This is the beginning of the end. And while there are many facets to this end, I have to blog on them one at a time. It’s too much to think about it all at once. I’m still sorting out what it all means. You know? No, you have no idea what I’m talking about.
Three weeks ago I came home from my preaching class to be told that I should probably chat with my boss–that she had called while I was out to let me know a decision had been made regarding the fate of the bookstore. Long story short–the school I attend has decided that it is no longer in their best interest to support the deficit the bookstore runs and will be closing us down at the end of the semester. We were asked to sit on this bit of info until a cross-campus announcement could be made. However, this kind of news rarely stays contained and a week later it was announced: The
Bookstore is Closing.
It’s been an interesting three weeks. Moral on campus is already low–this has only compounded that reality. And showing up to work is seriously depressing. Students, faculty, and administration have been filing in to register their grief, their anger, and their disbelief. What is a Seminary without a bookstore? What indeed. They are concerned with what will happen to my boss. What will happen to them. How will they get books for classes. Where they will buy a coke. And in the entire mess, I stand there shaking my head, commiserating.
But I’m not commiserating exactly. Because what seems lost on them is that in the closing of their beloved bookstore, I am losing my job. I stand there absorbing their grief all the while trying to
contain my own. Even my closest friends are oblivious. They can see the importance to someone like my boss who is “Losing her livelihood.” But my student position, is just that to them. And
when they emerge out of their fog their response is, “Well, you can get another job, can’t you?” in a tone that suggests that whatever anxiety they might have, I should abate it by answering, “Yes, I can. Don’t worry.”
What is completely unrecognized is that not only am I losing my job, I’m losing the funding for my internship, and I am leaving what has been my ministry site for the past three years. I don’t even have the luxury of just leaving but I must preside over its death and burial. And this, this is the heart of what it means to be in ministry. You stand and absorb the grief of others. The irony here is that I am at Seminary and am surrounded by people who should know this. The pastoral care coming my direction is all but non-existent. And what I want to shout out to the entire
campus is this: THIS IS YOUR FUTURE.
When I have properly mourned my own fate, I will stand back and be saddened. Saddened that this campus is losing a central location for people to gather and a valuable service in the bookstore.
Saddened that as a community we couldn’t communicate effectively enough to save something before it was too late. Saddened that so many future clergy people haven’t learned to stand with people in grief and still choose silence when they don’t know what to say.
But that all comes later. Right now I am grieving. Grieving the loss of my job. Grieving the loss of my Internship. Grieving the close of a ministry into which I poured my whole self. Grieving alone.
