One more step along the world I go...

Hooray!!  My Discernment Committee has officially recommended me as a Candidate for Ordained Ministry in the United Church of Canada!!  Whoot!!!!!  I'm so excited!!!

I was almost positive they were going to, but it feels grrrreat to have the paperwork signed off.  They filled out their Report and Recommendation, which we all signed.  I filled out my Application to be Received as a Candidate for the Order of Ministry, and attached the required "1,500 word" narrative of my faith journey (which ended up being 2,226 words - oops), and resumè.  Those documents now go to my church council (aka session)  And here is how things go from here (copied from the Process booklet):

Concluding the Discernment Process

Session
1. The session receives the discernment committee’s recommendations and the inquirer’s application and makes a decision.
2. The session completes CAN 203: Action by Session and Presbytery/District Regarding Inquirers, page 1, and sends it with the original of DIS 202(a) and the application CAN 202(b) to the Presbytery/District E&S Committee.

Presbytery/District Education and Students Committee
1. If the inquirer is applying for candidacy for ordered ministry, the Presbytery/District E&S Committee completes CAN 203, page 2 top, and sends it to the Conference Interview Board (CIB) with DIS 202(a) and the application from the inquirer.
2. The CIB meets with the inquirer. Following the interview, the CIB fills out CAN 203, page 2 bottom, and returns it to the E&S Committee with the CIB’s recommendation.
3. The E&S Committee interviews the inquirer and makes its recommendation to the presbytery/district regarding candidacy.
4. Two members of the E&S Committee sign CAN 203, page 3, “Police Records Check.”
5. Then they send CAN 203, DIS 202(a), and CAN 202(b) to the presbytery/district secretary.
6. The E&S Committee also makes recommendations on educational programs using CAN 204: Initial Certification to School or Program.
7. The presbytery/district secretary completes and signs CAN 203 (page 3) and distributes it as indicated on that page.



Yup...bureacracy is alive and kicking in the church just as it is in government!  But the end is nigh, and much of the remaining steps happen in the background from my perspective.  I just need to show up for the interviews and wait for paperwork to be completed by the various parties involved. Not to downplay it all, am sure the interviews will be stressful, as interviews tend to be!  But hopefully they will go well, and everyone concerned will agree I am called to ordained ministry. :)  And in the meantime, I am applying to the Atlantic School of Theology to be accepted into their Master of Divinity program starting in September.

We closed tonight's meeting, our last as a Discernment Committee, with the following prayer...which I wrote straight out of my head in a couple minutes before heading out the door to the meeting.  I wrote it in advance because I knew I would be expected to do the closing prayer, and am not yet comfortable doing so spontaneously.  Not sure why I still feel awkward about sharing my prayer straight from heart to lips, fear of being mocked, I suppose.  (Say grace, anyone?)  And yet if I write the words of my heart down, even in an unedited stream of consciousness kind of way, I can share them without hesitation.  Very strange.  I don't doubt that one day prayers will roll off my tongue as comfortably as they roll out of my fingertips...I just need to practice cutting out the written step and trusting that God will put spontaneous words in my mouth.  But I digress...here is the prayer with which I closed off our discernment period...

Dear God, we give thanks for your wisdom and guidance this past year, as we discerned together your call. When we listen for your voice, we are able to find our own voice and find the strength and courage to sing our song of faith for the whole world to hear.
 
It is with deep joy and blessedness that we feel your Spirit moving among us. We have gathered as people of the light, seeking to know your will, to understand how we can shine our own light in this glorious yet often broken world of ours.  I personally give thanks for the people around this table [names edited out for privacy] who have given so generously of their time and thoughtfulness to help me discern where you are calling me.  We go out now, empowered by our relationship with you, O Holy One, and by our relationship with Jesus. In following his example, we are strengthened and enlightened to embrace our own divinity and step out in risk in order to serve others. We journey with a sense of hope, of surprise, of expectation that we can make a difference.

As we all move forward from this time of formal discernment, I pray that we will continue to hold within our hearts the sense of wonder, and of possibility, that we have found here together. And continue always to answer your call to an abundant, extravagant, astonishing life beyond our imagination! In Jesus name, we pray. Amen

And then I broke into spontaneous song (one of my fave hymns from Voices United):

 ♫ ♪ ♫ I'm gonna live so (live so) God can use me
Anywhere Lord, anytime (anytime)
I'm gonna live so (live so) God can use me
Anywhere my Lord, anytime!!! ♪ ♫ ♫

Edge of Seventeen

 
Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen came out the year I turned 17...the year I graduated from high school and started on my muddled path to becoming who I am today. 

Here are a couple pics from the day...before and after I got my hair chopped off (and permed.)

Hard to believe that was thirty years ago!!

"Oh I went searchin' for an answer...
Up the stairs... and down the hall
Not to find an answer...
Just to hear the call..."

At the age of 17, I didn't know what I was searching for, what call I was listening for.  I was adrift in a sea of uncertainty and low self esteem, with no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up, and no sense of what I might be capable of.  A typical teenager, in many ways, I suppose.  I went to university, got a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in pyschology...mostly because getting a university degree seemed to be the thing to do, and so I got one.

I hit my twenties, drifted into a job in the accounting section of a local company for horrendously low wages...married the most wonderful man, and had the first of our two amazing daughters.  In the last year of my twenties, I got a job with the Technical University of NS (TUNS), still not great money but having a pension plan was a welcome addition!

At 31, I had the second of our two amazing daughters.  A couple years later, the provincial government decided to mandate a takeover of TUNS by Dalhousie University. (Ok, they called it a mutually decided upon merger, but that was generally accepted to be a takeover.)  TUNS employees got the short end of the stick...Dal staff all had more seniority, so we were left with the lower level positions.  I said no thanks, and got a job as a property accountant for a medium sized family owned real estate & development company...soon I was promoted to senior corporate accountant...then to manager of the accounting department.  It was a great experience in many ways, I gained confidence and knowledge, and learned a ton of useful skills, such as doing presentations, managing staff, writing reports, dealing with difficult people, and so on.  But it never felt meaningful...seemed that all I was doing with my life was helping a handful of private citizens earn a profit. The family who owned the business was great to me, in some ways I became an extended member, being present for engagements and weddings, etc.  But still...my soul was restless to be doing something meaningful with my life.  But what??

At 39, I applied for a position with the Province of NS, and to my surprise, I got it!  I thought working in public service would surely feel more rewarding than private industry.  And it did (and does), but not nearly as much as I thought.  Perhaps because I still dislike accounting every bit as much as I had in private industry!!

I had started attending church in my mid to late-thirties, and found myself feeling drawn deeper and deeper into the life of the church.  Early on, I agreed to be central treasurer.  Unfortunately, that meant accounting was now invading my place of joy and refuge.  Still...I felt good about being able to help in some way.  Happily I found other ways to be involved which fed my soul instead of draining it!  Things like reading scripture on Sunday mornings, joining choir,  getting involved in an annual Conference level program for young teens, joining study groups, having conversations with my (then) minister about faith and prayer and God, sharing faith stories with friends at work.  And I started writing about my faith journey and sharing my spiritual thoughts in my blog.  

I began to hear the voice of God calling me to be so much more than I ever thought I could be...at first I did a lot of pushing God away, and making up excuses why I couldn't answer...but I felt really drawn to being in ministry full time, so I poked around on the United Church and AST websites to learn just how one goes about becoming ordained...but kept retreating back behind my inadequacies and fears...telling myself that surely if I was minister material, my close friend, who is herself a minister, would have recognized it and encouraged me to explore the possibility.But she never mentioned it...and I felt too awkward bring up the subject myself. (When I finally did talk to her about it, I discovered that she is as overjoyed and certain as I am that ministry is where I am called to be, and had been watching me moving in that direction and waiting to see if I felt it too. It was painful thinking she didn't believe in me...on the other hand, I know it is probably for the best that she didn't say anything until I brought it up myself because then I might have questioned whether it was God calling or simply the power of suggestion.) In any case, I am grateful to another friend for asking flat out if I have ever considered being a minister...I needed that act of responding out loud "Actually yes, I have" in order to let this incredible and scary possibility slip from my heart and out into the world.

And now that I have answered God's call, I wonder what took me so long.  I can't wait to begin my MDiv in September (feeling quite sure my Discernment Committee will recommend me as a Candidate for Ministry.)  My soul is filled with longing to be out in the world with my light shine as brightly as it possibly can.  To borrow some language from our Song of Faith: I want to be God's good news lived out, to continue the story of Jesus by embodying Christ's presence in the world, to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only.

I am now on the edge of 47, not 17...I believe that God has always been calling, it just took me a lot of years, and a lot of life lived, to recognize and embrace that which has always been whispering in my ear...singing in my heart...swirling through the deepest core of my being, Spirit enfolding spirit.  Jesus said come, follow me.  And I will...because you're never to old to discover what you are meant to be when you grow up!

What an amazing gift it is, this call to ministry...

A wordless song...

In the depth of my soul, there is a wordless song...

So wrote Kahlil Gibran and his words resonate in my heart.  I am so thankful for the gifted poets and lyricists who are able to give voice to that song.  Able to reflect with their own words, the astonishing and sustaining song of God that sings us out of darkness and into the light, that sings strength and comfort and joy into our hearts, that guides our journey and moves us out into places we never thought we'd go.

Until recently, while discerning God's call to ministry, I have been set on returning to school full time.  Hoping to obtain my MDiv in a classroom setting, immersed in an ecumenical community of students and faculty.  There is another path to ordered ministry in the United Church besides the full time classroom study route - a distance program - but it hasn't appealed to me.  Except now I have felt a nudge to explore the possibility.  This nudge could just be because I am feeling the weight of an impending, possibly unmanageable, financial struggle...having just learned the Fund that used to automatically cover tuition for United Church Candidates is having hard financial times of its own...thus has substantially reduced tuition funding and made it a needs-based bursary instead of being automatically available to all. 

When I got the email yesterday containing this news, it came as a total surprise because earlier this very week, I'd been told tuition support was secure - needless to say, I felt quite disheartened.  Had a little chat with God that I won't repeat here lest I bruise anyone else's sensibilities, let's just say my inner child wasn't on her best behaviour -  good thing God loves me anyway!!  Between this new obstacle, and the one-step-forward-two-steps-back feel of the discernment process (not my discernment itself, just the process), I said to Dave that it would be ever so much easier if I saw all the technical difficulties as signs that ministry isn't the right path for me and so could turn away feeling satisfied that I gave it my best shot...not everything is meant to be, after all.  But I don't feel that way.  I feel the song of God calling just as loud and clear as ever...come closer, child of mine, I am with you on this journey and we've only just begun...and I feel just as compelled as ever to answer, to follow, to keep walking in faith..

But you, O Lord, know me;

      You see me and test me – my

            heart is with you.

                    (Jeremiah 12:3)

So here I am, exploring the possibility of studying through AST's Summer Distance Program.  (Handbook found here.)  In this program, one studies throughout the year while in a part time ministry position, plus comes together with others in the program for a six week intensive period of study each summer.  As I read the document, I remembered my friend Iain telling me that his pastoral charge was applying to be a Learning Site.

[An FYI sidebar - Iain was my minister when I first came to the church a few years ago, and has come back into my life to share this part of my journey with me.  Valerie is sharing it with me too, of course but as friend, not as minister.  Through discernment, one really needs someone in a kind of mentor/pastoral care/spiritual support kind of role...and our friendship is way too close and personal for her to be that for me.  Was kind of funny when she and I talked about the fact that I needed someone else as minister through my discernment period, we both named Iain almost in the same breath!  He (semi)retired eight years ago (which is when Val came to our church) and since then has been part time minister in a rural charge not too far from my home...he claims to be soon retiring on a full time basis!]

I am not yet convinced the distance program is for me, but it feels to be where the Spirit is moving at the moment, so I am giving it serious consideration.  Iain said his charge is just getting their application in for the designation, and that they are a "sensible, faithful bunch", which certainly sounds appealing!  Plus they apparently have a wonderful manse, so I'd have a whole separate space where I could retreat to study and plan worship in the absence of all the regular distractions of home.  (And, as I told Iain, no doubt Dave would be delighted to ship me elsewhere those times when I am wrestling with God and full of faithful angst!)

This morning, I was filling Moira in on this latest twist in the journey, and admitted that the In Ministry program feels like a much scarier option than full time study.  I don't feel even remotely ready to suddenly be in an active ministry role, even as Student Supply.  Then I added oddly enough, this gives me the sense that this really IS the path I am meant to take.  I heard the sound of laughter...it was Dave, laughing because taking the scarier path is exactly what he would expect of me.  He said: "we always seem to end up on the hard road, don't we?"  Yes my love, that we do.  But isn't it wonderful!

After all, God is nothing if not challenging.  And it is always by stepping outside of my comfort zone and rising to a challenge that I grow the most and discover I am capable of amazing things I hadn't thought possible.  Sometimes I have the feeling God likes to flaunt her mysterious ways...

Two steps forward...

My Discernment Committee had our second meeting this evening.  And I am singing thanks to God for a Spirit filled evening!!  The meeting followed the outline suggested in the United Church's handbook on Discerning a Call: 

Meeting 2: Faith and Spirituality

This meeting focuses on sharing experiences, beliefs, and questions about faith and Christian spirituality. Using the meeting outline that was decided when you first met, you might consider these ideas and questions to start your conversation:

• Take a moment of silence and think about those moments in your life when you have felt very close to God and when you felt the absence of God. Share your reflections with the group.
• How are your faith and your relationship with God affected by these moments?
• What do you do to nurture your spiritual life?
• What helps you have a sense of God’s presence in your life?
• Is there a particular place or time that draws you nearer to God?
• Reflect on the practice of prayer, reading the Bible, or meditation in your life.
• How have your views or beliefs in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit changed during your faith journey?
• Agree to try some different spiritual practices in the time until the next meeting. Keep a journal or some notes about your reflections that you might share with others.

It was a bit difficult for me to explore and explain my own thoughts in depth since the forum wasn't so much conversational as it was a round table for everyone to share their individual reflections.  Probably I should have more intentionally dominated the discussion, although that is easier said than done.  But we did have some sparks of deeper conversation, so I definitely feel like my formal discernment is finally moving forward.  I am hopeful the others on my committee now have at least some sense of what my faith looks like.   And now, it's late and I'm going to bed.  Filled with gratitude myself, I leave you with these words from the United Church of Canada's Song of Faith:

Grateful for God’s loving action,

   we cannot keep from singing.

Creating and seeking relationship,

   in awe and trust,

we witness to Holy Mystery who is Wholly Love.

Amen.

Magic skills

To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful "magic skills" that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition.

- Elizabeth Gilbert

Hey, I'm magic!!  Ok, not so much...but I am sitting smack dab in the middle of that place whereof Ms. Gilbert speaks.  Yearning in the depths of my heart and soul to answer God's call to ministry...trusting that fulfillment will come, in spite of the slow moving wheels of church process.  I cannot move forward in my formal journey until my official 12 month discernment period ends and my Discernment Committee recommends me as a Candidate for Ministry.  Nearly 9 of my 12 months have gone by already and we have only met once so far (and that was basically just an initial meet and greet).  Argh.  Did I mention the wheels of the church move slooooowly??  I must admit, I was unprepared for that...in my naivity, I imagined the Church would be far more Spirit led than process driven.  Oh silly me!  Which makes this a good learning experience, to be honest.  Best to know the world I am getting myself into by seeking to become a minister within said Church.

In the meantime...here I sit in my place of yearning...swirling with light and longing.  Perhaps not with patience, but certainly with trust.  Trust that the Spirit is present in the midst of all the delays and bureaucracy, trust that my journey will eventually lead me to wherever God is calling me to be.  And what could be more fulfilling than that?





A particle of the Divine

May your journey through the universal questions of life bring you to a new moment of awareness.
May it be an enlightening one.

May you find embedded in the past, like all the students of life before you, the answers you are seeking now.

May they awaken that in you which is deeper than fact, truer than fiction, full of faith.

May you come to know that in every human event is a particle of the Divine to which we turn for meaning here, to which we tend for fullness of life hereafter.

Photos by me
Words by Sister Joan D. Chittister, Benedictine Sister of Erie, from Welcome to the Wisdom of the World


I came across Sister Joan's words recently while rambling around online.  They speak to me in the place where I am right now in my journey.  Discerning where God is calling me to be...opening myself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the midst of a process that does not yet feel as Spirit led as I anticipated.  In many ways, I feel like my true discernment has taken place, and continues to take place, outside of my formal Discernment Process.

Surrounded by mystery and grace...enlightened by moments of deep awareness...filled with the power and presence of God...I take deep breaths and pray.  I seek answers and understanding...and move forward in my hopeful journey to ministry.

And I thank God for my very dear friend Valerie, with whom I can have deep and challenging conversations about our shared faith that go beyond the (so far limited) discussions within the formal process.  Our friendship is itself a particle of the Divine.  My heart sings with joy and gratitude for this amazing blessing in my life!

A perfect ending to a not-so-perfect day

My day ended with this beautiful sunset and an evening spent with my daughter Moira.  (Dave is away, so it was just the two of us.)  I made fish chowder for supper, and Moira baked biscuits, which turned out great!  We are now settled in watching the remake of Escape to Witch Mountain.  Now I must admit, the Rock is amusing in this flick, but I still prefer the original...Eddy Albert in a flying motor home just can't be beat! lol

I am grateful for this happy ending, because my day got off to a lousy start.  I was just getting ready to head out the door for work when the phone rang.  It was a member of my discernment committee, letting me know that tonight's meeting was cancelled because another member couldn't make it.  Now I already knew about the person who couldn't make it, but hadn't occurred to me that the meeting would be cancelled altogether.  I figured the reason for having three reps from my church and two from presbytery was so that we could still meet even if one person was absent...because all parties would still be represented.  Unless of course I was the one who couldn't make it. Since it's my discernment committee, there wouldn't be much point in the others meeting in my absence!

Now one cancelled meeting wouldn't normally be a big deal, but considering how long it took to get started in the first place, I must confess I am rather frustrated by yet more delays.

[To recap the journey so far:
Last February, after a lot of personal discernment and conversation with family and friends, I decided to answer what feels like God's call to ordained ministry, so I wrote a letter, asking that a formal discernment committee be set up, and gave it to Valerie.  She brought it forward at our congregation's annual meeting in early March, where it was approved at church council level and forwarded to presbytery.  In mid April, I heard back that my request has been approved by presbytery.  Three committee members were named from my church, and two members from presbytery.  They had a training session to familiarize themselves with the process, but didn't meet with me until June.  And we didn't even get through all the housekeeping items in that first meeting...a couple things had to be parked until the second meeting. I was incredibly and intensely frustrated at the time!]

So...here we are, another four months have passed, and meeting #2 has been cancelled. Sigh. I wasn't even consulted, the meeting was just cancelled without my input.  Not that I don't highly value the person who couldn't make it, because I do, but I see no reason the rest of us couldn't have met as planned, and filled her in later.  (Deep breaths...prayer...more deep breaths...let it go, I tell myself, just let it go.)  As I said to her, I think God is testing my patience!  Which is not a bad thing, to be honest, and I know the Spirit is present in all of this somehow...I just need to hang on to the knowledge that if it's meant to be, it will be.  No point in wasting my energy fretting over that which I cannot control.  I don't actually feel anywhere near as frustrated as I did around the first meeting...I am definitely getting better at trusting that I will, in fact, end up precisely where God is calling me to be (even if that place is not where I myself currently want to go!)

And now...back to the end of my day.  I rejoice in the uplifting beauty of sunsets and the heartwarming sound of laughter on my beloved daughter's lips!  For this and so much more, I feel deeply blessed and profoundly grateful.  Hallelujah and amen!!