You've made some excellent points here, Aidan.  It's a difficult situation for me here - about two/three years ago, the call to ministry that I received was *strong* - and remains so.  Each church, each denomination that I found myself searching in, I found the words, "Friend, move on" in my mind... and for reasons that I can't properly explain, even to myself, I knew that I was in the wrong place, each and every time.  The Roman Catholic church came the closest to being "just about right", and it may well be.  But somehow, I have to see the Orthodox church before I jump in with both feet as a member, and one of the faithful.  On Tuesday, at 11:30am, I will be meeting with an Orthodox Priest and asking questions regarding the church, regarding the priesthood, regarding conversion, and my ears will be open 100%.  Finding a church shouldn't be a shopping spree, finding parts that I like or don't like - but I don't think this is the case here.  If it were, I would have quickly joined the Unitarian Universalist
 church - a church that my rational mind agrees with in many, many ways, but doesn't feel right for me to my heart.  It may be the pathway for others - I cannot decide for them as I barely understand my own place on this Earth - but it doesn't appear that it will be my path.  When the time is right, I will join a church (it seems to be either Catholic or Orthodox), and believe me - I will probably spend each day there, doing something or other. I'm in no rush to be a Priest - I may find that it's not the place for me after all...  but I need to find a church home, or I will go crazy.  While my skills may be in computers, and I could make a *lot* of money doing programming, computer repairs, and the like, I see myself 20 years in the future, miserable, lonely, depressed, and suicidal.  A monastary - (the same thing occurred in dreams - I was projected 20 years in the future), and I was bursting at the seams... a highly spiritually charged atmosphere, but something *big* lacking...  And the night dream keeps r
eoccurring - my body, charged with the Holy Spirit, doing work that my skills and talents could never prepare me for - my life dedicated to service in a position that can help so many people.  And it will only be my body there - I am one with every single Priest in the past 2000 years... I may have a new name and a new face, but it will be only one man performing these tasks through my body.  And his body left this Earth so long ago...  I apologize for my "weirdness" - this is a difficult subject for me to talk about to make with any kind of sense.  But you have given me pause, Aidan, and I will re-think my calling to the Ministry.  Is it me that desires the human things - the respect, the power, the prestige... or does the calling emminate from elsewhere?  I just hope that I don't go through what I did a few years ago where I became so confused that I denied the call entirely for a number of months.  Until I said, "Yes - I will go" and began searching for my church home, I was in perhaps a greater depressio
n than I had ever been in my life previously...

   [i was responding to Father Aidan Keller on the ORTHODOX mailing
   list -Ken, 3/24/2015]