Ready for Speed Dating

Today and tomorrow are times of concentrated effort as our middler class spends time interviewing with congregations from across the country who are graciously willing to have an intern for the coming year. In this year in particular gearing up has taken an added strenuous times as the economy has in some instances decimated the ability of parishes to support interns. And it has become more challenging for interns to contemplate who to have some level of viability in the year on internship. Given the ages of my children, with LC#1 being a high school senior next year, I am not free to travel just anywhere. Yet, I feel blessed to have six possible locations for my learning experience. Though some see our region as being fairly homeogenous and monolithic, in fact each of these flocks is vastly different from the other, and a few are in very transitional times. From my perspective this translates into my feeling that there are many exciting and challenging opportunities in which I may be stretched and formed in new ways. In the good old days, our internship matching process has been called "the meat market" though I prefer the updated phrase " speed dating."
I have read the profiles, and looked over whatever else the congregation provided as a glimpse into their world, and I have visited websites, talked to old interns and acquaintances of supervisors.
In short, I have done everything I can do. Which is I think the main point. So much of this process is not up to me, and not even up to the supervisors or field education team, but is, I hope and believe, the work of the Spirit in our midst.
Some of my classmates are dealing with great anxiety as they sort out their situations in relationship to the notion of being ready to "mobilize."
I am again reminded of the story in the Gospel of Mark in our recent lectionary of the calling of the first disciples. "Come and follow me on the way" What are the nets we find it hard to cast down? Are we so preoccupied with them that Jesus needs to yell to get our attention?
Jesus says come and FOLLOW me. Even in ministry it is hard to remember that we are called to follow God's lead, not to try to lead God where we want to go. To prepare myself for the way I was blessed to spend two hours with Taize and contemplative prayer and walking the labyrinth by candlelight with some friends in our chapel in the evening. And now, it is time to listen to where God is calling. Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Between the Firsts and the Lasts

As this past year drew to a close and I am now halfway through my J-term class, I am halfway through my coursework at LTSG. A semester until internship, and the knowledge that the time after internship will fly. And at this halfway point, lots of things have begun to crystallize in new ways, and perhaps this is my epiphany. This time last year, I like some of the juniors I talked to this year, had that sense of brief relief, having survived that first semester, and discovering that coming back to school was, in some ways, a relief- to be with people who understand this whole "becoming a pastor thing." Yet this year, I am ready to head out to internship, because after the summer at the hopsital "doing," I am itchy to get out where this whole "pastor thing" happens, not just talk about it. And after starting seminary feeling like it was all swirling wildly, knowing that the swirl has a Director. As I listen to those who are in the junior class, I hear them saying the very things my peers and I said last year, knowing that the seniors can say the same about us middlers. There is a certain joy in being able to see where one was, with one foot into the future unknown, when it is framed in discernment in the community here.
But as sure as I say that, I am, I daresay, impatient. Yet, I know that this year is in so many ways a gift. A gift of time to luxuriate in learning. To know that I have traveled from that first day of Greek to probably the last class with a professor who has been a mainstay in my seminary learning, and to bask in that one moment of praise. A time to draw my family close in ways that will not always be possible. A time to enjoy the sparkle of the face of LC#1 and her boy. I gaze upon the Adorable Couple, knowing that this first real "romance" is also a marker of the time which will be the last of high school, far sooner than I expected it. To watch as LC#2 is even more quickly hurtling toward that same direction, or at least it seems that warp speed has been activated.
A time to move closer toward that goodbye to my home parish. And to stand in the tension of finally having preached to the home flock for the first time,and to soak up their welcome, but also to know that I have probably sung my last Christmas Eve with them; my last Christmas Eve solo. Yet, to feel a peace in this new status after many months of angst over it.
And indeed to prepare the inlaws for the reality that we will not be with them next Christmas Eve, and to incur the blast of wrath for "taking them away just because of something you think you have to do." To be shopping with my mother who is still trying to buy me things I will not wear, in the time when there are only so many days outside of clerics. To hear her say she still cannot get that through her head, but to gently tell both women in my family that in fact over the next year, this change will come.
And finally ending the last vestige of my active legal practice- having now articulated when the last work will be for the two communities I represent, which happens to coincide with when my good friend and town manager is retiring, so we will "ride off into the sunset" at the same time, having had what will probably be the last business lunch before we each leave this community in different ways.
Between now and internship, and all of those classes, I continue working several times a month as a chaplain, and to this there is one more first and last. I have gone from the first day of CPE when the facility and all it entailed seemed impossible to fathom, to completing CPE. But now as I did this fall, again this week, I will be helping to train one of the new interns in a shadowing process and to recall where I have been in new ways.
While I am beginning to think about where God may place me for internship, I give thanks for the Spirit's showing that this pattern of firsts and lasts is not one we experience in isolation, but in prayer and contemplation, and in the community with all of those who are placed here in our midst as instruments to that purpose.

I Hope You Dance

Now that our family's issues are under control for now...I confess I love the start of a school year- I always have. This year I am only on campus two days, but am slammed in classes for as many hours as class is offered. So I am staying away from home on Tuesday nights, and coming home late Wednesdays. I tried that this week and have learned how I must live into what this means for my family and for me. By the grace of God it will work just as I got through last spring when I drove every day, six days a week. The Lord provides in so many ways.
Back in the day there used to be the new school clothes and all of the trappings that were necessary to make the "first day of school" splash. The last vestige of that was scoring binders that are different colors inside and out with six pockets
(take that,Scott!)And a new label maker. But as this school year begins, my two new binders are not what has me feeling content.
Instead it is the joy of seeing people who have become my buds, some of whom blog or lurk on mine, as we return for another year, and catching up on the last couple months. The kids are bigger, the experiences have been many, our lives are the same and yet..
The collective nervous energy of the junior year is gone. We have, after all, survived, and perhaps even thrived. Many of us have discerned more about our callings. There are new wives, or fiancees, and a sense that this year will bring new adventures. As I hear of their stories, I am so glad to see how the Spirit moves in their lives! I think for many of us, though I only speak for myself, there is a sense of living into our callings more fully. To share a laugh, a hug, a word of encouragement, a prayer. And to share war stories. I sense that retaining this comraderie in our lives beyond here will sustain us just like those Epistles and letters.
To see professors again who have become a part of the joy and the feeding of my soul in ways they may not even know. To hear how each of us have touched the lives of others, in intentional ministry and in the ways we were sent by the Spirit that we may not even have comprehended.
And there are new faces- the incoming juniors, and those returning from internships or here for their Lutheran year. Many stories to hear and embrace.
A year ago I blogged about the cloud of witnesses. They are still here, but this year, I was inspired by our Dean as she spoke of living the dance, or maybe living into the dance. Her talk was much more emboldening than my writing here, but she spoke of all it could mean to dance as people of the Spirit. In a world of possibility and the gaining of wisdom, of experiencing what it means to live in the here and now. So I leave you with one of my favorite songs, which she referenced in her remarks... The first time I found this song was to inspire a young woman who was a confirmand I mentored.
Comming to seminary can be more than a little life altering, but a year later, I cannot imagine being anywhere else. Wherever life takes you, if you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I Hope You Dance!

The Long and Winding Road Takes Another Turn

Our time for the summer unit of CPE ended a week ago at the Regional Trauma Center in “Amish Country.” A time for us to wrap up our reflections ( though mine are still resonating). Time for contemplating this context of ministry which is in a city(though arguably not a New York or even Philly-sized) which serves a county of a half a million, plus a neighboring area. Where our diversity includes not only several racial or ethnic groups, but a distinct religious sector, the Plain Sect faiths. A place where many may see the county as one way, the days of old, in spite of the rapid, burgeoning growth in divergent paths. In the past, most towns could count a traffic light or two, but now bypasses, sprawl and transience are phenomena of the last fifteen years. Where the trauma bays is far more frequently in use than ever before. Here are some random thoughts from the group.
One of my team mates brought up how the ER staff treats people who are intoxicated- the “drunks” – and how he found himself buying into their vibe and banter even when he felt he should not. It is easy to understand- the staff have seen lots of pain and crisis when people drink and drive. It is hard to have to clean up a person who chose this path. My peer stayed and joined in. And I thought of that fire in the courtyard with Peter and the others- denying Christ. What you do to others, you do to me. What about those it is hard to love? We talked about how easy it is to see Jesus’ ministry and our calling to carry it out, in a sanitized movie-set way. The truth is that the ER and much of the work we do here on the eight floors is a very real composite of the demoniacs, lepers, drunkards, gluttons, prostitutes, blind, lame.. these are not people somewhere else, but here in our midst and we are called to minister to all of them.
And while much of our work is valued at the time, who knows for whom the message is a fleeting glimpse. Some may see their crisis as the catalyst for a quest, while others know they can or will not, and some will outright reject. Our sharing centered around remembering that Jesus was not only loved and adored, but rejected with a cry to “Crucify!” One of the struggles for some has been wondering how their work will bear fruit, who cannot see their presence at the moment as sufficient, a single step in a much longer journey. Sometimes our work is done in very visible ways, and at other times when perhaps only God knows we have been present. Some wrestle with not having an affirmation of their care. Others struggle with knowing that they see a person leave who is going right back into the crucible that sent them here. And I think of the rich man who walked away, those who were healed who never said thanks. And those who do the things they do not want to do, and cannot do the things they know they want to.
For myself, I know that what I have gleaned here can, and will hopefully, carry over into ministry and relationships in a variety of circumstances and contexts. But I also know that the immediacy of this care in this context, where I am Spirit led and sent into roles I could not imagine, to be in liminal moments where I am in awe of God’s presence, demonstrating compassion to those it is easy to forget, is an experience I am drawn to. Times where mere words seem insufficient. While my peers wrapped up their unit and moved on, I am continuing as an on-call chaplain while I return for my second year in seminary, with a new ID, and new discerning to do. When I began my process of discernment, I assumed I would be ruling things out that did not seem like my ministry. Instead I have found that I am ruling things “in” which I think means that I am becoming more a person open to the Spirit’s leading, and less a person who wants to tell God how I think it ought to be. I am energized to see where the long and winding road will take me next and who my fellow travelers will be.