September 16: Tipping of the World, the Future, Magic 8-Ball

It's a tipping-of-the-world day.  One of those days when my comfortable life may change permanently.  The air is cool; the sun, bright.  It's like the afternoon is a pane of glass that could shatter into pieces.  That fragile.  One tossed stone and everything is gone.

There is a meeting tonight at church, and, at that meeting, a group of people will decide whether to keep paying my salary or eliminate it from the 2014 church budget.  If the vote goes my way, I keep my job and can pay my mortgage/bills.  If the vote doesn't go my way, I'm out of a job I've had for close to 15 years and five pastors.  I will have to start looking for weekend employment, and eventually, quit doing a lot of things that give me a great deal of satisfaction.

That's what I mean by a tipping-of-the world day.  The axis of my planet is about to shift, and all I can do is sit back and watch the storm clouds roll in.  The future is uncertain.

I hesitate to ask my Magic 8-Ball question because I think the answer I'm going to receive will simply confirm the way I think the vote is going to go tonight.  However, I have nothing to lose, metaphorically:

Will the church board vote to maintain my salary tonight?

And Holden's answer is:

I left the Lavender Room pretty soon after they did.  They were closing it up anyway, and the band had quit a long time ago...

I should have known.  Leaving.  Closing.  Quitting.  Catcher in the Rye isn't exactly the happiest book ever written.

Saint Marty should have picked a more uplifting book for 2013.  Like Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

 

Maybe next year