Back in Wait State

It was a quiet and lovely weekend, mostly.



PH and I had plans to attend the 10:30 service at a wonderful and creative parish about 8 miles from here. We were utterly bumfuzzled by street closures due to a triathlon. I wouldn't have minded except for the fact that the traffic website showed no such closures.

On a normal Sunday, getting from our place to that church would take about 25 minutes. We left the house at 9:15, and at 10:23 were still entangled in a jam up around the Library of Congress, a good 3 miles from the church. Given that most parishes have gone over to summer schedule and their services start at 10 or 10:30, we gave up. Turned around, drove back into VA, and had brunch, complete with Father's Day mimosas. I know french toast and mimosas aren't a eucharistic feast, but it was a love feast of a different sort.

The job thing is in a state of suspended animation. I had a phone interview (one of four candidates) for a rectorship on Saturday morning. Good folks, working hard to discern what God wants for their parish. I think they may get hung up on the fact that I am a transitional deacon and won't be ordained to the priesthood until early December, even though I laid out a whole plan of how we could make it work well. I hope to hear something from them within the next week or so.

There is a part-time job for which I am a candidate. I don't mind the part-time nature of it, since it's a wonderful parish with a great mentor-rector, and the diocese has another part-time task in mind for me to complement that work. I had hoped to hear from the rector last week, since I've been through the interviews, but maybe today or tomorrow.

Another job, a full-time one nearby, is also in play, but that rector is on vacation until next Friday, so I don't expect to hear much of anything soon from him.

I'm also in the running for a non-parish job in the Midwest, and I expect to have a phone interview one of these days with those folks, but I don't know how my bishops would feel about that one. They tend to want us in parish settings.

In any case, something will happen reasonably soon, I hope.

PH and I amused ourselves after brunch by going to Open Houses in a townhouse community nearby. Definitely a step up from seminary housing, and when I run the numbers, it's clear we can afford to buy there. I checked the FICO score this morning and got a nice high number. Living within one's means is a good idea, it seems. This community would work well with the part-time job, and would work well for PH as well. The townhouses are big enough to accomodate our baby grand (yes, KW, I will want the piano back after the September concert!) and the kitchens are much closer to the really beautiful little kitchen in our old house than to the pretty sad one in our seminary housing. Still a fantasy until we know where I will accept a call, but fun nevertheless.

So I sit and wait. At least I feel like I'm closer to something than two months ago.