Right, well, I’m in a funk, feeling trapped and isolated from my family, even myself.

I work in a job that pays me well, with influence, perqs, and a salary that would seemingly allow me to relax, get fat (or work out accordingly), and save some money (to maybe finally buy a house… at 40… hello?).

But I’m not sure I belong in my job. There are things I cannot reconcile in it. Big church talent with a small church soul. Whatever.

Sometimes I’m not sure why I’m considered good at my job. I play music, I speak words, and I suppose I “mean” them because they are said in the moment, without preconception or consideration. My actions are subjective, and very “real.”

But somehow I remain detached from them, and when I get off the stage and I decompress I feel like I have sold Jesus again.

What compounds this feeling is the gnawing suspicion that no one really cares. I’m lauded and rewarded because of these words and songs that come effortlessly out, and know one really cares what may be going on in my heart, because I feel like I often do my job without love.
I do it with maximum intelligence, maximum passion, and a lot of creativity. But my idea of a pasturing is that it should be absolutely and constantly governed by the love of the pastor.

If I was my boss, I’m afraid I’d fire me, or give me a leave of absence, or at least tell me to figure out why I feel called to be a pastor.

There are people with so many problems bigger than me. But I can’t seem to lift my head up right now and see the horizon. I don’t know no where to turn. Can I stay doing this job that I feel ambivalent about, in a town that sucks the life out of me? So many signs point to the fact that I may need to just stick it out… At least the price of beer hasn’t gone up yet. I can always drink myself to 60 or something. OH WAIT… pastors can’t do that. Hide myself away, let my soul get smaller and more remote.

I’m 40 now. Is this the way the dreams of a man die?