Making Peace

I think I am finally starting to see what my committee wanted to tell me, but utterly failed to do in that letter, thanks to an old friend who knows me well and was on that committee.

I am reworking seminary into the story of all my education, which is that education is for edification, not for job training. I was probably chaffing against that the whole time I was there, but I'll ponder that later, if it proves worrying.

I think where I am now is that I am just sad that there is no place for me in the church. At least not the formal organized religious part of it. I seriously wondered about the sanity of my friend Cynthia when she gave me Barbara Brown Taylor's Leaving Church before I'd even joined (so to speak) but the truth is, my ministry always has been to the people the church would like to leave. And I've always been really honest about that. And I've learned through church and other places too, the absolute tyranny of instiutional memory.

I don't know where people like me go. I don't think that I want to do anything that is a "second string" to ordained ministry, because I honestly don't want to spend the rest of my life getting the Hallmark greeting card message that the Church offers lay ministry, especially those with an education in the church. And the truth is, there are very few priests I have ever met who can engage my in my faith at the level that makes organized religion worthwhile.

Kind of wondering if there is a grass is greener after all. I usually know better, but I might need something more challenging if I am going to be able to keep up the organized part of my faith.