Me

There's a part of Sara Bareilles' King of Anything song that goes like this,
"All my life to make everyone happy, while I just hurt and hide, waiting for someone to tell me it's my turn to decide."

Not that I haven't had my share of decisions but I spend a considerable amount of energy doing things I think I SHOULD be doing. And if you know me, you know I hate that little S word. Should is so.... so... shitty.

For a while, I held onto the notion that if I was perfect, then people would love me. If I had enough energy to listen to everyone's problems (and solve them), then I would have value. I believed that I had to earn love by being worthy.. and that my worthiness was external.

After all, what is the greatest lesson of high school? If you smell funny, look funny, act funny, talk funny, etc, then you are not worthy of ANYTHING. And let me tell you, I was awkward in high school. (Weren't we all?) College was a bit better. I could be nerdy. But then I was Christian and that was seriously outside of the major pulse of the honors program I was in. But I got into some women's rights things and did Vagina Monologues with that group. I tried my hand at student government again. I got my call to go to seminary.

And in between college and seminary was this amazing little group of people that absolutely embraced me for all my quirks and oddities. I could be bitchy at the coffee shop. I could be silly with the girls I was nanny for. I could love my indie hippie music, be book smart but know next to nothing about politics, love Jesus, and be addicted to coffee. My world was bliss.

And it continued to get better in seminary. Parts of me that got squashed in high school and college were suddenly embraced and encouraged. (Old Post references this.) My time in theater came back, my poetry writing intersected in sermon writing, and being genuine and giving a shit was celebrated. Having to know foreign dignitaries, being a perfect 10 (8, 6...), listening to the "right" music, and justifying my faith all fell away. Or at least they started to. I'd still like to be a perfect 10 (or 8...) and I still find myself justifying my faith. But I began to be loved without all the things that I thought I had to have. I even fell in love and had someone love me back. I surrounded myself with the most amazing friends and professors and faculty at seminary.

Then there's Montana. It is here I am finally understanding what strange standards I've been holding myself up to for years without knowing it. None of the elders care what I say when I show up to visit, they care simply that I show up to visit. None of my parishioners nail me (pun intended) for stumbling over the Lord's Prayer or the words of institution, and my energy levels are not being measured on some salaried meter of merit.

For the first time in a long time, I feel free. Free to explore this ministry thing and tape it to my skin and see if it sticks. To dye a panel of my hair bright orange. To chop off my hair. To write sermons that challenge people. To tell people what I really think. To be exhausted. To be energized by new things. To be vulnerable. All of it is up for grabs.

I am licensed to be myself to the full extent that God has called me to be. God didn't call me to be perfect. God called me to be me. I'm just unlocking all the quiet places that are still undiscovered. It's lovely.