substitute teacher

tomorrow is the orientation for substitute teacher's for the public schools here in my town. i'm told that, because i have a degree, i will be called every day, from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. that will thrill my husband, who sleeps during the day...i can't believe how demoralized i feel, how stupid and what a failure. i went back to school and got the degree, now i'm going to work for $60. a day. i got the "real" job after college, and failed miserably (enough said on that topic in previous posts, no point flogging the dead horse further).

last year at this time i firmly believed that i would be in seminary right now, into the three year program that would turn me into a priest. then we decided that it would be better to let our daughter finish high school in her hometown before leaving for seminary. good decision, don't regret it. it's just that while you can't hardly get a job without a degree, you can't get a job worth having without a master's.

i have plans, am going to take a couple of tests to see if i can become a k-12 teacher, maybe get a job in january, assuming i pass the tests...but the tests cost hundreds of dollars, i need to do hundreds of hours of study, and there are no guarantees about any of it.

god's will is what i keep asking to know. i want to want what god wants me to want. urrgggghh... i thought god wanted me to be a social worker, it all sounded so good, so right, somehow. i had no idea what the work entailed, and that it would whip me like a cruel man whips a beast. i did learn much, about the poor, about the welfare provided by the government, and about myself. but i failed, i could not keep doing the work.

what if teaching is as wrong for me as social work was? maybe it's not social work, per se, but governmentalized social work. maybe dealing with uncertainty is what i'm to live with for the moment. aside from suffering and death, little is certain for humankind.

christ said the poor would always be with us. i realize this is slightly out of context, he was stressing the importance of the apostles really trying to understand what he was saying, as he wouldn't be around in that particular incarnation much longer. but it was a statement, "the poor will always be with you."

this means that, while we are admonished to do what we can for the least among us, there will always be those people with us who need our care. what does this mean for the folks trying to end world poverty? what does it mean for me, preparing meals to serve at one of the local soup kitchens? (and what are they called now, surely not "soup kitchens"...)

the changes in the church are causing financial difficulty for the church. everyone is searching for a way to be faithful and to also be relevant to 21st century people. seminaries are struggling, allowing faculties to drop in number, mostly through retirement without replacement. how can what i want to be more than anything in the world become something irrelevant? what am i supposed to do? tell me, precious lord, i'm listening...