Your Cheatin' Heart

That's the song running through my head this morning: "Your cheatin' heart, will tell on you..."

And no, it's not because of any marital indiscretions on my part (or on Beloved's). It's because I am heading out this weekend to interview in another congregation and I feel as if I am walking around the church office today with a big scarlet letter on my chest. What would it be? "I" for interviewing? "D" for discerning? "F" for fleeing? "C" for confused? Maybe all of the above.

I have interviewed at one other congregation in the eight years I've been here, and turned down a few other opportunities. But at none of those moments did I feel the sort of pull I do about this particular possibility. Ten minutes into that other interview I knew it wasn't the right place for me nor I for them, and I sailed through the rest of it without even considering whether our conversation would go any further.

This time is different. Partly because Possible Congregation is, on paper, exactly the sort of place I have been hoping to land in for a long time. Partly because Current Congregation is in a good place but really needs someone to kick them in the proverbial (and communal, a hard image to conjure up) butt, and I'm not sure I'm the person to do that. I've had doubts about that for a long time. Partly because Beloved is not overly happy with his own career situation at the moment and thus has been much, much more open to this possibility than I had ever imagined. Partly because the timing - in spite of all the things I just mentioned - is not all that great, and one of the few things I know for sure about the mysterious workings of the Lord our God is that my individual calendar is not the trump card I prefer to think it is.

From talking to trusted colleagues, I have the sense that my image of infidelity is a common one. And yet, in the Lutheran system anyway, this is how it works. Part of the reason my sense of it is so much stronger this time is that I have to leave town for this interview, and therefore must be away on a Sunday.

It is not helping that last night I started reading a book called Loving Frank for my book club, which is a fictionalized account of the true affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress. More furtive love and secret assignations are not images I need at the moment. I might put it aside for awhile.

I have absolutely no idea what will happen. Absolutely none. That is both terrifying and thrilling. I ask for your prayers for all of us, as you have them to spare: for Beloved and for me, for Current Congregation, for Possible Congregation, and for our families (as we would move away from one and to the other - yet another wrinkle in a complicated pattern).

Breathe in. Breathe out. One more step. Time to jump into the deep end.