I don’t know.

Yesterday while out walking the dogs I bumped into someone (not literally, social distancing et al.) from church who I haven’t seen since March 2020. We had a little chat and at the end they said ‘Hope to see you in church sometime soon.’ I have not been back to a church service since the first lockdown began. Memories of church came flooding back to me as I walked away, but I was left as I am with so many things wondering what I do now. With all restrictions on what we can and can’t do, what we must and must not do set to lift on Monday I find myself left wondering what I should do. Back at the start of the first lockdown in March 2020 I was conscious that I live alone and have no family here to look after me should I need them too if I caught Covid and it had serious consequences for me, yes I have good friends but they need to look after thier families first and rightly so. Also due to this I was not in a support bubble, so for over a year and a half I have been very cautious. I have seen a handful of people, a couple of times, I have been out for a meal twice once last summer and once a few weeks ago but both times was anxious underneath the service, and I have had my shopping delivered weekly. Now I have been double vaccinated do I venture out more? Do I start going shopping? Do I go back to church? This should be a relatively easy decision to make however, Covid case numbers are jumping up wildly. I know of two people who are double vaccinated and still ended up in hospital. I know that some people in church have not been wearing masks for a while and breaking social distancing measures, which I view as unsafe. It would be awful if after all this time and the measures I have taken to stay safe to end up in hospital with it now. ALSO I really, really, really, want to go to my last of the course, Uni Residential in September, honestly, if I couldn’t go cause I got Covid and was too poorly I would be devastated and not sure how I would recover from that alone, never mind the Covid. So I often sit in my flat just wondering ‘what do I do?’ And I have no answers. I don’t want to live in fear as so many people keep banging on about but equally are they going to be the ones that look after me if I get it? No. Also I’m not sure what ‘going back to normal’ looks like now. And don’t even get me started on going forward for ordination….when that topic arises within in me this happens: ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Not a scooby do. Way to many questions I can’t answer. Does the church really even want clergy as the message they give out is so mixed I have no idea. I definitely do not want to be on a PCC ever in my life as after all that has happened to me over the years I am not wasting time sitting in pointless meetings arguing about trivial stuff. So that rules me out of some of it so maybe I need to readjust it, but to what? Maybe God was never really calling me to that but wanted me to go as far as I can do with it? Why would God call me to an institution that is so riddled with patriarchy, racism and homophobia? And such an unsafe place for anyone to be employed by? The things I’ve been taught about the calling of God mean that all of that could be true and none of it could be true. “God won’t call you to something that makes sense.” “God will call you to something you don’t necessarily want to do.” This doesn’t paint a very pleasant picture of a lovely father to me however and that creates issues. So after all that has happened God wants me to do something I don’t particularly want to in an unsafe place…. now…. I am not saying that God can’t make me want it or that He can’t make it safe for me. Of course He can, but just cause God can doesn’t mean that He will. So I am left with wondering what I should do in the micro and the macro sense of things.