A Return

Well, a successful return from a nice long weekend! At first I thought I would have nothing to do today but I ended up working on a picture slide show of all the events we did (or that I took pictures of) in Youth Ministry. It ended up being 6 minutes long. I’ve really done a lot since I’ve gotten here. My attitude is still pretty positive but today when I read that one of the “nuns” at the local Catholic School was leaving my heart hoped, just a little that there might be an opening for me. I sent an email for a little investigation. I don’t really know if I would want to be at the Catholic school here in town. As I’ve mentioned it’s pretty conservative and slightly backwards but I think my heart will always long to be a teacher. I still believe that I have a purpose here and that there is work that God is calling me to do.
On Friday I called all the households with graduating seniors. We are honoring our graduates and since we are a Newman Center we are contacting the ministry program at the schools where these graduates will be attending to let them know they are coming. One father I spoke with who is a very active member but whose son is not even baptized was so pleased that I called. He gave me his son’s college information. When I asked him about attending Mass he replied in a weary voice, “I just don’t think I’ll be able to get him to go.” He truly appreciated my effort. And to think I wasn’t even going to call them because I knew the son wasn’t active. That is the irony or perhaps the challenge of working in ministry. We just have to keep trying no matter what. More than likely the outcome won’t be what we expect it to be. Or we might never know if we’ve affected someone’s life.
In other news, I’m meeting with the priest tomorrow to talk about my position next year. He keeps making it sound like there is going to be a big change or something. He has an odd sense of humor so I can’t really tell if he’s just being funny or what. Much as I am challenged by this job if he said to me, “There is no position for you.” I don’t know what I would do. I am really starting to grow into this parish. My identity rests here. I can see me bringing my babies to church here and having our college students babysit. I was just about to write that I would be devastated by this. But, I don’t think I would be. I’d be sad, but I would move on. Not like when my position was cut at the middle school I taught at. I felt like I could have worked there for the rest of my life. I know I don’t feel that way about this position. I think I would like to be a part of this parish for the rest of my life, but to be in the same position I don’t think so. Hmmmm, something to ponder. We shall see.

Conversation

I know I said I was going to make a more consistent effort at keeping this blog updated. Truth be told I took a short break from my job. After putting in 42 hours in just 4 days I needed to get away from this building.
Today I returned to work in my office only to be met with a difficult situation. Not so much difficult in a “hard to do” sense but difficult as in hard to deal with. My heart is so confused right now. So my Campus Ministry boss who I have mentioned before asked to meet with me today. This did not seem so unusual to me as we normally meet on Tuesdays but since we literally have no programming going on I was curious as to what we were going to talk about. Well, you could have blown me over with feather. He had a somewhat serious look on his face when he said, “I have noticed that you do not seem to be happy working with me. What is that all about?” Whoa! I guess I haven’t been as subtle as I thought. It is true I am very challenged working with this man. As I’ve mentioned before, he (and the rest of my colleagues) are in their 50’s and I am in my late 20’s this in and of itself is a challenge. Another challenge is my boss just has a very different personality. He is very quiet and private, doesn’t share much of himself with others. He does not offer praise for a job well done. Last year was even worse, he didn’t even tell me what he wanted to done and then would be aggravated when I didn’t do it right. So yeah, I’m not happy. But, I have been trying so hard to just let it go, to just do my thing, to be myself. So when he confronted me with this issue I couldn’t bring up specific examples of why it is challenging to work with him. I wish I could have. Because this meeting was at 9am I’ve been letting the thoughts whirl around me head all day. I did tell him that I myself am not very good at expressing when something bothers me, I let it fester and boil inside of me which I am sure comes off as negative anyway. I just don’t know how to work with this guy. And I want to I really want to. He is such a good man. Here is something I emailed to a friend. This took place after the concert in memory of the religious studies professor who died (my boss’s name has been removed)

The way things are being done at (name of parish) , it’s just not right. Things don’t have to be this way. I shouldn’t be put in the position of low woman on the totem pole. I have so much to give but am constantly being oppressed and criticized.” If I do take this job am I giving up? Am I a failure? Should stay and fight? I don’t know if I am strong enough to stay and do that.
Then,(my boss's) musical group came up to perform. They played a song as a group. Then (my boss) spoke about a song that our professor loved to hear him play and his voice cracked as he told the story. It was a beautiful story and his voice cracked again as he sang the song for our professor. I was truly struck with a moment of grace. Here is the man I work with everyday who NEVER and I do mean NEVER expresses any emotion to me and never shares a part of himself with me, nearly crying in front of an entire audience. And I realized that he and I are not so different people. But he doesn’t see this. I just wished so badly that things could be different. That he could open up to me and see me and treat me as an equal. Not feel threatened by me and treat me like a servant. I am not saying he is mean to me and he always thanks me for the little errands and jobs I do for him. But I think as long as we are both here he will always see himself as the Campus Minister and me as the Associate Campus Minister. I don’t know if it is because I am young or a woman or what. Sometimes I get the feeling that he doesn’t really like me. I just don’t know if I can deal with that for a life time. I know that I have talked to Father about this and he just confirms that this is my boss’s personality. It just makes me so sad. Things could be so different, so wonderful. The whole situation makes me feel like I cannot do a good job within my ministry. I just don’t know what to do. Wait it out? Fight it out? Leave?

At that point I was interviewing for another job. But I decided to stay and fight. Or rather God decided as I didn't get the job. I just wished when we had this conversation earlier today that I would have been prepared. Maybe it’s better this way. I had let the past go. Now I can only change how I react to things in the future. I am glad he brought it up, even if it is painful.

I worry though, about how much more of this I can take. Perhaps it is just the end of the year talking but, I do seriously plan on becoming pregnant, sometime soon. I don’t know how my body will react to that. What if I can’t do all that is expected of me? What happens after I have a child? I try not to think of these things but I am a perpetual worrier. I must pray more, I’ve gotten away from it. I just so badly want a normal life, one that I don’t have to work so hard to be happy at.

Who am I?

Who am I?
I guess it is best to start with a short introduction of who I am and the abbreviated version of my journey thus far. When I was in middle school I was moved so often and so deeply my faith and minor religious experiences. My family belonged to a great parish in our small mid-west town. It was truly a community and a church family. I was active in my parish. I attended Catholic school my whole life and by the time I was in high school I knew that I wanted to serve God in ministry and religious education. I never looked back, I never questioned, and I never even toyed with the idea that I was called for something else. I just continued on full force into my college career. I chose to attend the local Catholic University choosing of course to major in Religious Studies with secondary education, minoring in Spanish and music just to add a little variety to my life. I considered a call to the religious life for a brief period of time but never really truly felt that call.
My college experience was unbelievable to say the least. I was blessed to be surrounded by teachers and students who helped me to grow in my spirituality. My formal theological education was a bit lacking but those four and half years were a time when I felt most intimately connected with God.
Unbeknownst to me, outside that college campus the world was changing. The human aspect of our Church was making decisions that would affect the faith that nourished my childhood years. The parish I had so loved and cherished was being closed. The schools I attended were suffering from lack of enrollment, yet I was blinded by all that. Until I got to the student teaching portion of my formal education.
I digress briefly for one moment to explain a theory I have on religious attitudes (it connects with my personal experience eventually). My parents are part of the generation that lived through Vatican II. They were part of the group that readily accepted these changes and the “freedom” that seemed to go along with them. They were married in the 1970’s where “chinga chonga” (lot’s of instruments) Masses were the norm. They had the theme from Romeo & Juliet played at their wedding and had a full Mass even though my dad wasn’t Catholic yet. I was born in 1980 and feel that during the time that I grew up our culture was still facing the effects of the free and easy 60’s and 70’s. Rules? The Catechism? What’s that? I thought we ditched the idea of Purgatory with Vatican II. This is the Catholic Church that I grew up in. Even my college experience was a reflection of this.
When I got to the student teaching part of my life boy was I shocked! Here I was 22 years old and I had NO IDEA that the Catholic Church was against the use of artificial contraceptives!! And that was just the beginning! How could I have gone my whole life without knowing “the rules”? If you are hearing “the rules” for the first time they sound kind of crazy (especially if the person you are student teaching with doesn’t explain them very well) and you might not always agree with them!
I made it through my semester of student teaching knowing that at the end of it there was a job waiting for me. Not a teaching job, but a job in the parish as Coordinator of Religious Education. Not only was there a job but there was an awesome priest who, I’ll admit now I totally idolized and had only dreamed about working with. He had been my high school chaplain and senior religion teacher.
I did love working with him and the other young gals that were my coworkers. But, towards the end of my first year there I was offered a teaching position at the Catholic Middle school in town. I so wanted to try my hand at teaching and gave up the parish position to teach. And I LOVED it! I loved it so much. I loved working with middle school kids. I loved being with young people all day long (the summers off didn’t hurt either). I loved the fact that we weren’t like the high school who hired nuns who wore habits and taught the Baltimore Catechism. It was hear that I learned where my theological knowledge was lacking, but when you’re teaching middle scholars you can take your time finding the answers and explaining things in simple terms. At the same time I was in a serious relationship with a wonderful man. I thought that this was the life! I could see myself working there for a lifetime, livening in my home town, and settling down and marrying the man I loved.
It was then that my hopes and dreams were crushed. After they had begged me to come and teach because they needed me so badly I got cut in the first of many teacher cuts, due to lack of enrollment and funding. I was truly devastated. My mind was made up that I loved teaching, I needed to teach, I wanted to teach, and I would teach no matter what it took! This man, who loved me so much, loved me enough to let me go and try out these new teaching wings of mine.
I moved to a town about 90 minutes from my home town. It was the first time I had lived away from my family. My first year was a challenge as I worked with high school students for the first time and found them to be more resistant to religious than middle schoolers. I missed my home desperately, especially my boyfriend. At the end of my first year, with a contract signed for the following school year my boyfriend and I got engaged. It certainly makes a difference knowing you are going “home” at the end of a school year. I enjoyed my seconded year more than my first; I was also working with middle schoolers again. I truly was sad to leave but was so joyful to know that I was spending the rest of my life with a man I was so in love with. I had no idea where I would be working. I was fairly certain that there wouldn’t be any openings at the school I had previously taught at, not to mention I didn’t want to deal with the messiness that was still happening in the Catholic School system. Then I heard about a position at the Newman Center, a new double position, two part time roles combined to create a full time employee.