Advent 2011

How time flies. As of today, I am halfway through my divinity school studies and sit here wondering where the time went. Scripture studies, theology, dead languages, history, preaching, pastoral care - it's all mixed up in there together, working on me in ways I may not fully understand for some time to come. But I am very content as I relax here for one last night in our New England 'vacation home' before heading back to PA tomorrow.

I remember how it felt when I was a child and school would let out for Christmas break - unbounded joy and excitement, freedom, anticipation. That's something of what it is now, but there is more depth, more satisfaction, more anticipation. There is a gladness for a break from all the studies and reading mingled with gratitude for the opportunity of engaging in those studies. There is the anticipation of what next semester holds mixed with the longing that is Advent as I await the One who is and is to come. My life seems so pregnant with meaning and expectation for God only knows what.

My last sermon for preaching class was on the Annunciation. I did a first-person account, donning a Mary-blue shawl and speaking in the voice of an elderly Mary, reflecting on her life and her lack of understanding of just what it was the angel was asking of her. She said 'yes' anyway. The point of the sermon was that we are all called to say 'yes' even if we don't really know what it means, trusting in the One that calls. This has been my contemplation this Advent. I don't know what all of this is about, not really, but I have no doubt that my life is exactly where God would have it be. If you're going to be at St. Peter's in the Great Valley on Sunday, you'll get to hear that sermon!

I'll be journeying home tomorrow, looking forward for time to relax, to spend with friends, and preparing for our trip to Sedona, AZ, for Christmas week. Peace, love, and blessing to all of you in the holy Advent.

Chapel on the Green

Commuting home to Pennsylvania most weekends means that I miss a lot of weekend events that I might otherwise attend - concerts, shows, sports events. I don't mind. It's part of the commitment to preserve and tend my marriage during my three years of divinity school education. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, "God did not call me into ministry to sacrifice my marriage." So, for the most part, going home is good.

However, today I attended Chapel on the Green for the first time and realized that this is something I'd like not to miss, at least not every week. Today marked the third anniversary of this ministry on New Haven's Green. That's three years of Eucharist and lunch every Sunday, rain or snow or sleet notwithstanding (except for hurricanes - there was no chapel on that one Sunday). All are welcome to the rather organized chaos of this worship event, even my dogs and me, and there were many from the divinity school and various New Haven churches, but the majority were those who call the Green their home, every day and every night.

Chapel actually begins with a drum line half an hour before 2:00, and we could hear it blocks away. It was a clear signal that there was something happening on the Green. Boudreau and Satchel strolled first through the Occupy tent area then on toward the gathering behind Trinity Church, meeting and greeting folks along the way who flocked to meet these giant beasts! These furry kids of mine are fabulous ministers - they don't seem to notice that most of the people were dressed in shabby, dirty clothes and many had alcohol-breath that could knock me over, but their tails wagged just as hard for these residents of New Haven's outdoors as they did for the clergy who welcomed them to worship.

Understanding that not everyone is enamored of dogs, large ones in particular, we situated ourselves on the outer edge of the gathering worshippers, but visitors continued to come visit, to pet the dogs, comment on them, envy their warm coats, and laugh as their petting was rewarded with tail wags and smiles (yes, my pups do smile). It was sometimes difficult to hear what was being said by the clergy, but there was no missing the Gospel reading of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-11):

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

We were surrounded by the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the persecuted, and the reviled. On this observance of All Saints Day (transferred), the Gospel was brought to life right before our eyes. And each of them had a name. Of course, you say, they have names. But here, we knew their names. Everyone receives a name tag, so when we passed the peace, we could do so while naming each person. These were not nameless, faceless, easily ignored homeless people. They were Mike and Rebecca and John. They were all of us, our brothers and sisters.

Except for the distribution of the sacrament when the clergy walked into the crowd to give the broken body and blood to those gathered around, the Prayers of the People may have been the best part. Episcopalians will know that in most of our churches, we use a fairly uniform liturgy read in prayerful tones by an intercessor. Not here. A man who appeared to be a regular attendee was invited forward to read a brief intercession, and he then invited prayers from the people. And the prayers came. And came some more. Prayers for the addicted. Prayers for those who don't know Jesus. Prayers for their children. The prayers poured forth in a gushing stream as all responded to each one, "Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer." These were truly prayers of the people.

On this special anniversary day, the service was followed by a cookout. Donated socks were free for the taking. Flu shots were offered. People from all walks of life were meeting and greeting each other like old friends. This was the Gospel in action.

I hope to attend Chapel on the Green more times in the future. It is a gift to the whole New Haven community and bears witness to the love of Christ for all people. What a blessing, especially today for the kids and me.

Murder on Edwards Street

A week ago yesterday, there was a shooting death about 100 yards down the street from my apartment. I was on my way to South Carolina and only learned of it from and e-mail from the ubiquitous Chief Ronnell Higgins of the Yale Police. There are a lot of murders annually for a city the size of New Haven - this was the 29th - and they hardly pierce the consciousness of those not directly involved in the victim's life or neighborhood.

The thing that makes this murder on Edwards Street so remarkable is that these things don't happen in East Rock, my section of town. It's a neighborhood of wide, tree-lined streets with beautiful old mansions, many of them subdivided into apartments for students of the university. This violent incident apparently spilled over from somewhere else, a gang fight or groups of rivals, whose cars met on this street in this neighborhood, erupting in a fistfight in the street until someone pulled a gun. When the young men realized that one of them had been shot, they jumped in their cars and sped away, leaving a 23-year-old man to die in the street.

That's the part that has been haunting me. He was left face-down in the street. I've searched the papers and Internet for his name but have not been able to find it. I haven't been able to find any additional information that has been released publicly. So I mourn for a nameless young man who, along with some friends, got into a fight with another group of men and ended up shot, lying in the street with no family or friends around to hold onto him or pray over him as the life drained out of him into the asphalt of Edwards Street.

And it happens in neighborhoods throughout this country with alarming regularity, and I stand convicted of reading about it in the paper or hearing it on the news and remarking about how sad or tragic it is, and then I move on. Yet the killing continues, and, except for family and friends, no one seems to notice or care enough to try to change it. Me included. Until it hits my own street, and my heart now aches for a nameless young man whose life was cut short who undoubtedly left behind a grieving mother and father and siblings and friends who wonder what he was doing on Edwards Street in broad daylight on a beautiful fall afternoon.

I think maybe I'll give Ronnell Higgins a call on Monday and ask him the name of this young man. I know that God knows who he was, but I need a name to attach to this tragedy so that I can continue to pray for him by name as well as for all the other nameless ones who die in the war on our streets. Miserere nobis.

(His name was Kashon Douglas. Thanks to my friend, Lisa, for letting me know. Requiescat in pace, Kashon.)

YDS Day of Service

You'd think we'd be all over this at Yale Divinity School, getting out into the community and making ourselves useful to those in need. For those of you not familiar with the divinity school at Yale, we are situated at the top of a hill in the rarefied air that overlooks the rest of the town (literally, when the leaves are off the trees). It's a lovely setting, but it certainly isolates and insulates us from the often-grim reality of life in New Haven. Granted, the study load for a theological education can be daunting, if not often overwhelming. Papers to write, tons of reading to do, classes to attend, discussions to prepare for, Greek or Hebrew grammar to learn - I don't know about everyone else, but I could spend every waking minute of every day doing school work and it still would not be enough time.

The problem with this is that is tends to separate us from the vocation that brought us here in the first place. I can't speak for those getting academic, rather than divinity, degrees, but for those of us heading toward ordained ministry, serving the poor and oppressed is central to our faith. Jesus spent an awful lot of time talking about loving neighbors, and those neighbors are not just the ones living on our block. He told Peter to tend lambs and feed sheep, and he wasn't talking about livestock.

So it should follow, I would think, that those of us preparing for ministry in the church would jump at a ready-made opportunity to volunteer for an afternoon once a semester to go into the community to do some work, visit with some elderly folk, play games with children, whatever our local partner agencies need to have done. And a number of us do. But an even larger number do not. I know that many have unavoidable conflicts, so maybe they participate by supporting us with prayers or by providing some toiletries for the residents of Columbus House, New Haven's largest shelter services provider. I couldn't participate last year, and I understand that the only reason I could this time is because Tim is in the UK so I didn't go home this weekend. I just can't help wondering about all the rest - the ones too busy or overwhelmed or disinterested. What would it take to reach every last one of my fellow students? I wonder.

Happily, I was with a group of five others who painted an apartment at an emergency shelter in the city that had just been vacated by a family with 11 children. I don't know how they all fit, but they did, and the apartment was in need of a fresh coat of paint. We didn't quite finish it, but we made a good dent in the work. The facilities man, Danny, was overjoyed at our work, because it is normally his job to prepare the apartments for new residents. It would have taken him a few days to complete, and he already has the rest of the building in need of his attention. That six of us could accomplish a good chunk of it in four hours was a gift for him, and that, in itself, was quite satisfying even before considering the next family that would need that apartment because they found themselves suddenly homeless. The six of us also benefited simply by the fellowship we shared during the time that we worked together (and enjoyed a pitcher of beer together afterwards as we debriefed!).

Today was a far different experience than my bi-weekly volunteering dates at a temporary shelter for men in recovery from addiction, many of whom have criminal histories. I do employment coaching, mock interviews, résumé preparation, and general cheerleading to encourage the residents as they search for work. It's difficult enough to find a job with a college degree and a good work record, but if you've been in jail and have gaps in your work history, the challenge is huge. However, for each of them that is successful in finding and keeping a job, the easier they make it for the next guy in that situation, so I urge them to see themselves as trailblazers. Anything I can do to help them present themselves in the most compelling light for a potential employer might make it a bit easier for them as they work on their recovery and their housing situation. Do I have time to do this? Not really. Is it worth my time to do it? Without question.

I'm very proud of all of my classmates who came off the hill today to be a part of their New Haven community. It's hard to believe that one of the world's most prestigious universities in one of the wealthiest states in the country is located in one of the poorest cities. Homelessness, poverty, and unemployment plague the most vulnerable residents. My work group discussed the frustration of doing work that simply plugs holes in the dam of seemingly insurmountable obstacles for the residents of this city. Until structural changes are made in the way we address the needs of the poor, all the apartment painting in the world won't provide permanent solutions. But that work is for another day. Today we did the job put before us, and we did it well, reminded anew of our calling and the love we share in Jesus. Thanks be to God.

Luke the Physician

The patron saint of Berkeley Chapel is St. Luke, so tonight, we celebrated our patronal feast with Bishop Abraham Nhial of the Diocese of Aweil in the new nation of South Sudan as celebrant. In recognition of Luke not only as evangelist but as healer, we had healing stations during communion for those who were so inclined to go for healing and anointing. Since Seth died, I have avoided this, knowing how sensitive I am emotionally in contemplating that enormous loss and how difficult it would be for me to ask for healing for something I am not at all sure can be healed. However, tonight, I did go forward to our Associate Dean of Students, The Rev. Julie Kelsey, and told her I would really like for my broken heart to be healed. And she said a beautiful prayer and blessed me and anointed me with oil, and the tears came, as I knew they would.

I returned to my seat and prayed, and the tears stopped. But when I opened my eyes, there was a line of people waiting for healing, and directly in front of me was a woman who battled cancer all last year standing with her teenaged son. And as they waited in line, she was hugging him from behind or they had their hands intertwined, and it was such a beautiful and loving scene. And then my heart felt torn apart once again because I can't hold Seth or hug him or hold his hand or sing with him as this woman was doing. I don't know if the flood of tears that drenched my face had any healing power in them at all, but the warmth of the hand of the woman next to me and the shared tears of the one on the other side of me and the prayers that enveloped me at least let me know that I am loved and not alone. Although no one can know for sure how this death of my beloved son feels to me, that can at least walk with me in my grief, and that is an immeasurable gift.

At the end of our Wednesday Eucharist, our Dean, Joseph Britton, usually makes a slew of announcements or invites them from the congregation. Realizing that the atmosphere in the chapel this evening was charged with emotion and a healing presence, he dismissed with those announcements altogether. It was a remarkable display of sensitivity and grace.

Thank you to all of those who weep with me, who pray for me even when I am not aware of your prayers, and who love me in my sorrow as well as my joy. And thanks to Luke the Physician for being able to work healing in unexpected ways. Even when the heartbreak itself is beyond repair, grace abounds in the love we share in this community of faith. Thanks be to God.

On Thursday, a 29-year-old Yale alum who oversaw the Music in the Schools program jumped to his death from the 4th floor of one of the buildings belonging to the school of music. I immediately went back two years and seven months to the moment I learned that Seth had attempted suicide, not yet knowing that he had succeeded. This young man's parents had to make the same drive from Poughkeepsie to New Haven that Tim and I made from Downingtown to Brooklyn. It was the worst night of my life, as I'm sure it was the worst day for them. And their nightmare has only just begun. At least I have had some time for the grief to be less acute, the memories not all painful, but I remember so well the questioning and the guilt and the regrets. So I wrote a piece for the Yale Daily News and submitted it this afternoon. It may or may not be published, but I felt compelled to write it anyway. It would seem that the new story of my life that has arisen out of the old is to reach out in whatever way I can. For now, that is the best that I can do. May John Miller rest in peace.

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I did not know John Miller. Judging by the accounts I’ve read, he was extremely talented and, given the work he did in New Haven schools, I imagine he was also full of life, funny and fun, and self-giving to a fault. My son, Seth Alan Peterson, was like that, too. He was also like John in another way. He too committed suicide, dying at age 24 two years and seven months ago. Finishing up his theater studies at NYU and living in Brooklyn, he had a bright future ahead of him. In the summer of 2008, he was chosen as one of Broadway’s Rising Stars, performing on stage at Broadway’s Town Hall, demonstrating his extraordinary voice and acting talent. Seven months later he was dead.

Suicide brings on a very particular and peculiar kind of grief. The guilt and second-guessing and pure horror that someone could end one’s own life cause excruciating pain for family and friends. I have learned more about this than I care to know in the time since Seth died, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of that hard-earned knowledge.

You could not have prevented it. Even if you think that you could have on that particular occasion, there is no guarantee that it would not have happened some other time. If you are wondering why you didn’t go with John or ask him to come over if he seemed out of sorts, don’t take the blame on yourself. Seth’s roommate was in an adjoining room when he died. Having someone nearby made no difference at all.

If you’re trying to make rational sense of how something like this could happen to someone with such talent and such a bright future, you really can’t think about it rationally because there is no rational explanation. Normal people, those who are not sick in some way, do not kill themselves. Our most basic human instinct is for survival, so to cause one’s own demise subverts that in ways our healthy intellects can’t imagine.

If you’re thinking that John made a choice to end his life, I don’t really buy that. Whatever was tormenting him – depression, mental illness, some event that threw his mental wiring off kilter – that is what killed him. As I said before, it isn’t a rational choice. Suicides are committed by people driven to it by their own distorted mental and emotional reality. It isn’t really a choice.

The best way to come to terms with the death of someone who simply did not wish to live any more is to talk with others who have lived through it. I could not have survived my son’s death without the support of family and friends, my church community, and the care of others who have lost loved ones to suicide. It won’t make the pain go away, but it does help to know that you’re not the only one asking crazy questions and having morbid thoughts and trying to figure out the inexplicable.

I knew that Seth had contemplated suicide. I knew that he already decided how he would carry it out. At the time of his death, however, he was on an upswing, not a danger to himself according to his therapist. So even though he had a plan, the act itself was impulsive. In that moment, I don’t think that any thought of those he would leave behind in broken grief even occurred to him. Nor did my making a pact with him to call me if he reached that point. This is the nasty reality of suicide prevention. People have to be reached before they get to that point of no return. There is help available both here on campus, through your own health care professional, or through organizations such as The National Alliance on Mental Illness or The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Raise your awareness. Talk to someone. And know that those worst moments do pass.

When I heard the news of John Miller’s death, I was taken back to the interminable car ride my husband and I made to Brooklyn in the wee hours of the morning, hoping that Seth was still alive up to the moment we received a phone call from a police detective telling us he didn’t make it. John’s parents made a similar car ride from Poughkeepsie. That horror, that unimaginable grief, however, was not the end of the story. There is life after death. While I still don’t fully understand how I am supposed to make some good out of the tragedy of my son’s death, at the least I can bear witness that, even in its worst times, life is good and worth living.

Ruins and High Kirks and Eid lights, oh my!

My time in Coventry is almost at an end, and I've yet to post a single thing about this extraordinary experience. It has been a wonderful adventure, but the work has kept me busier than I expected as I've read through files and archives of all that's happened with reconciliation ministry here at the cathedral as far back as the bombing on 14 November 1940. In the next couple of days, I will try to synthesize what I've learned from my reading as well as interviews with staff to come up with some kind of business plan (or at least a strategic framework) for the Community of the Cross of Nails moving forward.

Here are just a few highlights:

Just days before the bombing during that night in 1940, Provost (Dean) Richard Howard had included as part of his Remembrance Day prayers this bold petition:

Let us pray for our enemies:
Lord of boundless love, who in thine hour of agony
didst pray for those who nailed thee to the Cross,
we beseech thee for our enemies
that thou wouldest turn their hearts and incline them to mercy.
So that when this hour of conflict is passed
they and we may be united in the bonds of Christian love
and work together as friends
the advancement of thy kingdom by the power of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

This didn't win him too many friends. However, he followed that with this Christmas message just over one month later:

What we want to tell the world is this:
that with Christ born again in our hearts today,
we are trying, hard as it may be, to banish all thoughts of revenge;
we are bracing ourselves to finish the tremendous job
of saving the world from tyranny and cruelty;
we are going to try to make a kinder, simpler –
a more Christ-Child-like sort of world in the days beyond this strife.

Tradition has it that the day after the destruction, Howard took a piece of charred wood and scrawled on the wall of the apse the words "Father, forgive." Not "forgive them" as Jesus said on the cross, but just "forgive," meaning "forgive all of us." In 1948, the words were carved into that wall as a permanent reminder of our call to forgive as well as to pray for our own forgiveness.

This message is what drew me to this place, a profound and prophetic message of radical reconciliation, acknowledgement of our own sins, that log in our own eye, in our efforts to build a more just world. That is why the Litany of Reconciliation, drafted in 1959, is based on the Seven Deadly Sins - we must recognize our own sinfulness and our own responsibility for the evil that plagues the world before we can hope to be messengers of peace and reconciliation.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
Father forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,
Father forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
Father forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
Father forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,
Father forgive.
The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,

Father forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
Father forgive.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

To gather with a group of faithful pilgrims on a Friday at noon to pray the
litany in the ruins of the cathedral and to celebrate the Eucharist is a
powerful and humbling reminder of all the forces in our world that bend toward
destruction and our calling to proclaim a different message, one of love and
peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For Tim, undoubtedly a highlight of this trip was a weekend "dash to the kirk" as it was put by David Porter, Canon for Reconciliation Ministry at Coventry Cathedral. David is greatly amused at how we Americans will think nothing of hopping into a car and driving for six hours for a weekend excursion. However, we had vowed to get to Scotland on this visit, and to Scotland we went. I know that Tim and I constantly tease each other about our competing Reformed and Anglican traditions, but it was quite moving for me to see how meaningful it was for him to worship in the same church, St. Giles Cathedral, in which John Knox, the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism, served for a dozen or so years. I do fear, however, that Tim's visit to the High Kirk may have further hardened his resolve to remain true to his Presbyterian roots and hence weakened my influence to claim him for the Episcopal Church.

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This past Monday evening, several of the reconciliation team made our way to the largest mosque in Coventry to witness the lighting of the Eid lights. This was something new to me, but, as it was explained, it is something as akin to our lighting our Christmas lights during Advent in preparation for the actual celebration of the Nativity. Eid, the three-day celebration at the end of the month of Ramadan, is not until next week, but the lights are a way of marking the approach of these celebratory and holy days for Muslims. Following the flipping of the switch by the Lord Mayor of Coventry (which was nothing more than symbolic as the real lighting was effected by a representative from the electric company with a screwdriver and an open panel on a light pole!), we were invited into the Muslim Community Resource Center for a wonderful meal to break the day's fast. After a brief presentation, the imam indicated that sunset had arrived, so all the Muslims went downstairs to say their prayers while the rest of us began to eat the food that was set before us. Our friends later returned and eagerly heaped their plates with food, having not eaten since before sunrise that morning. The hospitality we were shown was humbling. I, along with one of the reconciliation interns, was treated as an honored guest as an American. I so enjoyed talking with these new-found friends about my distress at the fear and hatred demonstrated by so many Americans toward Muslims, wishing that everyone of us could sit down and break bread. Reconciliation is about relationship, and there is no more powerful symbol of that than the sharing of a meal. Even Jesus knew that.
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I have only a couple of days remaining here which I will spend writing up my findings into some sort of report for David Porter. Whether or not I have anything new and useful to say, I do not know. My promise to him when discussing the possibility of my doing some consulting work here was that I would provide the Community of the Cross of Nails whatever organizational expertise I have to offer in exchange for learning everything I can about what it is that they do here. While I hope that CCN can benefit from my time here, I already know who has received the greatest gift during this fortnight in Coventry.

More adventures in CPE

Not many people in a Clinical Pastoral Education program have the experience that my 5 classmates and I had this past weekend. We were chaplains at Camp Evergreen, a bereavement program of Diakon Hopsice St. John for children age 8 to 16 who have lost a family member or other loved one. Children grieve differently than adults, and it's so very important that they are actually allowed and encouraged to grieve. When Tim's dad died just before his 9th birthday, it was as if his memory was supposed to die, as well - he was not mentioned, his family did not share memories, his mother was in too much pain to help her children through this very necessary process of grieving, and that created a great deal of emotional baggage that Tim had to face as an adult. Not so with these fortunate children attending Camp Evergreen. Every activity is designed to help them both have fun and express their loss in a way that suits their own emotional and developmental level.

Fifteen children attended camp this year, dealing with losses that occurred as recently as June and and long ago as 4 years. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, cousins - the kids had lost at least one of these, sometimes with the addition of a pet death that they also grieved. This camp allows them to see that they are not alone, they don't stand out among their peers as someone who is odd or different. They can just be themselves and bond with other kids dealing with similar issues. Watching them grow comfortable with one another and make friends was so heartwarming for the adults. In one cabin of girls, they took three mattresses off of the bunks and put them on the floor so that they could all sleep together. How awesome is that?

Of the craft activities in which they participated, the broken pot may have been my favorite. They took a terra cotta pot and wrote emotion words on the inside describing how they felt about their loss, words like "sad" and "lonely" and "guilt" appeared in several. The children then wrapped the pot in newspaper, tapped it with a hammer to break it into large pieces (though some had many small pieces with which to contend), and then glued them back together. This represents how our hearts may be broken in pieces by the death of someone we love, but the pieces do go back together, even though the scars remain. The children then decorated the pots of paints and stickers, and took them home to plant new life into them.

Part of the weekend included a challenge course where the children were encouraged to take a risk, to do as much as one felt one was able to do on a rope course and climbing wall. Some were hesitant to walk the rope with other children and adults acting as spotters, but in the end, everyone (including me!) made it the length of the rope. Their were many team-building and trust-building activities, as well, all designed to be fun, but always with the purpose of healing and wholeness. Of course, this was a very hot late July weekend, so down time in the pool on Saturday afternoon was a refreshing relief for all of us!

Throughout the weekend, I thought of those persons that I know who lost parents as children and so wished they had this kind of opportunity to help them through. I also thought a lot of Seth and my own continuing grief over his death. Though I might use different words or have different methods of dealing with that, the need to put the pieces back together is as real for me as for each one of these children. Trying to create something good out of something so unrelentingly difficult and sad is a challenge for all of us. The resilience of these children was such an inspiration, though. They risked sharing their grief with their peers as well as the adults and received such love and encouragement in return. This is a valuable lesson for me as a grieving mother but also as a future pastor who will be able to use some of what I have learned to help other children who mourn. What a gift!

More on CPE

Eight deaths in four weeks. That's how many of my hospice patients have died since I started Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) on June 1st. Writing it like that makes me feel like the Chaplain of Death, but it really isn't like that. Being with people facing a terminal diagnosis or impending death is a wonderfully exhausting privilege. There isn't much room to hide at times like that, so I've had some of the most vulnerable and sincere encounters with these people I hardly know simply because they know - and I know - that they don't have much time left.

I was a bit worried when I learned early on that we try to represent our hospice group at all viewings or funerals. Funeral homes are just not my favorite places. However, I must say that the gratitude from family members with whom I have sat and talked through the last days helps the funereal surroundings fade into the background. This is what my ministry this summer is about, and, exhausting as it is, I can feel it working deep within me and beginning to suffuse every aspect of my life.

I preached at St. Peter's in the Great Valley this morning. In fact, I played the organ and preached, which was an interesting experience! I had written a sermon reflecting on my hospice work using the lectionary for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, but I found out yesterday that the readings for Independence Day had been transferred from Monday to today, so back to the drawing board I went to come up with another few things to say. So I have this hospice sermon kind of sitting there, waiting for these readings to come around again in three years. I think I'll just share it here, and if you hear me preach it some day, I hope you will have forgotten that you already read it.

Hospice

I thought I knew what hospice was. In the past week, I have learned just how little I do know. Hospice is not just for people who are dying. Can you believe that? Indeed, many who enter into hospice services are facing their final days of life, but many, upon receiving hospice care, are stabilized and actually removed from service. They can re-enter hospice later, if needed, though not all do. Hospice is as much about providing end-of-life care to caregivers and family members as it is to offer comfort and palliative care to a patient. I've come to believe that the real beauty of hospice is to free families and individuals to live full lives for whatever time they have remaining, able to be fully present to one another, to share memories, to say "I love you," and also "goodbye."

For the summer, I am serving as chaplain for Diakon Hospice St. John (DHSJ), part of Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. This is part of my Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), a significant period of training for those going into any type of pastoral care ministry. DHSJ has an office site, so its personnel travel to various care facilities and patient homes. I've spent a lot of time on the road, which is, in a way, a blessing, because it gives me time to process the encounters I've had before moving on to the next one. Our patients range from those with good mental acuity to those who are completely non-responsive. Some have dementia or Alzheimer's, but many simply have bodies that have run their course while their minds remain clear.

I am still learning how to prepare for my visits as the hospice chaplain. Sometimes, the patient has a strong relationship with a congregation and receives pastoral visits from his or her own clergy. In those cases, my visits are a supplement, providing a ministry of presence between visits from the patient's pastor. My mentor, the DHSJ chaplain, has been such a wonderful model for me! She's known as "the singing chaplain" and loves to sing to patients, especially old hymns that still resonate even in the most clouded memory. I have found this to be a great comfort to me, particularly with those patients who cannot respond to me or those who are confused and unable to articulate coherently. I will often get a response - a smile or a touch - where there was none before. The Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm can generate a similar response. It never ceases to amaze me how an aging mind can recall events and songs and phrases from so long ago when there is no memory of even five minutes before.

I can't even begin yet to fully process this hospice work. Sometimes I struggle to know just what to do or say, especially when the patient is trying so hard to communicate but just can't. Even a touch can produce fear or obvious discomfort in the patient, even if its intent is to indicate care and concern. All I can do, mostly, is pray...a lot. I know that God is already present; I do not bring God there. This is very important for me to remember. This is God's work. I stand on holy ground with each encounter. Please keep me in your prayers as I engage in this daunting responsibility.

Home, and other things

I think that someone could drop me in the middle of North Carolina, blindfolded, from an airplane (with a parachute, I think), and I would know where I was when I landed. There's something about my home state with its fragrance of dirt and tobacco and pine trees that has a familiarity steeped into my bones. Even though I've lived in Pennsylvania more than twice as long as I did in NC, I don't have that same feeling about this Keystone state, much as I love living here. And for those of you who don't know this state, it's mostly rich farmland anchored by a couple of big cities on either end and a few more moderate-sized ones scattered about. But for me, it doesn't have the same feel or taste of smell as the state in which I grew up, which is a great mystery to me.

While Pennsylvania is my home, it's not really my "home." I'm not talking about some 'home over Jordan' here, either. My home is that place where I belong, and for me, that's wherever Tim and I have put down our roots with the dogs and the cat to round out our family in this place at this time. On my back and forth trips to New Haven, I'll often say that I'm going home when headed north on the NJ Turnpike, but that's not really so. It's just a temporary place to shelter me while I study at YDS, and yet, when Tim is there with me, it is home. The weekend before finals, not only was Tim there but the pups were, too, and it was heavenly, if a bit crowded!

I suppose that all these thoughts of home have bubbled to the surface in the past week or so as I've begun to resettle into my PA home with Tim while also making a trip down to NC to see my 81-year-old mother and my sister and nieces and brother-in-law. There's always a bit of nostalgia in being all grown up amongst one's family. The rules have changed as have the roles, and it just doesn't feel like home anymore. Week after next, I'll be going out to California to see my daughter, Rachel, and even though she and I once called the same place home, being with her where she is won't be home for me, either. It's all very strange.

Now that I am home with Tim and the furry kids with no papers waiting for me and no particular reading to do, I can truly revel in this home that we have created for ourselves, and I realize that it's not so much this house as it is a state of mind. Whoever said 'home is where the heart is' sure knew what s/he was talking about.

Day of Atonement

A week or so ago, Tim and I were talking about Jewish customs and how we Christians are the poorer for not having maintained some of those observances that Jesus would certainly have known. We do not have Rosh Hashanah, which is not known by this name in the bible but is called the Day of Remembrance (Yom Ha Zikkaron). We call it the Jewish New Year, but it is a far cry from the drunken revelry of our own secular new year celebration. It is a solemn occasion of introspection, of looking back over the year, and vowing to do better in the year to come. Even the most non-observant Jews can be found in the synagogue for this first of the High Holy Days, much as many non-practicing Christians can be found in church on Christmas and Easter. We also do not have a celebration of thanksgiving to God like Sukkot. Our own Thanksgiving is a National Holiday, not a specifically religious one, and it's rare to find many gathered in church on this day, much less the seven days of Sukkot, constructing tents and leaving them up for those seven days to remember God's blessings in leading the Israelites through the wilderness where they dwelt in tents, or booths. Nor do we initiate our children on the precipice of adulthood with a Bar or Bat Mitvah, recognizing their burgeoning maturity with a sacred rite.

Most importantly, I think, is that we don't have a Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. After Rosh Hashanah, the next ten days are known as the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim), as the introspection of the New Year continues so that one is ready on the Day of Atonement to acknowledge one's sins and failings to God. During those ten days, the faithful make amends to those with whom they may have a dispute, they mend fences, they seriously prepare to live a life reconciled with God. Yom Kippur is a day of prayer and fasting, refraining from work, and attending services. It is a beautiful tradition.

Now, some of you may say that we do have a new year when the liturgical year begins with the first Sunday in Advent. And you may say that Thanksgiving is, for you, a sacred holiday. And you might even claim that we don't need a day to atone because we say at prayer of confession and are absolved by a priest every Sunday. I would say that none of these bears the same sacred weight as the Jewish observances where the people gather as a whole community to engage in an ancient ritual as an expression of faith, of our human fragility, and our complete dependence on God.

I think that today - Good Friday - may be the closest we come to a Day of Atonement. I'm not talking about some doctrine about Jesus' atonement for our sins on the cross but about our coming to the foot of that cross and confessing the responsibility we bear for crucifying Jesus again and again in our own lives. What's that, you say? You've never crucified Jesus? We live in a country that would rather engage in combat than reconciliation. In this, the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world, almost 2 million people have no place to call home. We rank 33rd in the world in infant mortality rates (behind such superpowers as Iceland, Slovenia, and Cuba) despite some of the most expensive health care in the world. We demonize anyone different from ourselves - gays and lesbians, Muslims, racial and ethnic minorities - and continue to perpetuate an inequality in wealth distribution that permits the top 1% to control more than 40% of the nation's wealth. We have allowed the criminal justice system and prisons to become profit-making institutions where the poor and minorities are overrepresented and black males, in particular, are far more likely to receive prison sentences than white males. We put up with bullying (and I'm not just talking about among children) and hateful speech as if our words and attitudes don't matter.

Jesus did not die on a cross so that we could go about our lives as if only we mattered. So would it be unreasonable to suggest that on this day when we remember how Jesus died that we should be the ones looking within ourselves for all the ways we continue to dishonor and reject God's love for us? God did not become one of us and live and die as one of us so that we could put ourselves first in all things, so that we could have while others have not, so that we could throw our own power and privilege around to get our own way. There is only one way and that is the way of the cross.

So as we spend these next days pondering how Jesus lay in a tomb for no other reason than that he threatened the world order of the Roman empire and the Jewish temple system, let us consider our own role in perpetuating a world order and political and social system that dishonors and disinherits the very ones Jesus commanded us to love and serve.

Atonement? I think it's our turn.

Hope springs eternal

Tim loves to say that the two most glorious phrases in all of human language are "He is Risen!" and "Play ball!" He is particularly happy when Opening Day and Easter occur on the same day, as sometimes happens, and he gets to hear both. Coming from a lifelong fan of the Cleveland Indians, this is pretty remarkable. Except for the great years of 1994-1997, there hasn't been much to cheer about in his lifetime, and even in those years in which the Tribe went to the World Series twice, losing to the stinkin' Braves in '95 and the stinkin' Marlins in '97 (when they were actually 1 out and 1 strike away from winning), there was an insidious undercurrent in the blood of a Clevelander that was convinced that it wouldn't actually come to pass, the championship would continue to be elusive. And so it has been.

Many writers have gotten all theological about the ties between faith and baseball, the Trinitarian nature of 3 strikes and you're out, 3 outs to an inning, 3 bases to home plate, and always aiming to go "home." For me, though, it's more about the time of year in which the season begins, the long season of 162 games, ending in the Fall Classic, now more often ending in November than October, but such is the nature of sports these days. Who'd ever have thought that hockey would end in June, the NBA season almost to July, and the Super Bowl would be played in February? Good grief. But I digress...

Opening Day of the baseball season is a springtime ritual. It happens when the crocuses and daffodils are just hitting their stride, the fruit trees are about to blossom, and the grass is suddenly green again instead of white with snow (unless you're actually in Cleveland, where it has snowed on many an Opening Day). The air is ripe with hope and new life, for which there is no greater metaphor than Easter morning. On Good Friday, when it seemed that all was lost, everyone went home and locked their doors and stewed in whatever misery most beset them, whether grief or guilt or shame. The women ventured out to perform their duties to cleanse and anoint the body, but even they were shrouded in tears and sorrow. In Mark's version of the story, a young man dressed in white tells them that Jesus has been raised, he's not there, and to go and tell Peter and the rest of the disciples that Jesus has gone ahead to Galilee to meet him there. The original ending of Mark in verse 8 of chapter 16 says:

So they went out and fled from the tomb,

for terror and amazement had seized them;

and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Can you imagine if that really had been the end? What if they had told no one and that had been the end of it? Well, we won't know in this case, because some later editor tacked on a neat ending to Mark's gospel, having Jesus appear to Mary Magdalene and a couple of disciples and then to the rest of the eleven before his ascension. The divine will always find a way to be revealed, even if we in our fear and disbelieving do nothing to help it along.

Forty days later by liturgical accounting comes the ascension of Jesus, and in fifty days the Holy Spirit blew through the people on the day of Pentecost, unleashing its power in the creation of what we call "church." And we, as we begin our march through the season following Pentecost and its stories of how the church spread and grew, are accompanied by the steady and assuring cracks of bats on balls and thwunks of fastballs into catchers' mitts. There's a rhythm to these joined seasons that brings up memories of hot summer days in the South sipping tea so sweet your spoon could stand up in it and lying on the cool grass listening to the frogs chirping by the creek and swatting away the mosquitoes in search of a meal. With each Opening Day comes the hope that this could be the year that your team will still be playing in October, even if the last season ended in yet another disappointment.

Faith is like that, too. Falling and getting up and falling again, learning to rely on a grace we cannot deserve but that is always there, lifting us up when we fall, comforting us when discouraged or sorrowful, as the birthday prayer says. We're still in Lent as this year's baseball season gets underway, and spring is a little late in arriving in my neck of the woods. But I know it's there, because I'm hearing the chatter of baseball players and cheers of crowds, and even Indians fans are excited again, hoping that maybe there won't be 100 losses, maybe this team will surprise us after all.

Baseball and resurrection, life and death, falling down and getting up again. Hope does spring eternal.

Unfinished business

I don't like to leave anything undone once I've embarked on it. Not a project, not a chore, not a paper. Not a puzzle. I knew when I started the puppy puzzle on my retreat that I would not finish it, but I started it anyway. Thanks to an assist from Anne, a schoolmate from Yale who is doing an internship at Holy Cross, we actually completed the border this morning, so at least it looked like it was well in progress when I left it. Maybe someone else will pick up where we left off and finish those puppies. They're all similar in color - 5 or 6 golden retrievers and yellow labs, shih tzus and westies, a couple of black labs. It's going to be slow going, but someone is sure to get the job done.

It seems to me there is a spiritual principle there. I know that if I should ever become a parish priest, setting frameworks and letting others carry out the ministry will go with the territory. In leadership development we call that "empowering others to act." But there's something even more basic here. Even now, at this point in my life as a student and a wife and mother and friend and sibling, others can pick up where I leave off. Tim and Lela can take care of everything at home while I'm in New Haven. St. James and St. Peter's are doing just fine without me. Friends can sustain our friendship without my being the instigator of activity. And it all will be just as good if not better than if I had stuck around and kept control of things. That's the great illusion in life, that we have control. For some of us, it's a bit more of a challenge to shatter that myth than it is for others. I'm one of the tough ones.

So, Anne, the puzzle is all yours. I hope you recruit someone to take over when you leave on Sunday. I also hope someone takes a picture of the finished product, but if not, I'm sure it will be beautiful. I can rest easy. Amazing what a puzzle can teach a person.

Retreat time

He said to them, 'Come away to a deserted place

all by yourselves and rest a while.'

Mark 6:31

And so I have. After missing the Berkeley junior class retreat last month, I promised to make it up by coming on an individual retreat during spring break. Much as I missed the fellowship and bonding that took place among the group, there is something very refreshing about being away by oneself. There are surely other people on retreat here at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY, but there is still plenty of privacy and quiet. From my room, I can look out on the Hudson River flowing by and watch a flock of wild turkeys foraging around on the ground at the edge of the woods. It's a deliciously peaceful setting.

This is a deeply spiritual place. One senses this in the commitment of the brothers to their life in community, their welcoming of pilgrims to share this space, and the praying of the Office four times daily in addition to morning Eucharist. It creates a rhythm to the day that is very hard to find outside of a monastic community. I may pause for morning or evening prayer or compline on my own, but that is certainly a hit-or-miss proposition, and I certainly rarely 'hit' a set hour! There is a sign over the entryway here that says "Crux est medicina mundi" - the cross is medicine for the world. To come here, especially during this season of Lent, and meditate on the road that leads to Jerusalem, is, indeed, restorative medicine.

How is it that we missed Jesus' call to come away, to refresh ourselves, to pray? Each of the synoptic gospels tells us that this was common for Jesus. Luke implies that he did it regularly (5:16). How did I get so busy and so important that I can't do the same? It's not as if the world will stop spinning without me! In truth, I am a rather solitary figure anyway, so physically picking myself up and going to a retreat center is not always necessary for me to find some quiet space, but it is still important to do so from time to time.

There are plenty of things I should be doing these days. I have an endless amount of Hebrew I could be studying. There's all the reading that will begin to stack up again next week when classes resume. I could be thinking about my exegesis paper for Old Testament. But I'm not doing any of those things. I am reading one book for school, Knowledge in the Blood by Jonathan Jansen. It's about post-Apartheid South Africa and is assigned for my Ministry and the Disinherited class. It's the kind of book I read for enjoyment anyway, so I thought that would be okay to get started on. I'm going to save the book Tim lent me - The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball - for after this term ends. I've also been working on a jigsaw puzzle in the common area. I was so excited to find an unopened, 1,000 piece picture of puppies! Puzzle putting together is a long and honored tradition in my family, and I am finding it amazingly contemplative as an exercise here.

My usual retreat spot is the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, PA. It was a novitiate built by a wealthy couple in the late 1920's, and it's another of those spirit-filled places where one can actually sense the supportive prayers of all who have walked those halls and the priests who have retired there. I haven't been there in a while. The last retreat I had scheduled fell on the day that we buried my son. I haven't thought much about going back, but perhaps I should, just to finally keep that time away. Maybe I could spend it just praying and journaling about Seth. Or maybe I can just go away to a quiet place again and rest a while. It's good medicine for the soul.

Another midterm. Already?

YDS does love its breaks. A reading week in February, now two weeks for spring break. Another reading week (or at least half of one) at the end of April. Add in a couple of snow days, MLK day, Good Friday and you can imagine how difficult it is to gain any kind of momentum. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, because lack of momentum means lots of catching up to do from time to time. So this is not so much spring break as it is a break from classes but not from studying.

It didn't help, of course, that I had a concussion, have been worried about Boudreau and his knee surgery and recovery (which is going slowly, by the way), faced the second anniversary of Seth's death and the impending death of my dear friend and mentor Edward Kryder. Throw in some other family-related stuff, and it's a recipe for heading back into the old groundhog hole. But you know the old joke about the kid who wanted a pony for Christmas who rushed out to the barn on Christmas morning only to find a huge pile of manure, so he grabbed a shovel and started digging, saying, "There must be a pony in here somewhere." There is, indeed, a pony, as there always is.

More often than not, the spirit of God manifests itself not in thunderbolts (although that would make life much simpler) but in the small things that let us know that we are loved and valued and that we matter. I know that I am surrounded by people who love me and whose love carries me through those times when I can't seem to find that pony. All the breaks have given me time to steady myself through emotional days and to rest when my poor head just wanted a nap. Even Boudreau's convalescence has been an opportunity to slow down when I'm at home, tending to him and keeping him quiet which helps me to quiet myself.

And Edward? Even his steady decline and entry into hospice is another teachable moment for the man whose entire life has been about teaching. He was a pastor for three decades in Buffalo, helped with the revision of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, served on the liturgical commission of the ECUSA, and taught pastoral theology and patristics to a lucky generation of seminarians at Virginia Theological Seminary. I met him during his retirement, and we quickly became fast friends, just as he seems to do with everyone. And now he seems to take joy in planning his funeral, preparing to enter into the nearer presence of our Lord, and through my sadness, I am learning what lived faith really is. Even when his dear wife, Sally, suffered a serious fall last week, he remained stalwart while all I could think of was that the two of them ought to be able to live these last weeks or months or whatever time he has left together, not with her in the hospital or rehab. He is unfazed. All will be well. God will handle it. When I took him the Eucharist last Sunday and read the Gospel passage from Matthew 6 that says:

Therefore do not worry about your life...

and can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life...

so do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring troubles of its own...

he said in voice strong and firm, "I'm not worried." Hmmm. Maybe sometimes God does speak in thunderbolts.

An unsettled winter

I love snow. I really do. I love snow and cold and fierce winters and snow days and drinking hot chocolate when the winter wind is howling outside my window. Having said that, I must admit that this winter's weather has wreaked havoc on my classes, leaving me feeling behind before we've even really started, trying to develop some kind of rhythm with my classes and studying. It's my understanding that Yale has never closed for snow in its 310-year history, yet we've had one full snow day and another half day called by the dean, even though random professors held class anyway (not mine!). And here we are, already at a reading week, and boy, do I have a lot of reading to catch up on. In addition to all the textbook reading, there's one other book that has to be read so that I can write a report. Between that and Hebrew studying, that might be all I manage.

So loving snow and loving ice are two different things. Ice is beautiful and all but very dangerous. Adding to my lack of rhythm and disorientation is a mild concussion I sustained falling on the ice in the driveway last Sunday. It's such an odd, not-quite-right feeling accompanied by persistent headaches. I don't know how football players get back out on the field, and they have the serious concussions! I still have quite a knot on the back of my head, but they assured me that the CT scan showed no damage, so I guess I just have to wait this one out.

And then there's Boudreau, the million-dollar dog, who tore his ACL and had to have a very serious and expensive surgery to put a metal plate in his leg to hold things together. The recovery period is 8-10 weeks. Try convincing him two weeks in that he's not fine. He wants to play and run in the snow and wrestle with Satchel, but is on the DL for now. My niece, Lela, has been a wonderful nursemaid to him, and now that she's off auditioning in Michigan and North Carolina and Tim's away on business, I get to nursemaid him for a while. It's been quite an unsettling experience, not just because I love my dogs to pieces, but because Boudreau and Seth were particularly close, so I take care of him, too, on behalf of Seth. Such a swirl of emotions this has brought on, amplified by the approach of the second anniversary of Seth's death this coming week. I went to visit his grave today, shoveling a path and clearing snow from the headstone. I'll go again on the 9th to place a new wreath there. I wonder if this ever gets any easier?

I can say that the grief is eased by the love of Seth's friends, as I've said here before. I had brunch today with a few of his 'girlfriends' who have grown into such lovely, kind young women. One of their reminiscences was about senior week after high school graduation when Seth stayed not in the house with the guys but with his girls. They had a reunion week a few years afterward, and he almost got arrested for skinny-dipping in the ocean at night. At least none of their stories surprised me - Seth was pretty forthcoming with me about his exploits! He's such an integral part of their memories and their lives together as a group of friends. I'm so glad to be included in gatherings with them, especially as the anniversary approaches. So thank you Kimmie, Ricki, Amanda, Jannette and Sari!

1/11/11 - Round 2 begins

At Marquand Chapel yesterday, the first of the new year and of the semester, we were asked to share with a neighbor where we have felt or seen the Holy Spirit moving in our lives recently, whether in the love of another person or a new sense of direction or whatever it might be. My seat-neighbor said he most experienced the spirit's presence when he thought of his wife and how he knew he could never do what he's doing without her. She's already talking about throwing him a party when he graduates, but what he wants to do is to throw her a party! I thought that was so wonderful, and it's certainly something with which I resonate. I think Tim and I will just throw a party for each other, and we might even invite some friends...

Having said that, where I clearly sensed that abiding and encouraging spirit was in my drive back to New Haven on Sunday. I was excited about coming back, so looking forward to seeing all of my new friends and curious about my new classes. As one of my friends here said, it's like being a giddy schoolgirl all over again! Some might believe that it's just excitement over the newness or the challenge, but when one views one's life through the lens of faith and vocation, it's hard not to see confirmation and affirmation of the call that I believe that I have to serve God in the church in the enthusiasm and joy that I feel as I return to school for the second semester. It's a far sight better that dreading the work or the challenges that surely lie ahead, and the beautiful thing about it is that it's all done in the community of Berkeley and YDS and with the love and prayers of my St. James and St. Peter's communities. It doesn't get much better than that.

So for those of you dying to know, this semester I will be taking part two of Hebrew (yes, I passed, so am returning for more!), the second half of Old Testament (for which the professor, John J. Collins, is the author of our textbook so I need not take notes if I'm not so inclined, and he has a marvelous Irish brogue, an added benefit!) and the second half of Transitional Moments (church history, this time covering the church in America), Ministry and the Disinherited taught by Frederick (Jerry) Streets whose specialty is trauma in global areas of conflict, and, finally, Introduction to Pastoral Care which will help prepare me for Clinical Pastoral Education next summer (CPE). I've been accepted into a CPE program with Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries and, although I don't yet have my placement, will probably will be working in a hospice or nursing home facility for 11 weeks during the summer. There is no summer resting for the weary seminarian!

So on this second auspiciously-dated day of this new year, the game's afoot. Carpe diem!

1/1/11

A new year with auspicious numeration. I thought last year was auspicious enough - acceptance to Berkeley at Yale Divinity School, leaving my job at Episcopal Community Services after 10 years, moving away from home like some adolescent and beginning graduate school in New Haven. In today's New York Times, Oliver Sacks wrote an opinion piece on making resolutions to challenge your mind because, even in older years, the brain can be expanded and even rewired by new learning. Well, Dr. Sacks, I think I have that one covered.

I look forward to returning for a second semester of studies at YDS but am grateful for one more week to relax and putz around the house, spending time with the dogs and the cat if not Tim, who is leaving for business in NC tomorrow. I have so appreciated these two weeks of sleeping in, napping, reading non-required books, visiting and catching up with friends and neighbors - all those things that keep a person sane and connected! I preached at St. James in Lancaster last weekend and will do so at St. Peter's in the Great Valley next Sunday, a fulfilling exercise of ministry that seems to affirm my vocational path even more so.

With all the wonderful experiences of this past year and anticipation of the year to come, I must confess that there is also great sadness in the turning of the years as I grieve that, with each new year, I am one year farther away from the time in which my son walked the earth. 2011 will bring the second anniversary of Seth's death, so this month of January will bring with it the painful memories of his final weeks both here with us and up in New York. I am that much distanced from being able to touch him or hear his beautiful voice, to be the butt of his jokes, or to be the one whose tears were "like kryptonite" to him. The life of a mother who has lost a child is filled with the knowledge that every joy will be tinged with sadness and every memory has the potential to completely undo her.

The good news is that this undoing is not permanent. Life does go on, and a good and beautiful life it is. I am so abundantly blessed with a fantastic husband, a wonderful daughter, affectionate dogs, more friends than I can count, a beautful home, the amazing opportunity to go to seminary and work toward a vocation as an ordained person in the Episcopal Church, and, yes, so much more. I am truly grateful for all of this. If only Seth were here to share it with me, life would be perfect. In his absence, though, I revel in the company of his friends and in their contact with me on Facebook or by e-mail. They continue to grow older while he will always be 24, but it helps to keep him close to me. So to Matt, Rachel, Erin, Mike, Teresa, Kimmie, Ricki, Sarah, Amanda, Janette, Jennafer, Sarah, Mackenzie, Ash, Dan, Josh and all the rest, thank you for being there for Seth and for me. I love you all.