As I sit avoiding work, I reflect on the year that has passed. I am having a hard time remembering all that’s happened this year. A lot of it was really good:
I started the UCC ordination process and found respect and validation of my call
I sang with my choir at Jazz at Lincoln Center
I went to California for the first time
I had a really nice birthday party and basked in the diversity of my friends
I started my first full time job (w/benefits!)
I moved to a very nice apt in Brooklyn
I found some more allies and “brothers in ministry” (aka Pips) in my CPE co-workers
Barack (Freakin’) Obama!
In my mind I know that I am blessed and that I have been blessed in 2008. Yet there is so much old negativity that my heart can’t take anymore. I don’t want to/can’t carry it into 2009. My New Year’s ritual will be just to cry and cry until all of that ugliness and loneliness of old is washed out. I wish I could go to a Pentecostal church and just shout and scream the New Year in.
I want to enter 2009 with a renewed “joy of salvation” and ‘joy of call’. I no longer want to be resentful and untrusting of God because of all of the pain I’ve faced in my life. I want to move forward in my process. I want to feel my call and not feel like I am lying when I say I am a minister.
My father died in 2008. I really was expecting him to live longer. But he didn’t. And along with other things, I want to leave his legacy in 2008. I want to no longer feel his abandonment. I want to no longer feel his criticism. I want to no longer need his validation. And more importantly, I want to say to myself, “It’s not ok that you were abandoned, criticized and devalued” and mean it. And maybe this will push out the people in my life who treat me the way that my father treated me.
2009 will be the year that my circle will be filled with those who are present, loving and validating. I also want to be present, loving and validating of myself and others. I want to feel joy as much as I feel pain. I want to sing “I Won’t Complain” in a non-sarcastic way. 2009 will be there year that I make room for myself and the partner, who I don’t know but my heart breaks for…
I wish you all whatever your heart breaks for, whatever you ALWAYS pray for, for love, blessings and peace in 2009…
Mad Preacher
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The Mad Preacher Speaks 
“I want to move forward in my process. I want to feel my call and not feel like I am lying when I say I am a minister.”
You’ve said plenty, but this right here hit me right in my heart and soul.
“I wish you all whatever your heart breaks for, whatever you ALWAYS pray for, for love, blessings and peace in 2009…”
And I wish you the same.