Christmas Eve

So, here I am huddled on my couch enjoying a cup of coffee and West Wing reruns. I'm enjoying a few hours of "down time" before the craziness of Christmas Eve at the church. I'm kind of solo this year for Christmas. I have had many invitations to Christmas dinner tomorrow, and even an offer to spend tonight at a friend's house so I didn't have to wake up alone Christmas morning. I am most certainly blessed by people's love and concern for me.

I'm still extremely frustrated by work and the situation / environment at the office. I'm in mobility, looking for a new call, but the process just takes so long and I'm not sure that I trust the "process" this time around. Trusting it got me in the situation that I'm currently in, and while there have been many, many blessings that have come out of it, overall it's not a good fit. The latest is financial - the church can't afford two pastors and 7 (yes 7) part time lay staff. And, no one in the leadership wants to evaluate the whole staffing model (avoidance and denial are more par for the course), although we have said publicly that a pastor position may have to be eliminated. Sr. Pastor (SP) is one of the great perpetrators of the denial and avoidance and that's never going to change. He continues to be passive-aggressive and manipulative in that way. He won't (or maybe can't) be direct in his requests, or criticisms and it just makes life that much more frustrating for the rest of us.

But, I'm trying to focus on the good this Christmas season...the people who love me and whom I have grown to love; the ministry that I have done; the amazing people with whom I work; the privilege it is to preach, teach and administer the sacraments; the great joy to be invited into people's lives. That is a better place to be...I need to work to stay here as long as I can.

Merry Christmas! May the reality of God-babe-in-the-manger enter into every life.