Baptism?

Just spent a couple hours rereading and labeling my posts. I suspect that I've gone from no labels to far too many, but that's how things go. Is that an em-dash or a hyphen there?

Having some thoughts on the whole baptism/confirmation thing, due to a post at RevGalBlogPals.
I feel like there ought to be something to mark me actually turning Christian, but I've already been baptized and confirmed (and had Eucharist), and I can't get baptized twice, can I?

If I were a much more Evangelical type I suppose I'd call this being born again and maybe answer and altar call -- am I right about that? I don't even know enough to know -- but I am so, so not the Evangelical type. I guess being Catholic (even Independent/Ecumenical Catholic) is about as far on the other side of the scale as you get.

So I don't know. I kinda feel like the desire for something like that is maybe selfish, and I hate being the center of attention (and I'm thinking about doing what?). And I have no idea what'd be appropriate anyway.

It's a thing to think about, in any case.

Been spending a fair amount of time terrified lately. Job and money worries, the usual 'what can I do for a living that I want to do', and now the vocation and the worries about how I'm supposed to pull of that on top of everything else. And then I read a lovely post by The Kitchen Door. Please, go and read it all. Go on; I'll wait.

"How can we do this?" Mary asked how she could possibly become pregnant, but she wondered who would take care of her if she did, too. It can be pretty hard to be a single mom now, but then it was fatal. As explanations go, “an angel came” is pretty weak when you’re up against a group who could stone you for getting pregnant.

What’s her fiancé, Joseph, going to say? What will her parents say? Her priest? How can this work? Will Joseph still marry her? Will anyone believe her?

What will the baby be like? Will a Messiah be like the other babies she’s seen? Will she be a good mom? Can Joseph love this baby that isn’t his? Is there anything special she should be doing?

Is she going to have the money to feed him? Should the child Messiah go to special schools?

And more than anything: why me? Why not someone wealthy, powerful, or at least more experienced? Surely there’s someone kinder/smarter/holier that prays more/keeps house better/would know what to do with a baby.

But this young girl, this teenager, put aside her questions and fears and worries and doubts and said, "Yes. Let’s do this."

Compared to that, my problems are pretty small. Fairly unlikely to get stoned. No child to worry about (most especially not one that special), just the cats. Probably several people I'm going to have to convince of this whole vocation and a few who are going to look at me pretty funny (you've got a what?) but who's to blame them? That's about where I am still, too. Definitely a couple of people, maybe some reading this right now, who think I'm supremely unsuited for the task. Know what? I agree; but then, who is suited? We've all got our issues and our dumb moments and our unbelief. We're none of us perfect; we're all sinners.

But for all of my worries and my 'how am I gonna do this' and my 'Domine, non sum dignus', I can know one thing: God loves me. And so one way or the other, it's gonna work out. If He picked me, He picked right, and I can trust in that.

Being a conduit for the Word

This is why I know it's not just me making this whole thing up.

Not two hours after I posted my previous 'what do I do now' plaint I read this in a lovely, thoughtful post in Quaker Pagan Reflections:

I applied for membership in Mount Toby the day after I spoke in meeting for the first time. I'd been attending for over a year, but I was really blown away by what a profound experience it was to speak in meeting. It’s inexpressible to anyone who hasn’t experienced something like it. There are words that describe it, but like other very profound feelings, the words are just prattle unless you’ve been there. I felt stretched by the message passing through me, and a little wobbly when I sat down again, and—this is the important part—I felt like when my spirit contracted again, back to its normal just-human size, it never shrank back quite all the way. I was left forever afterwards a little bit larger for been a conduit for something so vast and deep.

That conduit? I think that's what I want to be.I still don't know how or 'what do I do next' but I think maybe I have an eye on where I'm heading.

...now what?

Okay, so over the last couple of weeks I've had a lot of thinking and a lot of surprises and I guess I'm pretty much admitting that I've got some sort of vocation, some sort of calling. Though said admitting didn't happen without a lot of angst and 'say what' and generally looking over my shoulder to see who They where looking at oh you meant me?

Yeah.

So I'm in a state of 'err now what?'. I think I probably need to do some looking around and seeing what one does with a vocation. I mean, okay, one can go to seminary. And then...be a priest. Or teach theology. Or do mission work. Or many, many things I don't know about I'm sure.

...of course the first resource I find when I poke at Google is a DVD entitled 'Fishers of Men'...for the purpose of 'actively invite[ing] men to consider a vocation to the priesthood'. My emphasis. This from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

When I go on to read their FAQ on priesthood, ordination, and the seminary I note two things: one, they're pretty profligate (date I say deliberately so) in their use of 'he' and 'man' and such. The second? That reading the question-and-answer about 'What is the meaning of the laying on of hands?' and 'Why does the ordinand lie prostrate during the ordination?' brings up such a longing in me...

I'm going to skip the whole discussion of women priests for now, because it's been addressed so thoroughly by others. And if there's an issue for me, that's not it; the church I go to has no issue whatsoever with women as priests. I don't believe they have any problems with me being bisexual, either. I suspect if there's an issue it'll be the fact that I have two boyfriends. How that's going to shake down, I don't know. I certainly don't have the theological knowledge to address it myself, other than to point out that plenty of guys in the Old Testament had more than one wife and what goes around, comes around. Which argument I don't think would get me very far.

In any case. That's not so much the question right now. The questions is, in fact, 'what now?'. Jesus said 'Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.' And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.

So how does one go about that these days? I have no net to forsake. I have a job I could give up, but then I'd have no money and it's hard to do the good thing when you're living in an alley. Besides which, the cats would be upset.

I don't feel the need to figure this out right away. I've got time. I've got other things to worry about, too. Which I feel bad about -- what's the lack of sufficient job compared to a calling from God? -- but again, I need to have my life in order before I can go helping others.

So I guess I pray, and I think about things; I talk to people, and do some reading. If any of the many clergy out there who read this have a 'vocation story' you've posted to your blog, I'd love a link; reading about other people's experiences has helped me a lot in dealing with mine.

Extended whinging

Tonight's task? Combatting depression with jobhunting. Fair warning: this is long, whiny, and doesn't have a happy ending.

Working for Linette, even with hypothetical extra income from selling my things, just isn't ever going to be enough. I need a steady income, and I need health insurance. It doesn't seem like that's too much to ask for, does it?

I've had a hard time pushing myself into doing anything about it, though. Did a bit of jobhunting last week, then nothing this week until just now. I get up in the morning...around noon...and then do not a lot until three...at which point I go to work until seven...there to fail to do much anything useful. Maybe make a bit of jewelry, but then I stop because I don't have a good clasp and I can't afford to buy more. Or today, when I ran out of wire: a twenty-dollar purchase. Not a lot? Yeah, but that twenty dollars will also buy a month's worth of cat food and that's the point I'm at.

Along similar lines, today I (again) took the Ecological Footprint Quiz and discovered that, even with all I've been doing to try to reduce my impact on the earth, I'm still up at almost five earths (the number of planet earths we'd need to support everyone if they lived like I do). Spent a while afterwards vaccilating between whinging about 'look how much I do, how can I do more' and thinking about how much more I could do if I had just a bit more money to spend. Organic food? Love to! Local food? Sure! Better mileage car? That'd be brilliant! Right now I've got peanut butter and English muffins and a tomato every once in a while, and I can barely afford to gas up my car much less buy a hybrid. Ride my bike? Sure! Once I get the tire replaced. Again with the money.

It just feels so futile. Yes, we have a garden, and it's organic to boot, and we're going to plant as much stuff in there as will fit. And how much difference will that make, in the end? Yes, the farmer's market opens this weekend and yeah, I'll buy what I can afford there instead of at Safeway. Won't be a lot. Right now, I'm only feeding myself breakfast and lunch; for dinner I'm depending on Tim and Ray, who aren't exactly flush right now, themselves. They're trying to buy better food as well but they're also getting to the point of 'I can buy organic food, but the cats will starve'.

I did, finally, find a place that's willing to put some of my jewelry out for consignment today. And yes, this is a good thing, but it's not the good kind of consignment: they keep half of what your stuff sells for, instead of the ten or twenty percent a decent artists' coop or other consignment place will charge. So to actually cover my expenses and even a fraction of my time I'll have to price things high enough that likely, nobody will buy them.

I asked my boss if I could work Sunday instead of Saturday this week (thus losing three hours of pay) so I could go to the local SCA event and maybe sell some stuff there. Well, it turns out that the way I get out of work Saturday is for Linette to find someone else to work for me instead of switching, thus losing me eight hours of work, and on top of that there's no room for merchants at the event anyway. I sent an email to my boss, hoping to head her off before she finds someone to cover my shift, but we'll see.

And it's hard to want to go into work anyway, knowing that while it's a bit of pay, it's not enough. Right now, yeah, I'm paying my rent and my bills with it. Everything else, and I mean everything -- gas, what food I buy, my various (and expensive) asthma meds, Chocolate's trip to the vet for a urinary tract infection (not stones, thank God, but still a two hundred and fifty dollar visit) -- is going on my credit cards. Tim said to me last week 'you're mortgaging your future' and ever since then I haven't been able to stop panicking.

Add to that my thinking about the priesthood (there, I said the word). Jesus said, put down your nets and follow me. I'd love to; but I signed a lease...and there are the cats to take care of...and how can I serve God living under a bridge anyway? People would have to take care of me, and how does that make anything better? So I try to serve God as I can, but I have so many other things in my mind right now...I know I should have faith, but it's hard. It's so hard.

I finally got off my butt to send out a bunch of resumes, at the very least. And I have a few places to call tomorrow; and while I was out today I found out a couple of other places I could maybe get to take my stuff. So there's maybe hope there. And now I'm going to go make dinner, and stick my head in a book until it's time to go to bed.

The weekend, and a lot of babbling.

When we left our hero, she was about to go find a local church, therein to kneel and pray and in general try to come to terms with my baptism and confirmation. With my belief, or lack of same, or unsureness about it, or...whatever state I'm in, which I'm not sure about. To pray for what I need to become who I need to be.

What I hadn't considered was the difficulty of finding an open church at seven on a Saturday evening. Apparently they lock the things these days, which I have to admit surprised me, though it shouldn't. People are as likely to steal things out of a church as anywhere else, after all.

I tried the one closest to work, and then another down the street; both were locked up tight. So I sat down on the back porch of the second one, where if I leaned up I could look in the window and at least see the altar, and got started.

The prayer was for transformation -- Let us look within ourselves to see that which needs to be transformed so that we may become the people God has called us to be, and fitted to perform the work He has called us to do. I hadn't thought at all, ahead of time, about what that might be; and as I finished the prayer and started to think, the thing that came to my mind was 'faith'. I need faith, and that's what I prayed for.

And wound up, to my total surprise, sobbing. Bawling my eyes out. I don't cry too much, see, as I mentioned recently. So, yeah, erm. What?

And what kept going through my mind was 'I wanted to go inside, but the door was locked.'. The door was locked. I wound up kneeling in front of the back door of the church, crying, and repeating 'I only ever wanted to come inside, I only ever wanted to come inside'.

This is the point where, if this were a Chicken Soup story or something in Reader's Digest, there would have been a click, and when I tried it again, the door was mysteriously unlocked; or the kindly minister came up, held me while I cried, and unlocked the door for me. This is real life, so none of that happened (and I did try the door again, just in case). What happened was I cried for a while, and then stopped, wiped my eyes, and said okay, this is what I have, now let's see what I can do with it.

I prayed the closing prayer and went back to the car. Blew my nose a couple times, called Tim to let him know I was on my way and he could start the pasta. He asked if I could pick up wine to go with dinner; I told him I had some at my place already, and that I'd grab it before I came over. I'd kept my voice level up until then, and the crying had mostly retreated, but I almost burst into tears again -- at the image, fleeting but powerful, of my hands, pouring wine.

By the time came to actually pour wine I was fine and the whole thing was retreating into fuzzy memory. Dinner and wine helps with that sort of thing, too. I didn't get a chance to tell Tim about it that night, so I locked it all away and figured I'd just see what happened at church the next morning.

--

Got not-quite-enough sleep, decided to eat breakfast because it was going to be late by the time I got out of church and I didn't plan to go up for communion anyway. Changed what I was going to wear five times, settled on a simple black linen skirt and a light blue sweater. Got the directions and drove.

The congregation shares the building with the local Lutheran church, who has their services at ten-thirty. Usually there's a pretty good gap between the two, but the Lutheran congregation had two baptisms that day and ran late. So I milled around with people heading out and people heading in, confused and feeling very out of place, quietly hoping someone would come up and say something to me. Eventually someone did -- an older woman, part of the Lutheran congregation, who asked me if I was with Light of Christ and apologized for their service taking so long. I hesitated a bit before I answered her question. I don't know if I'm with Light of Christ yet, but simpler to say 'yes, I am' than to launch into explanations. And besides which, I had an image of Peter denying Jesus three times and not wanting to do the same.

Odd...

Mass was...I don't know. I guess I want a little more joy in my worship. There was music, a two-member choir, a few members of the congregation who specifically spread out around the room to support the (rather quiet) singing. But it was still quiet, the choir looking more businesslike than joyous, the lady who read the lessons solemn. Perhaps it's just that they're small. Maybe they got thrown off by the other congregation running late. I don't know.

The gospel reading was strong, and I liked the sermon. And then communion. I like how they do it; everyone goes up front and makes a circle around the priest while he does his thing (sorry, tired and not remembering of proper words). One of the ladies who greeted me waved me up, but didn't push when I shook my head a little. I appreciate both. I did wish that I felt as if I could, but...I didn't feel that way. I wanted to go up. I just didn't feel right doing so.

After Mass I asked to talk to the priest when he had a moment. He said yes, of course, cos that's his job; on the way to his office we talked a little about light stuff, where do I live, he's moving up here soon with his family, they'll be moving close to me...

And when we got to his office, I didn't know how to say what I wanted to say. I finally stumbled through it all, the baptism and confirmation, the fact that I didn't believe but said I did anyway, that that I didn't feel right coming up for communion because of it. That I wasn't sure that they counted.

He talked about the Sacraments, told me that for all we try to understand them, they're a mystery, we can't entirely understand how God works. Did they count? Only God knows, but it was his belief that surely they must. He told me about his confirmation, that the only reason he did it was so he could stop going to CCD. I chuckled a bit; sometime later, I'm sure, I'll ask him how he came to the priesthood.

He said that of course I'd've been welcome at communion, and I reassured him that I didn't feel that anyone there would have kept me from it -- it was something internal to me, something I had to deal with before I felt like I could receive. Something I had to make right, and I wasn't sure how.

He smiled at me. "I don't know how this will work for you," he said, "and I don't mean to push, but I think you just did."

I thought about that one for a while. And, you know? I think he's right. Confession is a powerful thing if done right, and though this wasn't a formal confession (I don't even know if the ECC does them) I think it helped me a lot.

So...that was that. No huge revelations, but I did leave with a good feeling about things.

--

Gardening that afternoon, and then dinner, and finally got to telling Tim about it all pretty late Sunday night. Told him about 'I wanted to go inside, but the door was locked' and 'I only ever wanted to come inside' and my hands, pouring wine. Told him about mass and how I might change things there if I could. About talking to the priest. And the whole time he has this little smile on his face.

Told him about the dream I had a few weeks ago and blamed on Mother Laura, in which I got ordained. Still that little smile. Musing, now -- about belief, about faith. He tells me that Ray's nervous about my whole turn towards religion, worried he'll say something wrong and offend me. That Tim's not so worried about Ray offending me as he is that the Awakening that Ray had planned for my Mage character might just mess with my head, given my fairly fragile mental state when it comes to religion.

I'll skip the details cos I don't figure most of you do any roleplaying and simply say that what Ray had planned for my character was something involving archangels. I chuckled and told Tim, hey, I might not be entirely sure about this whole God and Jesus thing quite yet, but I know where I stand with Michael. I'm good with the archangels; no danger there. He chuckled and said, yeah. That's because you have faith.

I think I blushed; I know I threatened to whack him on the head. But whatever; I guess he's right though I certainly never expected anything like faith to appear in my life. More musings; I told him about Mother Laura confessing to me in comments on another post, and my discomfort with that -- not with her telling me about a thing she felt she'd done wrong, just with the format of it. I can't hear confession, I'm not... but I'd always been good at counseling people, a good listener; it's always been one of the things I do. Never felt any urge to go into social work or become a psychologist or anything much like, though, and what else is there to do for someone who's a listener at heart?

Still smiling. Verging on a smirk.

What do you think, I asked him (and I blush to even type it here; it seems so presumptuous), this is leading to? I dream of ordination, of pouring wine; am I heading towards...I couldn't say it then, I can't type it now. It just feels so improbable...

Pretty much, he said, he's been waiting a few years for me to figure it out.

I really did almost hit him that time.

Right now? Really have no idea where, if anywhere, this is going. It might fade in a couple weeks, never to be thought of again (though Tim expressed his opinion on the likelihood of that). I figure I'll find out as I go, and I'm okay with that. I'm...serene, heading into the unknown. It's been a long, long time since I've felt that way. It's gonna be a good journey.