The Unemployent Rut

I've been unemployed for about 3 months now, but being an educator, it's felt more like an extended summer vacation.  Now that I've seen school buses on the roads and read Facebook statuses about going back to school, it's starting to sink in.  I'm reminded, as I apply for countless jobs and and go to very few interviews, that the competition is tough.  And with each rejection, I become more discouraged. 

My professional life has become the gauge for my self-worth. 

When did that happen?!  I've only been a professional for 3 years of my 25-year existence!  How did I define my own worth before?  Was it being a student at St. Olaf?  Singing in the choir?  Being a model student in high school?  Being friends with the right people?

Last night I was reminded of where my true worth lies.  The best news I've had in a long time.

In the mean time, while I keep looking for a job, I'm trying to fill my time with meaningful activities: assisting minister, leading music in worship, directing the confirmation choir, and teaching 4th grade bible study class at church.

What other things do you do when you're in the Unemployment Rut?

The Peace of Wild Things

Music has given me many gifts.  Today, I am thankful for the following text I sang in my first year at St. Olaf.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Join the Club?

Since Nick started at his new church, I have been thinking about church membership.  In the Lutheran church, at least, it seems like a big deal to become a member.  When I decide to become a member of a new congregation, I have to contact my old church home in order to Transfer My Membership.  I wonder if there is paperwork to sign.  I don't know, because I've never had to do it.

In the last two years, I have been a part of two congregations.  Although I enjoyed attending both, and am grateful for the relationships I made at each, I wouldn't have chosen either as a church home for myself.  I was only there was because my husband was a part of the ministry, and I want to serve God beside my husband.

This time it's a little different.  This congregation is a perfect fit for me.  And yet, I am reluctant to pull the trigger on Transferring My Membership.  What if things don't work out?  I don't want to become a member and then have to leave again in a year!

If I sing in the choir, serve for communion and as assisting minister, play handbells, attend worship and bible study regularly, volunteer for the church's after school ministry and in the kitchen- am I not committing myself to the life and service of the congregation?  Would my ministry be less meaningful because I am not a card-carrying Member of the church?

Some people become members of a church without thinking about what it means.  This decision is going to be intentional, made after careful thought and prayer.

That was then...

A lot has changed in a very short amount of time.

My husband went from unemployment to a busy full-time job.
I went from having two great jobs to having none.
We moved from the big city in Minnesota to small-town Iowa.  Goodbye Mall of America, Hello John Deere.
I used to shop at Target all the time.  Waverly is a Wal-Mart town.
We went from a small, "contemporary" style congregation with a piano and 50 attendees each week, to an over 2,000 member church grounded in tradition.

In the midst of all this change, most of which I am excited about, I am finding comfort in the familiar.

My husband.  Although the impetus of all these changes, he remains my rock.  I don't mind all of the changes because we are together.

I may not know about Waverly, but I understand it pretty well.  If my hometown and the town I went to college had a baby, Waverly would be it.

The people at church.  I've only met a few here, and God knows I don't remember any of their names, but I know that in their hearts they are loving, compassionate, and generous people.

Nothing has felt more like home to me here than singing the liturgy of my childhood and years at St. Olaf again.  I am so thankful that we are here, and that I already feel like I belong.

There is still some unfinished business: finding a job to pay the bills, discerning what I am really supposed to do with my life, figuring out my place in the church and community, but there's always something that's changing, or incomplete.  Tomorrow will bring its own worries.  This is now.