art, he will not move his fellow human beings.”

I love this quotation and I find it to be so true. In my pursuit of writing liturgy and sermons, I know that I cannot express myself well if I am not engaging my feelings at the core. I have always thought this mostly to be because I am not a natural writer so I have to get all the help I can! But as I think about this quotation today, I am aware of how important it is for feelings to be worked through all the time in order to get to core of meaning and as this author says – in order to move fellow human beings.

i am thankful to be in an artist’s profession and i am thankful to have the opportunities through writing to engage in art. it is my prayer that i can continue to navigate through all of those feelings in order to continue to create, articulate, and move people!

From the book:
“I do not always open up my art to my own heartfelt emotions. My feelings too often disturb, disorient, and even frighten me; but to deny my art the gift of my feelings is to make false, restricted art. I will risk real emotions in life — and risk them in the studio also.”

is this it?

this pain, this indecision, this difficulty in seeing straight

is this it?

is this the feeling you have for me all along?

or is this what you started and could not stop?

depression looms overhead and i am feeling lost under the weight…  unable to breathe, unable to see, and yet all i can do is feel and feel i must

        i feel the anger for the ways i have been treated

       i see your face in apathy and disinterest

the world will not stop for you; the world will not stop on a dime.

is this it?

is this what you are supposed to realize audrey?

that it is ending before it is beginning?

 

but it has already begun – it has already showed its face.  its soft, veneer thoughts taking me close and cuddling me and comforting me.. .  was it an illusion?  is this it?

i am told that i must hold fast

i am told patience and love and so often it is true… it keeps me, holds me, gives me ability

but it is not true.

it does not know when i am breaking

it does not know when things are changing

the patience does not point to a place that is forming fresh and new.  it only allows me to let it be for longer and longer and i am soon more oppressed

perhaps this is it.  perhaps that is what i must realize.  it is over.  the love affair that was begun with this group of people, covenanted together does not include me.  my voice is too soft to hear.  it cannot bellow loud enough to change the tides, to turn people’s hearts.  i cannot change or make anew.

god tells me to be planted, to be faithful, to wait patiently for the lord.  and while i wait, i am learning that i must grieve.  i must let go.  the person in wait does not necessarily need to be picked up by the same rescuer that picked him or her up the first time.  just wait.

i suppose this is it. 

this is the end of an era, the end of a time when i felt i could trust one body, one plan.. it is the end of knowing and perhaps the beginning of believing.

i sit here with magazines in front of me, reminding me of life still happening.  the confusing, infusion, of life after rain and earthquakes, and towers falling, and evils committed, and on and on.  life goes on. 

and i know that i cannot go on with this place in ministry any longer.  i must mourn, yes.  it makes me so sad to see it… it makes me wonder – perhaps i was wrong – perhaps they will let me back in – perhaps i am still part of their family.

and i know i am, but i need more.

i need what they cannot bring.  i need a life filled with lust for life even when incorporating the love of a woman; i need a life that is not hidden or shameful; i need a community that does not hurt me or condescend to speak to me; i need something new. 

yes, disciples are alive and well, but i must part ways and for that i am very sad.  i don’t want send me another way and perhaps me thinking i know the answers is even less faithful.  after all, it is when we think we know that we get into trouble.

but i sit with this pain.

is this it?  is this going to be it audrey?  am i to let this go and to cry and mourn as i have over a lost love? 

it feels final to mourn – like giving up – but i do not give up on God herself – only this one church that has proven to fail me over and over again.  god’s church is alive and well.

is this it?

ugh

a day in the life of the church

 

i am lucky to have had time away, but it is amazing how quickly that time away can erode.  we are made for silence.  perhaps some of us more than others.  i feel like i have a quite high quotient for silence.  i feel like i need to burrow myself up in a whole of silence to party, cry, laugh, and pray for god’s presence to wash over me. .. but i only feel that way when i slow down enough to hear god calling me aloud.

after my sermon yesterday i realized what most ministers realize – that i was preaching to myself.  this time of discernment and decision causes me more than ever to need to lay down my life for others… otherwise i might not see the presence of god in my life. 

i try to pretend i can see god clearly at all times, but i cannot.  it takes hard work.  and sometimes i look so hard, i forget to even go out and do the thigns that god is calling me to do.

today i spent time online looking at thing called the merton institute.  it is a place with guided retreats and mecca of contemplative happenings at the merton center in kentucky.  i have always wanted to go there and spend time in silence there, and today i realized that i could just do that.  i do not need a license to do that.

i received word today from a friend about another minister i know who is looking at jobs in the pulpit.  the reality of how easy it is for any straight male to have a job and the difficulty of me having a job levels me at times.  i had just been thinking about how if i don’t get this job i am currently hoping for, i will be alright.  but when the news of this one minister moving churches hit me, i just felt so empty.

it is so unfair.  i found myself at the bottom of hte depths that i had been just two weeks ago when i was talking with friends at my last retreat. 

how can it be so unfair?

yes, life is unfair, but what is important is what you do with it, a voice calmly responds in my head.

i took a walk to lunch after journaling about all of this.  i realize that i really need time to just be.  on my way home from my favorite coffee shop, i noticed a new coffee shop in the neighborhood. i walked in but it was clearly not yet open for business.  startled by the new competition with my coffeeshop, i looked around to see how i could take their competitor down.  they had fancy expensive seating, nice wood floors – they felt revitalized like a yuppy redoing the downtown… it was the kind of coffeeshop i would love to open but i know that i would never have the money to.  i kept snooping in the shop by myself when i saw the books there.  one thing i miss about bowling green, ohio is the coffee shops that are also book shops.  i looked over their books in this new coffeeshop, and i saw a lot of authors i have read… a lot of christian books.  when manager came into the store, i greeted him and told him the front door was open and i hoped he didn’t mind me snooping.  he told me that they were opening may 12 and he was very friendly.  i asked him if they were a christian coffeeshop and he said not exactly.  “we were bought by a church,” and he pointed to the billboard, “and we are basically a blessing to the community.” 

we chatted some more and i left.

i loved the coffee shop but it made me think.

is this the future of the church?  is the church going to buy up all those places we want to do business and live so that we can still be there and part of it by proxxy? 

i had this phrase go through my mind: “the church is alive and well”. 

the church is alive and well.

It is hard for me to feel to bad for the church.  when i think about how much i feel sad that i am not promoting church events with my youth like i would have 2 years ago, i worry that my own bullshit is getting in the way of things.  perhaps i am just depressed… maybe i need to leave my own version of the church’s iniquities away from the kids…  or maybe it is just more and more a reality that the church needs to change because it affects us in all avenues of life.

i don’t see why it is so important for a coffeeshop to bless the community.  in fact, i think the coffeeshop might infuse more into the community if they promoted local business rather than compete with them and then spend their resources connecting people with the poor and those who are not like them – rather than who think just like them.

i konw my own criticism is not probably dead on.  but it is interesting to me to watch the church morph and grow and try to be more relevant when the only thing that i see the church’s message is to be a place of love and hope for all people… not a place to get good coffee.

i am not worried about the church in some ways.  it will be just fine.  it will find poor streets and rich streets to keep capital pumping through it to keep it going to all people.

but it is not the church that i am serving.  i was serving the church as a place and refuge for god in this world that is trying to reach out to all people.  but when the church becomes a place of just more compost and broken dreams, i am afraid i am not serving them any more.

today was a hard day.  i rest assured that god is with me no matter what.  i believe that in the core of my being.  but i am not sure that i can stomache the change that i need to do to bring that agent of change to the church so that god can act there as well as god acts in other places. 

if i don’t get the job coming i don’t know what will happen.  maybe i will do something else.  i know i will probably be a bit more depressed than i am now.  but i will not give up.  i will not stop trying to listen for god with us in all the ways that i can.

sermon done

i ended up writing it on saturday after feeling a lot of dead ends over the week and it felt good.  i now love the scripture for this sunday, but i did not when i got started.  it was john 10:11-18 and 1 john 3:16-24.

if you are interested, it is here:

http://audreythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/05/good-shepherd.html

if not, i don’t blame you!

i also posted some fun pics on my other website of some nature scenes c and i have been seeing.  they are seen here:

http://audreythoughts.blogspot.com/2009/05/pictures-of-nature.html

hope you all are well.

it was awesome to see the performance at the UU church this morning.  it was quite good!  and i have to say my favorite was shonna’s poem.  in the beginning was no amateur or professional, no jazz, no music… no barracuda… awesome shit.

 

still praying for a job at the local church i just interviewed in.  i am hoping and praying…

 

Audrey

the good shepherd

i am the good shepherd.  the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away–and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.  The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

luke 18:19 ¹⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

Psalm 23 The Lord is My shepherd

And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

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well, this scripture leaves me with a christological nightmare. 

 

i would like to pretend that the spiritual landscape that this author writes is the end all be all:

     god is present as a shepherd in people’s lives choraling them, guiding them, saving them from wolves, and we innately, intimately and intuitively know that voice of god from other voices.  we might be tricked and hurt by fake shepherds or “hired hands”, but ultimately the “good shepherd” will be patient with us and love us until we are able to see that it is his (or her?) voice that we are to follow.

    i am the good shepherd.

     and it is comforting to think of the good shepherd in our lives as this presence that is keeping us and loving us always.  it is comforting to think that in everything we do, we are protected.  if bad should befall us, that is because the shepherd allowed that to happen so we should listen to what that bad thing is teaching us and learn from it.  

   the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 

and we can rest assured that our utter salvation in the world is good and well and we should know that we are saved from all true evil because the good shepherd laid down his life for us.  no worries on death, on finding the “right” path to choose… all answers and possibilities are ours because he IS the good shepherd and He DOES lay his life down for us.

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its a safe world to live in; it feels good to know that god is taking care of us.  and even if you cannot see it, you don’t believe it, god is here acting in this universe. 

    and i can tell you what a lot of the scholars i read today talk about.  there are really problems with this scripture when we think about it too hard.  at the beginning of this chapter, Jesus calls himself the gate for the sheep.  then, he calls himself the shepherd… well, which is it, are the gate or the shepherd?  are you what we sheep must pass through or are you a force that is protecting us while we graze?

  and another issue that i wonder about – what about what Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel: “luke 18:19 ¹⁹Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”

No one is good but God, but now, he is THE good shepherd…

this is a christological nightmare! (that is divinity school english for - how are we to understand you Jesus?!)….

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our simple picture of Jesus as good shepherd in a world of wolves and hired hands gets less simple if we dig just a little deeper.