An Emotional Day

Today... was an emotional day.  As in, real tears and stuff.  Stuff that I am not used to, but slowly progressing toward becoming more open with.

Nancy Mathias and I led service this morning.  We shared our stories about our experience to UUMN this summer.  We shared our life-changing moments.  For weeks, we've been preparing - selecting the music, rehearsing with the band, picking just the perfect words to open the service, and writing our testimonials. It's a lot of work to plan a service, but being so emotionally vested in it made us work that much harder.  We wanted to share an experience, not just a story.  And from the feedback we received, I think we achieved that.

But it meant sharing this story - my story of my journey toward becoming a UU Music Director - aloud.  And that was really emotional for me.  It's much easier to type my story here in the blog, where I can take a moment to breathe or shed a tear and no one sees it.  In front of our congregation, there's nowhere to hide.  It's opening myself to be vulnerable in a whole new way.  It was both challenging and rewarding.  Thank you to everyone who shared a comment with me after the service.  I treasure every word.

As if that weren't enough excitement for one day, our congregation ordained a new minister today, too!  She has been the Director of Faith Formation for many years and followed her calling to ministry.  I have to admit, I spent most of her ordination service crying because Tandy has had such a huge influence on my family.  It starts with the story I often tell about Tandy rescuing me at our first church retreat when our undiagnosed Aspie son had a melt down in the middle of the dinner line.  We were so embarrassed and ran off to our bunkhouse instead of eating dinner.  Next thing we know, Tandy is at the bunkhouse door with bread and butter, encouraging us to eat and calm down before we talk over what happened. It was one of the first moments that I felt supported and connected in our church community.

Tandy went on to support our family in so many ways as we struggled with our son... In RE classes, she worked to provide him with 1:1 mentor volunteers so that he could attend class without burdening the teachers.  And she provided classes on Love & Logic parenting, so we could be better equipped as parents.

Tandy also nurtured my spiritual growth through her role in our Celebration service.  It was my first experience in a contemporary, participatory worship format and Tandy made it accessible and welcoming.  It's a feeling I try to pass on to others through my role as a leader in the SPIRIT faith formation group.

There are so many other wonderful things I could mention about Tandy, but for now I'll just say that she's been incredibly inspiring to me.  And I was so proud to join our congregation in ordaining her today.

And there you have it.  Another day in and out of tears, celebrating my personal calling and the calling of those who mean so much to me.  Maybe one day soon it won't be so foreign for me to shed tears of joy, to be so powerfully moved that I can't help but cry.

For tonight, though, I'm emotionally exhausted.  Overjoyed, but spent.