Is it who you are?

I got to meet my bishop last night. This is not the first time I have met a bishop nor an archbishop. For a while, I even rented (Memory eternal!) Archbishop Job's A-frame. This bishop, however, is much different for me as I have been desiring the chance to meet him since he was consecrated.

He was elected to be bishop of my diocese at a time when the culture at large was riding an emotional wave of general good will and hope for the future. This was largely driven by the election of President Obama. When my bishop was elected, I felt what I assume most people who voted for Mr. Obama felt as well. There was a general upsurge of feeling that here is a person whose presence will wipe away the sins of the past and help us forge ahead into a future we have been denied for too long.

The difference was that my belief is that the laity and the presbytery were the vehicle for electing our bishop to heal wounds created by his forebears. Also, this was a man who uncompromisingly and blatantly wishes to advance the cause of Christ in the hearts of the faithful and in the culture at large. This is what I tell myself whenever I worry that my immediate love for and belief in my bishop was just a byproduct of the world around me and my desire to direct it to a person whom I felt was more palatable. The other difference is that I, and most of those I know, have maintained such feelings the more he has done and the more we have gotten to know him, albeit from a distance.

After his election, I found that (due to my ignorance and that habit we have of changing monks' names) there were several podcasts on some of my favorite shows that I had listened to repeatedly and been very edified by which featured my bishop. I continued, and continue, to absorb whatever I can find by him. I have often hung on his every electronic word and found myself vehemently defending him and his ideas against detractors (even if they weren't really familiar with the issues). With so much energy put into these things, we were ecstatic to learn that our bishop would be arriving for the unction service; on the day I was, needless to say, starstruck.

So it was that the day came and due to confessions and traffic, my bishop arrived over an hour past the scheduled beginning of the unction service and the anticipation continued to build. Eventually a very tall monk (let's call him Fr. Mark) came into the altar with several hat boxes and a suitcase. He introduced himself and went about the business of preparing for the bishop's entrance. As we waited, I mentioned that I would be willing to help if at all possible and was told that he had accidentally brought the bishop's klobuk into the altar and that I should take it to him.

I was elated! Of course, I would take it to him! As I walked toward the back of the Church, my wife made excited eye contact with me from the choir loft.

Our bishop had parked behind the Church and was waiting to enter the Church. I ran into my priest as he was making his way to the Church to retrieve my cargo. I silently, not for humility's sake but for awe's, received his blessing and was introduced by my priest. My bishop said that he thought he recognized me from somewhere but, knowing we ever met, I made a silly comment about having a common face. I then mentioned that I had emailed him some time ago about our support for his work for unity as if he would remember it. After that, I bowed, as is the habit I have picked up, and walked back into the Church.

The service eventually began and I was chosen to be the human book stand. It was a blessed time in which I even remembered to pray on several occasions. The service passed, we received the sacrament, and moved into the hall for the dinner at which our bishop took time to speak with us at length, even mentioning setting up some more in-depth classes on a diocesan level.

After that, he moved on to speak with others and we really had taken up too much of his time. Most of our friends left and my wife went home (we had driven separately) and I went to go speak to one of the Army chaplains who regularly visits our parish, call him Fr. John. I came upon Fr. John and Fr. Mark chatting about how chaplain recruiting works (I've already heard it on several occasions) and inadvertently became an example. Both also seemed intent on making jokes suggesting that I am destined to be a priest. These jokes make me very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Anyway, Fr. Mark moved off to tend to our bishop and I was left alone talking to Fr. John. I am virtually immune to his recruiting tactics in that I am always able to play the "my wife says no" card despite the very real offer to eradicate my student loan debt so we moved the topic of conversation on to education and my inability to finish a degree.

As Fr. John moved over to say his farewells to our bishop, I was again left to talk to Fr. Mark. I usually make little to no eye contact with people and most monks have the arresting ability to make constant eye contact with anyone for seemingly indefinite amounts of time but these conversations had left me with little of the unease that I normally feel at strong eye contact. We picked up where the conversation had left off. We bantered about for a bit and I was unable to use my normal tactic of levity to derail the subject. Our bishop came over, listened for a moment, and made a joke about Fr. Mark recruiting another, and then walked off to say goodbye to some others who decided to leave.

As we continued the conversation, I could see the Fr. Mark was taking it seriously and so I pulled out my usual repertoire of arguments and reasons against my pursuing ordination. As I had not expected, he cut through my pious sounding and usually effective straw men with ease and very real insight. The bigger problem was that he was able to show me that many of my arguments that I hadn't thought of as straw men in fact were, or at least may be. He managed to do all of that in one sentence.

"Is it who you are?"

That question floored me. It was not "Is it who you are supposed to be?" or "Is it who you want to be?" or even "Is it who God is making you to be?" The last is a way he rephrased it in an attempt to clarify, I think, but the most profound meaning came through.

Largely due to the influence of David Bentley Hart's book Atheist Delusions, I have been trying to view freedom not as the unconstrained, spontaneous action of the will but as the ability to act in accordance with one's true nature (thought I suppose if I had been paying attention, I would have noticed it). As such, right now I am a being created in the image of God that is marred and held back by my sin. What if, on casting those off, I would see that what I have been put here for is to be a minister to the flock of Christ? I freely admit that I wanted that while still a Protestant and was told not to pursue it by my pastor and that the impulse has been within me on and off again since that time. It was especially strong when I first converted but I have strayed away from it since then. Conversations like this bring it out in force, though.

I have chosen to deny it and run away from it based on my own sinfulness and, I think, real belief that I am not worthy of the position. I am irresponsible, I have a temper, I am disorganized, I am lazy, I am often brutish, unthinking, hardhearted, and deliberately sinful. But I can say with confidence that that is not who I am in my essence. I, like every other person, am called to participate in the life of God. We partake of the divine energies and are made to be what Adam and Eve were in the Garden; what we are supposed to be.

Does this have an expression in our vocation? I have long labored under the belief that God has not ordained most of us to take a particular career path, marry a certain person, or simply chosen for us on most of the big issues in life. Instead, the will of God for us is to live in a God-pleasing despite the situations we find ourselves in and in whatever profession we find ourselves apt.

Am I wrong? Is this an exception? Is it who I am?

Now I am left to ponder all these things (not to mention the various implications of them) until I can make contact with Fr. Mark again. In the shadow of our bishop, the subdeacon made me question some of my deepest convictions. In the presence of one of my heroes an unknown shifted my world.