On Long Rides and Disappointment

 Once upon a time I had it in my mind that I was called to the ministry.  This was many, many years ago when the non-denominational movement was fairly nascent and as a result one had to apply to the local episcopate or region and be accepted as a candidate if one wanted to be a minister.  It was a long running internal discussion (10 plus years off and on) that resulted in my formal application.  As part of that then-application process, one had to undergo a psychological examination and assessment - the reasoning was that this was a preventive move to avoid burnout and career mismatch but also, frankly, as a legal mitigation.  I underwent the two days of testing only to get the assessment that  I was not the "personality type" for the ministry (the assessment at that time was that I was too prone to depression).  That recommendation stood, and the summary board that reviewed my application and met with me later politely and kindly agreed with them, thanked me for applying, and wished me well.

Those two rides -the one back from the screening seminar and the one back from the regional meeting - were two of the longest rides in my life although the distance was really not that long.  It was as if the course of my life, which I had thought to be so clearly laid out and self evident to me (after all, God would not put a thing in your heart that He did not intend to be brought to fruition, right?) was suddenly plunged into a chasm and there was absolutely no guidance to the next step other than "keep doing what you are doing".

This happened to me earlier as well, when I went to interview as part of The Foreign Service exam.  I was finishing up my Master's degree and this was clearly what I was trained for (after all, did I not have a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in International Relations and an almost Masters in the same?). The Then- Affianced Ravishing Mrs. TB had made sure I had a new suit to wear and so, new suit and bright ambitions in hand, I went to the screening.

Of course, as you have probably figured out, that precisely went nowhere.  The gentleman at the end who provided was kind but direct:  "Sometimes I have good news to deliver.  This is not one of those times".  I was not fitted for The Foreign Service for reasons that I now no longer fully remember.  

The drive back from there was even longer geographically, as I had to make my way from the center of a large urban area to my home during the commute hour.  His words rang through my ears the whole way up the city streets to the freeway and through the traffic that seemed to move like a herd of buffalo, slowly grazing.  The only solace I had that night was a bag of McDonald's French Fries my friend purchased for me when he heard the news; for some reason I recall those fries as being especially delicious that night, salty and hot.

It was another version of the same story:  the direction of my life, so clearly laid out in my mind and in a way what I had sort of found my way towards, ended in a road in the middle of a field that went nowhere beyond that.

In the end, of course, I suppose it all worked out:  had I joined the ministry I would have probably long since departed that denomination and perhaps the ministry itself (nor, to be fair, with my own personal failings would I have been a great minister) and my inherent anti-authoritarian tendencies and sincere lack of interest in the minutiae of paperwork would have moved me out of the Foreign Service.

But those outcomes prove to be scant comfort (if they would have arisen; who knows that if I was in the ministry I would have been a better person and persevered elsewhere or as a Foreign Service member I would have learned to love paperwork) as I grapple with the fact the sense of disappointment - and the psychically long rides returning from them - continue to haunt me 20 to 30 years later.  I can still feel, as I write this, how I felt as I sat in the car driving home, the intense sense of emptiness and abandonment and even confusion.

Sometimes the worst thing about a disappointment is not the disappointment itself, but the ragged edges it tears in our souls that never really heal.