when God speaks, part 2

I had to make another post because the first one became too long.

Last night I went out to the lady's house I am house-sitting out in the woods and looked at my denomination's 900 page "so you want to go into the ministry in our denomination eh?" manual.

I read through this psych eval where they seem to penalize you for having divorced parents and other stuff and analyze every detail of your life. They look at you and divide your life into different skill areas. It seems like there must be some kind of points system. I wonder how many points "dad murdered grandfather" would get me?

Anyway it only took a couple of hours of looking at this terrifying document to realize that there was NO WAY I would be able to make it through the process. I wrote to my pastor and told him I had made a mistake and definitely was not called into ordained ministry.

Then today while driving to work, I started to think that maybe I am called to something, as I believe we all are, but just not to this. I started to think about poetry and about all the beautiful forms of poetry there are. I thought about sonnets and about all of the rules there are for writing structured poetry. And then I thought about free verse, and how there are technically no rules, but how you have to have an awareness of rules to do it well. And I thought to myself, if my calling is a kind of poem I am more like Howl and less like the structured process my denomination has people take. And I realized that it okay. In fact, its kind of cool.

Later today day I had a meeting that was planned at the last minute with an advocate I care deeply for and respect. She asked me to help coordinate a new work study we received through the college to help with our advocacy for the homeless. After we had met with the work study we continued to talk.

Out of the blue she asked me the question I have been asked before, the question that used to freak me out. And it goes like this: "Maria, have you ever thought about going into the ministry?" Then she started to tell me about the Unitarian church.

I told her I was shy. She said I was NOT shy, that I spoke up at every injustice, that I spoke for the voiceless, the powerless, that I did not tolerate injustice. She told me I had the Spirit of Christ and that the world needs pastors that actually love and have compassion for people.

It was all I could do not to cry. I knew it was God speaking back to me, answering me in a way that I would recognize. This happened less than 24 hours after I had told this other pastor that I was not called. God spoke to me through this woman. I realized that maybe she is right. But how could it be possible?

I really am one fucked up, traumatized individual. I know that I am half crazy. But damn I know what its like to suffer. I want to spend my life trying to ease people's pain, trying to give joy and hope to people. But how can I do that when a lot of the time that is not my own experience?

I guess I need this kind of peace always in my life and its just not always there. I want to experience God more than I do and help others get closer to the kind of peace that I sometimes feel, the kind of peace that i know, beyond a doubt, is from God.