On Life and Things Related
 SO, I'M STILL unemployed. I've officially been turned down by four places and one job that seemed like a good deal (I made it to the second interview) still hasn't returned my phone calls. I have another round of places at which to apply and am using the fact that I'm a well-connected Episcopalian to the fullest extent of the law. My parents are being most gracious by assisting me during this period financially (which I am grateful for) and my friends are very supportive, as always. But, its the boredom that kills me more than anything else. 

MY PRIEST TOLD me after Church to stay faithful. And I'm trying the best I can: Mass three times a week (a lovely offshoot of the fact that I live within walking distance of the Church) and the Office as much as I can. This evening, as I drove over to Milligan to see a friend, I thought about consecrating my broke-ness to the Lord, which I assume is similar to consecrating your brokenness unto the Lord. I hope that this doesn't sound like trivial Evangelical-sermon wordplay, but perhaps it is. What I mean is that I am trying to find contentment in the-pimping-myself-out that is the application process, finding contentment in the overwhelming boredom, and in the fact that I am little more than an educated beggar right now. Coming to the realization again and again (with discipline) that I have all I need right now. That I have nothing to give to God, but myself -- wholly myself.

WHICH IS SHOCKING, isn't it? That's what I can only give to God and that's all I've ever been able to give God. Just me. Just myself. Just my brokenness and broke-ness. Being unemployed is a great stripping away of the non-essentials. Stripped away so all that remains is a beggar, shivering from the cold and asking for grace. Money or no money, job or no job, that is what I have always been. In the words of Martin Luther, "Wir sind bettler. Hoc est verum."

THERE HAS BEEN no great shaking of the fist in the face of God, no swearing at the Deity like President Bartlett on The West Wing. No. There has been none of that. For a long time, I have been freed from the idea that what happens to me is something of a judgment from God (the academics call this deuteronomistic theology). No, I believe that when things happen, it is the job of the Christian to look beyond the surface, beyond the pain (or joy) and see what grace is being worked in that situation. That somehow and someway, the good and the bad are all grace to us who are being redeemed. 

JULIAN OF NORWICH, whose Revelation of Love I've been rereading, wrote it much better: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well [sic]."

BUT THERE IS frustration. There is boredom. There is that great listlessness of unsureness. But I'm trying . . . I'm trying.