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a church day.

11 Jul
I’m highly caffeinated.  
It’s nearly 1am.  I spent right around nine hours in a car today.  And I’m wired.
Two iced coffees, two sodas, and a cup of warm coffee in a church fellowship hall.  
The day began with worship at my home congregation.  Talk of upcoming ordination and congratulations were many from dear congregation members.  There was a bit of distraction and also a bit of focus on the congregational vote that was happening in Austin.  THE vote to call me as pastor.
I arrived home and found my phone ringing.  A 507 number.  This was it.  I answered and heard this on the other end –
“Congratulations!”
[pause]
“Thank you?”  [I wasn’t entirely sure who was on the other end …]
The conversation continued and it was, indeed, the chair of the call committee of Red Oak Grove Lutheran Church in rural Austin.  They voted to call me as their pastor.  [yay!]
phew.  I had known in hypotheticals that this would eventually be the case.  I’ve never heard of a vote not passing but it was still reassuring to know that it’s the real deal, that I could make it facebook official, and that I can now mail out my ordination announcements.
After the phone call, I jumped in the car and headed north on Interstate 90 towards LaCrosse, passing a bus of Dawson friends traveling south at one point just north of Madison.  I knew that Dawson youth were on their way to Chicago for a mission trip and I knew that they had stayed the night in the Dells the night prior.  I kept my eyes peeled, wondering if our paths would cross.  And they did!  I called Emily to say hi and to tell her I saw her bus with organist Chris driving in his bus-driver-man clothes.  It was a fun coincidence.
I drove to Sparta, jumped in the car with friend, Cassie, and we headed west to Albert Lea to our pal, Josh’s, ordination.  I was able to catch up with my roommate, who also attended, and congratulate Josh.  Josh is called to a church in southwestern Minnesota – the synod I was in last year while intern in Dawson.  I caught up with the bishop from that synod, who was interested to know if I had a call yet.  If not, he said he was ready to snatch me up.  [Apparently both southern Minnesotan bishops fought for me in the draft.  ego boost]  Cassie and I returned to Sparta, and then I jumped back into my car and drove home, arriving on Aarback just after midnight.
It was a good church day.  I have an official job.  Josh was ordained.  Car time road trip with a seminary friend.  Waving distantly to old friends.  Tomorrow [technically today] will be a good day too.  Ordination announcements can officially go out and plans can begin to be made officially.  And then I’ll start crying because, for some reason, my ordination makes me super emotional.  More about that to come.

forward movement.

16 Jun
I haven’t been completely honest nor completely secretive about how this whole first call process has been going for me.  It’s been frustrating and confusing.  Waiting and more waiting.  Feeling both helpless and hopeful.  I spoke to the bishop of south eastern MN on Sunday night at my friend’s ordination.  He restored me to hope as I had scarcely allowed myself to hope before.  [Ten points for that movie reference.]  I became more hopeful in my waiting.
Though there have been minor break-downs and a few pouty lips, overall I have “trusted the process.”  [That’s what they encourage us to do.]  I think I have trusted the process and been patient in waiting because of what Dawson taught me.  I remember how it came out kind of wrong when I told my coworkers in Dawson that to be there was not my first choice.  It’s true; it wasn’t.  This girl was assigned to go to Brookings [also not a first choice], only to have that site fall through and then be given no choice but to go to Dawson.  I cried a bit, and thought a place with a gnome park was a little suspicious.  Please take no offense, Dawson-ites, because then I went and fell in love.  The process was good to me.  Learn to trust it I did.
Between us girls [as my pal, jD, likes to say] and blog readers, tonight I received a phone call.  From the church in Austin at which I’ve had two interviews.  I stood in the laundry room at my friend, Kim’s, house while her puppy sat at my feet, stared at me, and farted, and they offered me a call as their pastor.  It remains not official-official; a congregational vote – with two Sundays notice – will take place on July 10th.  So, please, calm down just a little bit – not that much – but I was too excited to not share.  I’ll keep you posted as the vote approaches, and let you in on the insider details [or at least some of them], as long as you [please] keep me in your thoughts and prayers as this process continues!

comparisons.

14 May
I constantly compare myself to others.  I know I shouldn’t.  I know that I am me and you are you and our paths through life are different and that’s how it is meant to be.  But I still make the side-by-side lists in my head, comparing pros and cons, good and bad.
Right now my lists consist of comparing myself to classmates regarding calls.  Many of my friends have calls to churches post-graduation.  Many are planning ordinations.  Many know what their summer will look like.  I am incredibly happy for these friends – really, I am! – but I don’t have a call, I’m not planning an ordination, and I know only what my June will look like.  My comparisons have me feeling pretty low.
I had an impending sense of doom throughout all of Thursday.  You know those days when you feel like something is just going to go wrong?  The pit in my stomach warned me that something wasn’t quite right.  I called the synod of my assignment to see what they knew about the church where I had interviewed, since it had been nearly two weeks and I’d heard nothing.  The synod knew that the church liked me – they are not releasing me as a candidate – but they also want to interview more people.  I still feel pretty emotional about the news; in summary, the news kinda sucked.
I know that I am called to be a pastor and that I do well in this vocation.  I know that there will be a church that wants me and that calls me but for now, I feel a bit like a failure.  Again, in comparing myself with others who are called and have dates on the calendar to be ordained and to move and to begin working, I’m behind.  If we continue to compare this process to dating, I feel rejected.  [Ah, yes.  Know that feeling well.]
I’ve been in this place before, with my negative thoughts and illicit comparisons, but I refuse to let them infiltrate all facets of my life.  Yeah, Thursday was a pretty down day [blogger being down helped none.] but things have looked up since then.  I have two finals left to complete by Monday and many opportunities to be social beside.  After that, time will be filled with craftiness, packing, and general playing and merriment.  I know I move home for June and if June turns into June and July, maybe that will give me the chance to start my Etsy store or explore reading, running, and crafting at length.  Maybe I could look for a fun-to-me part-time job or consider visiting long-lost friends in WA and IN and MI.  Maybe I’ll stop comparing myself to others too, and enjoy this unique journey as my own and one that needs to be no one else’s.  

synod assembling.

7 May
I am beat.  [sleepy, tired, exhausted, fried, etc.]

This lady just returned from the Southeastern MN Church Assembly.  Held in Rochester, this annual event is the place where each church is represented by their clergy and voting lay members.  Two days of sitting in a convention center listening to reports, amendments to the amendment of the amendment, and thumb wrestling.  [I kid not, but really wish I was.]  I went with Paige and Jonathan [also new assignees to the SE MN synod], and Jonathan’s wife, Lauren [P, J & L).  We were assigned to sit in the very front of the assembly so the bishop knew when we weren’t there [like that one time we sat and ate breakfast instead of going into the assembly] and when we were doing things other than listening [passing notes, iPhone games, magazines, etc.].
Irresponsible?  Maybe.  But we are not voting members [yet] and have so many other things going on in our lives [like trying to complete finals so we can actually graduate and get calls to SE MN], that we simply could not focus for so long.  [I’ll at least speak for myself here when I say that I entered that assembly hall with very little energy for what was happening.  Synod assemblies don’t exactly get me any too excited.]
It simply made me exhausted.  We left at 6:45 yesterday morning, did a lot of sitting, and it was a lot of people and small talk that did me in.  Being around people – and so many people at that [about 500 at the assembly] – just makes me tired.  [Introverted and proud of it.]  But it was good too.  We met a lot of people, a lot of pastors, and were able to get some insight as we enter into the synod as new clergy.  
It was great fun to spend time with P, J & L.  I’m so thankful that I have them in the same synod.  We misbehaved at the front table of the assembly together, tried to keep it together when the assembly made us do a few corny things [thumb-wrestling, hand-holding], and struggled to not break face when the photographer for the event would come uncomfortably close to take our picture.  We went out for Chinese food [ditching the synod dinner – shh.] and played a three-hour game of Settlers at the hotel.  [And we did have a pretty swank hotel.  I could have laid in that bed-with-way-too-many-pillows and watched television all day.]
I quite literally just got in the door of my apartment after returning home.  I have one hour before I’m expected to be at a CYF banquet and I need to blog.  Like, NEED to blog.  I have been around people for the very nearly the last 48 hours, but need to decompress and burst with introvert energy right about now.  I also need to unpack, sleep, and veg on the couch.
Unfortunately, there is little time to recover right now.  This weekend has been labeled in my mind as the weekend from hell for the past month and now I’m in the midst of it; it lives up to its name.  Synod assembly has passed but tomorrow morning at 9:30 I must defend my thesis.  [But, hey, before I do that, I should probably create the powerpoint and write what I will say, right?  Good idea.  Hello, late night tonight.]  Tomorrow, following the morning of CYF fun [sarcasm? slightly.], I must prepare for a Sunday night group meeting to fine-tune a presentation we make to our class at 8am on Monday morning.  From that class, I leave early to assist in the daily chapel service.
After that I can sleep.  [Until a 10 page final paper is due and a sermon is to be written for Thursday, a paper outline and reflection paper for Friday, a final paper on Sunday, and one last one for Tuesday.]  It will get done.  It always does.  
End of term: Come faster please.
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