The Eighteenth Wheel

I’m in the library studying theology. Aw crap, you caught me. I’m actually hiding in the library (with an open theology book, mind you) because I’m too afraid to go downstairs for lunch. The college is hosting an Open Day for prospective ordinands, and so the dining hall is packed with priests, future priests, and potential future priests. I didn't really want to be the only person in the room who's destined for Hell. Not gonna lie, it’s a little intimidating. So intimidating, in fact, that I’m even giving up a free lunch [*gasp!*].

To be fair, even when it’s me among just this year’s bunch of ordinands I feel a little intimidated. I’m not sure “intimidated” is quite the right word, as on those occasions when I’m the only non-ordinand among ordinands I feel less intimidated and more like the third wheel on a 17-person date. They all lean into each other to share intimate conversations about church politics or which tune they’re going to use for the “Magnificat” at Evensong, and every now and then their intimacy is shattered by my feeling the need to laugh with a ridiculously loud volume at a joke about Giles Fraser just to prove that “HEY FOR ONCE I HAVE A FAINT IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!” Those rare moments where I am even capable of doing an honest but deafening guffaw of recognition, however, are vastly outnumbered by moments of those weak smiles of someone trying to hide the fact that they are, relatively speaking, a dipshit. Most of the time I have genuinely no fucking clue what anyone is talking about, and I feel as though I crashed the house party of the Elect.

But this isn’t to bitch about the ordinands, the poor dears. They're all lovely people and those rare moments when I do understand what the hell they're talking about make all the moments of confusion worthwhile. Besides, it’s only natural to be very close to people going through the same program, and to be honest I think the people in my own program are more cult-like. Try sitting in on a conversation between a group of student-teachers and see how lost you feel—it’s like we vomit up a never-ending fountain of incomprehensible acronyms and “my pupils are shitter than your pupils” trump stories.

Still though. I think I’ll stay in the library just to be safe.