The main 2 aspects the ADDO wanted to explore in depth were my being priestly and my stickability.
First we went over the being priestly part. I'm doing a lot at the moment towards becoming a priest, reading lots of books, attending various churches, becoming heavily involved in my parish church, but doing is not the same as being so she wanted examples of how I'm changing due to my vocation.
We talked about how I now tend to pray a lot more, if a hearse drives past I say a prayer for the departed, if I see something horrific on the news I pray for the victims and the perpetrators.
We talked about how I now tend to pray a lot more, if a hearse drives past I say a prayer for the departed, if I see something horrific on the news I pray for the victims and the perpetrators.
I also relate things to God's presence more often. I've quit a job I hated to follow my call more clearly and I am much happier for it. I feel it's accepting my calling that has made me happier, especially because the stress I'm under at the moment being unemployed and not knowing where my next paycheck will come from is still very high, yet I feel happier and more content than ever before. I know now that God has a plan and will provide, though it'll be on his time scale not my own!
Finally for this point I talk about God and my religion a lot more. Enough to make my wife tell me to shut up. I've never felt so involved in anything that hasn't been gaming related, or felt such happiness when thinking and talking about it. Those who know me, know how much my gaming means to me so should realise quite how big a thing this is!
As for stickability, the ADDO had concerns on how much I stick to things due to leaving my profession, the number of jobs I've had over my life so far and the fact I've only recently returned to being a regular attended at church.
I pointed out that for the profession I stuck to it for 5 years, which is a large chunk of my life so far, I kept at it well beyond the point I should have left, even when it was making me mentally and physically ill to continue and only left after praying about it and talking about it at length for a long period of time.
As for the number of jobs I've had, there has only been one 'adult' job. The others were short summer jobs whilst at university which naturally came to an end when I moved back to my residence to do my course.
Finally my dedication to the church of England. I admit for a number of years I was heavily influenced by cynicism and especially messages from films such as dogma (a brilliant film btw) but that was only a short amount of time in my life so far. I was a dedicated Anglican all the way up till I was 16 and a half, very heavily involved in the Church of my own free will. I have returned to the Anglican church as a regular church goer this year. So combined I have dedicated 2/3s of my life to my religion.
Between these I think I have shown stickability, and if I continue working hard it will be even more readily apparent than it is now.
We also discussed doubt. Now I am very optimistic, I like to look on the bright side because otherwise I can dwell too much on the dark. As such I couldn't initially come up with any doubts, but when she said she meant worries about aspects of the role I would worry about fulfilling properly I understood what she meant better.
I do have worries. I worry that doing this could put a strain on my marriage, that my work life balance could end up totally out of whack, I have no experience of financial planning for businesses or of arranging maintenance for large buildings and also as I'm young I worry that older parishioners wouldn't listen to me. But these do not make me doubt my calling, just tells me I need to look into methods of controlling these aspects and research them.
Also the big question was what happens if I don't get selected. Well in that case, as devastating as it would be, it just means I've misinterpreted my calling and it could mean I'm meant to be a reader or a deacon or an education officer or similar.
Overall it was a very good chat and I've not covered everything here, just the main points. (I don't want to bore you!) We arranged to meet again later this month and my homework is to go over criteria B (ministry within the CofE) and C (spirituality). She also suggested I follow up on the Bishop's suggestion that I find a young, married priest to be my spiritual director and I have a placement at a local church that is similar, but not quite the same as my own. Both of these I'm going to arrange and I shall let you all know how it goes!
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