[vocation] unfinished thoughts

I went to lunch+afternoon session of New England Annual Conference today.  Near the end of the worship service, the Bishop invites anyone who feels Called to ordained ministry to come forward -- and we sing "Here I Am, Lord."

I remembered last year Tallessyn and Michele going down and how I'd cried.

And singing the refrain this year, I cried.

Here I am, [God].
Is it I, [God]?
I have hear you calling in the night.
I will go, [God], if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

There's something really moving and also really resonant about that.

But as I told Carolyn as we walked through the parking lot: I can be called to ministry and not be called to ordination or seminary.

***

I'm reading Barbara Brown Taylor's book An Altar in the World, and in the chapter on vocation ("The Practice of Living with Purpose") she writes, of herself and the other clergy in her small town, that they all had something they did besides church -- being a volunteer firefighter, teaching Italian at a community college, writing books, etc.

All of us were committed to a parish ministry, which was our main vocation.  What allowed us to keep answering the call to do it, however, was knowing that there was something else we could do too.
    (p. 117)

Reading that, I thought about how for me it's the reverse -- that I have a full-time job that pays all my bills, and church is the Other Thing that I do.