Grasshopperish

It's a pretty well-known fact that much of the last five plus years of my life has been about following directions. To those who know me well, that has been a bit of a running joke. Right--I'm stubborn. So, to those who know me well, the idea of me willingly submitting to authority was kind of a ludicrous proposition.

I did, however, manage to make it through boot camp, some follow-on training, and four more years, give or take, of submitting to authority without any major problems. Heaven knows that I did my share of griping about it--along with being stubborn, I really really hate it when the people in charge are stupid, unreasonable, and illogical, which happens often. (I've heard this is pretty universal, unfortunately.)

So it's been an adjustment for me, these last few months, to be part of a collaborative team. (Molly, feel free to stop here: church stuff to follow.) In the environment to which I am specifically referring, I'm the new guy. And I like to watch and learn. I mean, I like to learn by getting in and getting my hands dirty, too, but in a lot of situations--especially ones in which I feel like there are people who know waaay more than I do--I really like to take some time to see how things are done before I jump in.

In the Marine Corps, this sucked: many of the people who were responsible for teaching me were terrible at teaching, or they sucked at the actual job, or they were just mean, which doesn't exactly make for a good learning environment. I know, it's the Marine Corps, and they're not known for being nice. But really, I wasn't going to learn anything any better or faster from some jackass yelling in my face than I was by just observing him for a while, and then trying it out myself, and then getting some feedback.

So this collaboration thing is wonderful, in its way, because the others in the collaborative process are pretty fantastic. The hard part is that, since I still feel like I'm totally the new kid, I'd much rather still be in the "watching and learning" phase. But these people, being fantastic, sort of expect me to give input on various things. Like, for instance, my thoughts on the week's lectionary selections. And the new kid inside of me, who still really just wants to sit on the sidelines for a little while, wants to say, "How could I possibly have anything valuable or useful to say that you haven't thought of already?"

The other crazy bit that is part of the hard part is that the two people I would most like to watch, and learn from, are--for now--a couple more degrees separated from this process than is useful in watching and learning. So it feels a little like I'm on my own. For the record, I'm emphatically not on my own in actual reality--I'm just saying it feels a little like that.

And so yesterday, when I got a text message saying that our worship service was probably going to temporarily relocate across campus due to a maintenance issue, my first thought was, "Seriously?! Why, of all possible days, did it have to be today?" Because, even though I'm not alone, and I know it, and the situation was all but handled by the time I showed up, it only highlighted that the people whose direction I would have eagerly followed were a degree or two separated from the problem. And it will be like that all summer.

(Disclaimer: One of the people who is "a degree or two separated" is in fact one of the people who handled the problem. But the conclusions are the same.)

I'm used to being an expert; able to answer questions from many different sides. But I know exactly what, and how long, it took for me to get to that point, and to be comfortable with it. And it hasn't been that long at FUMC, and I don't feel like I have all the answers, or nearly all of them, or nearly enough, even. And, more than that, I don't feel as though I am in a place where I should be the one who is asked the questions.

Even so, I discovered--as it was demonstrated in many small ways today--that I am going to be that person--or one of those people--at least for the next few weeks.

And it trips me out and freaks me out and makes me smile a little, all at the same time.

Thank you God, for grace, and for opportunity.