lost in time

I've been blaming the time change for today feeling like Monday.

Then I realized it felt like Monday because I didn't go to church. I know two of the three churches in the Cluster closed because of early snow and ice. Haven't heard about the third.

I often tell people who ask why I became a priest that I knew that would make me go to church.

"Why did you?" by the way is a question no ordained person likes to hear. That's the question  you are asked hundreds of time in seminary--or, in a different tense: "why do you want to be a priest?"

I had a friend in seminary who answered that question by telling an unsuspecting lay person, "I was sleeping naked and lightening came through the window and hit me in my penis and I didn't die. I thought I had to pay God back."

This was at an open house for Episcopal lay folks at Virginia Seminary. We were all sipping sherry and being charming but everyone has a breaking point.

By the way, he pronounced 'naked' "necked" because he was that southern.

Another friend--a seminarian at Yale who worked with me in New Haven--once asked what he should say to the standing committee when they asked him why he wanted to be ordained.

Off the top of my head, I said, "tell them you want to be 'magic'."

He did and they bought it. He's an artist so he make me a pen and ink piece of art I still love based on wanting to be 'magic'.

I'll stick with "it makes me go to church".

That's why I'm still doing this priest thing part time though I'm officially retired and have been getting my pension payments for seven years.

I'm really not sure I'd go to church to sit in the pew. I never go when on vacation.

I do think going to church is a very good thing--so continuing to practice priesthood makes me do 'a good thing'.

That's a good enough reason.

Though 'being magic' isn't bad either....