I am in Alabama. Gallant Alabama and I have just lost my shark. I have only been here since Sunday. 5 Days but I have no cell phone signal, I have been forced to climb a mountain and all the wonderful funny people have left. I am in Training to be a Church & Community Worker, which I have been for over a year. i'm learning all the things that i have done wrong and I hate being wrong. But I'm only a little bitter about that.
We had about two days of training and then the CCW Bi...they have a conference every two years. Biennial Meeting began. I like CCWers. I have to apologise profusely because I didn't want to come and I gave my mom an unflattering view of these folks. I'm sorry. Really. I had forgotten how amazing CCWs are. It was a reason I wanted to be a CWW in the first place. Because of the sense of community. I mean, they get intense about stuff that I couldn't care less about but whatever. They are funny. I was howling at the retirement reception cause the stories were so great. I was almost creeped out by the puppet story but I think if I had seen it would have been ok...maybe.
But everyone left this morning. About 11 of us are left until Tuesday. 11 of us left to finish training.
So...I freak out a lot. Its just my nature I think. All that repression. It just explodes. I freaked out, mainly due to not being able to get cell phone reception or to watch TV, I have been left alone with my thoughts which is never really a good idea.
I get commissioned as a CCW on Oct 13. I am not all that sure that I am able to make a committment right now. I feel the same way about my ordination which is suppose to happen June 2010. And it comes back to the problem of knowing what I want.
Understand that I know what I want. I know what I want. It just isn't working out that way. I truly believe that things happen for a reason but I don't have to like it. And I don't.
Oddly my reservations are actually some of my relationship issues and reservations. I don't have commitment issues. I take committments very seriously but I am worried that I can't keep a committment to either. I feel a little wishy-washy about both and I'd rather not be a flake about it all. Honestly, the job is hell and the Church & Community program made me out to be the poster child and for the first time it wasn't due to the color of my skin but due to things still beyond my control and nothing to do with me. I don't like the admiring looks when I get so close to just quiting.
My job is hell. I love the kids at Clinton but the conditions that I work in are absolute hell. I keep telling myself that it won't always be this way but I have been saying that for a year. Its drepressingly lonely. Maybe that's not hell for other people but it is for me. I am making strides, yes, but I am so alone.
The upcomming commissioning and ordination, it all makes me feel slightly trapped. OK, a lot trapped. My least favorite feeling in the world. So I was freaking out when we got a morning off for spiritual renewal.
I spent my spiritual renewal time in K-mart and two Halloween stores (I followed everyone else) so I wasn't anticipating renewal but later when I finally decided to read our continueing Ed class material, renewal came anyway.
"To respond to God's call to serve is to spend your life in deep water. It is risky business. You perhaps won't be well liked, and you will always be misunderstood, except by those few folks who choose to follow Jesus and live in the deep water with you. You will never gain any of the world's riches, and will always be troubled by the notion that you're not really doing any good. Deep water is where we tend to find the missio Dei, God's Mission. And yet, it is in the deep water that God is most readily found and that we can be most useful for the kingdom. To look for the Lord's call in your life, listen for that awesome Word of humility and power, and saying yes to God, be sent forth on a journey of faith that will give you the only real reason for living." -Faithful Witness. United Methodist Theology of Mission - John Nuessle
Sometimes its enough just to have someone else admit that this God stuff sucks even when you do everything right-ish but its going to be ok. Its enough for me to get through another couple more weeks. Its enough. Plus, I just found my shark.
