What People Skills?

I had a consultation last Saturday with my godfather, which is where I learned I’m ready to initiate as a priest.

This lead into a discussion of ways to be more effective at being a tool of the spirits, which leads right into the skill I am the absolute worst at: peopling. People skills, if you like.

I think the nicest way I could put it is I’m not convinced I want to be around people much, because they’ve not been kind. This is unfortunate, because people and their welfare are my main mission in life.

Over the last few days, I’ve had the chance to watch myself while I deal with people. I am, putting it lightly, easily irritated with people. Every time I would ordinarily have been annoyed and said something to people about it, I’ve stopped and thought about it.

Get irritated easily is a luxury, and most of the time what I’d be annoyed by is trivial (and mostly about me being inconvenienced.) An occupational hazard of being a woman in a male-dominated job is having to explain what I’m doing over and over to people as they make disparaging comments…. which is actually great practice for being a priest.

I have no intention of waiting until I hurt someone to learn how to govern myself better. I might be godawful at getting along with people, but I can get better.

I’m going to start thanking people, sincerely, for a chance to practice people skills before I’m seeing people for the spirits. They’re doing me a favor, though I’m probably not going to tell them why.