Drowning in living water?

My last post might read like the flailing of a drowning man. I'd been testing the waters for many years in my early spiritual life, then I jumped into the pool a few years ago. Soon--and some might argue too soon--after I joined my church here in Dayton, I began exploring a call to the priesthood. Being dismissed from that call, I struggled and finally was led toward the vocation of theologian. But I still felt like I didn't belong, and it was exactly like the first time I tried to swim. Only today did I realize that--my spiritual director has always been helpful!

When I was about ten years old (I think), I went to the pool at Bomberger Park, near downtown Dayton. I went up on the slide, and slid into the pool. I had never really learned to swim, but I went down the slide anyway. Into the water I went. Under the water I went. I flailed about, surfaced, and went under again. Finally I came up a second time, and I was able to relax and stop flailing.

So it has been with my spiritual vocation. Over the last year, I've been flailing about in a pool of living water (or the Holy Spirit). I've been trying to grasp for anything I could reach, to support me spiritually. All the while, the water has been there, waiting for me to stop flailing about, to stop resisting and just allow the water to support me. In learning to swim spiritually, I have to let go of whatever I've been trying to grasp, let myself float in the Spirit, and then finally take the first tiny stroke of swimming.

What does this mean for me? Well, I've been grasping for the ordination process for a while, first in trying to become a priest and later in arguing with my bishop about the process. While I think there is still something seriously wrong with the process, it is the nature of an institution. I really feel through this vision that it's time to let go, to stop flailing about, and to allow myself to be supported by the Holy Spirit.

I am being called to the vocation of theologian. That means I'll sometimes be at odds with my church--but if a voice speaks in the wilderness and no one hears, does the voice really speak? So yes, that may mean I'm called to be the outsider voice that reminds the church what it means to be the church.

If you're swimming by holding onto the bricks in the side of the pool, are you really swimming? The bricks form a home for the water, but they are not the water. Likewise, the church buildings and hierarchies form a home for the Holy Spirit, but they are not the Holy Spirit. Like the mystics of the early church, I am called toward the spiritual core of my faith, not to the hierarchy that forms its boundaries.

Realizing that, I also realize that in the father's house of many dwelling places (John 14), my ministry takes me far more often outside into the fog than even in the foyer. What a perfectly vicious little circle I brought myself into when I titled this blog... :)

A theologian, a centurion, and a voice in the wilderness

It’s almost like one of those jokes: “A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar…” Such has been my ecclesiastical life, if not my spiritual life, of late.

It’s bad enough that I haven’t found the motivation to blog in the last couple of months. But I’ve felt a distinct sense of being an outsider, of not quite belonging, in my church since I returned from Iraq.

My spiritual director makes a point that perhaps my greatest fear is abandonment, since it’s something that has happened to me a number of times in my life, from the breakup of my family (though at a very early age), to being without a spiritual home for many years, to living alone, to my current situation.

I feel abandoned by my church. There, it’s on the web now, it’s out there. I feel betrayed by a church that does not seem to care for its military ministry, denies that there is even a problem, and seeks to deflect all discussion of the issue entirely.

A little background:

Those who really know me also know that I once sought to become a chaplain. You will also recall that that particular dream died rather suddenly just before I deployed to Iraq last year. Finally, you’ll recall that my vocation morphed into that of a theologian. What you may or may not know as well is that my dismissal from the ordination process broke my heart, and I’ve been struggling to pick up the pieces since I returned to Dayton.

The letter from the Commission on Ministry (COM), from about a year ago, makes only two statements regarding discernment of my call:

1. “Our discernment focused on a possible call to ordained ministry in general, rather than a call to a specific context in which one might serve as an ordained person.”

2. “After careful and prayerful deliberation, we do not believe that further exploration of the ordained ministry is called for, but want to be certain that you have an opportunity to receive the church’s blessing and affirmation of your baptismal ministry, and to explore additional resources to enrich that ministry.”

And that’s it. After two years of discernment, pain, and work, that’s the response, essentially saying, “We don’t want to bother with you.” Not even any sort of dialogue or serious spiritual guidance, just a slap in the face after a round-robin interview session that took less than half a day.

I’ve since learned to be wary of any statement which begins with anything like “prayerful deliberation.” I’ve seen and heard it far more frequently in connection with bad things than with good things—and that in itself is a very bad thing. I see the phrase as something of a cop out; to put it bluntly, a turn of ecclesiastical doublespeak meant to distance oneself from the harmful decision one has made.

I have two major theological issues that still have not been sufficiently addressed:

1. I believe that a call to ordination ought to be linked to its purpose. What is a call without its associated context? We are not called to stand at the altar and look pretty in robes but rather to perform some particular facet of God's work. I have felt called to ordained ministry, not ultimately in the context of parish ministry but to the congregation of the military. Without considering the context to which we are called, the COM--by its very nature and design--is necessarily biased toward the typical parish context and biased not only against ordained ministry to the military but also against all other particular contexts.

2. The tone—and words—of the response indicate that the COM is not interested in further discernment on this matter at all. Without further feedback, and in combination with my first point, this indicates to me an outright refusal in this diocese to explore a calling to military ministry. As a military member, I saw this even a year ago as a frightening turn of events. The outright refusal to take seriously a new call to military chaplaincy (as it is a “specific context in which one might serve as an ordained person,” as the COM’s response states) makes me feel like the diocese has taken a stance to turn its back on those parishioners who have answered the call to wear the military uniform.

What only a few of you might know until now is that I’ve been emailing about this to my bishop, and I’m no closer to any serious attempt to do anything other than sidestep each issue. So in addition to a theologian and military officer (centurion), I feel a little like John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness who challenged the hierarchy of his day and lost his head for his trouble.

So now I’m left with some hard choices to make:

· Where does my ministry fit into the church?

· Am I called to live in the fog outside the “father’s house,” or is there a room where I can once again find a place to lay my head?

· Can I continue attending a church in which I feel like an outsider?

Well, it’s not much of a joke, but it does have a punch line…