“I don’t know how to love him”
plays in my brain
as I read this week’s lesson.

“A woman of the city,
who was a sinner”
and I stop to think
of my own sinfulness.

George Herbert asks,
“She being stain’d her self,
why did she strive
To make him clean”?

Yet I find myself with Mary
stain’d my self
not knowing
“What to do, how to move him”
“Should I scream and shout?
Should I speak of love,
Let my feelings out?”

On Facebook
a friend shared a link
“Thinking about ordination?
Think again”
and the soundtrack
of Jesus Christ
Superstar
swells in my soul:

“Yet
If he said he loved me
I'd be lost
I'd be frightened”

“Entering this ministry
will be one of the hardest things
you will ever do”

After fifty six years
I’m still trying to find
the ministries
I’m called to.

In our Baptismal Vows
we are all called
to seek and serve Christ
in all persons.
That is hard enough

But when and why
are we called
to be
deacons,
priests,
bishops,
or other roles
in the church?

The article warns
that for the ordained
“You’ll be made to feel insignificant…”
“You will feel a deep sense of loneliness…”
“You will have friends who will walk away from you…
“You will disappoint people…”
“You will disappoint yourself…”

Even just in discernment
I have felt most of this.

Another song from
Mary in
Jesus Christ Superstar
comes to mind.

“Can we start again please?”
As I wander down
this discernment path
when it gets tough
and I know that I cannot do this
alone
I long for the days
when I could blissfully
convince myself
I had not heard God’s Call.

Then an upcoming lesson
responds
“No one who puts a hand
to the plow
and looks back
is fit for the kingdom of God”

I am not fit
for the kingdom of God.
I have disappointed people
I have disappointed myself.
I have disappointed God.
I am not worthy
so much
as to gather the crumbs.

“But thou art the same Lord,
whose property is always
to have mercy”

The article ends,
“Maybe you can’t do this.
That’s okay.
Because God can.”

And Mary’s lyrics come back
“He scares me so
I want him so
I love him so”