Adventure: Chapter 3 - Priest at Large

Monday, August 5, 2013
Spiritual retreats

Chaplaincy

Supply

Rabbi/part time parish work

Consultant 

Ron says all that's missing is the book!

How does Adventures of a Priest at Large sound as a working title?

It was July 19 when the thought came to me that I was about to embark on an adventure. Since then I have to say I am not quite the same person I have been, or at least thought I am. I am more hopeful, in a general way. I've chosen, on a deep level not necessarily conscious, a hopeful disposition. I wait and look for and expect things to happen both external to me and internal. I roll more with the punches. My road rage is even decreasing dramatically. Now that makes me laugh!

(Photo credit Lois Keen)

Today I saw my therapist. He reminded I've been trained in Appreciative Inquiry, and worked it with a parish group during Lent and what I was describing is the manifestation of the appreciative way in my life. The unbidden thought, "I'm going home to an adventure," came out of that immersion. 

Appreciative Inquiry is a way of approaching life not as its problems but as its gifts and possibilities. In fact, Appreciative Inquiry is uninterested in problems. I know that makes 

some people uncomfortable. It's working for me.

What I'm discovering is that putting together a working life composed of the things I love and do well is possible. In fact it's no longer a hope. I'm doing it. Chaplaincy in some venue, whether hospice or care facility, or to newly minted clergy facing for the first time the reality of the church world today, is doable. Sunday supply I'm doing now, and I love it. Consulting with congregations in transition, a consultancy intentionally rooted in Appreciative Inquiry, is a reality. The new Facebook page, Lois Keen's Julian House Retreats is up - I can't believe I created it but there it is! Can finding a setting, parish or otherwise, to be a rabbi -a teacher, a guide through the intricacies of the spiritual life, one who leads others in celebrating God's presence in the stuff of their lives - be far away?

Once I accepted the adventure, reinventing how I live out the life as a priest in The Episcopal Church began to take form, shape, life.

Where once I worried how I would do that, and about how I could possibly manage it, I look, only two weeks later, through the eyes of my therapist and, voila, there it is!

Now, he says, the only piece left is the book. The church, the clergy, need that book.

I didn't tell him about these posts. Let me do a bit of work on it first. After all, these posts will be the core, and they need some attention to that end. I'll save that for our next appointment.