Yesterday was my last day as Organist and Accompanist at the church I’d been serving the past three years. I left for a variety of reasons. Mostly though, it was not working with the commute and parenting two kids. And it was keeping me busy and unable to pursue the activities and occupations that I’ve been increasingly feeling called to do.
Next up: I want to foster deeply committed and vulnerable communities through art, storytelling, and mutual aid. No small order. Fundamentally, these things all touch on my spiritual practice-they touch my soul. Which is why I figure others want this sort of authenticity, too. I think churches try their best, but there’s a lot of feelings surrounding doing new things in churches, and I decided that being a church employee (and thus subject to the whims of a congregation) was not going to help me in the actual work I want to see happening in church. Or at least adjacent to church.
I saw a David Hayward (nakedpastor.com) cartoon recently where a pastor tells the congregation: “I want you to feel free to get really vulnerable with one another.” That hit me hard because I feel like that’s all pastors really know when it comes to fostering genuine connection and vulnerability. It’s not part of the training, and the necessary trust and community building just isn’t there in church. Anyway, I believe in deep, mutual community, and while I haven’t entirely given up on finding it in Church, I don’t think it can be fostered only within church. Largely because of the whole belief thing. Believing, regardless of what denomination, is sort of a hallmark of corporate religion and very few if any self-identifying nonbelievers are going to willingly go to a church. But authentic human connect is necessary for everyone. And in fostering those connections, that’s where I meet God. Or the Divine. Or the Flow. Or whatever you call them.
In our capitalistic society, money or some sort of support is necessary. So yeah, winning the lottery would help. But ultimately I’ve already quit my job, so it would just make this all a lot easier to figure out.
Actually an Artist 
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