Monday and Tuesday I worked on my letter to my parish to let them know about my new call and that I will be moving and leaving them. I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. It doesn't give them all the info, but it gives them enough so that at least a couple questions I won't be asked over and over for the next 4 weeks. I also tried to frame it as something positive, putting my spin on how I see this - that I've been asking them to use their gifts in the world and be open to opportunities God brings their way and I need to do that too.
In a way it's good modeling. It shows that I'm not just talking the talk, that I mean it and I'm willing to walk the walk. Even if it means picking up my life and all my belongings and moving across the country, which will put me farther from my family, not closer (however I can't get home in a day's drive now, so my thinking is an airplane ride is an airplane ride). Even if it means moving to a state you'd never been to before the interview and going from big city life to smaller town life. Even if it means getting out of your comfort zones. Because I've never been a Rector before. I have no idea what that's like. I think I've been equipped, I think while a challenge and something new that things will be relatively okay (mostly because I keep telling God that I can't do this without him and he's going to have to help me). But it's definitely going to be something new. New parish, new town, new ministry. Part of me is excited, especially because of the fit I see between myself and the new parish. But part of me is anxious, okay even at times scared. But that's the point. Don't they say that courage isn't the lack of fear, but acting in the face of fear? I'm trying to have courage and trust that God knows what he's doing in pairing me up with this parish. :)
So...back to the letter. It's written. Yesterday afternoon we copied it and I signed 375 copies that were folded, stuffed, and taken to the post office. Depending on the timing, some people may even receive the letter today. Most will receive them Friday or Saturday. Which means that Sunday will be interesting. It won't be a normal Sunday because we are having a special event and special service during our normal late service time (oh... which means my youth Confirmation class can't meet, doh! I'll need to figure out what to do about that). So that may keep people distracted enough that I wouldn't get as much attention as if it were a normal Sunday. But the 8am service will be as normal, so I will probably get some comments from them.
The tough thing is going to be if people start asking how it was that I found this position. What made me be open to them or start looking in the first place. I do not lie or tell half-truths or even omit information well. The truth is that my Rector told me that he didn't know if there was going to be money in the budget to keep funding the full-time position in the Fall and it might be a good idea to start looking around just in case. My position had been created by a special donation that had been raised, creating enough to cover about 2 years of salary and I've been here a year and a half. So I began looking around and Rector kept saying that things still weren't looking good after the stewardship drive. Then about a week before Christmas he came to me and said that the finance committee had met and had decided that my last day would be April 1st. None of this was shared with the parish. None of it was shared with the vestry (althoug I think a couple on the finance committee are also on vestry).
Rector and I have different styles of working and it's been tough to communicate, when normally I have no problem having a conversation with anyone or with a wall even. I have received constructive criticism, but not a whole lot of praise. But then I have received a lot of positive feedback and praise from the parishioners... the people I've been serving and ministering to. So sometimes I have doubted myself, am I doing a horrible job? But I trust the opinion of someone on our staff who's husband has been in ordained ministry for a long time, and she not only likes me as a person, she thinks that I have been doing a good job. She thinks that I have not received the mentoring that ideally I should have. She's very sorry to see me go, but is excited about what lies ahead. Okay... she knows the whole story of what's unfolded because I have confided in her and because of some other extenuating circumstances. She said that she's watched me go through this and has been very impressed with my attitude. That she hasn't seen me get angry or bitter or spiteful - that I've taken the high road when I didn't have to. That in her opinion I seemed to have embraced this as an opportunity and really tried to listen to what God was saying about what's next. That was a very nice compliment... I hadn't been aware that I was being observed.
Anyway my concern and hers is does at least the vestry need to know the full truth of how it came to be that I'm leaving now? I admit that because of some of our difficulties and the lack of mentoring there were times when I considered looking, but had I not been given an ending date, I might have stuck it out longer. Maybe I would have just been playing it safe where I'm comfortable? But I think there would have been opportunities to keep learning and growing too. This forced me to be bold, this forced me to listen. So maybe in the end, while I'm leaving a diocese and people I've come to really care for, this will be a good thing for me and for the people at my new parish. But still, if I were a person on the vestry, this is definitely something I would want to know about. And because there are a few who do know, I wonder if it will leak out. Because I actually found a new position before my current one was to end, people won't know unless somehow they are told. Had I not found a position in time... or... as I heard someone else once did, had I simply not looked so that the parish was forced to explain my departure, then it would need to come out. But now since it doesn't have to be said, it seems to me that the rector is probably planning not to.
I could be wrong. Maybe he will, maybe he plans to in his own way and timing. He's not a horrible person and I don't think that he'd be necessarily be trying to be dishonest. I think if he witholds the details it will be because he thinks he's somehow protecting people and the parish by doing so. If it were me... in the fall I would have gone to the vestry and said, okay the money in this fund is dwindling and we need to either figure out a way to put money back into this fund or lose a full-time clergy person. And if it's a personality clash with my Assistant I try to work it out, but if we can't then maybe it's time for them to move on... but we've still figured out the funding issue so that maybe we can bring someone else into a fulltime position, or we haven't figured it out and everyone knows what's coming and why. Of course that's easy for me to say from the passenger seat. Let's see what happens when I really am the Rector (which is about 6 weeks away).
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