What Does it Mean to Wander?

After the imploring of a good friend asking why i have been so absent from this space for so many weeks, i am committed to share something now.

As my fingers brush over the keys of the board in front of me i sit in the office i share. Two occupy the space of this room. My colleague is employed full time but because of a difficult battle with long-term exhaustion is only able to work 50% time. My desk faces an inside corner of the office; the corner in front of me is filled with the shadows from the lack of any windows on my side of the room. So i now sit in a darkened corner as a part-time Youth Events Coordinator.

I say "Youth Events Coordinator" because my role thus far has been more visioning and planning. Save one weekend retreat, there has been little direct contact with the youth. As the choice of words illustrates clearly enough, in some ways this is not what gives me life. To a certain degree i also recognize that this is unavoidable; with a new position in a milieu that has not offered much outside of the seven (7!) months of Confirmation Ministry, there will be years of development before real change can occur. Yet, even as i recognize this cognitively i am still pained by the feeling that i am sitting in an office. An office.

Who i am finds the windowless corner of this office sadly descriptive of how i am currently struggling. My contact with the real people for whom i thought i was called to do real ministry are literally out of my sight.

I have come to this place from my role as pastor at a vibrant and growing congregation in northeast Minnesota. There i was called to serve as a pastor and freed to be who i am: a combination of a little bit nuts and yet someone who lives to share the love of God with others. From preaching, working with youth, families and seniors to listening as people poured there hearts out, i grew deeper into the understanding that to be pastor is nearly synonymous with speaking the language of the heart. The people in the congregations where Ann Christin and i served welcomed us with open arms when we came in 2003 and held us so warmly that it was with true pain that we had to say farewell.

But my understanding of the language of the heart clarified the necessity that we would move here...to Norway...because i want for Ann Christin to be able to be the pastor God calls her to be.

What does this mean for me? I honestly do not know. Although the admission may be too naked for this space, nonetheless i share that i have never been in a more ambivalent place. I am thankful for the time i have to be with our children. Working 50% at a job with already relatively few demands allows me to have much more energy and time to be present for Kamilla, Jonas and Sigrid in ways that i would likely not be able to otherwise. And to have this time while they are young...i can't imagine i will ever be sorry for this.

And while i may be okay in conversational Norwegian, my grammar and limited vocabulary can be honestly humiliating at times. It can feel as if i am a stranger in a strange land. ("A wandering Aramean was my father..." so goes the story of Abraham in Genesis.)

But it also feels as my call as pastor is lost in a kind of fog. The objective reality of the situation only further complicates this feeling. From the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) i had to formally request an "On Leave from Call" status. (In my humble opinion, the ELCA gets it right in requiring this, for the principle behind this is that you are only a pastor in so far as you are in active service to a congregation.) And here in Norway I have but barely begun the bureucratic nightmare of applying to the "National Church Council" to see what i will need to do to have my ELCA ordination accepted. There will most likely be more study required in the areas of Norwegian Church History and Norwegian Church Law.

Therefore, my place is both literally and sybolically undefined. I am not a pastor--because i am not actively serving a congregation--and yet who am i then?

I am wandering. And my soul wants to hold to the hope that whenever God's people "wandered" in the Bible their wanderings made them feel much closer to God. Before I left Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Virginia, MN i shared with a trusted confidant that i felt assured God would find a new call for me in Norway as well.

It's just so hard sometimes to wander...for when one wanders so much depends on trust...