It is difficult attempting to live into my new identity when I am surrounded by my old one. It is hard to realize the coming completion of a long process when the current situation does not encourage its realization.
I remember a movie I saw a few years ago. I don't remember the title, but it was about the final few Carolingian monks and their fight against evil (or some such thing). There was a scene where the protagonist Carolingian priest was fighting against his attraction to a women and the temptation to stray from his vows. While talking to his mentor about what he should do, the mentor asked him, "Are you a man?" His response was something like, "I am not a man; I am a priest."
There is an element of truth or reality in that kind of response. Over the last several years, I have gone through a process that has set me aside for a purpose that is fundamentally different than that of most people. Not that I am any better or more enabled or whatever than anyone else in this new identity or purpose, but it is different. It is difficult to really feel the reality of it all when I am not doing the work - much, anyway. It is frustrating. What does it mean to say, “I am not a man; I am a priest!�
