Reading, Not Books

I have been reading tonight.

 

I've been reading the professional websites published by friends whose businesses provide various forms of life coaching for women.  With their emphasis on self-discovery, re-invention, and pathways to authenticity and satisfaction in all arenas of life, they are sure to glean far greater audience numbers than those my church is able to gather into a worshipping congregation.

 

I've also been reading the essays written by applicants to the spiritual direction program from which I graduated and on whose advisory board I now sit.  Lengthy, searching, reflective pieces of writing, revealing many of life's great traumas and the persistent search for God which winds in and around those experiences of what Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation.

 

The first set of readings has made me really tired.

 

The second has made me want to cry.

Discernment Dissertation in Progress

I'm musing about and wanting to begin to process an entirely new topic in my blog writing, but before I get started I thought I'd add a cancer update.  Many of you have already read this on my Caring Bridge site, so you can skip it.

I do feel as if I am working on a Ph.D. in discernment.  And while I am good with this decision, more reading late last night reminded me that the complexities are endless and that I am embarking upon (or have been embarked upon, with no say in the matter!) a journey that will affect the rest of my life in myriad ways I can barely grasp at the moment.

I do think that someone should award me a Ph.D. in Discernment when the initial treatment phase is concluded, maybe a year from now. 

And now, from the CB site:

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Deuteronomy 30:19 or, Everything is Connected

I've reached a decision and, as many women promised me would be the case, I feel as if an enormous burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I expect to have surgery in mid-November; if you want the gory details, give me a call or send an email or FB message.

Personally, I think the discernment process is more interesting than the medical details. (Fortunately, the doctors and nurses have the opposite approach.)  Herewith, then, more graduate level discernment:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to to teach a class in a Course on Death and Dying for nursing and gerontology students at Cleveland State.  The invitation had come from a spiritual direction colleague, who is also an instructor in the CSU School of Nursing.

As I was putting the final touches on the class the night before, I received, completely out of the blue, a lengthy and moving email from someone who, with his family, has been almost as deeply affected by our Josh's death as we have.  I haven't heard from him in the three years since the funeral, and I was touched, pained, and comforted, all at once, by what he wrote.

The next day, I spent the afternoon trying to convey to those mostly very young nursing students what a privilege and honor theirs will be, to care for the families of dying and dead children ~ what extraordinary roles they will have to play as educators, advocates, comforters, mediators, and listeners.  I don't know how well I pulled it off, but I gave it my best shot.

This morning, close but still a bit uncertain, I taught my class at John Carroll, trying to give my regular students a basic timeline of Jewish, Christian, and  Muslim history so that they will have some context for the Scripture we're about to study.

And then, since I was there already, I walked across the street and sat in the Gesu Church sanctuary for awhile.  In Protestant mode (not!), I looked at the crucifix, and at the stained glass windows depicting the lives of Ignatius and Francis Xavier, and at the statues of Mary and Joseph.  I thought about the letter I'd received night before last, and about the class I'd taught yesterday.

I thought about all the lives represented by letter, class, and art, and I thought about life itself emerging from what appears to be complete brokenness.

And then I knew, with absolute clarity, exactly what to do.

I've communicated my preferred dates, and the doctors' schedulers are at work.

And so: This has been a long and involved process and I have had incredible friendship, support and counsel ~ medical, practical, and spiritual.  I am comfortable with my decision and confident in my medical team.  The time for advice is now officially concluded, and the time for support and encouragement is here.

Thank you! ~ and stick around for . . . whatever happens next.

:)

O Energy, Energy, Where Art Thou?

I used to be a person of tremendous energy.  

With Josh's death, all of that energy, that sense of vitality and propulsion forward, evaporated.  How I returned to my work at seminary and in spiritual direction three months later I will never know.

These days, I would say that I'm about halfway back.  

Yesterday it was my tremendous privilege to lead a workshop on discernment for a small group of UCC pastors being trained in a new process for helping individuals explore calls to ministry.  I had a co-leader who opened and closed with information about the UCC framework, but I designed and led the five hours on discernment.  Bases upon the evaluation comments, I would call the day an almost unqualified success.  (The participants enjoyed the role-play experiences so much that we had to dispense with an entire topic. No one else minded, but I did. Next time: a firmer grip on the schedule!)

And today ~ I'm drained ~  immobilized.

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When I was on retreat a couple of weeks ago, I often began my mornings with a walk down a big hill to a cemetery, and sometimes a bit further.  When I walked back up to the house, very slowly as the sun rose higher and the oppressive  heat descended again, I could hear a wood thrush in the still-darkened woods as I savored the black raspberries growing along the path. 

I often begin my days at home with a walk.  But at home I have to go from walk to tasks related to house and work, and I have already given my best time and energy to the walk itself.  If I have to accomplish something urgent that day, I get started on my computer before I even get up, and postpone the walk.

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Three years and I am still struggling with the matter of how to organize my life so that I can accomplish work I love without being completely depleted of energy.

I suppose there's progress to savor in the fact that I want to solve this problem.

The heat is not helping!

Another Side of Discernment

A teen-age girl, new to the church, asks for an explanation of Lent and how she might observe it, and for recommendations on purchasing a Bible.

A friend from my Methodist church days whose son is marrying a Hindu woman this summer emails about finding ideas for their wedding.

A woman who is involved with the church retreat a friend and I designed for this week is bubbling over with delight at having discovered new ways into a life of prayer.

A Catholic director involved with the same retreat is looking for Presbyterian lectionary resources so that she can offer help to someone in our denomination.

I realize over and over again through this week of rather considerable effort that several years ago I had expressed the hope that one day I would be knowledgeable enough to meld Catholic and Protestant traditions into retreat work and -- voila! it seems that I am doing exactly that. (OK. Not exactly voila! It's been four years of preparation.)

A newly-ordained pastor friend and I have a Facebook conversation about some of the practical ~ building repairs and money ~ issues facing her congregation, and about how those matters (which I have thought I might like to avoid, since I face them every day with my own house) have to do with identity and mission. Who are you? How do you use your resources? What face do you present to the world? How is your place a launching pad for what you have to share?

All of these things look like ordinary, in-the-middle-of-daily-life conversations, internal and external.

But maybe not.

I have been in such out-of-the ordinary situations for so long, so shaken by what has happened in our family and having to deal with one crisis hard upon another, several of which I have not blogged about and each of which would be considered by any rational person to be more than enough for any one year ~ have I completely forgotten that God is in all things? That God is reaching out for us in all the events of our daily lives?

And have I forgotten that if I am in ministry I get to be a witness to that? That I get to help people with the little steps that all together, in sequence and in a jumble, make it possible to grow into a life of attentiveness to God?

Discernment

Clinical pastoral education is not (hardly!) just about visiting patients and leaning different ways of working with them. Nope ~ there's a huge self-awareness component, based in frequent and challenging meetings, one-on-one with a supervisor and in groups with colleagues in the program.

It's valuable, but ~ right now? That was the question raised in a multitude of ways during my interview earlier this week for a year long program. Two of the interviewers were my supervisors from two years ago, people who know me fairly well. Both of them were present for our son's funeral; one was the person who came with me to see his body (because I knew that I could absolutely count on her not to turn away), and served as a reader at the service.

For several months now I have been inclined toward hospital chaplaincy as the way to go. And I may still be, either next year or eventually. I have a lot to contemplate over the next couple of weeks, whether they offer it to me or not -- or perhaps make an offer for a year or two away.

Throughout the discussion and in the days since I have been reminded repeatedly of two things:

The first is that I have had and am having an experience that few people share or comprehend. The things that disturb me are different from the things that disturb other people, and the things that don't are as well. Am I in a place to work exclusively with people who would describe their lives similarly?

The second is that last year as I was considering field education possibilities, one of my professors urged me to go for a situation in which life and future were paramount.

And now there is a third thing ~ my meeting Tuesday has been followed by a cascade of events apparently designed to incline me toward exactly what that professor was talking about.

Hmmmm. More about that later.