I should tell you about my labyrinth tattoo. It is on my right arm, because I am left handed, and then I can trace it with my left hand. My youngest also likes to be wrapped up in my arms and trace it with her fingers.
I got it when I was in seminary, a year ago. It was part of a class project where we were assigned to "do something that embodies our spirituality". Two friends and I decided to mark our bodies with tattoos. I was going through a divorce, and months away from my first ordination, and wanted to mark my body with a spiritual representation of the twists and turns of my life in God's body.
My vicar suggested I get the tattoo on a different place on my body, a place that is not so public.
When I wear short sleeves, people ask me about my tattoo all the time. It is bright green, and people are surprised that its a "real tattoo". Sometimes, people ask if they can touch it, as if they are drawn into its energy. Once at the dentist, while I was getting a tooth fixed, my dentist laid his hand on it. I opened my eyes to look at him with that look that's supposed to say, "hey, I think you just crossed a boundary" and he immediately apologized saying that he didn't even realize that he was touching it, but he felt compelled by it.
I imagine that someday the lines will blur together and you won't be able to tell that its a labyrinth. Perhaps I'll have some poetic meaning for that, or perhaps I'll get it updated to be something else somehow.
Since I graduated from seminary in early June, I have been grieving the fact that there really isn't a ministry job for me right now. My denomination is small, and most priests in my denomination work other jobs to support their livelihood, and are not paid but perhaps small stipends by the communities they serve. My home community here in Longmont is not able to hire me right now, and I do not see when they will be able to. There are not other communities in Colorado that could hire me.
So, I've been applying for all kinds of other jobs: chaplains, non-profit, administrative assistants, 911 operators, and bank tellers. And this week, I finally got called for an interview.
I was so excited to have an interview, and called some friends to tell them. Most of them didn't answer and I had to leave messages. And several of them thought that I was so excited because I'd found a job. They couldn't believe I'd be that excited over an interview.
Thursday was my interview, for a bank teller position, full-time in Boulder. The pay is not great, but it has potential for moving up in the bank, and it comes with health, dental, and vision benefits as well. It is a step in a direction, though it is not the direction that I thought I'd be going in right now.
And..........for the interview............I wore long sleeves, to intentionally cover up my labyrinth. My Dad recommended that I do this, as a long time IBM executive he said he would never let an employee show a tattoo. So I covered it up. And I am wondering now, if I am just being practical, or if this is metaphorically where my life is right now. Cover up the spiritual part of myself, so that the rest of me can blend into the world more acceptably.
This job requires some sales work, offering bank services to clients. I interviewed with three people, and the man who interviewed me said, "you don't have any sales background. And I am thinking that with all your ministry background, you may find the sales requirement of this job ethically challenging."
And I replied telling him that really pastoral care work is similar to selling bank services. As a minister I concentrate more on listening than on speaking. I engage deep listening to build relationship and to care for people where they need to be cared. I invite them into new experiences that may benefit them in ways that they hadn't considered. Selling bank services is similar. It requires listening, building relationships, understanding clients and their needs, and then inviting them to try bank services that may benefit them in ways that they hadn't considered.
In my head I wondered, am I selling out?? Am I just falling into the consumer culture demands: finding a job, finding benefits, providing for me and my kids so that we have all that we need and more. But at what cost?
I covered up my labyrinth so that there was a part of me that they wouldn't know about. A part of me that they would never know.
Working in a bank is not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, though being able to pay the rent and buy groceries are somethings that I want to do. I want to work in a church, in a Catholic church, in an Ecumenical Catholic Church in Colorado. Can I do both??
In the twists and turns of my life in the body of God, can I get there from here??
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