I mean, obviously, since ballet probably wasn't going to work out for the fat kid with bad ankles and incurable clumsiness, but I kept at it for 13 years. And swim team. You can only be the slowest kid for so long... apparently every summer until I got a job and all through high school. And the fact that I can't sing hasn't make me quit being in a choir... or the fact that I graduated three summers ago. I only kept going in band because I couldn't quit, though that was a good life choice, I think. And even now, I'm happy with this odd half summer sharing between Chapel Hill and home because it enables me to, in effect, not quit either place.
But you can't serve two masters. Either you'll love the first and hate the second or be devoted to the second and despise the first. You can't serve God... and money. (Oh, money! End extended Godspell paraphrase) This extends to other things, but not, I think, to serving God and serving people. I think that serving people is probably the closest you can get to serving God while living. I dunno, why don't people help each other out more? Why do churches need to organize days of service or reach-out days to get their members involved in the community? They're great events and I'm extraordinarily happy that we do them, but when you join the Methodist church, you promise to be involved in the church using your prayers, your presence, your gifts and your service (and your witness, but we don't have any new hymnals at my church, so no one says that part). And Jesus said, famously, to love one another and they'll know you by your love and what is love but service, but helping people? If we were meant to live in isolation, there'd be a lot more caves. And we'd all have epic night vision like I do from working at the planetarium because we all would have stayed hidden for far too long. Though it would be helpful, if you needed to get across a dark room with tons of seats. Anyway.
My point is, I think you're most faithful when you're serving. If that's donating food to a food bank, if that's going on a mission trip, if that's helping fund a mission trip, if it's helping someone clean up their yard, if it's helping a child learn, if it's being encouraging to others, if it's cooking a meal, if it's just holding the door for someone, you're best when you're helping. You're next best when you're thinking of ways to help, though I'm sure right now, BP would be most happy if someone thought up a way to help and did it for them. If we built a large wooden badger...
So I find it hard to reconcile going to school for another three years after next year when I can be out helping people. I know I can do good while I'm at seminary, wherever I'm at, but I don't know if I can make myself. Honestly, I live a very self-centered student life. Don't have a life crisis before an exam of mine, I'm probably going to choose the exam. Don't expect me to be cheerful or helpful after I've gotten a bad exam or a bad paper back either, that's my life that's just been screwed up, thanks very much. I know you need money, but I need this for coffee, it's very important that I be alert when I'm studying. Oh, I would be sorry for that mean look I just shot you across the bus, it's just that I'm trying to study right now, you know, since I'm a student, and I really can't take your loud conversation or your child's noise or the disturbance you just caused by taking too much time getting all your things on the bus by yourself. And clearly, since I'm a poor college student, I'm much more worthy of people's sympathy and lack of expectations. It's a nice life. Not in the real world, but not with your parents and nobody expects anything from you, yet.
So, someone tell me that grad school isn't like that, that you get a job to help pay for it and you're working for something and, even though most grad students I meet are pretentious and self-absorbed, they're not really because they're just trying to be the best they can be so they can get their next degree so they can start contributing more productively to society. Because I'm kinda tired of being one of the privileged few. It's wonderful to be blessed, but don't blessings come with the fine print that you should share them? You know, going to Carolina just happened for me. Everything worked out and everything that has been best for me has just fallen into place. I haven't ever gotten anything on my own that turned out to be just the right thing for me. It makes me hesitant to go looking for something that I want to do with the rest of my life.
Like go to seminary and get a position at a church. I think I'd love that. There are tons of resources in a United Methodist church- we've got different committees for missionary work, for relief efforts wherever they're needed, for people who are here and people who are far, and if the church doesn't have it, I bet we don't have to look super far to try to find someone who can help whatever situation we're looking at. And a church has a congregation full of people. I have this delusion that if people just hear about a wrong or an injustice, that they'd just jump on getting that fixed. I mean, you wouldn't let the air conditioning in the sanctuary go out for a service on a Sunday morning in the summer. Why on earth would you let a child go hungry? So, being able to lead a group of people to do good things in the world, all the while having the opportunity to help them learn about God and develop a faith that will be fulfilling and give them access to music and literature that'll be inspiring and encouraging, and enabling fellowship that'll help us all get along, I can't think of many better things. You can support things globally, you can speak out against injustice everywhere, you can work out ways to help fix the world, and you can fix the community you're in. It's this great mix of near and far, of caring for all. I'd love to be a pastor. Plus, after a while, you get to make people listen to you for at least twelve minutes on a Sunday before they all start looking at their watches. That was meant to be a joke. See, lame jokes! I'm already set!
Listen, please don't respond to me by telling me that it's all going to be roses and happiness. I know that it's tough. I know that I'm going to have to work on taking criticism... because it really seems like 78% of a pastor's life is taking criticism from a never-happy congregation. And I know (sigh of angst) that people aren't going to want to save the world today. They're going to want to save their souls, give their kids a couple of good extracurriculars, eat decent food and listen to at least an OK choir or praise band. They're not really even that intense about the choir. And I shouldn't knock church people like that- some of them, maybe most of them, have a heart for making the world a better place because God put it in them. We just forget, you know? There are so many things here to deaden the sounds that are coming down from heaven, sounds that give us hope and love and tell us that we can't possibly keep the goodness to ourselves. So we take our goodness, because we want to hear that bit, and we keep it. And I can't depend on the judgment of an admissions board on whether I can trust myself enough to give my goodness away.
Plus, I have this teaching thing, which comes back to the beginning of this post. I have trouble giving up on things and one of the best academic mentors I've had has been Dr. Churukian, who's in charge of the physics part of the UNC-BEST program. I'm going to have taken these education classes and I'm student teaching in the spring. I'll be certified to be a physics (and hopefully math) teacher. Dr. Churukian thinks that I'd be a great physics teacher. And you get to care about people when you're a teacher- it's your job to care about the students. And teach them physics. With a lot of astronomy snuck in. (Also, fun factoid, sneaked is the past tense of sneak, not snuck, though that is not going to deter me from using it- let's change the dictionary, people!) And Teach For America is a viable option, if I got in- they send you for two years (see, two years and I'm out in the real world and doing things and the United Methodist church isn't going to come crashing to the ground in two years... I hope...) to schools that could use teachers willing to fight the education gap. It would be out of my comfort zone and I'd be helping and living and making the world a better place and using my college degree. And not disappointing anyone. It's a great compromise, right? Right?
So here comes the begging for advice section of my blog/Facebook notes. What should I do? Because I want more- I want more out of life than what I have out of it so far (maybe that'll fill the big aching gap that this idiotic loneliness causes [oops, ending awkward personal confessional moment now]) and I want to be more. I can help. We can help. It just depends on where I should go to help. So, would you go along with your calling, because it seems like everything you want, or should you try to strike a new trail for a bit, knowing (read hoping) that you'll go back to the call before the end of it all? I can't lock myself away in a tower for three years.
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Pollyanna Whittier: [after Jimmy Bean jumps out of the tree and scares her] Why don't you come out of the front door like normal people?
Jimmy Bean: They won't let us. I can come out anytime I want with my tree.
Pollyanna Whittier: You could also fall and hurt yourself badly. You shouldn't play in trees.
Jimmy Bean: That's stupid. Don't you believe in God?
Pollyanna Whittier: [offended] Of course I do! But what's that got to do with it?
Jimmy Bean: He grew it there, didn't He? So I can climb it anytime I want.
Pollyanna Whittier: You're much too young to go around discussing things you don't know anything about.
[coolly walks away]
Jimmy Bean: [chasing after her] He did too! Why else would it be there?
Pollyanna Whittier: Shows you're very juvenile.
Jimmy Bean: You aren't so much, you girl! 'Sides, I'm something you can't be. I'm an orphan.
Pollyanna Whittier: [exaggerated patience] Go away from me, please, little boy.
Jimmy Bean: [mimicking her] Go away from please, little boy!
Pollyanna Whittier: [finally losing her cool] What is it you want?
Jimmy Bean: [suddenly all smiles] I wanna go fishin'! You wanna come along?
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