Askew

The eighth anniversary of my ordination is looming. Each year I try to reflect on what I thought ministry would be like vs. what it IS.

This year I have been bummed by my recent arthritis flare-up. I was diagnosed six years before I was ordained, so I knew it would affect my ministry. Luckily, this past month is the most it has had me down in years. But it is still taking some of the brightness and joy out of my reflections on life in ministry.

On a less gloomy note, I have been chuckling for over a week about a visual that says it all about a career in ministry compared to expectations of the ministerial student.

We have a lot of meetings in my partner in ministry's office. Behind her desk she has prominently hung her MDiv and her ordination papers. They are nicely framed, as are mine, and in almost the same place I have hung mine in my office. However, she has some wall space around them and she uses that space to hang her to-do post-its.

Some time in the last two weeks the to-do post-its snuck all the way up the wall and knocked both her MDiv and her ordination certificates crooked. To me the whole image is the perfect statement on what IS vs. what we thought WOULD BE.

I'm thinking in my office I may need to put some of the post-its directly on the certificates. It would make for an enlightening prioritizing process.