Still Not Easy… a Ramble
IFE IN THE Indy movement is no easier than any other denominational flavour (not that I expected it would be) although there are some interesting twists and turns.
Still looking for a confessor… despite all attempts in good faith, I’ve not met anyone who is willing to hear my confession whom I want to visit. Sacramentally, I know I can visit my buddy Drew or my soon-to-be housemate Sare, but something about “close friend/drinking buddy+confessior” just doesn’t work for me.
One Indy Bp wanted to induct me into his jurisdiction (for this I needed to be conditionally ordained…) another sent me lists of all the gay-friendly churches in B’lo (as if I needed those!) I’m really beginning to think that only the Orthodox (canonical or not) understand what it’s like to not have a confessor.
Unemployment sets in… as of last week sometime I was laid off (in the literal sense) because of lack of work. It’s said I can come back in the spring. I’ll not survive on the $250 a week unemployment wants to give me, however. Fr Brent said, rather profoundly, I should not settle for “a job” but rather go looking for “a vocation”. To that end, another job search. How very mehgasmic.
Reverend Mother always says that when God closes a door he opens a window. OK, Revered Mother, I’ll crawl through the next one I see.
Parish News… the good thing about being unemployed (and I mean that literally) is that I can do work on parish outreach at the same time as applying for job and such on the interwebs. To that end I’m going to invest in some flyers and free business cards and see if I can’t get some more people out and about.
Sunday 1 November is our monthly First Sunday liturgy. If you’re around, come to 208 North St in Buffalo at 2pm! I’m also exploring ways to make the times more user friendly: Matins at 7AM wasn’t nearly as useful as Vespers at 6PM. Maybe some local folks would like Matins at 8 or 8:30AM?
Supply Work: I’ll be preaching in a local church at 10AM on 15 November. My housemates say they’re coming, my Mom may even come up from Alabama. Send me an email or comment if you’re in the area and want to come!
Plans… which God will laugh at, I’m sure. In addition to the daily resumes (I’m aiming for 5 – 10 a day, as when I first moved to B’lo), I’m thinking about talking a course in CPE. Career Education will balance my unemployment, I think. But the end result could be a chaplaincy.
I ask your prayers.
Stress on the old boy is not easy on the old boy. I’ve been kinda playing “Stiff Upper Lip” for the last few days including through our house-held Hallowe’en party on Saturday. I was wearing a lot of LEDs and also bartending. I’ve also been sleeping a lot. Sometime Sunday, hungover and sleepy… just up from a nap and nearly paralized with fear, I suffered a bit of a breakdown. Fortunately, Brodie was here to hold me, watch me sob, tell me things are sucky but safe and getting better, and to make sure that I was laughing a little bit when it was all over.
I am blessed. Very much.
Glory to God for all things.
Tags: confession, parish, personal, unemployment | Category: lifestream
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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how well you nailed the best of love in a storm: things are sucky but safe. blessings on the holding, on the sobs and the laughter.
I don’t do confession, so am ignorant, but it sounds a bit off to get to pick & choose whom you want to hear you confession. I can see wanting to choose a spiritual director/father/companion on the way. Are you looking for wisdom in the setting of penance or guidance? Help me see this one better.
the right work for you is ever in my prayers, and enough wonderful nuggets to cobble together in the meantime. It’s sucky indeed, but you are still much beloved, still held in friendship from this corner of your world.
The picking and choosing wasn’t my choice: I asked my clergy first and they said no. Then one said, “I can think of no one in this diocese to send you to.” I did find one, but it doesn’t help when a priest spends your time telling you “everyone” does what you do so it’s not a sin…
Here’s my own digging deeper on this topic….
http://raphael.doxos.com/2009/02/24/all-may-some-should-none-must/
It’s a long essay on confession that’s supposed to come out in a book sometime – although i’ve seen nothing on the publisher’s website yet. Read it here first :-)
Thank you for your prayers and love. If I end up bankrupt and homeless, I’ll appear at a food pantry one Friday evening!
This makes it clearer, and profoundly shocks me. It doesn’t surprise me that clergy in ‘non=liturgical’ denominations would not feel equipt to hear confession, but that it’s difficult to find Episcopal or Lutheran confessors…
More radically, it stuns me that any Christian would refuse to hear confession. I may have come along at a certain ‘moment’ in the Methodist church (mid-late ’70s), but we learned that there was no act more central to Christian practice than to forgive sins. God did the forgiving, BUT both the speaking and the hearing of sin and absolution were really important.And it was clearly a lay pastoral ministry. I’ll have to go back to the Book of Worship and see whether even there one made a distinction between lay absolution and that spoken by ordained clergy. ‘Those whom you forgive are forgiven; those whom you bind are bound’ Far beyond what turned later into ‘everybody needs to hear that God loves them just as they are, just where they are.’ Which is also really important, but different.
As I think hard and remember, I have heard confession, but have never made confession, beyond the general collective prayers. Interesting…grist for pondering.
I deeply see the difference between spiritual direction and hearing confession, even over time.
Again, you’ve given me much to ponder. For which I am (as always) richer.
Before you are bankrupt & homeless, you will call your friends for help.
prayers ever. and love
(if this post is less than coherent, part of the blame rests with the 10×10 character comment window…)
Leesy – you’ve hijacked my design geek! Does your comment window not look like this? (Click on it to see it larger…)
The original, full sized image is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwabbit/4058615196/sizes/o/