Well, the time has come...my final post. I began this blog when I moved to Elkhart, IN to study at AMBS over 4 years ago, with the intention of keeping friends and family updated about my life as a Mennonite seminarian. Next month will mark one year since Carrie and I finished up at seminary, said our goodbyes and headed back north. This past year has been one of much transition and, even after all these months back in Manitoba, the transition is not yet over.
Upon our return last December, Carrie and I moved into our spacious basement suite and have been adjusting to the Italian culture of our upstairs landlords, which we experience vicariously through the ceiling. I am grateful for the very reasonable rent, beautiful suite, our snowbird landlords (ie. 4 months of peace and quiet), and ultra-suburban setting in which we live; I'm learning to live with the washboard gravel road (voted "Worst Road in Winnipeg"), using a garage door as the main entrance to my house, and the lack of nearby transit routes.
I began work as an office administrator with Mediation Services in mid-February. I enjoy the culture in which I work and I can't brag enough about the great people that I get to work with! Since both Carrie and I anticipated that we would not likely be employed in full-time ministry positions straight out of seminary, we do not take this job/income for granted. Do you know how challenging it is to get a job when you have a master's degree that isn't required for the job?! Thank goodness for the admin work I did on campus during my time at seminary that I could include on my resume.
That's not to say that I'm not disheartened at times about not being able to engage in ministry that also earns me a living. Lets face it, it's annoying to be paying off student loans with work that's outside of the scope of my professional training which earned me those loans in the first place. But ministry is an interesting field - you can't just "get a job." You watch and pray and wait and make connections and discern and trust and listen for a calling. And when there are few ministry positions to be had in Manitoba, this process can take longer than desired. Yet, for some reason, Manitoba is where Carrie and I sense we are called to be. The Canadian Prairie is our home - we just haven't found our place yet.
More and more lately Carrie and I have felt compelled to pray that our eyes be opened to that which we can not yet imagine. Doors that we expected would open have not (at least not yet). I have found these words from Rainer Maria Rilke comforting:
…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience
with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the
questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a
very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be
given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the
point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then,
someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.
After the inevitable waves of discouragement and frustration pass, Carrie and I both sense an odd peace. Perhaps there is a different answer out there - a different ministry position. It doesn't take much to notice that Carrie and I don't tend to fit into traditional roles. Even our relationship is outside of the "norm." We are roommates (celibate - just to clarify), committed to being partners in life and ministry. Whether or not we'll be together for a lifetime is yet to be seen, but we're certainly in it together for now and after 10 years of deep friendship it's hard to imagine living with anyone else. The ministries to which each of us sense a call are also outside of the norm - Carrie, with her self-designed specialization in Christian Formation and me with my odd mingling of counselling, healing work, and spiritual direction which has led me to Gestalt Pastoral Care. There is no perfect job description out there for either of us. And so we continue to watch and wait...
This is not idle time, however. This past year has been formational in many ways. I have been privileged to offer counselling services to students at CMU on a volunteer basis. Because I do not rely on this work for a paycheque, it has taken off some of the pressure that counsellors sometimes feel to be all things to all people in order to maintain a minimum client base (though, at this point, I am turning away students because my schedule is completely full!). All I can offer is what I have to offer and there is freedom in practicing that (check out
www.aliciabuhler.com to learn more about what I offer). I have been finding that I tend to connect well with students who recognize that they are in need of healing of past wounding/trauma or who are currently in a discernment process. This is growth work and integrative work, not so much crisis care. I am learning that I am less inclined to meet with students who are dealing with addictions, depression or severe mental illness. The skill set that I bring through my GPC training relies on a certain ability for a client to self-support; I am a guide, not a problem solver. As a spiritual caregiver I am also committed to tending my own personal formation and have been fortunate to have created some meaningful connections with caregivers in Winnipeg, while also maintaining connections in Indiana via Skype (since I'm the one and only GPC trained individual in Canada).
One of the blessings of post-seminary life is more time to read what I want to read, and over the past several months I have been savoring spiritual memoirs. Anne Lamott, Tricia Gates Brown, Sara Miles, Rachel Held Evans, and others have been some of my companions during this year of transition and I am grateful for their stories shared. Somehow I don't feel quite as crazy when I read about their doubts, struggles, and lack of faith. Each of these women have a story of discovering faith/church in surprising ways and that gives me hope.
Speaking of church, Carrie and I are in the process of settling in to a local church here in Winnipeg. We spent time at several different churches during our first months back, but this fall exhaustion hit and we finally settled on a Mennonite congregation that neither of us had ever visited yet we both knew that it was the one. As per our experience over the past month, they are a church that is willing to live and love outside of the box which is exactly what we believe the church should be about.
As you've probably gathered from my blog posts over the past several months, two of the highlights of my return to Manitoba have been closer proximity to family and the expansive prairie sky that allows me to breathe deeper here. It is good to be back, even though I miss my US friends immensely! I am grateful for my many friends whom I met during my time at seminary - the AMBS community (and yes, I still have a special place in my heart for the maintenance crew), the folks at Belmont Mennonite who have been in my thoughts and prayers in a special way this past week, my mentors at Pathways Retreat, my GPC instructors and peers, and my EGH "colleagues". I hope to come and visit soon! And know that you're always welcome in Winnipeg!
(I put in a plug for my website above; here's a plug for Carrie's:
www.carrielmartens.com - go and check it out!)
