It’s been a while since I wrote here, mainly because I ain’t got internet at the house – it was there, but now it ain’t and I’m too busy running around to get it back on. Which means when I could be writing in the evening, I’m not. But there’s been all kindsa shit goin’ on.
I went to a vocation discernment seminar workshop thing and met the people who will decide whether or not I go anywhere with this whole become-a-rostered-minister thing and they seemed nice. And I figured out that I’m prob’ly better suited for Ministry of Word and Service as opposed to Ministry of Word and Sacrament, which means I’m tracking toward Deacon instead of Pastor, which is still in line with my call because what I was called to was ministry. If ya don’t know that this whole thing got started because I experienced a sudden call to become to a minister in the Lutheran church, now ya know, nipper. And I found out that there’s a thing called the Order of Lutheran Franciscans which is awesome because I dig St. Frances so I already got in touch with them and now I am a postulant. I read Omer Englehart’s biography of Frances – I’d read it before, but I wanted to catch up on it. I think I’m s’posed to write a reflection on that – I’m waiting to hear back about it. I’m doing this college thing, so I’m in essay writing mode and feeling like I need to know how many pages and what formatting style before I write about Frances, but that prob’ly ain’t necessary. I can see how my reflection on Frances might find its way here, so look forward to that. Preview: St. Frances was batshit crazy.
And I filled out my application for candidacy and wrote the entrance essay which goes along with that. That process caused a load of anxiety. I had this dream that I was going to a church retreat type thing and it was at a nudist camp and I was pretty sure that this was gonna problems for me. I thought that if church people saw me naked, they wouldn’t want me to become a rostered minister. In the dream, this had to do with some tattoos that people don’t often see, but really – obviously – it was about me being afraid that if I told them certain true things I’d blow my chances. I was tempted to leave some stuff out and to try to spin out a line of bullshit to make myself seem better, but I didn’t. I’m not about to be any less than totally honest on that thing. So, I sent it a bit ago and we’ll see how it turns out.
Other than that – I picked up some painting work at the local kids’ museum which I’m about to go do and I got my novel roughed out, so now I just gotta go back through and fill in details and craft it a bit. No plan for what I’ll do with it when its done – ain’t time for that yet. And I’m putting up with the cat.
My anxiety about revealing who I really was/am to the candidacy committee is based on fear, so I ain’t giving it much weight. If God wants me in Her ELCA, there’s no stopping it.
Luther von Wolfen 