I didn't want to have to do this....
Ok. All together now. Line up. Be quiet. Listen up!
For the last time.
I didn't want to have to do this. I put it off for as long as I thought I could, hoping it would go away. But alas, no. Yesterday, we hit double-digits of people asking me about this, and so I've decided to address it.
Yes. Jim McGreevy is coming to my seminary in the fall as a M.Div student. Yes, he has started the process to be ordained. Meaning that: in the Episcopal Church, you have to go through a process. It is long, arduous and much like Army boot camp, only minus all the physical weapons. (We use mental, emotional and spiritual ones.) My process, to be approved to start on the road to possibly, maybe, be one day a priest was 3 years long. That was before seminary. It involved a semester-long internship, 8 weeks of psychological evaluation, background checks, sex-abuse prevention training, anti-racism training, and lots and LOTS of meetings. Discernment committees of various kinds, Commission on Ministry meetings, vestry interviews, discernment with your rector, discernment to the point where you hate the word and your eyes glaze over. It is long. It is thorough. The Episcopal Church has the longest process by canon of any Protestant Church in existence (though I'm pretty sure the Methodists are right up there as well.)
For most people, this happens before seminary, and is a pre-requisite. What it seems like is happening with this guy (and I don't know for sure, so DON'T QUOTE ME) is that he is doing the process while in seminary. This is not unusual. Your bishop can request this for you, and many people do this. If you go to a non-Episcopal seminary, it's not weird at all. For example, all the sweet, slightly wacky and non-decisive people at Union tend to do this a lot. So if it turns out, during the discernment process that you actually are called to something else, you still have a theology degree to show for it. Bonus! Extra masters degree to show for the insane amount of time you just invested!
And what do I think?
My immediate thought is that I don't have one. I wish I had found out another way, other than discovering news trucks outside my front building and watching a live broadcast, then having to answer questions, and read the front page of the NY Post with a photo-shopped image. But that's pretty minor, all things considered. Crazy-ass things happen on the Close all the time. Today, we have an Aeropostale photoshoot here, so I'm stepping over bored models all day. That trumps news vans as an annoyance.
My second thought is that really? We all have stuff. Granted, not all of us have hugely public cover-of-NY-Post level stuff, but we do, in fact, all have stuff. If you listed the damage that everyone else that I go to seminary with in a newspaper has done, including myself, I guarantee you it would sell. If you listed the damage anyone of us does from day to day, all the small stuff, it'd be amazing. But the point is, we try to do better, and at least we cop to it. We sit around, we hash it out, and we stick together until we've gotten it fixed.
So points in the favor of this guy for copping to everything. If he continues in this way, he should do okay around here.
For the last time.
I didn't want to have to do this. I put it off for as long as I thought I could, hoping it would go away. But alas, no. Yesterday, we hit double-digits of people asking me about this, and so I've decided to address it.
Yes. Jim McGreevy is coming to my seminary in the fall as a M.Div student. Yes, he has started the process to be ordained. Meaning that: in the Episcopal Church, you have to go through a process. It is long, arduous and much like Army boot camp, only minus all the physical weapons. (We use mental, emotional and spiritual ones.) My process, to be approved to start on the road to possibly, maybe, be one day a priest was 3 years long. That was before seminary. It involved a semester-long internship, 8 weeks of psychological evaluation, background checks, sex-abuse prevention training, anti-racism training, and lots and LOTS of meetings. Discernment committees of various kinds, Commission on Ministry meetings, vestry interviews, discernment with your rector, discernment to the point where you hate the word and your eyes glaze over. It is long. It is thorough. The Episcopal Church has the longest process by canon of any Protestant Church in existence (though I'm pretty sure the Methodists are right up there as well.)
For most people, this happens before seminary, and is a pre-requisite. What it seems like is happening with this guy (and I don't know for sure, so DON'T QUOTE ME) is that he is doing the process while in seminary. This is not unusual. Your bishop can request this for you, and many people do this. If you go to a non-Episcopal seminary, it's not weird at all. For example, all the sweet, slightly wacky and non-decisive people at Union tend to do this a lot. So if it turns out, during the discernment process that you actually are called to something else, you still have a theology degree to show for it. Bonus! Extra masters degree to show for the insane amount of time you just invested!
And what do I think?
My immediate thought is that I don't have one. I wish I had found out another way, other than discovering news trucks outside my front building and watching a live broadcast, then having to answer questions, and read the front page of the NY Post with a photo-shopped image. But that's pretty minor, all things considered. Crazy-ass things happen on the Close all the time. Today, we have an Aeropostale photoshoot here, so I'm stepping over bored models all day. That trumps news vans as an annoyance.
My second thought is that really? We all have stuff. Granted, not all of us have hugely public cover-of-NY-Post level stuff, but we do, in fact, all have stuff. If you listed the damage that everyone else that I go to seminary with in a newspaper has done, including myself, I guarantee you it would sell. If you listed the damage anyone of us does from day to day, all the small stuff, it'd be amazing. But the point is, we try to do better, and at least we cop to it. We sit around, we hash it out, and we stick together until we've gotten it fixed.
So points in the favor of this guy for copping to everything. If he continues in this way, he should do okay around here.
posted by Dajjimeg at
6:43 AM
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