Wanting to be a zen priest

I was reading over a blogpost in which I had written "I don't want to be a Buddhist and I don't want to be a zen priest" and I thought, "Huh, I wonder what my friends who are Buddhists and zen priests are going to feel like when they read that."
And I thought about them reading it and I thought they would probably roll their eyes and laugh at me for still being so hung up on this idea of what a Buddhist is. But then I also thought that it might be kind of a bummer to have someone say that they don't want to be you, to have someone think of what you do as something undesirable.
And I thought, "Huh, are you saying you don't want to be them?"
And I thought about who they are and what they do and how much their practice helps others and I thought, "Wow, really? You don't want to be that?"
And I thought, "No I do. I have so much respect for the work that they do and the way in which they do it. It's an incredibly beautiful thing to watch someone encourage another to feel love, to become themselves, to finally find peace or ease from this same world that has brought them anxiety and fear."
"So then what's the problem?" I asked myself. "Why don't you want to become a zen priest?"
And I looked at those words- priest- and I pictured a really tall man, in church robes, barely talking, completely removed from the congregation in front of him.

And then I pictured my really good friends, one leaving the building to catch the BART to take classes in Berkeley, the other walking in to the front office, to see how things were going, if anything needed to be taken care of that morning.
"Those are zen priests," I told myself. "Those are people who have committed themselves to this practice. Those are people who have chosen to spend their lives doing what they can to make themselves available for others."
And then I thought back to that tall guy, in church robes, who was so removed from his congregation. And I thought that he probably had made the same commitment. He had probably joined the ministry for the same reason: to share his practice with others, to act as a guide, to help others to find the solace he had found in his religion.

These are people, who love others. This is a zen priest... or maybe it isn't. There isn't an it to be had in this situation. My friends are very different, there isn't one way to be a zen priest. A zen priest isn't a thing, it isn't a person, I don't really know what it means when I say zen priest. I think I just need to stop saying that I don't want to be one, because there isn't one to be. I won't be my friends if I follow this practice, I won't become a "Buddhist" if I continue what I'm doing at the zen center. I'm still going to be me, they're still who they are.

What does it mean to be a zen priest?
I still don't know but I know my friends, and I know how much they have loved me over the past three years. I've watched them care about me and encourage me, be patient with me, laugh at me and with me, but always be available to me, in whatever condition I come to them. Is that what it means to be a zen priest? I don't know. All I know is my friends, and I don't even know them, but I see what they do and it seems silly to say, in fact, it's a lie to say, that I don't want to do that.