Poor as a Churchmouse

Mr. M says that he can see me as a little mouse in a library, reading all the books, and cursing the librarian for leaving cheddar in the traps instead of brie. The way finances are going, I think "churchmouse" might be a more accurate discription.

And I'm fine with that for me. It's funny, when Mr. M was a bachelor, it seemed to me that he was making quite a lot of money, but now that we're talking about having a family one day, it doesn't seem like very much at all. This gets trickier right now since I'm looking for a new job-- do I look for something PT that lets me take the Children's Ministry position at my church, or do I look for something FT that pads our savings account before we leave for seminary? I'd much rather be doing ministry. In fact, the day I quit KarpetWunder was a great day, because I spent 7 hours doing ministry-related things. I had thought to myself, "this is exactly how I'd like to be spending my time!"

It all makes me think of Jesus telling his disciples, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) "Hate" is of course a strong word, and so maybe the way I think about it is that anyone who is possessive or protective of those things will be too bound by them to serve Him. Some days, it makes a lot of sense that Catholic clergy must remain unmarried. Oddly, Jesus never tells us not to marry (Paul suggests that we shouldn't, but Jesus doesn't), he just tells us our spouse doesn't come first. Not exactly what the religious right tries to tell us about family values, is it? Maybe that's something to think about.