Blogging should be easy...right?

I have blogged before... it was easy; it really was.  It was during my time in "Nam"...ya, really it was, but not the normal usage of the term "Nam".  Since I was born in 1970, I did not spend any time in the war against North Vietnam, but as an adult I spent two weeks there in the summer of 2007. 

I spent time in both north and south Vietnam when I went to Vietnam to "pick up" my daughter, Vy.  Her name is actually much longer and a lot harder to spell, but she is my daughter none the less.  Vy, in Vietnamese means, little pink flower….but in English it means, she who screams a lot and has an attitude.  Because of the English translation, Vy’s first name got moved to her middle name, following her new and approved first name, Lucy.  Her new name came from my paternal grandmother, Mary Lucille.  Since I am an Episcopal priest and not a Roman Catholic priest, “Mary” is way too “Catholic” for me…so Vy became…”Lucy”.  Yes my little Asian daughter’s name is Lucy and I can’t help from coming home and yelling, “Lucy, you have some (ex) splaining to do”.  One day she will understand the Lucille Ball reference, but until then I will continue to have flash backs to evenings at Mary Lucille’s living room while watching her “new” TV (Normally The Lawrence Welk Show, but still…I love Lucy was in there somewhere).

Well, my blogging in Vietnam was fun, and from what I am told, quite interesting and humorous, but blogging as “me” as an Episcopal priest is quite hard.  For those of you that don’t have a clue about what it is like to be an Episcopal priest, let me clue you in.  My whole life (for the most part…even encroaching on my family life) pertains to my parish.  I have no “friends”…now don’t get me wrong, I have friends, but my friends are parishioners…they are people who I know through my parish.  Because my friends are members of my parish, I am always “on duty”…though we might be friends, I am still their priest.  The blessing is that people let me into their lives on such a level that they might call me their friend, but on the flip-side, I’m still their priest and how I respond to their lives effects theirs lives….as the “Church” and not only from “Kirk” (which also means church, but that is a whole another (whole nother) ironic topic which needs to be blogged about.  

The short of it is that my life revolves around my parish, and if I blog about my parish…well… there is a confidentiality issue, because what is told under the
“stole” stays under the stole.

I am going to attempt to blog about my life as an Episcopal priest in Northern Nevada, but…well… we’ll see what actually roles off my finger tips.  My guess is that most of it will be a whole lot about nothing…but the other stuff just might be worth reading.

Peace,

Fr. Kirk