A View from Where?

"A View from the Other Side of the Hill." Now, what kind of a blog is that? Especially since I don't live on a hill, or anywhere near one.

This is a blog about life after "over the hill." Well, at least it's about one woman's life after she went over the hill. The midlife crisis is over and I survived it, although I still have the red Camaro convertible. But that's another story.

When I was fifteen years old, I decided I wanted to be a magazine editor when I grew up. I got my undergraduate degree in magazine journalism at one of the country's top schools and spent the next twenty years editing magazines. I worked in that strange little niche of magazine publishing known as "business to business magazines," writing for people who worked in specialized industries. Every time I changed jobs, I had to learn a whole new industry overnight: the technical lingo, the key players, the big issues, the government regulations. It was hard work, and I enjoyed it. And I salute my brothers and sisters who are still working in the field.

But all during those years I had a second, unpaid career of sorts, shadowing the one I did during the day. I was a leader in my church. I did all sorts of things, from being a church officer to teaching Sunday school to singing in the choir to going on a European tour to see some of the important locales in my denomination's history. When I was in my early thirties, my pastor encouraged me to go to seminary. The idea just about scared me to death. I knew I wasn't holy enough to be a minister. And although there were a few women starting to become ministers in my denomination, it was a tough road.

And then I hit my forties, and that midlife crisis thing happened. It took about ten years, actually, before the dust started to settle. And when it did, I knew it was time to move on in my work life. The magazine business was changing. The companies I was working for kept getting sold, and new owners had a nasty habit of firing everyone and starting over with new people, often paying them less money in the process.

It wasn't really a case of "Aha! I think I'll go into ministry!" It toook years to reach that point. In my denomination, it's called discerning one's call, and it is never a solitary process. Any nutcase can jump up and decide they've been called by God to do something -- like open fire in a crowd, say. The call process involves not only the individual but also the community of believers, starting with one's own church. Because I am part of a denomination, we have various levels of church government, and we have many, many requirements in the process of preparation for ministry. It was fourteen years from the time my minister first suggested I consider going to seminary to the time I finally enrolled -- and that was just my own discernment process -- and almost five years more until I completed all the requirements set forth by my denomination and was ordained to ministry.

And here I am, pastoring a small church in a small community for the last four years. It's strange, but I have never had any desire to go back to the magazine business. I probably do more writing now than I did back then. Anyone who thinks writing a sermon every week isn't "writing," well, I'd like to talk with you, especially if you were one of those freelancers who kept asking me for extensions on your deadline, because you can't go to the congregation on Sunday morning and say, "The sermon's not quite done yet because the washing machine went on the fritz. Can you come back tomorrow?" And if I'm not writing a sermon, I'm writing liturgies, letters, lesson plans, reports, stewardship materials, and now this blog!

In a nutshell, I expect this blog to be the story of a minister's life. Yes, there are new adventures to be found on the other side of the hill. I live them every day. And I hope to share some of them with you.

Pastor Kathy