the machete turned against me.

Just now--reading this book and thinking through these questions--I realize that I had such an opportunity last year in Oregon and I wasted it. They gave me mostly uncharted territory and a machete and I let myself be argued into compliance by So-and-so: figuring out what "they" wanted done and then half-heartedly and half-effectively doing it. I could have been cutting open the box. I could have been doing the unsanctioned thing. I could have been taking commission culture somewhere. But it will live instead a meek life as the lingo of the Conference administration. How sad. I hope one day that I can do something to change that.

And this--this!--is why I was so unhappy last year, so dissatisfied with my work. I wasn't doing what I was meant to do, what I wanted to do, probably not even what I was hired to do. They didn't need another secretary, they needed a change agent and I failed them. I listened to the wrong voice and I took the well-worn path, the path of caution and compliance. Why? Why did I let myself down and my church down that way? These thoughts are all discouraging, but I finally feel like I've made sense of it. I finally understand why I felt the way I did in Oregon. That took a while.