A surprising overflow of emotion last night.
I was walking through the course of events with regards to my employment and the fact that I often feel disconnected with what it is I am actually doing, that this is not really what I had ever intended to do. When questioned, I went back 12 years to 1999, when I had applied to my synod to enter seminary - and been turned down.
I am much more emotional about the issues than I had anticipated.
The whole thing is made a bit more real and poignant by my birthday. I look back and see the distance between what that desire was and what career life now is and just wonder.
There is nothing more painful in life than to think you are called to something and be told by others "no".
Life - perhaps my own life - turns into a series of denial, of either trying to prove them wrong (by investigating other routes to the same goal and falling back) or rejecting the very suggestions that they made because, if nothing else, I can obstinate and stubborn (the suggestion at the time was a year of counseling and Ph.D. studies.)
Until one looks up 12 years later and finds one's self in a career and a direction that seems neither pleasant nor sustainable.
There are moments - and this is one of them - where I feel completely lost. That option is no longer open to me, but neither (I think) is the alternate one which was suggested at the time. The current one is not one which can continue indefinitely but neither has the path forward - a path which I think is different, but I simply can not see it.
Is it stubborness that kept me where I am and keeps me here, an ignoring of what the pro-offered will of God was or is? Or is it that this has been the path of God, and I am simply too weak to see it?
So why are you not re-applying for seminary now? And if they say no, find someone who says yes! It can be done - look at how many sermons you've written in the past few years -
ReplyDeleteNot sure how it works here.
ReplyDeleteWhere I was in the past (ELCA) was a combination of two factors: not only admission to the seminary, but also acceptance of your candidature by the synod. You could go to seminary - it's a school like any other that graduates with a degree - but would have no "job" (if you will) when you got out.
As to now - not sure. Life is somewhat more complicated that it has been (mostly with my children) in terms of picking up and relocating for 3-4 years primarily for school. Also - and I'm not sure if this matters - thinking a great deal, I wonder if I am more of a teacher than I am a pastor. One can teach through writing as well as through the spoken word.
Let's just say I'm not adverse, but I would need a clear signal from God that now is the time.
Thanks for commenting! - TB