Pondering the future

A whole mess of stuff is going through my head right now - part angry, part sad, part hopeful, part excited, part numb, part grateful, part disenchanted, part wondering. I'm really and truly trying to take the high road - I wrote a letter to parents that is largely BS because I don't want to cause division here. I've seen it happen with other churches, one quite recently, and frankly this place has enough problems without all of this adding fuel to the fire. But though I'm trying to be positive, focused & waiting on the Lord, part of me deep, deep down inside finds some perverse delight in the thought of hacking their computers or leaving an open can of tuna fish or two to rot in the ventilation system. Petty and immature, I know, but not without some allure. :)

Staff meeting today will be interesting. I'm sure they're going to try to pawn off telling the staff on me, but that's just not going to happen. The staff can know the truth that I was fired and they can tell them on their own.

Looking ahead, the biggest struggle I'm having right now is figuring out what's next. Not in a real specific way - I'm sure God has a job lined up and will take care of us. No, I'm not sure if we should aim for something big or something simple. A month or two ago, my mom, an elementary teacher of 20+ years, wrote a couple of essays on the state of education in Arizona that were published on her local NPR station. She went in and recorded them, but did not ask for a tape of the broadcast. So I went online to see if I could find them and instead ended up stumbling on the NPR jobs postings, and though I don't have any radio or journalism experience, I thought there were a couple I was qualified for. So I figured "what the heck" and applied. About a week and a half ago I got a call - of the 250 applications received, I was 1 of 30 that they were doing phone interviews with. Of those 30, they will be bringing 10 out for a personal interview and I will hopefully hear if I am one of those people by the end of this week. Now, that right there is just an encouragement to me in the present moment - somebody figured I was smart enough and capable enough to be worth a second look. Having just been fired, that's nice. But if I were to actually get this job (a very big IF), it would require us to move to DC - a big move to a big city where we know no one and that is far from family.

The question, to me anyways, is not really about a specific job, its about what's the best thing to strive for - a simple life in a simple place or doing something that could open a lot of doors and maybe even have an impact on something big? I don't think for one minute I am going to be a huge force for change at NPR, but a conservative Christian veteran sure isn't their typical employee or listener, so just throwing me into the mix will have to have some effect. The path of simplicity is incredibly attractive, but I don't want to take it out of an unconscious fear. God will most likely work all this out for me by simply shutting a door, but in the meantime, its fun to think about.