December 20, 2009
It is the Sunday before Christmas. We attended church and enjoyed a marvelous cantata. We actually attended the church I hope to serve next year, as interim associate pastor. That is in process, though not yet confirmed. I am a retired pastor, clergy, preacher. That is not exactly like leaving a job, or I suspect like retiring from most professions. When being a pastor is what one does, it absolutely requires that one assume that identity, take on that role. Along the way, would-be-pastors have to convince a lot of people that they are indeed worthy of the title, office. It takes a long time to assume the identity of pastor and all that goes with it. Or at least it did for me. Of course, I was resistant, having grown up as the preacher's kid, never imagining my later clergy-hood.
The truth is, church has always been my homeplace. I have had many major changes in my life, and lived in a great variety of different places, but no matter what stage I was in or place I might have lived, I found my homeplace in church. And since I have lived far from my biological family all of my adult life, the congregation substituted as my 'family.' At one church where we were active, we even gathered with the 'congregational relatives' for dinner on Christmas day, having no other place to go.
So for any "strangers" who might be out there reading this one day, (which I doubt) that is basically who I am. Mother, first and foremost. Wife, daughter, friend. Later in life, one who is called. I am who I am. And even retirement doesn't change that. Pastor.
It is the Sunday before Christmas. We attended church and enjoyed a marvelous cantata. We actually attended the church I hope to serve next year, as interim associate pastor. That is in process, though not yet confirmed. I am a retired pastor, clergy, preacher. That is not exactly like leaving a job, or I suspect like retiring from most professions. When being a pastor is what one does, it absolutely requires that one assume that identity, take on that role. Along the way, would-be-pastors have to convince a lot of people that they are indeed worthy of the title, office. It takes a long time to assume the identity of pastor and all that goes with it. Or at least it did for me. Of course, I was resistant, having grown up as the preacher's kid, never imagining my later clergy-hood.
The truth is, church has always been my homeplace. I have had many major changes in my life, and lived in a great variety of different places, but no matter what stage I was in or place I might have lived, I found my homeplace in church. And since I have lived far from my biological family all of my adult life, the congregation substituted as my 'family.' At one church where we were active, we even gathered with the 'congregational relatives' for dinner on Christmas day, having no other place to go.
So for any "strangers" who might be out there reading this one day, (which I doubt) that is basically who I am. Mother, first and foremost. Wife, daughter, friend. Later in life, one who is called. I am who I am. And even retirement doesn't change that. Pastor.
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