success writ small

I've been feeling especially failure-y lately. On Sunday night I had sacristan duty and when I got to church the organist was pushing the sacristy piano to its breaking point. Free private concert! Stunning! Stirring! Amazing! Humiliating... Okay, it was not given to me to be a musician. But everyone my age has had a 20- if not 30-year career in something. And here I am fussing around with the hymn numbers while this guy is...living. Help.

when they reached the meeting ground, fear overcame her. All the other cats were there, staring at her with their gleaming eyes, as if to say, "And what can you do, little black cat? WHAT CAN YOU DO?"
   This was too much for Jenny. She gave a yowl of terror and fled home.
(Esther Averill, Jenny and the Cat Club)

...is how I feel. 

You may recall that for my 50th birthday I decided to have an online party on my friend-of-a-friend Sarah Jane Lapp's jigsaw-and-chat app Puzlkind. And when I asked Sarah Jane about this, she proposed that I commission some custom artwork for it so my friends could metaphorically but also literally-virtually piece together my birthday wish. This seemed like a good plan, so she asked me to email her my wish, and I did, and the result was this drawing, which I've since had actually-properly-framed:

[a less-than ideal-but-we're-going-with-it photo of]
'Susannah's 50th birthday wish' by Sarah Jane Lapp

It's great, in so many ways. Vibrant colors, sincere wishes, creative crosses! But also, I took it off the wall because it taunts me. Two years on: okay, I did finish the papers. But the hiring minister-cat (funny that it's a cat, right? given the Jenny thing?) just ain't happening. And 'excellent Deutsch,' argh, if only. I think it's been getting worse. 

I decided to track down our email exchange and see exactly what I wrote.

My wish for 50:
is that I finally finish these [expletive] papers and get an [expletive] job
helping to create welcoming spaces for reflection and connection
that the world may heal, two hearts at a time.

Okay. So...on Sunday night I had sacristan duty. Which is a job I get paid for (if not much, or particularly regularly). That involves preparing welcoming space (read: airing out the chapel and preparing the hymn board) for people to reflect. 

It's not a lot, but it's not nothing. 

I think...the picture captures part of my wish but leaves out the part I thought was most important - the welcoming spaces, the connection. And I think I'd hoped that Sarah Jane would be able to draw that part because it's not a million miles from her own ministry. But she wasn't wrong not to, because my calling is not hers, it's mine. And that part is mine to draw.