19/365 RCIA

I'm on the RCIA team. Sr. Hildegard has a way of asking me to do things that I have a hard time saying no to. Now, there are things I would say no to. I would never have tried to run the church picnic back when we had a church picnic. I won't join the stewardship commission. I don't have anything to bring to finance or to any task that requires many many phone calls.

There are things I do that are in my comfort zone--it is easy to make a banner. It is easy to water plants (and let them die accidentally, mysteriously...easy, but I wonder if I'm the gal for that job sometimes). It is sometimes excruciating to go to Worship Commission meetings but it's ok because I know many other people are aggravated as well. Children's Liturgy of the Word is easy now that I'm not making the schedule. Cooking for the homebound, delivering food, sitting on parish council. All easy.

And then there are things that I probably should be doing but that fall outside my comfort zone. Long ago, being on the Art & Environment committee was outside that zone, mostly due to Dolores and Roxanne running the show back then. Nowadays it's ok. I've learned how to deal with Lynn as best I can and it's ok.

But all that aside, RCIA is the one thing I do at the parish that consistently makes me feel awkward and unqualified. I'm fine with being there. It's when it's my turn to run a session that I feel like, well, like I used to when I was in a classroom and my principal was observing. Uneasy. I don't know why, although I have some hunches. Perhaps it's because I'm not ever sure I'm representing The Church as well as I should. Perhaps because I don't have the education or background of many of the other catechists--I have the least, in fact, I would venture to say. I know, someone has to be the least qualified and that doesn't mean I'm not qualified at all. I just get all worked up.

Sunday was my first RCIA session since our new candidate Joel joined us. And it went fine, although I wish we had two or three more candidates so that the dismissal catechesis, when we leave after the homily to go "break open the word" more on our own, would have more brains to draw on. The session after mass is even more awkward with just one candidate. On Sunday there were 4 catechists and his sponsor there, which is a big number considering there's only one of him. Nothing I could have added that would have brought more light to the conversation, really. But I was there and maybe that was enough.

I'm a pretty decent writer. I feel like I communicate well on paper. One of my readers (and amazing writer who is no longer blogging, alas) once compared me to Orwell that way--as he put it, "not in the feverishly dystopic way, but in how you put words on paper." Good prose is like a windowpane. The words shouldn't block the view. But when I'm called to take those words in my head and speak them? It doesn't go as well as I would like. It isn't the same.

So I'm struggling with RCIA. Hildegard says they need me. So I think I should stay. But I wonder if someone else would be better. So then I think I should back off. But who is that person? How do we find her? I don't know these answers. So I hang on for now, quietly dreading the Sunday when it's my turn but knowing that it is something that needs to be done. So I'll go eat my powder milk biscuits...which of course give shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Heavens they're tasty and expeditious.