The Whisper of Time

I’m closing in on a month since the committee meeting, though I don’t feel I’m much closer to discernment over what the decision means.
The reality is that I’m two years out from any possible ordination. This poses two sets of issues: logistical and motivational.
Logistically, I have to work in the requirements from the COPM In those two years I have to complete an internship (ten hours a week for 3 or 4 months) and do CPE, which even doing part-time will require 20 hours a week for three or four months. So, let’s say I do these two things simultaneously. This would mean not working for about four months (a loss of about $18,000 in net income). One option would be to try to do these in the spring, so I would work through the end of the year and then begin in Jan ’07. Once I’ve completed these requirements, I would then have to find another job (while having to explain why I took 4 months off to do something completely unrelated to my current career) to carry me for the next year and a half or so when I could finally be ordained. It’s possible that I could find work in a church setting or ministry position so the explanation part wouldn’t be difficult, but the salary wouldn’t be as good. Another option would be to build my own business or practice of some kind, possibly at PCEC; try to get it going now and by the time I’m done with my Internship/CPE I’ll be at a point to be self-sustaining.
Motivationally, I have to keep my focus on reaching the goal of ordination. This may be more difficult than the thorny issues surrounding work and money. My sails lost a lot of wind when the COPM passed down their decision that I needed to do the entire two year candidacy. It had been almost two years from the time that I began exploring the possibility of going into the ministry and a year of that had been based on a fully realized decision to do so. So, for quite some time, I’ve been mentally, intellectually, personally and spiritually preparing for going into ministry. And for ten months I’ve been preparing for the meeting in June hoping against hope that that meeting would open the gate to a rapid movement toward ordination. And basically just the opposite happened. Rather than give the green light to ministry, affirming what I believed about myself (and what I believed the committee would recognize), the brakes were put on rather hard. I was given maximum sentence.
What was the committee trying to say?
Don’t think you’re going to come in here and tell us what to think or do, buddy! We’ll make our own decisions.
Oh, so you think you want to enter ministry? Well, we’re going to show you what kind of friction and difficulty you’re going to face when you get into the pastorate. If you can survive us, you can survive the ministry.
Besides, if you’re really called, you will still be called two years form now. Let’s just test that out a bit and see.
Part of the problem has been trying to read the minds of the committee, trying to figure out just what they are attempting to communicate to me. It may be nothing more than them just feeling like they have to do their job, that it is their due diligence to see I go through the entire process. There is this piece of me that feels it necessary to prove to the committee (and to the watching world) that I can endure the test and cross the finish line. Yet I have to know that it isn’t defeat or loss to move in another direction if necessary.
Time will tell the answers, although time seems to be whispering more softly these days.

The Gatekeepers

The meeting was an hour and a half long. There were ten or twelve members of the committee in the room, plus a pastor and my liaison from my church, and me. It had been about ten months since I had met with this committee, ten months of waiting, not knowing what was going to happen.

I went in knowing what I wanted to get out of the meeting, believing what I wanted was perfectly reasonable. They even asked what I hoped to get out of the meeting. I had the answer: a timeline that would move me toward ordained ministry in as concise amount of time as possible. I wanted leave the meeting as an Inquirer, go before Presbytery at their next meeting three months down the road to be approved to be a Candidate and within a few months from that point, be approved to seek a call. Why did I think this was reasonable when the normal, required process takes a minimum of two years? Primarily because I have been a candidate before and have fulfilled all the requirements of a candidate. Granted this was ten years ago, and this was the committee's concern. Ash... it has been ten years. Ten years. Surely, I have forgotten all that that meant in the last ten years.

But it is the committee's collective wisdom that counts. And in that collective wisdom it was their desire to see me through two years of process towards ordained ministry. They were not in the mood to make exceptions. And most certainly whatever my perceptions of my readiness for ministry could not be accurate. That is their job and, by goodness, they are going to do it.

I wonder what would have happened had I said my ideal timeline was to do the minimum of two years in the process. Would reverse psychology have worked? Doubtful, but it would have been an interesting experiment.

It raises the point of what the committee sees their role to be. They are the gatekeepers. I understand the importance of their role. I believe that much of what they do in the normal set of circumstances is useful and appropriate to their role. But is there room for exceptions? Do they feel that they have to disabuse anybody that comes before them of their fantasies and ideals of ministry? Do they take themselves so seriously that can leave so little in God's hands? Can a ministry candidate have an accurate perception of his call?

This is going to take some time to sink in, for the ramifications to process.

I'm frustrated that a group of people have such a powerful say in my life, a group of people who in many ways know me so little, a group of people to whom I made myself so vulnerable.

The adolescent in me thinks that they just couldn't let me have what I wanted. That it was CYA on their part. That they just wanted to exert their power. I felt like the dateless girl wanting to scream, "you're missing out on a great catch!” I wanted to them to see me as special, not like the others, who have to go through the standard process set up for the average joe (how often do I live the life of exception?). And there is some validity to that, since I'm not typical: I've completed seminary, gone through candidacy before, jumped through all the hoops. Ah, how I want to kick my passive-aggressive 28-year-old's tail for not taking that final step... but it's all in the plan, right? And all this is only because I was told I would have to wait to get what I wanted.

The question remains, though. How valuable is it really to wait for waiting's sake? I knew they may ask some requirements of me, and as difficult as those may be to work into my life, I was prepared on one level to deal with that (although with or without the timeframe, I would still face the struggle of how to fit internships or CPE into my life and career). Nonetheless, their point is that if my calling is genuine, it will still be there in two years. True that. (Can't they see, though, that this call has been there for 16 years?!) But they want to witness my call lasting over those two years. They have to see it over that period of time.

What if my protestations are just that, adolescent, wounded, tantruming? I have said from the beginning that this is in God's hands. I have said that is my responsibility to act faithfully in response to my call. I have said that this is an act of faith, going in the wheelbarrow over the gorge (2nd page), about taking my faith to an existential level, a personal level, one which puts my life on the line (not in terms of life-or-death physically, but life-or-death to those worldly things to which I cling). This meeting was case-in-point. God is providential, omniscient, right? He knew the outcome of this meeting. If He has indeed called me and He indeed knew the outcome of this meeting, there are two options I see. He wants me to work through this process, be patient, steadfast, faithful over the next two years and enter full-time pastoral ministry within the PC (USA). Or, he has called me, but to something else.

I can see the work in therapy now.