1. Freedom. If your schedule is free, and the Rockies happen to have a home game in about 45 minutes, you can whistle "take me out to the ballgame" all the way down to Coors Field, root, root, root for the home team, and be back in time to meet with the altar guild.
2. Part of your job is study and thinking. The last few years, I've been boning up on the economics and social structure of first century palestine, which is a subject of interest to me, and, even better, it's part of my job. You're expected to read theology, ancient history, and commentaries on the Bible. Fun! They pay you to do this?
3. Everybody else is over-worked and under-paid, and so are you, but it doesn't matter that much. True, you work a lot of hours, including every weekend, but, on the other hand, the word "work" is a bit relative here. As a friend of mine used to say, "After you've grown up on a farm, nothin' else seems like work." You're not shucking hay bales, after all.
4. Your week will have music in it. The organist will be practicing a Bach piece on Tuesday afternoon. Some time during the week, the flute ensemble, or the guitar quartet, will be working up an offertory. You'll listen to some songs, or play through some yourself, to see if they'd work in the service. On Sundays, you get to sing the liturgy. This enlivens your spirit.
5. The collar will occasionally get you a good parking space. I once got a free cab ride in New York City. How often does that happen? You can also go pretty much wherever you want. Show up in a collar and you might be able to go backstage and shake hands with Elton John--or, if you're really lucky, John Dominic Crossan!
One unexpected in a collar: I was at O'Hare airport about to succumb to the flu, when the airline security guy directs me from the full traffic line to the virtually free line.
Wow, I thought, what a great day to be wearing the collar...until I discovered this was the "full search" line, as all religious clerics were under suspicion of not being who they appeared or fanatical fundamentalists.
I was spared the rubber glove treatment, but I am reminded of a line by Chevy Chase in the movie "Fletch" - after a "behind the scenes exam" the doctor admits to finding nothing to which Chevy replies, "Certainly not for a lack of looking."
Posted by: von Gunten | February 16, 2008 at 03:21 PM
O'Hare is especially tvetchy about that kind of stuff. If I remember correctly, the president of some college--Carthage?--got arrested at O'Hare.
Posted by: John Petty | February 16, 2008 at 06:27 PM