My opinion on Itinerating as a Spiritual Discipline

Today I drove to Columbia and had lunch with Bishop Schnase. I felt a need, as I have a time or two before, to tell him of what is going on in my emergent conversation world, and to express to him my deep commitment to the renewal of the church through this particular lens. AS ALWAYS, UNSWERVINGLY, and with what I read as even greater emphasis, he affirmed my work, the time I spent, the "generative" value of this part of my ministry to all of my ministry and my mothering, and generally made me again thankful that he is my bishop and not some stick-in-the-mud guy or gal who seeks the promotion of themselves and the "system" rather than the renewal of the church. One of the things I really get worked up about when I start talking about how I approach our tradition and the emerging church these days, is the snapshots of Wesley's life (anyone who has heard me speak anytime in the last year can tell you about this), and how these snapshots provide for us a good model for approaching the change that is needed for the church. My favorite of course is when Wesley, despite his deep reservation, went to the field to preach (I have spoken of this here before and probably will again). As I shared this with rs today, I said that what Wesley wrote in his journal was that he "COMmitted to be more vile" when he, against his own inclination began to preach outdoors. The bishop rightly corrected me, "No, Susan, what he said was he SUBmitted to be more vile." We talked a bit about that concept of submission. And I have been thinking about that some all day. Submission, unfortunately, seems to either connote certain masochistic sexual practices for our culture, or some sick self-deprecating stance that Christians have forced other Christians to take over time. Yet, I think truly that to be happy, or at least content in the itinerancy, you just have to understand that it is a spiritual discipline of submission....and friends, I have believed this A LOT longer than I have been a d.s. It is a joyful burden to bear AS a d.s., but I believe it more now than ever. The fact of the matter is, as we pray that "Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition" (they tell us it really did not originate with John) that we pray at the end of conference, "let me be employed for thee; let me be set aside for thee" or "let me be full, let me empty" and we say we "heartily" pray this, by golly, I believe it...not that I have not had a few moments of complaint, but I genuinely believe that a part of being a UM minister is, by golly, to view the itinerancy in this way. I know that there are those that for reasons that are very significant, cannot and do not believe this, and certainly cannot and do not itinerate. I am not one of them. I am deeply convicted, and have been for the 30 years since I was ordained as deacon and then later as elder, that a part of the uniqueness of the character of Methodism is that the means of grace, including itineration, build within us a deeper trust of our lives and our future to God. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I really believe that this is what happens most of the time for those of us who do fully itinerate. Am I crazy, or what???

PS I just went back and was re-reading my way-old entries here, and read Jan 10 2005 and guess what??? I said the same thing there as I said here, though less vehemently. I think that makes me happy, or at least consistant.