Discernment Weekend Recap

My, it's been a long time since I wrote anything. I have to be more religious about this. First, there's the description of the whole discernment weekend. What a ride that was! I arrived at almost the last minute on Friday night, about 7:10. I found out later I could have arrived earlier -- wish I had. I wouldn't have been so frazzled. The Cenacle in Chicago is in the middle of Lincoln Park. An incredible location. It's run now by Loyola as a retreat/meeting house for both religious and secular functions. It's quite nice. The room was retreat house comfortable with a communal bathroom down the hall. It was fine. The only thing I should have brought was a hair dryer.

I got down to the first meeting as the penultimate participant. Everyone was in a huge circle. I was definitely in the older end -- even tho aspirants hadn't been identified as yet. We introduced ourselves by talking about what "we'd left behind." I realized I hadn't left anything behind, so I talked about leaving the 9pm episode of Battlestar Galactica at home -- the only show I stay home to watch. I was the oldest aspirant and our birthdays were actually published on a list. Oh, horror!

We were divided into groups and Elizabeth Molitors and I were in Group C. Rev. Mimi from St. Andrews was the facilitator of my "listeners," but she didn't remember me from being at her table at Cursillo. We did a get-to-know-you exercise and wrote questions in our small group for everyone to answer. We then each picked two questions. I got, "Are you a cat or a dog person?" I talked about Keiko and Sophia and how I had to get rid of them because of "my grandson's allergy." I decided to be right up front about grandchildren and age. Not hide anything in hope people would think me younger than I am. The second question asked me about my favorite high school subject. I said "French," and told the story of our class trip to the Guepratte, the French destroyer at Navy Pier. Soeur Jeanne Louise took about 16 of us in our school uniforms to improve our French with the pompomed French sailors, all about 2 years older than us. (What was she thinking!) We got there as they were finishing lunch: tomatoes, onions, bread, cheese, and wine. We communicated just fine and then paired off to show our sailors the city after Sister had departed. I walked around with Jean-Paul Blanche and then said goodbye to him in the Randolph St. IC station with lots of kisses and lots of disapproving stares. It was 1963.

We went to bed after a cocktail hour. The next morning we had breakfast and morning prayer, then a role play where an assistant rector had to deal with an irate vestry upset about their alcoholic rector and his hushed up divorce. I played an irate vestry member. In a later role play with our small group, I was the rector of a church with a rich parishioner who was responsible for 40% of the operating budget. She wanted to build and fund a new building, but others were against it. It was a fascinating exercise as I found myself trying to find a common ground and doing my best to listen to the issues of both sides very sympathetically.

Then, the visits with "listeners" started. I had a bye the first hour. In the second I met with the lay listener, Galen Berqwardt. I later learned he was a U of C Biz School professor. I was a bit intimidated by him, but soon relaxed and got him laughing. His questions were good. All my listeners' questions were good. They'd obviously done their homework and read my materials carefully. They were quite interested in what I saw myself doing for the church and where I saw my ministry going. The night before, one of the leaders had emphasized the need for tentmaker ministries. I could speak to that issue easily as I've always seen myself as everything other than a parish priest.

My second listener was Rosemary Gooden, who is an adjunct professor at Seabury. We ended up talking about 20 minutes past the time I was supposed to switch to my third interview. I just enjoyed her so much. She was interested in my dissertation and said she looked forward to having me in class. We talked about race issues as well. A very good discussion.

Fr. Steve Marnz was my psychological listeners -- a shortened interview since I had talked so long with Rosemary. Elizabeth told me he was a Jungian, which was just fine with me. He asked me to talk about a time in my life when I failed at something, to talk about how I reacted to it, what I did to deal with it, and how it changed the way I did things going forward. Of course, I talked about my divorce. It was another good discussion.

My last discussion, with Fr. Jay Risk, was the toughest. He didn't display emotion or let his feelings be known. He was the first person to mention my age and ask me what had taken so long. I told him I thought everything was happening at the right time, that it couldn't really have happened sooner (especially with my medical issues being cleared up). He said he didn't buy that, but I was never able to convince him. I also told him that, perhaps it wasn't the right thing to feel, but that I was really enjoying the day. It was downright fun. I also told him that all along in my discernment process, I had asked that if my age made a difference, I wanted to know. I didn't want to waste my time or anyone else's. Everyone said it wasn't a problem. I told Jay that if it suddenly was a problem, I was going to be really annoyed. I didn't mean it as any kind of threat, but I wanted to make it clear how I felt about it.

After the last interview, we went to dinner. Afterwards, we had one final 15 minute interview with all our listeners and Mimi. I was last. I came to the floor where the interview was scheduled and found everyone on my team except one person, who was in with the listeners. Her interview was taking a very long time. She seemed a bit upset when she finally came out. They then ran through the rest of the interviews quickly. They asked me where I got my glasses and my spider pin and then asked me my three strengths and three weaknesses. I told the story of the identification of my gifts in EfM and listed what others saw in me: Pastoral, Preaching, and Faith gifts. I was actually wrong about Preaching. I think it was Teaching they actually identified, but I was loupy by that time. We were all physically wasted as the adrenalin stopped pumping and we were almost done for the night. I can't remember what I said for weaknesses, but I remember something about paying attention to the details and judging people too easily.

It was almost impossible to go to sleep that night. I got up and found Elizabeth's door open. We talked for about a half hour about our mutual jitters and then went to bed.

In the morning, we had Mass and breakfast and then all 14 of the aspirants sat together in a circle with our chaplain, Fr. Brian. It was an odd situation at best. We had all talked about how the whole weekend had been like a reality show. Now, who was going to be voted off the island? Brian said he assumed all of us had a pretty good idea where we stood with our listeners. We looked at him in amazement. All of us were clueless.

They started to call us out one by one. I realized I would be last in our group to go -- the first person in our group was out for 45 minutes -- she still had not returned when several of the others had come back with good news. Only one person came back with middling news -- he'd been asked to wait a couple of years and try again. Finally, I was called. I tried to read their faces, but was unsuccessful. Galen started to speak: "Well, I've been asked to be the spokesperson for the group, to collect our thoughts and give them to you." My heart sank. This didn't sound good. Then he said, "First, before I tell you our decision, I want you to know that we all really enjoyed talking with you. It was really delightful." Again, my heart hit the floor. I'd given too many performance reviews sounding just like this. Then he said, "We are recommending that you go forward on the path you are pursuing." "OK," I thought, "What the . . .?" I said, "Does that mean that you are oking me going to seminary in the fall and studying to be a priest?" The answer was "Yes" and I whooped out loud. I don't remember what I said then, but for some reason they all agreed they should put me forward as a bishop instead of a priest. We had a good laugh.

When I came back to the room, I whooped again and we all celebrated. I went home and had a congratulatory committee that came over to celebrate with me: Fr. Matt, his wife Leslie, Peg, Georgia, Lisa, Priscilla, and, most lovely of all, Junko, Max, Eli, Pete, and Tony. The latter two were also there for the SuperBowl.