To discern or not to discern

Well, I'm about to meet with my priest to discuss stuff. He's the one who intitiated this meeting. He's probably following up on our meeting last October when I just wanted to talk to him about my questions and doubts and leanings toward ordination. The title of this post is silly, because whether or not I decide to actually form an official discernment committee, I'll still be in discernment. Aren't we always? Hopefully? We should always be discerning God's call in our life, always trying to find our grace thing, our charisma that draws people to God...I guess, trying to access God's charisma, Jesus' charisma and cling like a magnet. I'm feeling very weird about this meeting. Partly because I've had weird priest meetings in the past. Most of the weirdness stems from me not articulating what I really feel. I read something on another blog. It was actually a comment posted to feminary.blosgpot.com. Check her out! She's awesome. Anyway, she's also trying to figure out whether or not to pursue ordination and someone wrote back: "In the end I realized it was exactly what I needed to be for me to learn to trust my sense of call and advocate for it. And to grow up." I SO resonate with this. It's time for me to just go for it and to stop looking for outside permission. It's time to own this, dammit. But I still feel less than confident going in to talk with the priest today. Because I have no idea if I should be ordained. I fear the discernment process will be more about defending myself against the third degree, rather than a prayerful exploration in community. I'm sure he'll ask me about my work at the hospital. I've been working as an asisstant to the chaplain. It's been hard and humbling and perspective-giving. Sometimes I've felt like a dufus, stumbling naively into patient's rooms with the audacity to offer some "comfort." And other times I feel like a priest...like the Spirit is praying through me to offer the words that person needs to hear in that moment. We'll see...I'll write more after the meeting.