My Calling

Happy Saturday!  A Saturday blog this week, because I’m heading into the city tonight and then off to Elcho Church Sunday morning for a baptism.  I will be reading the Gospel at the service and, for the first time in public, wearing my clergy collar.

I haven’t invested much in clergy vestments yet, as I’m not quite sure where my calling will take me.  I believe, as I have for some time, that my calling is to work with elderly.  In that capacity, I don’t know if I will have much need for the collar, or any of the other vestments, but I guess that time will tell!

Ordination is only five weeks away, so I’m starting to poke around Cobourg for somewhere I can be useful.  I have been appointed to the Cobourg Accessibility Advisory Committee, so I have begun to find a place here.  I have also left a message for the chaplain at the Golden Plough Lodge here in Cobourg.  The Lodge is a long term care facility and I was pleased to see that they have a part time chaplain.  I thought that perhaps I could connect with her and even shadow her for a few days to see what it would be like working with the people there.

There are two other long term care facilities here in Cobourg.  One is about two minutes from home, and it might work for me to volunteer there, but I thought it might be useful to work with someone doing that already here, to get my feet wet.  I’ll see if she returns my call.  There is also a long term care facility downtown that I can look into. But again, I would like a little guidance.

I am, of course, a deacon in training, and I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of nice ladies from the local Jehovah's Witnesses, at my front door just yesterday.  One of them made a comment that lead me to believe that women are not deacons at the JW churches.  I know this to be true of the Roman Catholics, too.  It is quite unfortunate, as I know that many women feel called to be a member of a church in that capacity. I have heard that even the pope is entertaining the idea of allowing women clergy. It will be wonderful if that change does occur in my lifetime.

I had believed that my gift to God was my writing.  That is not because I have any ideas of grandeur in that capacity, but more because my writing is intended to bring the messages and stories of the Bible to small children.  I also feel drawn to working with the elderly. So, I hope that my direction becomes clearer over the next few weeks. Can I do both?  I suppose I can, but can I do both well?  Time will tell.

I’m not planning to self publish any more books.  It’s just too costly really and I just don’t seem to have the energy to put into the marketing that I need to do.  I’ll work at it a bit more, but the fact that it is taking hours of work to sell even a few books, it seems hardly worth it.  Perhaps it is this realization that is going to convince me that I should be focussing my energies on working with the elderly.  It would be my hope that I would see some benefits to my time there, where  I’m not seeing them with book sales.

Well, folks, off to get some chores done before I head into the city. May God bless you all and may God be with me as I deliver my first Gospel to a church congregation.