Found out on Wednesday that I’ll be losing one of my jobs in the next month to month-and-a-half or so. I’ve been working part-time at Father Woody’s Haven of Hope for about six months now after working there in the same position, only full-time, for over a year before that. It’s not a surprise to me that they want to get someone in who can work at the shelter full-time. I think on Mondays and Tuesdays it was probably not that fun to be down a staff member, especially over the last two or three months, which have been hectic.

So, no hard feelings. I’ll stay on through the transition with the new person they bring on and try to leave them in the best shape possible to pick up where I left off. Frankly, it has felt a bit like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for awhile now. When I first approached Woody’s to see if they’d be open to me going part-time back in June, I thought they’d say no. So I was already prepared then to need to figure something else out.

The good news is I’ve added a couple of paid gigs since then. I’m working as a contractor for The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado (scroll to the bottom of the staff section) and I have an agreement with the website Ministry Matters to contribute two posts a month, starting in February. These pieces don’t replace the money from Woody’s, but it makes it a little bit less painful in the meantime.

Ultimately, I’d like to serve as a Street Chaplain tending to homeless and formerly homeless folks—and maybe even outreach workers and frontline staff—which could also be a part-time thing in conjunction with my time at Network Coffee House and Interfaith Alliance. How that gets off the ground, exactly, is a bit foggy to me. Funding is the main thing, right? And then there has to be some kind of supervisory structure or ordaining body. I have more ideas for the latter than I do for the former, but I’ve learned over the last two or three years that with patience and some attentive receptivity these things can shake out in agreeable ways.