I got an email from the Pastor at the local church. We haven’t been able to schedule a time to sit down and talk yet. She thanked me for being “patient” which shows that I’ve done a decent job of not coming across like a raging lunatic. I am not patient.
It’s been about a month since I received the call to become a Lutheran Pastor. A month. That’s an unbelievably long time for me when I want something. There are fuckin’ years to go in this process, which I can deal with – once I get the thing started. I’m gonna havta meet with people at the Virginia Synod, write essays, get approved by the Synod for candidacy, apply to seminary, write essays for the application, apply for scholarships, write essays for scholarships – and that’s just so I can get started.
It’d be easier to become an evangelical street preacher. All they gotta do is go outside and start yelling at people, which is what I kinda feel like doing. Thank God, God didn’t call me to that.
But I am anxious to get the thing going. I’m a double Aries – not that I believe in astrology – and I mean, I am a textbook Aries with all the gung-ho, ram your head into things, Devil take the hindmost, senseless enthusiasm of the average Aries, but doubled. I can’t fuckin’ wait to rush in where angels are too smart to tread. Part of that has to do with the fact that I know me – I’ve had to put up with me for almost fifty years – and I know that I am really fuckin’ good at starting things and not very good at seeing them through. I’ve gotten a lot better at follow through over the years, but the tendency to rush into new ventures and think better – or just fizzle out when I get distracted – is still there. And, of course, there’s the simple fact that I want what I want right now, which is pretty typical of alcoholics as well as Aries. And I’m both. And I make a lot of “I” statements.
As the saying goes, “I may not be much, but I’m all I ever think about.”
Check this out –
“In 2019, your life will be bracingly free of old ideas about who you are and who you’re supposed to be. You will have unprecedented opportunities to prove that your future is wide open.”
That’s from today’s Aries horoscope on Free Will Astrology – I don’t really believe in astrology. Clearly, that is saying that what I want to be true will actually be true – that I will be magically transformed into the kind of person that anyone would want to hear preach the Gospel, Lutheran style. The doors of the online seminary program I’m gonna get around to applying to will be “wide open”. I’ll be free of my old ideas about who I am – not somebody who could/would/should absolve people of their gross and disgusting sins – and who I’m supposed to be – a co-owner of a tiny restaurant in the part of town where the sun never shines. All of my nagging self-doubt and crippling negativity (thanks, Mom!) will be lifted from me and I will march forth, having been able to test out of most of the classes and begin to confidently proclaim the Good News and serve the Lord’s Meal to wretched sinners, miscreants, transgender prostitutes and junkies with face tattoos. I will write mind-blowingly theological books at such a frightening pace that Martin Luther will look like a lazy-bones by comparison and – unlike ML – future generations won’t have to apologize for my misogyny and antisemitism. The Lutheran Church doesn’t have a pope, but they’ll probably decide to change that when I get going – oh wait, being anti-pope is one of the defining characteristics of the Lutheran Church. Well, nevermind that, I’ll just be a four-star bishop.
Actually, though, I really don’t believe in astrology, so I am in no danger of thinking any of that is gonna happen. (And I was a little unfair to my mom – my dad contributed just as much to my complete lack of self-worth as she did.) A case could be made that God set the stars and planets up in such a way that flakes would be able to use them to foretell future events, but I ain’t buying it. Horoscopes, the I Ching, rune stones and other oracles may be useful if they help people to look at things from a different perspective – I would say the I Ching has the greatest potential for that, of all possibilities I know of – but they’re completely worthless as prophetic devices.
But the fact remains that I am not gifted as far as patience goes. That can change. I am far less impatient than I once was. I do believe miracles happen – the fact that I haven’t had any vodka or meth for over twenty years is proof enough for me. I also haven’t punched a wall in a few years – not twenty, but a few. The Commonwealth of Virginia gave me a driver’s license and no one has showed up to tell me they want it back. Somehow, I was allowed to become a parent – that really isn’t as hard as it should be, actually. And I got another email from the local Pastor and we have finally figured out a time when we can get together and talk about whatever it is that people talk about with pastors when they wanna become a pastor.
And she thanked me for being patient again. I’m starting to think that she’s just being polite. Which is another fuckin’ thing I’ma havta learn to do.
Here’s the link to Free Will Astrology – straight to Aries, because I am one and I don’t actually care about any of the other signs because that’s just how Arieses are – https://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/aries.html
Luther von Wolfen 