The Banging Sound You Hear . . .

. . . is my head hitting the wall.

So now it's official. There are soon to be three full time permanent chaplain positions opening up here. Which means we're all scrambling to get the metric ton of paperwork (this is the federal government, after all) accumulated and submitted. Yours truly, being behind the eight ball as usual, still has a great deal of writing to do. So today and this weekend will be spent typing furiously away so that the powers that be know in minute detail exactly what I've been doing every moment of my professional life.

But here's the rub. While I have every bit of information that the government could possibly want (and probably some that they don't want!), there's this little issue of an endorsement from the head office of the denomination. You see, the VA wants me to have it in writing from the UCC that I am, in fact, in possession of full credentials and not some nutjob who happened to get my ordination online and am fully endorsed by the First Church of Anything I Say Goes (Membership = 1). Trust me, there are a lot of those people running around!

But the UCC won't give me that letter until I have what they term a "call" (otherwise known as a job). So they told me, "Once you get hired by the VA, then we'll give you the endorsement." They're reasoning is that they don't want a bunch of endorsed clergy running amok without being held accountable by places of employment. Why that matters so much is beyond me, at this moment.

So now I'm in a catch 22 situation. The VA says endorsement, then job and the UCC says job, then endorsement. Neither side is budging, and I am now running back and forth between the two trying to negotiate this impasse. At stake is a very nice job with benefits, retirement, tons of security, and the notion that I won't have to panic when One Ring's Ph.D. funding runs out at the end of next year.

Oh, yeah. One more thing. It's Easter weekend, and no one is in the office. What gives? I have to work, why don't they?

Time for caffeine, then paperwork, then tons of writing. Shoot. Just remembered an ethics conference for today, too. Insert primal scream here, please!

Peace out.