Does that mean he likes the 12 more? Does that mean he values them more? What does it mean that he makes those selections? And how do we relate to that rightfully in a healthy way as a human? Yeah, big themes for me.

Yeah, and I think in the conversations we've had over the last few years, helpfully, there is a real recognition of how difficult this is to do and how grateful we are that neither one of us is doing this alone when we're walking with a particular soul in the seminary and that we need each other because we don't have the faculties to do this discernment alone at all and that it's not just, oh, what do you see that is different from me? I think it's also what happens when we come together and place a certain soul in front of our hearts and minds and listen and talk to each other and actually make space for a creative spiritual process where we can do spiritual discernment is maybe what I would try to call it versus like writing up a spreadsheet, which spreadsheets are super helpful, but in this kind of discernment, they really only go so far.

And so when you were speaking, Patrick, I was thinking about what it is to walk this seminary path and I remember my own path, and I was in my mid to late 20s, just so you know where I was sort of developmentally as a person when I was in seminary.

And I remember feeling kind of embarrassed about the fact that I didn't feel like I had a really strong will about becoming ordained.

I wasn't coming into my meetings with the directors like, This is what I think is important about God and the human and the future.

Like I was not ready to talk about any of that.

And I was really listening for what is their discernment about me? Like, what are you sensing? And not in the sense of like, am I good enough or do I pass the test? But just like, Um, yeah, so I'm trying to develop some more words and pictures around what that process is so that it isn't just like mysterious acceptance language of like, when we never know and there it's yes.

maybe I think,