At the end of the first week of my sabbatical, I attended the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the biennial gathering of delegates and visitors from the whole of the denomination, as well as guests from others. There were plenary sessions, amazing worship, as well as speakers and workshops and, of course, cookies.
Barbara Brown Taylor, one of our nation's most notable preachers and an Episcopal priest who now teaches at a small college in Georgia, spoke on "The Fate of Narrative in the Age of Twitter." No surprise, it was engaging, evocative, and thought-provoking. She listed three basic rules (from among a much longer list) regarding what stories she will allow to shape or influence her story, her narrative, her life.
1. Any story which she would allow to influence her story must honor and defend people not like her.
2. Any story which she will take to help make her story must allow her to argue with it. Those with prepackaged answers allowing for no deviation are unworthy of the task.
3. Any story worth being a part of her own story must level with her about the cost of love. It is not allowed to lie to her about the messiness of life.
As she related her take on narrative and the life-changing, life-giving and life-saving potential of narrative, including and especially Biblical narratives, she also related her forays into the world of e-mail, text, social networking and other new technologies. Through discussions with her students, she discovered the powerful connections they maintained with friends and loved ones through their cellphones. She soon discovered, whether a product of such technologies or her own "adult ADD," that so many technologies resulted in feeling personally fragmented, in addition to whatever benefit the connections provided.
As I was listening and taking notes, I jotted down in the margin of my paper, "Sabbath = defragmenting." If you are reading a blog, then you probably need no definition for defragmentation. It has come into our vocabulary through the ubiquitousness of the computer. We store our little bits of data, little parts of our programs, little pieces of our stories and our selves all over the place, and fairly soon we cannot retrieve all of them easily. Defragmenting is the computer's way of rightly ordering all of those bits, putting together those things which ought to be together, and gathering up the scattered.
Sabbath, resting, taking time apart from production and consumption, focusing on God, "sitting at the feet of the Lord like a cabbage" (as Julien of Norwich is credited as saying), playing, re-creating, these are ways of drawing the scattered and fragmented parts of ourselves back into who we are, so that we might be once again whole, and wholy present.
I then wrote the letters, "WCS" and an arrow to the words "Sabbath = Defragmenting." WCS is my own shorthand for "World Communion Sunday." Not that we need to, or can afford to, wait until the first Sunday in October to defrag ourselves, or even that communion is necessary for it to happen. But I will be back in the pulpit then, and one can never start too soon on a sermon idea.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Withdrawal
So I am two days into a 90 day sabbatical from ministry, and I am experiencing withdrawal. So far I have missed a building committee meeting, a clergy support group, a Rotary meeting and a Bible study. I don't know how many fire calls may have happened, because I turned off the pager.
I can tell it is withdrawal because I know exactly how many things I have missed, and I miss them.
I am still in that part of the journey where I am looking backwards, which is very different than looking forward or being centered where I am.
I suppose this is a part of the process.
I can tell it is withdrawal because I know exactly how many things I have missed, and I miss them.
I am still in that part of the journey where I am looking backwards, which is very different than looking forward or being centered where I am.
I suppose this is a part of the process.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
My Brain is Full. So is My Heart.
So Monday and Tuesday, I spent 16 hours in a classroom with 30 other fire chaplains, trying to figure out what it means to be a fire chaplain.
So at the end of two days I have a new training manual, a new certificate (for the sake of those who thought I was certifiable, now I have a certificate!), and a brain full of stuff that will only start to make sense as I put it to use on scene.
One of the things I learned is that I am not the only one who feels overwhelmed by the calling to chaplaincy. There were 31 learners in that room, all of whom had some level of experience in ministry (some with much, much more than me), all of whom faced the uncertainty of the pager, the difficulties faced by those in the fire service, and the power of a calling.
The first lesson they started teaching us was that in order to be a chaplain one must have the heart of a servant.
The next lesson was the three qualities required for chaplaincy: kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
What amazes me is that the first lessons were not about techniques or protocols or theories of chaplaincy, but qualities and callings.
What amazes me is that the qualities of a chaplain are in fact the qualities Jesus asked (asks) of each of his followers: to have the heart of a servant; to practice kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
So at the end of two days I have a new training manual, a new certificate (for the sake of those who thought I was certifiable, now I have a certificate!), and a brain full of stuff that will only start to make sense as I put it to use on scene.
One of the things I learned is that I am not the only one who feels overwhelmed by the calling to chaplaincy. There were 31 learners in that room, all of whom had some level of experience in ministry (some with much, much more than me), all of whom faced the uncertainty of the pager, the difficulties faced by those in the fire service, and the power of a calling.
The first lesson they started teaching us was that in order to be a chaplain one must have the heart of a servant.
The next lesson was the three qualities required for chaplaincy: kindness, compassion and forgiveness.
What amazes me is that the first lessons were not about techniques or protocols or theories of chaplaincy, but qualities and callings.
What amazes me is that the qualities of a chaplain are in fact the qualities Jesus asked (asks) of each of his followers: to have the heart of a servant; to practice kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Travelin' Mercies
Tomorrow and the next day, I have 16 hours of chaplain training with the Federation of Fire Chaplains just outside of Indianapolis.
(I keep wondering when I will get over the feeling of "wow, this time last year, I didn't even know this existed.)
So I drove down to Indy on Friday, where I am staying with my wife's sister and her husband.
(Since I started with the parenthetical commentary, might as well continue. I married the sister of a college friend. This friend had herself married another good friend from college. So my in-laws are a class reunion of sorts. As Ms. Stewart would say, it's a good thing.)
On my way down here, I stopped in Ft. Wayne to get gas and a refill on the caffeine. After pumping the gas, I turned the key, and the starter did its thing, but the engine did not follow suit. Crank, crank, crank, nothing. So I called the Mrs., who is still up in Michigan, she gets me some pertinent numbers, and I called for help.
In the meantime, I am busy praying for some help, because I am stuck halfway between home and where I am headed, and this training isn't happening in a reasonable driving range again anytime soon.
The short version of the story is that the crankshaft sensor on the car was bad. Which means the timing on the valves and the pistons was off a bit, so that is why the mileage was down and the car was a little rough lately. When it gets bad enough and the engine is hot, the car shuts off so as not to damage the engine. It could have happened while driving, apparently. So being in a gas station was not a bad place to be. After it cooled off, I could start the car and get to the local dealership.
The cool thing about this story is trying to jump start the car before I knew what was wrong. I looked around for someone who might have a set of jumper cables. Lots of commuter types were pulling in and out of the station. But one gentleman caught my eye. He was a bit older than me, driving a pick-up truck, wearing a well-weathered "First Armored Division" shirt, and pumping gas into a plastic gas can. I went up and asked if he had jumper cables. He did, and pulled around to my car and we tried those.
As the cables were not working (because that wasn't the problem), another guy, younger, African American, and with an accent I couldn't place (it might have been Caribbean, might have been African), drove up with a jumpstart pack and offered it for my use.
I had two good Samaritans who helped me out. Unfortunately, I didn't know what the real problem was, so I was asking for help with stuff that had little to no effect. I still had to get to the dealership and still had to write a check much bigger than I had wanted to. But in the midst of economic downturns and all sorts of other troubles, two people were more than willing to help a stranger who was stuck halfway to where he was headed.
God is good. As are lots of people.
(I keep wondering when I will get over the feeling of "wow, this time last year, I didn't even know this existed.)
So I drove down to Indy on Friday, where I am staying with my wife's sister and her husband.
(Since I started with the parenthetical commentary, might as well continue. I married the sister of a college friend. This friend had herself married another good friend from college. So my in-laws are a class reunion of sorts. As Ms. Stewart would say, it's a good thing.)
On my way down here, I stopped in Ft. Wayne to get gas and a refill on the caffeine. After pumping the gas, I turned the key, and the starter did its thing, but the engine did not follow suit. Crank, crank, crank, nothing. So I called the Mrs., who is still up in Michigan, she gets me some pertinent numbers, and I called for help.
In the meantime, I am busy praying for some help, because I am stuck halfway between home and where I am headed, and this training isn't happening in a reasonable driving range again anytime soon.
The short version of the story is that the crankshaft sensor on the car was bad. Which means the timing on the valves and the pistons was off a bit, so that is why the mileage was down and the car was a little rough lately. When it gets bad enough and the engine is hot, the car shuts off so as not to damage the engine. It could have happened while driving, apparently. So being in a gas station was not a bad place to be. After it cooled off, I could start the car and get to the local dealership.
The cool thing about this story is trying to jump start the car before I knew what was wrong. I looked around for someone who might have a set of jumper cables. Lots of commuter types were pulling in and out of the station. But one gentleman caught my eye. He was a bit older than me, driving a pick-up truck, wearing a well-weathered "First Armored Division" shirt, and pumping gas into a plastic gas can. I went up and asked if he had jumper cables. He did, and pulled around to my car and we tried those.
As the cables were not working (because that wasn't the problem), another guy, younger, African American, and with an accent I couldn't place (it might have been Caribbean, might have been African), drove up with a jumpstart pack and offered it for my use.
I had two good Samaritans who helped me out. Unfortunately, I didn't know what the real problem was, so I was asking for help with stuff that had little to no effect. I still had to get to the dealership and still had to write a check much bigger than I had wanted to. But in the midst of economic downturns and all sorts of other troubles, two people were more than willing to help a stranger who was stuck halfway to where he was headed.
God is good. As are lots of people.
Monday, April 6, 2009
To Blog or not to blog....
So several readers have gently nudged me with the question, "When are you going to post to your blog again?"
I have been thinking about starting a second blog, so there is one for chaplaincy and one for ministry. But if I can't get around to blogging on one, I have no business starting up a second one.
I was going to name it something like "Signal 7," which is the old radio code for "Return to Station" in our department. I liked it. It had something to do with everybody getting back from the scene safely, and it is often after we return to the station, after the accident or fire or medical call is over that I am chaplain to the fire fighters. But there is a band and a media company and a movie by that name, so it was already taken on blogspot. And if I am having trouble keeping up with one, I certainly don't need more than one server.
So instead, I am going to keep on plugging away at this one, combining local church ministry, chaplaincy, and other observations.
And I might get around to actually posting more often one of these days.
I have been thinking about starting a second blog, so there is one for chaplaincy and one for ministry. But if I can't get around to blogging on one, I have no business starting up a second one.
I was going to name it something like "Signal 7," which is the old radio code for "Return to Station" in our department. I liked it. It had something to do with everybody getting back from the scene safely, and it is often after we return to the station, after the accident or fire or medical call is over that I am chaplain to the fire fighters. But there is a band and a media company and a movie by that name, so it was already taken on blogspot. And if I am having trouble keeping up with one, I certainly don't need more than one server.
So instead, I am going to keep on plugging away at this one, combining local church ministry, chaplaincy, and other observations.
And I might get around to actually posting more often one of these days.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Learning the Rules
Wow, I can actually remember how to post on my blog!
Sorry it has been so long. I've been busy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So I have been a volunteer chaplain with our local fire department for a bit now, and I am doing a lot of on the job training, learning how the department works (very well, I might add), how I fit it (all right so far), and how things are done.
I have been making a list of the "Rules of Fire Chaplaincy," as they make themselves known.
Rule 1 - Stay out of the way.
I have a specific set of skills and an important role on the scene of an accident, a fire, or a medical manpower assist call. But I do not fight fires, I do not cut people out of cars, and I do not do CPR, so I stay out of the way of those who do. I arrive on scene and see where I fit into what is going on.
Rule 2 - Don't park so far over in the garage, and back out slowly, no matter how urgent the call is.
This rule was made known when I was in a hurry the other night to get to a scene. I have been improving my personal response time, but now need to add more wisdom than speed. Which is the nice way to say I smashed the heck out of my passenger side mirror on the garage door frame the other night.
Rule 3 - Don't grab the first shoes available. Take the time to put on boots.
I have a fire jacket and a helmet, for the sake of safety and visibility on scene, but as Rule #1 applies, I don't have turnout boots and pants. But when we have 10-12 inches of snow, and the fire is at a house in the country, walking around in sneakers is a bad idea. I was okay until I got back in the car afterward, and all the ice which had formed around my ankles melted and ran down my socks.
Or as one Captain put it, "Time spent putting on cold weather gear is time well spent."
Rule 4 - Get plenty of sleep the night before a call.
This one gets more difficult with occasional insomnia, like now, when I am typing this at 2:40 in the morning. But it is important to get regular rest, because the pager doesn't keep a schedule.
Corollary to Rule 4 - get the sermon done early, because that regular time set aside for it may get interrupted.
I know there are more just waiting for me to learn them. I'll let you know when I discover them.
Sorry it has been so long. I've been busy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
So I have been a volunteer chaplain with our local fire department for a bit now, and I am doing a lot of on the job training, learning how the department works (very well, I might add), how I fit it (all right so far), and how things are done.
I have been making a list of the "Rules of Fire Chaplaincy," as they make themselves known.
Rule 1 - Stay out of the way.
I have a specific set of skills and an important role on the scene of an accident, a fire, or a medical manpower assist call. But I do not fight fires, I do not cut people out of cars, and I do not do CPR, so I stay out of the way of those who do. I arrive on scene and see where I fit into what is going on.
Corollary to Rule 1 - "Look, here comes the chaplain." "How can you tell?" "He shows up late and parks too far away!"
Second Corollary to Rule 1 - Wow, those big trucks make nice big ruts in the snow so it is much easier for me to drive to the scene. Thanks, guys.
Second Corollary to Rule 1 - Wow, those big trucks make nice big ruts in the snow so it is much easier for me to drive to the scene. Thanks, guys.
Rule 2 - Don't park so far over in the garage, and back out slowly, no matter how urgent the call is.
This rule was made known when I was in a hurry the other night to get to a scene. I have been improving my personal response time, but now need to add more wisdom than speed. Which is the nice way to say I smashed the heck out of my passenger side mirror on the garage door frame the other night.
Rule 3 - Don't grab the first shoes available. Take the time to put on boots.
I have a fire jacket and a helmet, for the sake of safety and visibility on scene, but as Rule #1 applies, I don't have turnout boots and pants. But when we have 10-12 inches of snow, and the fire is at a house in the country, walking around in sneakers is a bad idea. I was okay until I got back in the car afterward, and all the ice which had formed around my ankles melted and ran down my socks.
Or as one Captain put it, "Time spent putting on cold weather gear is time well spent."
Rule 4 - Get plenty of sleep the night before a call.
This one gets more difficult with occasional insomnia, like now, when I am typing this at 2:40 in the morning. But it is important to get regular rest, because the pager doesn't keep a schedule.
Corollary to Rule 4 - get the sermon done early, because that regular time set aside for it may get interrupted.
I know there are more just waiting for me to learn them. I'll let you know when I discover them.
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