January 29 and February 1, 2011

For the record - there was only one meeting, hardly regular, and the committee wasn't formed for 3 months after I got there, and met 4 times, a total of 3 hours, when it ended, and was a series of cold interviews, much like the GOE's that I failed, now that I think of it.



Dear Heather,

Sorry to be so long in replying to your emails about this. Christmas was a gloriously full time, and for the past few weeks I've been dealing with some minor but all-consuming ...

I had a good conversation with --- this week and I have a clear sense of a path forward, assuming you plan to return to Portland post-graduation. --- believes, and I concur, that you need to start a formal discernment process toward postulancy that looks exactly like it would for someone who hadn't already been to seminary. I believe she reiterated to you, what you and I and others have talked about as well, that going to seminary on one's own doesn't change our diocesan process. 

I would like you to spend the next few months enjoying post-GOE CDSP and the end of what I believe has been a rich and growth-filled time for you. Then I hope you will come back to --- and let us begin with a parish-based discernment committee to work with you as the first step in the process toward postulancy (possibly) and toward discerning and celebrating God's call, whatever that call may be (certainly). If it is helpful to you to gather with members of your former committee as a way to support and bless you as you begin a new process, there is nothing wrong with that, but your official discernment committee would be parish-based. As such, I don't see any value to you or to the process to begin that parish-based process long-distance, prior to graduation. 

--- believes that such a discernment process, which I hope would happen in tandem with developing some good visible ministries at ----, providing the whole parish (now about 70-80 strong!) opportunities to get to know your many gifts, along with regular meetings with me, should take at least six months. At the end of that time, if I and the discernment committee and you jointly discern a call to ordination, you would begin the process of paperwork, recommendation letters, psychological exams, etc. If the community discernment process continues in that direction, the circle of discernment would then expand to include the Bishop and Commission on Ministry at a future vocations conference, and probably a CPE experience.   

I know that this process may not be the one you've hoped for, but it is a way forward that ---and I agree on. It is based, however, on the assumption with which I began this email, that you will be coming back to Portland after graduation. If that is not the case, I would be happy to talk with you to explore other options, but those options would not include beginning an ordination process here at ---. 

I wish you many blessings in your own discernment and I look forward to catching up soon.

Faithfully,

---

Dear --- and ---,

I am profoundly grateful for this email. A deep sense of rightness settled on me as I read it and it resonates as the best way forward to me as well. As I told --- when we met in December, my discernment committee helped me find my way to school, and this time has been fruitful and what it needed to be. However, I do not feel that my discernment committee was an adequate exploration into a call to ordained ministry and I look forward to returning to ---- in the summer and exploring and integrating these last few years of my life into the life of the community and seeing where God might be calling me in the future.

Thank you both for the thoughtfulness you have offered me in the last few months. Classes start for me tomorrow, and has been the case for 2.5 years, I will quickly be subsumed in books and papers. While I never feel that school has all the time it needs, I am comforted to know that discernment does.

blessings,
heather lee

Post GOE Blues

A newsletter article for one of my supporting parishes. January26, 2011

When jazz musicians talk about the blues, they don’t mean the doldrums or depression, but a realistic and persevering sense of hope, even when the reason for hope seems unlikely. My pervading hope comes from Christ, and the face of God revealed to me. Much of my work here has been coming to conscious and complete understanding that God loves me only as myself, not for what I can do or who I know or where I can go. Only me.

The GOE’s were an interesting experience. I am unsure what I was intended to get out of these tests. It seems is the intended outcome is to ensure that I, individually, know enough information to lead a congregation. My understanding of God and of the church of God is such a contextual and communal experience that I hope I never get confused into thinking that my education sets me above the gathered community. I hope it never confuses me into thinking that it can replace the essential loved experience of my relationship with the one who made me.

I have been to speak with Canon ---. She and I are working towards gathering all my paperwork so that I can attend Vocations Conference in May. This really means that I am doing a lot of work and she is happily helping me with the snags and questions that come up. On one hand, I am going at the process a bit backwards, on the other hand, given the time and effort and patience required to walk this path of discernment, it isn’t unique to go around the long way, either.

In this journey, prayer has surrounded me, and I know that Holy Spirit and St. David’s have been part of that. I am grateful and appreciative of the many people who have remembered me when I was not always able to remember myself. It turns out I am able to be both ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ and ‘out of sight, out of mind’ at the same time. So while I long for home and the sort of people I know and love there, I get caught up in the ever-present deadlines and concerns of the day. I look forward to the end of school, in some measure, because I will be back with people and their real concerns, and no longer speculating wildly on the uses of this or that aspect of schooling.