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pegkerrI wrote in my holiday letter at the end of last year that I know that 2024 will include a lot of changes.
Fiona will be starting her plumber's apprenticeship program and getting married.
Delia will be graduating from college and moving from Wisconsin to find a job in Minnesota.
As for me, I know that my job will be changing. I work in the office of the Bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Her second and final term will end this year and a new bishop will be elected the first weekend of May.
The bishop's staff serves at the pleasure of the bishop, and so we all have to tender our resignations and then wait to find out whether the new bishop (and at this point, we have no idea who it will be) will hire us back.
Since we work for a church-based organization, if we DON'T get hired back, we get no unemployment. I guess that the custom is that we would get three months of severance. But that's it.
What's more, the synod is struggling financially--we get the money for our budget from what people put into their offering plates in our congregations on Sunday mornings, and between the pandemic and inflation, that number has dropped substantially. I have a hunch that while the staff is being shaken up anyway, it might look like it would make the most financial sense to combine my position with one of the Assistant to the Bishop positions. So my job is looking increasingly precarious.
I have been trying to gear myself up for the changes to come. Even if I get to stay in my job, I fully expect that I will be losing my boss (the bishop) and my supervisor, someone with whom I work very well.
At the Epiphany service at my church, we followed the custom we've been doing the past couple of years: everyone was offered a sticker with a word on it, something to contemplate in the coming year.
My word was "Acceptance."
I have often joked that I am a Gryffindor but with high-security needs. Brave, when I need to be (and I have needed to be, especially since losing Rob), but change is still hard.
In fact, I did a Hard Thing in the week that this collage covers to try to get ready for that change. It didn't work out (Peg says vaguely) but I will keep trying.
Change is a-coming. And I will have to accept it when it does.
I do rather like the way this collage turned out. When thinking about 'change' and acceptance,' I was thinking about some of the principles of Zen Buddhism, about balancing stones. Stones may seem changeless and immovable, but the sea will polish them away and tumble them over, and as they grow smaller, you can pick them up and carry them around. I think the curves in the outline of the phoenix are mimicked by the shape of the stone heart, and the slant of the fiery bird is echoed in the slant of the words.
The bird, of course, is a phoenix, the mythical creature that dies and is reborn in fire.
I can feel the sparks starting to stir under my own breastbone.
I know they will get hotter.
Image description: background: semi-transparent picture of a rocks that have been smoothed by the ocean. Lower right corner: three rocks piled one atop the other, with an open bloom tucked in at the side. An old-fashioned key rests on the top one. Lower center: the word 'Acceptance' is written. Center/left: a bird made of fire (a phoenix) with wings outspread. Upper right corner: a heart shaped from smooth pebbles. The word 'Change' is overlaid over the heart.
Change and Acceptance
Click here to see the 2024 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.
Fiona will be starting her plumber's apprenticeship program and getting married.
Delia will be graduating from college and moving from Wisconsin to find a job in Minnesota.
As for me, I know that my job will be changing. I work in the office of the Bishop of the Minneapolis Area Synod for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Her second and final term will end this year and a new bishop will be elected the first weekend of May.
The bishop's staff serves at the pleasure of the bishop, and so we all have to tender our resignations and then wait to find out whether the new bishop (and at this point, we have no idea who it will be) will hire us back.
Since we work for a church-based organization, if we DON'T get hired back, we get no unemployment. I guess that the custom is that we would get three months of severance. But that's it.
What's more, the synod is struggling financially--we get the money for our budget from what people put into their offering plates in our congregations on Sunday mornings, and between the pandemic and inflation, that number has dropped substantially. I have a hunch that while the staff is being shaken up anyway, it might look like it would make the most financial sense to combine my position with one of the Assistant to the Bishop positions. So my job is looking increasingly precarious.
I have been trying to gear myself up for the changes to come. Even if I get to stay in my job, I fully expect that I will be losing my boss (the bishop) and my supervisor, someone with whom I work very well.
At the Epiphany service at my church, we followed the custom we've been doing the past couple of years: everyone was offered a sticker with a word on it, something to contemplate in the coming year.
My word was "Acceptance."
I have often joked that I am a Gryffindor but with high-security needs. Brave, when I need to be (and I have needed to be, especially since losing Rob), but change is still hard.
In fact, I did a Hard Thing in the week that this collage covers to try to get ready for that change. It didn't work out (Peg says vaguely) but I will keep trying.
Change is a-coming. And I will have to accept it when it does.
I do rather like the way this collage turned out. When thinking about 'change' and acceptance,' I was thinking about some of the principles of Zen Buddhism, about balancing stones. Stones may seem changeless and immovable, but the sea will polish them away and tumble them over, and as they grow smaller, you can pick them up and carry them around. I think the curves in the outline of the phoenix are mimicked by the shape of the stone heart, and the slant of the fiery bird is echoed in the slant of the words.
The bird, of course, is a phoenix, the mythical creature that dies and is reborn in fire.
I can feel the sparks starting to stir under my own breastbone.
I know they will get hotter.
Image description: background: semi-transparent picture of a rocks that have been smoothed by the ocean. Lower right corner: three rocks piled one atop the other, with an open bloom tucked in at the side. An old-fashioned key rests on the top one. Lower center: the word 'Acceptance' is written. Center/left: a bird made of fire (a phoenix) with wings outspread. Upper right corner: a heart shaped from smooth pebbles. The word 'Change' is overlaid over the heart.
Click here to see the 2024 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2023 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 52 Card Project gallery.