At present, I am sitting at Starbucks in my pajamas. I mean, it’s possible that no one here
recognizes this. It could just be
sweatpants and a T-shirt. But I know I
slept in these clothes. I feel slightly
less than human, but that’s probably to be expected. I just finished my first year of PhD
coursework. No one claimed it would be
easy, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t
generally do things the easy way, anyway.
As I was submitting my final papers and exams, I thought
back to a conversation I had with a friend, in the fall of 2017, as I was
preparing to apply to PhD programs. Sitting
in Boston, I said, “I think I’m going
to apply to the University of Boston.”
He looked confused and responded with something like, “L… I don’t think that’s a thing.”[i]
Just in case you’re wondering, it’s not. That’s how fully unaware I was about this
venture. The following days, weeks, and
months led to multiple applications and acceptances with a final decision to sign
on the dotted line at Boston University (I was sort of close), which I discovered
is an R1 Doctoral University while sitting at orientation with my cohort full
of Ivy League graduates. I had to Google
what “R1” meant. I swallowed hard and
introduced myself and proudly proclaimed my affiliation with Northwest Nazarene
University, the small school in Idaho that I love. I fluffed it up with words about publications
and conferences, but I also realized I had either hit the PhD program jackpot
or somehow slipped in by mistake. I
proceeded to spend much of the school year vacillating between greeting the day
with exuberant energy as I burst through the doors at Back Bay station,
shouting, “GOOD MORNING, BOSTON!” and defeating exhaustion as I crawled back onto
the subway at night hoping to find a seat where no one would be touching me... or
at least to remain upright. There was
really only one day when I collapsed in a puddle of tears in a library study
carrel, but there were several when I wondered if I might actually be someone’s
case study… “Let’s throw a middle aged, Midwestern mama of five into the big
city on the East Coast, at a tier one research institute, and see if she makes
it…”
As a fairly serious daydreamer, I want to take just a moment
for an aside. Leading up to this
particular leg of the journey, there were some frustrating disappointments.[ii] Maybe
you read about all of them. But there
was always this vision… this hope… that one day I would “arrive.” I would post a selfie and stick it to the
world, announcing, “Here I am! See! This is where I was going to end up all
along!”
Except it wasn’t!
This is just dumb! I was never
going to end up here. I didn’t even know
“here” was a place, remember? And maybe that is exactly the point. I’ve been lamenting Catherine Keller’s “cloud
of missed possibilities” for a ridiculously long time.[iii] I’m not sorry about that. I do lament well, and since it’s something of
a lost practice, I’m OK with bearing it.
But there’s something else, too.
Sometimes we risk missed possibilities not because we have already made
choices that exclude them but because we just
don’t know what’s possible. I didn’t
know. Now I do. And it’s not what I expected. And it’s good. But I probably still don’t know everything! Year one… that’s a wrap.
Now here’s that “bow.”
As I left for the train station on Tuesday (the last day I had to go
into Boston for the semester), a quick stop at the mailbox produced a 5 x 7
envelope from Northwest Indiana, which contained my District Minister’s License
from the Church of the Nazarene. If I’m
honest, I’m struggling a little bit with how to celebrate this. I was beyond thrilled to hold this piece of
paper (dare I say an outward sign of the inward grace that is vocational
calling to ministry) in my hands. I don’t
really want to hear people say things like, “What? I thought you were already ordained!” or, “Wait! How are you not already ordained?” or even, “Well,
it’s about time,” even though I know the intense support and compassion with
which these words would be (have been) uttered.
Y’all, the honest truth is my licensing process just fell through the cracks
while I raised a family and ministered alongside my spouse and pursued the
necessary education to eventually fulfill this calling on my life.
What most people don’t know is that I drove over a thousand
miles to meet with the good people of NWIN for my district licensing interview…
that I slept in my van at a rest stop for several hours with my two oldest
kids, because the sleet was so intense… that I spilled a gas station coffee all
over the gas station (and myself) right ahead of the interview, because I was
shaking so badly… that I got pulled over on the drive afterward… that friends
drove several hours to meet me for lunch expecting that they would find me in
tears, either way.
Sometimes, it has been extremely difficult to articulately verbalize
this itinerant life and the unusual ways in which I have fought to live into
the call to preach and to administer the sacraments as fully as possible. Yet, one of the interviewers looked at me and
said (and I paraphrase, because it’s been months), “We know you now. You don’t have to transfer and explain this to
another district. And, can I just tell
you what I appreciate about you?” I
think that might be the point at which I resumed breathing. Even I
could not have imagined how beautifully this would come together, not in my
wildest dreams.[iv]
Alright, that’s a lot.
Here I sit, 20% of the way through my PhD, a district licensed minister
in the church I love, and rather spent. One
of those super smart cohort members of mine gave me about the greatest
compliment I could receive the other day when she said, “You’re the real thing.” Well, I’m trying to be less self-deprecating,
so alright. Maybe it’s time to kick
imposter syndrome to the curb (although I’m not done writing about it, stay
tuned and send publishers). If this life
it anything, it’s real. Next.
L.
[i]
On a second reading, I’m actually sure this is not at all what he said. This is how I would have said it. He just
admitted that he hadn’t heard of the University of Boston (which does not
exist).
[iii]
See Face of the Deep: A Theology of
Becoming.
[iv]
I fully recognize that it is hysterical that my wildest dreams are of licensing
interviews and ordination and PhD regalia (wait, did I admit that out loud),
but I’m rolling with it.
