Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Colbert

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Transfiguration



Today is The Festival of the Transfiguration. As I prayed the Office tonight, I found a bit of transfiguration myself. I've been struggling for several weeks (maybe even months) with keeping up my prayer discipline. I'm not exactly sure why. It seemed too repetative, maybe. Or perhaps I just didn't really want to have to face God.

But tonight, for whatever reason, I went ahead and did it. And I found the image of the transfiguration to be incredibly powerful. I'd read the story earlier this week, and it didn't do much for me. But this time it exploded. It's the whole idea of that resurrection power, that end-of-times joy, coming into the world -- somehow before its time. It's in the world before the world is ready for it. And it gives me great hope this evening. God's transforming power is on the loose in the world, and for those who have eyes to see it, it is absolutely dumbfounding.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Long Limen

I'm feeling like I'm in a really long transitional period right now. There are several reasons. First, I've been approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry for Commissioning; but now I have to just wait for several months until: first, I find out where the bishop plans to appoint me; second, go before the clergy session for the final test before comissioning; third, be commissioned; fourth, finally be appointed and become a pastor somewhere. That will be on July 1st. So, I'm reasonably sure that's what's going to happen, but right now I just have to wait.

Then there's school. At the end of this term, I'll actually have conpleted every requirement for graduation. But there's still one more term to go. So I'll take some more classes, just waiting to graduation to come around in June.

Then, there's work at the Baptist church, where I'm still a pastoral intern. First of all, it's a little odd because I'm just kind of waiting for the Methodists to come through this summer so I can go back there. And I am kind of excited to be a Methodist again. Nothing against the Baptists; they've been great. I'm just very much a Methodist.

But it's weirder than just that. They've already hired my replacement, and he's my new boss. They hired a Transition Pastor, who will become the Interim Pastor when the current Senior Pastor retires at some undisclosed future date. (the Baptists are pretty paranoid about leadership changes) I the mean time, he'll be taking over my duties in Adult Education. So anyway, he's a great guy -- I've worked with him before -- but it's just kind of weird to have my replacement already hired. And he's my boss. And he's in my old office (I volunteered to give it to him) and I'm stuck in a little cubby hole with the Youth Pastor. They reassigned me to help out with youth until I leave in May, but that's not very long to establish report. So, I'm just kind of waiting to be done, in a way.

Which means that I'm in a very long period of liminal space. I'm anticipating a not too distant future, but still waiting for it to arrive, in a sort of no-man's land of uncertainty.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Senioritis

I though I was just suffering from a major case of senioritis; I've been kind of lazy. But it turns out that I'm actually suffering from a case of strep. So, that's kind of good to know. I have a chance of being better before graduation in June.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Recommended

I made the cut. I had a lot of trouble getting connected with my notification team, but we finally got in contact this evening, and they informed me that the Board of Ordained Ministry has recommended me for Commissioning and Probationary Membership to the Clergy Session of the Oregon-Idaho Anuual Conference. It's a really nice feeling.