The West Wing is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.  I want Jed Bartlett as my president – someone who is smart and unashamed of it, idealistic and passionate, yet flawed and at times weak.  I want to be CJ Cregg – tall and leggy, beautiful, smart, funny, and well-respected by her male and female colleagues alike – a strong woman who is unafraid of her strength and secure in her femininity.  But Bartlett is not president and I will never be CJ.  Still, so many of the themes of this decade-old show continue to resonate with me.  Mostly, I just like the idea that there are still people for whom service to country and others is more important than self.

 

In the first episode, the president is having a bad time of it – poll numbers dropping, legislative agenda at a standstill, his staff publicly fighting with the religious right.  Everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong.  Except… the president has a bicycle accident – he runs his bicycle into a tree.  The bad week just went to worse – nothing is going right.  Eventually, the president meets with his errant staff to give them a pep talk – the end of which goes something like this:  “everyone needs a break from time to time – breaks are good – they help us rest and relax and make us better and stronger at what we do – well… break’s over.”  Short and simple – y’all have been goofing around long enough – it’s time to get serious about what we’re doing – break’s over. 

 

That’s where I’ve been for the last few months – on a break.  After five long years I finally graduated from seminary in May.  It was hard – very hard – to finish.  There were so many times when I did not think I could or would finish – even a few that I gave up.  But I finished.  The problem was that I finished for what?  With no real answer in sight, I decided that I really needed some time to regroup and renew – so when folks asked me now what?  I said I was taking the summer “off” to rest and relax – which I have done very well, thank you.

 

But now – Break’s over… it’s time to get back to this business of discipleship.  For anyone who may read this and has asked me in the last year what I was going to do after seminary and got a shrug – I apologize.  That was not an entirely honest answer.  About 15 months ago, during a particularly tough time at a job that sucked the life out of me, a friend asked me what my ideal job would be.  I paused just a moment, and before I even realized what I was saying, I said “pastor a small church.”  Now I had never uttered those words before in my life.  In fact, despite friends and profs urging I continually shrugged off suggestions that perhaps, I was supposed to be a pastor.  But in that single moment, I knew that was what this whole trip was about – I knew that was what God was calling me to do.  I knew those words came from my heart, not from my head – and that they came out of my mouth in a rare, uninhibited moment. 

 

So for now, friends, in this, my first blog post, I just ask for your prayers and your support… it’s a hard sale for a middle aged, woman, with absolutely zero pastoral experience (each one makes it tougher – the combination is really tough), but I truly believe that God would neither gift me nor compel me to pursue something God does not intend for me to do. 

 

I am not patient – I want answers now… but for now, all I have is hope.  The good news is that hope is everything.