Well I’ve made it to day six of being one young person down.   It has hurt less as the week as gone on, but it still feels tender.   Of course the weeks when you feel tender are the days when other experiences impact on the hurt and you find yourself wondering if the emotion you are feeling is the right one.

To be honest much of the time at the moment I feel overwhelmed.   There is so much going on, and so many hopes and aspirations for a congregation where I have no past experience to help with what is coming.  Where you might be able to draw comfort from knowing what had been done before, there is instead the anxiety of unchartered territory.

But heightened emotions abound at the moment.   Even ignoring the first of the young people to leave home, the meetings this week have left me reeling in the experience.   I’ve not responded to the hurt in the moments.

It began in a meeting about property, where personal past experience was ignored.   When I spoke I was spoken over.   One person appeared to be afforded more credibility and relevance.   It was a meeting where my role within the congregation seemed to be ignored and the reality of how what might play out would impact on ministry ignored.

The following morning attending another meeting where decisions are usually reached by consensus one member of the group decided that their opinion and voice was enough for us to move to a decision and moved a formal motion.   The chair sensing my unease allowed me the opportunity to express the unease, only for the member to turn and declare that he had moved a formal motion which was seconded and surely all we needed to do was vote.   The chair fairly defended the consensus approach.

I’ve reflected on both meetings, and spoken to one other from each to check their thoughts so I could correctly view mine away from my other emotions.   It would seem I am not unfairly representing what I thought had happened, although I more than acknowledge that other events are not helping how I might normally bounce back.

I’d like to say today but might be better, but I’ve got another meeting to be at this evening, and it is one where I often come home questioning why I go in the first place.   This morning I’m going to look at the sermon and try and do some other written stuff.   Hopefully that will offer some balm in all that is going on.