Today I received a phone call from a search committee informing me that my candidacy with them was through, that they'd chosen someone else and that they wished me the best. I want to reflect upon what it's like to work in a field where many people use the terminology of "call" in the discourse on jobs, employment and the future. I also want to reflect upon what it's like to hear "no thanks" when you've offered to surrender (most) of your life to serving a community. Further, I'd like to reflect on the general job market and what it means that a privileged white person with tons of education (and credentials) cannot find work right now. However, I'll leave those blogs for another day...
G-d I have so much to say right now and no one/everyone to hear me.
(Read: this is the blog of an unemployed minister)
This blogging thing can change in its author's imagination daily. Sometimes an outlet for poetry. Sometimes an experiment in reaching out. Other days I come here to distract myself. It's true. It can go from journal to community organizing portal within a matter of hours. We share it, don't we? But not in the way we share coffee in hand-crafted mugs. Not in the way we share live music, food, sex or worship.
I've been out of work since August. Perhaps the thing I miss most about working is sharing. And so I keep coming here and going to Facebook trying to share. I want to share resources, thoughts, reactions, questions. Essentially this discipline of sharing is similar to the practice of ministry. But here there's no bread and wine, no hand-holding in prayer, no facial gestures that cue my religious heart instantaneously. I miss the interdiction, the interpenetrating realities of intimacy, the internalizing of Word, the feedback loops between bodies (not screens). When I come to this blog or hit up facebook, I'm looking for You. But I don't find You here--at least not the full You. And so that's why I'm not giving up on the field of ministry though I've got every reason in the world to walk away. I find the Source of my life in the feedback loops between bodies and institutions, the Source I'm hoping to serve and rely on until I take my last breath. I cannot find, serve, nor rely upon this Source from behind this computer. It provides me distance, some security and valuable open spaces but the lack of You (here, now) forces me back to the application process, back to the employment listings, back to the search and call madness that often leaves me feeling rejected and weary. I am back to these things, because dear You, I simply cannot live without You (here, now).
Do you understand?
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