hermionesviolin: (older Cordelia)
Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical) ([personal profile] hermionesviolin) wrote2009-10-07 11:15 am

hot apple cider is back in season at Mr. Crepe

Tiffany and I met at Mr. Crepe last night. She'd had to bump the time to later because she realized she had a conference call, and then that conference call ran late (she handed me a note, and I said it was fine), so wen we finally did get to meet, she apologized profusely. She said she keeps double-booking herself and suchlike. I said my instinctual response was "That's why you have an assistant," but that of course only highly-paid people get to have personal assistants.

She said she actually hired a personal assistant once -- a Tufts woman -- but the woman wasn't very good at being an assistant. "I'm sure you're a WONDERFUL assistant -- attentive to detail, proactive, sees the big picture, looking ahead ("She's not going to remember that, so I have to do that") -- am I right?"

I said I'm getting better at being proactive but that otherwise, yeah, pretty accurate.

Tiffany: "So if you're ever looking for freelance work..."

We talked about work -- and how I'm still not going to seminary.

Tiffany: "When your first response to a sermon is "This isn't what I would preach," maybe there's a Call you're repressing -- that's all I'm saying."

But she also said that I seem really happy and fulfilled in my job, doing church stuff in my non-work hours.

She also said that my responsive engagement with church is a real gift -- "Maybe that's what you should tell people -- My pastor says this is a GIFT -- your sermon SUCKED."

The conversation was a lot of catching up -- I talked about the World Religions class I'm taking now and the one I audited over the summer and about liturgy and Communion and Passing of the Peace [edit: oh, and about Call to Confession, and a bunch of other stuff about prayer incl. pre-meal grace and conversational vs. meditative prayer] and how I've been really pushing recently on "What do we (say we) believe and why, and how do we embody that?" We got to talk for about an hour and a half before she had to get home to her infant. I would have preferred a more directed (agenda-driven) conversation, but I was glad to get to mention all the stuff I mentioned, even though I didn't get to get into any of them in real depth. And it's not like I'm desperate for pastoral guidance on this or anything -- I mean, I'm really enjoying/appreciating recently feeling really engaged and impassioned and like I love what I'm doing and like this is what I'm supposed to be doing ... obviously I enjoy talking about it with people at a meta-level, and hearing their thoughts, but I don't feel a need to formalize it or to have some plan beyond continuing to do what I'm doing and being attentive to where I might be being Called. And she talked about the visioning and discernment process CWM is going to be moving through this year and how she hopes I'll raise in those forums the kinds of questions I had mentioned to her (see above re: gift). And she mentioned the UMC deaconess option. So it's not like it was just me telling her all about the last few months.

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