What has passed

I was going to type up another thrilling entry on my stresses with seminary. But instead I find myself at the computer, my pups at my side, pondering how things have changed, how each of us experience hurts, pains, joys, ups, downs.

My ex-partner was traveling for business all day today so I have kept the dogs. I will again this weekend when he goes out of town. But I can't help but thinking of him alone in the bed we shared for years. Where is his head? Does he still hurt? How does he feel?

Lest my writing betray me, these aren't thoughts centered around whether or not he wants to get back together. On the contrary, our separation is healthy, pain has been involved to be sure, but it is necessary.

But I still wonder about him, especially when I have the dogs. Caring for someone goes so far beyond when you are actually with them and indeed when you are actually in relationship with them. But that doesn't mean you still want that person in your life. And I'm sure the opposite is true.

Sometimes I ache, my heart aches. For the pain, the separation, for everything, experienced on both sides. Hurts in life come with the territory. We all know that. It doesn't make it any easier. And although not easier, we should know when it is necessary.

Approaching a year on, it hurts less viscerally but perhaps hurts on a deeper level. If that makes any sense. But still, it is what it is. And was necessary and is healthy.

I will say I do miss him. That's an honest statement. But I can't imagine either of us being willing to go back to where we were.

And, that's ok. We all should grow as life continues to evolve.

I have a journey before me. I need to focus on that. I cannot forget love though.

Turning over

So I have been watching "Eat, Pray, Love" the last couple of nights. My attention span being as short as it is these days, I have a hard time watching any movie over 90 minutes unless it just absolutely captures my attention. This movie hasn't done that but I do like it.
The basic premise is a woman who realizes her perfect life isn't for her and goes off into the world to find herself. I am way over generalizing here, but I don't feel like typing out the entire plot.
I of course am drawing similarities to my life. I by no means have a perfect life. I have a decent one, with an incredible support structure and plenty of good things going on to keep me well on all levels.
And yet I feel this call to go off into the world (well, I don't know if Columbus, OH counts as the world, but still, you get the idea).
The premise I am getting at is change. Uprooting the old. Looking for newness. To make some sort of sacrifice in order to effect something larger. As Paul says, breaking up the old, hardened earth in order to uncover the wet, fresh soil underneath. I've always loved that image.

And in these days it suits more than ever.

As I root on my Cats in the Final Four, as I continue to discern my way, may we all be open to newness and change.

Kentucky-Ohio State Final 20 seconds

My beloved Cats are going to the Final Four! This is a clip from our win Friday against the top team in the nation. We followed that up with a win against North Carolina yesterday.

Contemplating life without my pups

As I begin this transition, it seems the financial side is overwhelming. And, it is.

But, the emotional side is trumping everything. And the only reason for that lies with my dogs. Yes, I know some people will say, they're just dogs. No, they are not "just" dogs. They are my family. My lifeblood in some sense. Creatures, yes, but creatures that have helped me recapture my sanity over the past year.

Going off to seminary will mean the dogs stay with my ex-partner. I am looking at housing options and for the moment the ones I can most afford do not allow pets, certainly not dogs of the size as mine.

It is a sad thing to look at them, look in their eyes and know my relationship with them is going to come to an end for the most part. And not because of my ex-partner but because of a conscious decision I am making.

Three years in the span of a lifetime is significant, but not huge. Three years of seminary is well worth me being able to fulfill my calling for the rest of my life.

But three years in the life of a dog is quite a long time. And who knows what shape my life will take when I come back from school? Will I even be able to see them then?

I am trying very hard to not limit the possibilities before me and that process involves not dwelling on the negatives. But its hard. Anyone that knows me knows I love my dogs like children. This past year has been so hard on me being separated from them as much as I have been. The last few months have been better with me being able to keep them and on other nights being able to go see them and play with them, walk them etc. But it still isn't even close to the same.

I don't think dwelling on this diminishes me, instead I hope it highlights my love for those close to me, whatever form they take.

Ultimately I know I have to make the decisions for my future life and it really is a no brainer.

Doesn't make it any easier though.

Postulancy

Today I was accepted as a postulant for Holy Orders.

Now, that in and of itself doesn't carry any significance beyond the fact the Bishop of my diocese approved me to move forward and attend seminary. Not to make light of the event at all. Not at all. A lot of work and meeting with various committees had already taken place. I was quite nervous meeting with him as I had never done so. I still held out some thoughts that he would step in and put an end to it all (my self doubting always making its presence known). But having been through various committees and all the processes involved, I think it was just a matter of him figuring out if there were any red flags everyone else had missed. So, I guess not, now it is a matter of determining my formation. Point being, having the label of postulant is a formality. But there it is. A very important formality.

So now my decision concerning the next few years. And it is an extremely important decision. What path do I take? Where do I go to school? That will potentially have a huge influence on my career. How will finances influence my decision? What is the best fit for me? What of my other life, i.e. family, friends etc ?

Right now, I don't have the slightest idea.

I had been holding off going too far down the path of being settled on my path before I met with the Bishop. I needed to see where he was. Now I know I have a huge amount of input into this. For that I am extremely grateful. It also means I have a ton of work to do before I meet with him again in a few weeks.

My journey has been one of joy and great mystery. And I mean mystery in the best possible sense. There are so many steps along the way that have lead me to this point, and, I have many, many more. More than I can imagine. The most obvious path as the bishop put it, the normative path, is to be a parish priest. But I also see a world of opportunities out there, a hospital chaplain, prison chaplain, street minister, liberal rabble rouser, heck, why not?

I sit here late at night, well, early in the morning to be exact. contemplating the hurts and losses in my life, the joys, the highs, the lows. The people I have known and may not ever really 'know' again, the friends I have had, will continue to have and the friends yet to come.

I am rambling, but those are my thoughts right now. I think, even hours after my meeting, I am running on adrenaline.

My life continues to take spins and spirals.

And for that in many ways I am grateful. Life is not boring. But even more than that, I am fulfilling a call that at times I cannot explain. At other times I can explain it so easy a child could understand. And I take heart in that last sentiment. Sometimes I think we need to approach life and our direction, as a child full of wonder. I know I try to.

Being full of wonder provides for some amazing moments and plenty of opportunities.

I know that is my state right now. I don't want want to limit myself.

I think for now I will wait for the oncoming rain and pray.

Someone holding my future

Tomorrow (well today at this point), I meet with the Bishop.

A strange thing to have your future in the hands of a single person. But yet that is the nature of this process.

So much work has been done. So much evaluation and reports. Everything I know of that has been sent to him has been very positive, some of it extremely so.

But the question that remains is what is my next step? Am I going to be required to go off to a 3 year residential seminary program? How much debt will I be expected to incur? Will the Bishop (as I suspect he is becoming) at least a little flexible in some ways?

I know of a fellow aspirant who just met with him and the Bishop told her she didn't need to go to seminary unless she wanted to. Wow. Now granted, this person already has a doctorate. But still, letting seminary go by the wayside says something.

However, I have BA, not even a masters degree. So I suspect seminary will be required of me. And in many ways I am very ok with that. I honestly think I need that. And I would love for a great, nurturing and formative seminary experience. I do hope there is some flexibility on how that experience takes shape.

Somehow though I am ok. Of course I am nervous, but I know I will be ok regardless of what comes of my meeting.

God provides and my path will be what it is. I've done all I can for now.

Solitude

Much of my life these days is spent in solitude.

I'm not in prison, but, I don't have a partner, I don't have a job and I don't have a wide circle of friends I go hang with. I have a few close ones I see when need be. Otherwise, over the past decade I have relied on my (now ex) partner for companionship. And he has a wide circle of friends so I became integrated with them, but now, not so much. I still think of them as friends, but realistically I know how this works.

So when I don't have the pups here, I am alone in my apartment, up top of the apt building, isolated from not just the world but even my neighbors. It is like being a recluse in the attic.

I love my apt, it is a great space. It is quite cool in some aspects. But I am isolated.

So, I am forced to confront a great many things. Myself, my future, what is, what was and what is to become.

Being alone with your thoughts, fears, desires, dreams and everything else can be overwhelming, scary, daunting, exciting, perplexing and any combination of those.

The reason I think of that is tonight I am keeping the pups. So my thoughts are all happy and focused on them. I have worn them out plus it is very late, so they are out cold.

I love these moments. I have lost much and been challenged much. But when I am able to keep Kaiser and Zelda, well, I feel all is well. At least for these few fleeting moments.

A good movie on hate and compassion

I just watched a good movie concerning hatred, judgment, intolerance and ultimately compassion.

Steel Toes

It is a good chance to view both sides of a given situation. And as much as you might despise the offender, there are times when you can come to sympathize with him. Which provides for some troubling thoughts.

And for me personally, I can relate to the idea of isolation and not outright imprisonment, but for me feeling a sliver of the same effects. Being in my apartment some days without a reason to leave. Yes, I can almost (note, almost but not really even close) relate to the idea of being isolated from the rest of the world.

Regardless, a decent movie to watch.

Did God have a wife?

I found this article quite interesting. And it points to the fact that we as Christians have to be honest about the origins of our sacred book, what went into its creation, the history and who actually wrote it. Not to mention the influence of the culture in the time it was written.

This is a great example of how we can have so many misinterpretations about the book we all hold so dear.

Information like this doesn't detract from the Bible, it just needs to be added into the conversation and discerned.

Did God have a wife?

My ex

So through all the madness of my life and what my future holds, I am now contending with my ex-partner.

After our bitter separation, we got on friendly terms quite fast. And now that I live in one of the apartment buildings he owns we have even more reason to interact, and of course sharing the dogs gives us a ton of reasons to see and spend time with one another. And I live just a few blocks from him. So, we have remained connected.

And tonight, after talking earlier in the evening I receive a message concerning my bathroom sink which needs a little work, and then another message that asked if I was lonely. It really hit me. My response tried to address it that yes, I was, but also tried to brush it off so it didn't seem like I was jumping on it.

My typical passive-aggressive self.

I don't have any idea what the future holds. I think (I hope?) my future holds him in it.

Sometimes my life just presents too much uncertainty. I don't know what to do or think some days.

Haiti - #2

I was expecting to be overwhelmed in Haiti. But I wasn't and perhaps it was because I had mentally prepared myself for what I was to experience. One of the most powerful experiences I was told would not necessarily be the sights, but the smell. The smell of garbage, of poverty, of waste. Thankfully my very inept nose served me well on this trip. Smells didn't strike me so much. Although it would be obvious at times when you were around people that hadn't been able to take a shower for a long time, it wasn't a big deal.
The first images I had of Haiti were riding from the airport to the guest house after it had turned dark.

I saw nothing but tent cities, a ruinous setting, rubble in the streets and people seemingly streeming out into the streets for no discernible purpose. It was Saturday night after all so people probably just wanted to be out and about. For a newcomer it was a bit bewildering.

The next morning we went to church at the Christian Community Church located in Citei Solei.

If you aren't familiar with Citei Solei here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit%C3%A9_Soleil.

It is the largest slum in the western hemisphere. It is everything you would expect a third world slum to be: corrugated tin sheds for housing, packed in one on top of another, no floors - all dirt, sewage flowing freely in the alleys/canals. Poverty incarnate. But, as we traveled through this area towards church we could see people traveling towards the same church. Men dressed in crisp, starched dress shirts with ties, women, especially little girls, dressed in their best white dresses. Admist all this poverty, dust, ruin and what outsiders would see as despair, the residents maintained a particular appearance for Sunday morning. It was a level of respect I noticed. The church is the center of the community.

When we arrived at church before 8 am. the children had been in Sunday school since 7. As they filtered out they swarmed to us. Lovely, engaging, happy, joyful. That begins to describe them.

And they were pulling our hands towards church, to the main service of the morning.

Haiti - 1st entry

So, Haiti was of course an incredible experience. There are so many variables and nuances I cannot express so I will stick with some very basic ideas. I hope that isn't condescending, but it is like with any trip/journey/adventure/mission etc, words/pictures/videos just don't do it justice.

First of all, the country is in absolute ruin. Compared to the USA it is anyway. In the main city where we were at (Port Au Prince), infrastructure was, well, nonexistent. Roads were dirt and rubble with very deep potholes for the most part. Downtown was somewhat better. There was running water, but only to be used for showering, never drinking. Any sense of government was really lacking. I saw more UN troops than actual Haitian or Port Au Prince police or security.

I was fortunate to stay in a guest house, Matthew 25. An otherwise oasis in a city of trouble and chaos.

Next to the guest house was a tent city. People that had been living in tents since the earthquake.