In this process toward ordained ministry, I underwent a psychological assessment that determined that I top out the introvert/extrovert scale.  And guess which end I was on?

<insert my best imitation of a smile here>

So it may make sense that I begin to process this profound disappointment in an outward way.  To be honest, I do this for a couple of reasons (though I’m not sure which ranks higher for me right now).  One is that I haven’t blogged in quite a while and this is a pretty solid subject to talk about.  Second is that I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this kind of disappointment, and often the simple act of sharing (and reading about) similar experiences can be comforting.

And so yesterday was the day of bad news.  I found out that I didn’t pass the interview that I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy preparing for.  When I say interview, I really mean that it’s very much an oral examination.  The way the process went is that there are three separate 30-minute interviews with three separate groups.  Later, they get together to have conversation and eventually take a vote.  And I didn’t receive the required 75% to pass.

So what went wrong?

That’s a hard question to answer today, because today I’m angry.  In that anger, I find myself wanting to lash out.  I find myself short-tempered.  I find myself wanting to blame the process or the people or the politics or any number of factors.  And yes, I surely blame myself.  Whether or not I hold this blame equally is something that changes roughly every few seconds.  Likely I’ll end up blaming myself most.  That’s what I do.

And don’t take that to mean that I’ll go to that dark place of not being good enough or giving up.  That’s not what I mean.  The simple truth is that the people conducting the interview didn’t hear the things they needed to hear from me to vote positively.  That’s the truth.  And it sucks.