Endorsed!

I thought about making a Facebook post that said "Endorsed!" But most people wouldn't know what I meant--they'd rightly ask, "Endorsed by whom?"On Wednesday, I met for an Endorsement panel for Candidacy in the Southeastern Synod for the ELCA, the more inclusive expression of the Lutheran church in the U.S. I had already written a 39 page Endorsement essay, which was really 7 writing prompts, which had me do a mix of new writing and including papers written for classes. So I had already answered a lot of questions that the Candidacy Committee might have had: why do you want to be Lutheran or why do you want to be ordained or how do you understand Luther's theology for our time?We talked about some of those answers, of course. But we spent more time talking about my experiences as a creative/artistic person and as a minister at a small, country church in Bristol, TN. It was a wonderful experience: I felt affirmed and supported the whole way through.I know that I am lucky. I've heard the…