The Long and Winding Road - Part 1

It seems hard to believe that it's been nearly 30 years since that afternoon on a Madison, Wisconsin street corner. And it's been nearly 20 since I tentatively approached my parish priest about ordination. For those 20 years the path has been complicated by transitions: transitions in the parish, transitions in the diocese, transitions in the church as a whole, and transitions in my own life. Along the way I've watched numerous friends and acquaintances start and finish the ordination process. Some my friends, only half-jokingly, refer to me as a catalyst.

Along the way I've been blessed by some incredibly compassionate, wise, and wonderful friends. They've seen me through the sorrows and joys, defeats and victories, and the every day, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other walk through life. I hope that I have been as much to them on their own journeys.

Going through a job search involves looking through your past experiences to see where you've been and position yourself for the next leap forward. For the most part, that means looking at your professional life. But you can't ignore the rest of your life experiences. Sometimes you find that something outside your professional experience brings you to that next job. Sometimes.

Over the past six months, when people have asked me about ordination, I've responded by telling them that I've been pretty beaten up by the institutional church during the past few years, and this isn't the time to be making decisions about this particular path. However, that doesn't mean that I haven't been thinking about and reviewing the labyrinth of the past 30 years of discernment both in terms of my job hunt. In doing so, it's hard to escape also thinking about the future of the ordination path.

One foot in front of the other, carving out the path as I go.