I concur. I left in the middle of being on a rector search committee. Talk about leaving with maximum exposure! But once we were in the safety of the Church away from the heterodoxy, it's amazing how much spiritual growth has occurred, how much I'm learning.
Alice, you talked at Pontifications about the freedom to able to focus on spiritual matters. I must confess that the last couple of years in ECUSA, I found that I used my own spiritual walk as an example, as a badge almost. I was living in a fishbowl because I was the ringleader of dissenting voices from GC2003. I didn't realize, until I left, that it had become a point of pride for me.
I pray for you rest from your weariness, joy in the fullness of the faith, and healing in the Real Body and Blood of Christ.
(I got hit on the other end -- got put on the music director search committee almost as soon as I darkened the door of our new church. . . the assistant organist was hiding his light under a bushel . . . he was filling in as an interim after the old jump-for-Jesus Oregon-Catholic-Press guy (yuk!) left . . . and we started noticing how good he was . . . turned out he had a doctorate in organ performance from Juilliard and did a Fulbright in France . . . once we heard that, it was a full-court press to get him the job. We love him and wouldn't trade him for John Rutter himself and a player to be named later . . . :-) First thing he did was get us 40 copies of the St. Gregory Hymnal so we could start singing the OLD stuff . . . )
I can't tell you how WONDERFUL it is to be working like mad at music and liturgy and making our service as beautiful as possible -- instead of political rumors and whispers and plotting and worrying about delegates to GC . . . I feel like I'm in church again instead of a political convention . . . WHAT a relief!