Today the chapters of Ezekiel that follow the reading (EZ 2: 2-5) remind me more of the kind of fear I had back when my students hated me.  When I was working beyond my capacity for classroom management.

My students' rebellion was ever present in my mind.  My fear of the next day, my failure at the last round of classes, my sense of being out of control of the situation was in everything. Every meal, every grudging decision to wake up.  Every moment.  Sitting and standing I was a teacher who couldn't handle her class.

Is that what it really feels like, to be called?  This thing in the world is in everything.  This things that's wrong -- whether it was me or the school or the students and everything else around them -- it ate at everything, all the time.

I think I always assumed the call was empowering.  I can fix this.  I have been chosen   This is where you must go and do great things in every bite of food, every grudging decision to get out of bed, every moment of every day.

What if it's not?  What if the call is "The world is wrong, and these people won't appreciate being told that"?  What if the call is just the problem?

I certainly felt and feared for a good long while that I was walking away from the class when I left the school where my students hated me for the school where my students have come to really love me.  My life is easier.  My days are filled with other things as well, at least when I'm not directing.

Did I walk away from the call of Ezekiel?  Or did I just choose to focus on the less rebellious part of the house?