Here if You Need Me

My dear friend and fellow chaplain, Wade, recommended a book on his blog: "Here If You Need Me" by Kate Braestrup.  Kate is a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service , and the book is a series of reflections on grief, loss, theology, and this thing we call chaplaincy.  It's one of those laugh and cry out loud book that I'll be recommending to everyone I know, especially clergy.  It was particularly poignant for me to read after my year in hospital chaplaincy, and it made me miss it a lot.  I'm happy that I'll be doing it again.

One of the laugh out loud moments was her description of one of her first search-and-rescues; how no one quite knew what to do with her, and she was relegated to sitting awkwardly for awhile in a folding chair, waiting to do "chaplain-y" things :-)  I remember my first few days (let's be honest: weeks) in the hospital; the staff there was at least used to having chaplains around, but most of the patients didn't know quite what to make of me.  I remember just wanting to throw up my hands in the air, laugh with them and say: "I don't know what to make of me, either!"  For a life-long problem solver, one of my life's greater ironies is that I've chosen a profession where the cardinal sin is trying to problem-solve.  I've elected to make my work a ministry of care and, ultimately, a ministry of presence.  The catch is that you have to learn how to be fully present with yourself before you can even start to be present with those whom you are trying to care for.  I'm a work in progress in that respect.

This book also helped me re-believe in the power of spiritual care.  Where, at worst, I felt useless as a chaplain, there were those moments were I was struck by how very useful I could be.  Especially when seemingly simple conversations were held up by patients as powerful spiritual moments for them.  I am continually reminded that God works through us all in mysterious ways, and I am no exception.  My time as a chaplain was full of those moments where I saw the movements of the Divine when I was bemoaning my lack of an ability to do anything at all.

I loved being a chaplain.  And those who know me and what went on for me last year know that its taken a lot for me to say and believe that.  But I do--I look forward to going back to this field.  And you should all read "Here If You Need Me."

 

The Comforts of Home

Home is a beautiful thing.  The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is for people to be friends with their families like I am friends with mine--I am incredibly lucky.  I wish that same sort of sense of support and comfort to everyone, regardless of whether or not it comes from their biological family.

This same amazing family and I have spent the majority of my time at home playing Rock Band, which my brother provided for us.  I'm on vocals, dad's on guitar, brother's on drums, and we all unanimously voted that mom should take the prestigious role of band manager (read: she can't play the game to save her life).  It's been quite fun :-)  I still can't shake finals off of me, though; sleeping in late and playing video games with my family all day still feels strange, like I'm cheating or playing hooky.  I'm sure the sensation will pass the day before I go back to Berkeley.  Life usually works that way, doesn't it?

In the moments when I'm not enveloped in carefree, joyous interactions with my family, I've been thinking about privilege.  Namely, I've been thinking about how we talk about privilege.  In seminary, transparency seems to be the foundational value when it comes to privilege: you cannot undo the power of the privilege you carry with you into any given situation, so the best way to handle it is to unmask it for what it is.  To say, "I'm aware that because of my class/ethnicity/gender/social location, I have been arbitrarily granted more power than someone of this class/ethnicity/gender/social location."  A lot of people I know would, after this exercise in transparency, pat themselves on the back and call it a job well done.  I'm wondering now, though, if that really is a job well done.  Sometimes, it seems like that exercise of "transparency" is actually a self-satisfied way of claiming the power one is supposedly negating.  I find that obnoxious.  

That being said, I have no real solutions to offer; just that little rant :-)  If I ever figure out an answer to the question of how one should handle power/authority/empire (threw that one in just for kicks), I'll be sure to post it here.  But for now, it's time to return to the comforts of home.  

Good friends, good times

Great friends are a great thing.  After an extended evening of fun with Steph, Jer, and Kris, I am again reminded that a year and a half doesn't seem like enough time before I leave here.   Although there's no guarantee that I'll have to leave here at all--let's all keep our fingers crossed for Bay Area internships!

In other news, I've found myself slightly shaken in the aftermath of an uncomfortable, unsafe situation that unfolded at church two weeks ago.  It was handled and addressed beautifully by the leadership and administration at my church, but I'm unsettled by what I learned about myself in the process.  I'm frightened that, when I feel threatened or unsafe, I have a "deer in the headlights" response, and do not actively defend myself the way I should.  I don't like that I freeze when I should walk, or run, away.  It's unnerving.  Especially because I consider myself to be a confident, forthright person in most other areas of my life--I'm definitely not known by my friends, family, or colleagues as being a wilting violet.  I feel confident most of the time, self-assured pretty much all of the time, but in those situations when my self-assured, offensive reaction matters in a very real way--I freeze.  I hope I can change this.

I'm reminded of Barthian theology at this point, and find it more than slightly comical that I could probably stand to learn a thing or two from his archetypal sinful human being--the one who stands up in "prideful self-assurance" to be their own judge, and demand that their needs, however they perceive them, be met.  I knew Barth wasn't perfect before, but this really hits it home.  He tells us an awful lot about why humanity is depraved and desperately in need of reconciliation we can never affect on our own, but nowhere in his theology does he address how a woman, who's been victimized before, should stand up for herself when she finds herself being victimized again.  Nowhere in his theology does he tell the immobilized that they have every right to move away from what hurts and threatens them.  I have a lot of love for Barth, more so than many of my colleagues, but find it highly regrettable how he never addresses victimization.

So it goes without saying that I am one huge theology nerd--but such is life these days.   

Heartfelt ramblings of a compulsive student

So I never thought I would enter the blog world, but here I am.  My mind has been cloudy with many a-thought this last year, and I thought it was about time to start writing them down, as scattered as they may be.  There's a lot that goes into Mastering the Divine.

I finished my biggest final on Friday, only one more to go.  Like every finals season, I feel myself still unable to really let go and relax, even though I know I'm basically done.  It's such  a strange thing, this phenomenon of school--how we throw every ounce of our thought and being into these final tests and projects, and then it's just startlingly over.  I've never been good at knowing how to stop thinking about these things, whether it be the theology of Karl Barth or the polity of the PC(USA).  I wish I could tell my brain to take a rest, but it seems to be cooling down on its own time.

Sometimes, I can't wait for this process to be over.  I dream about what it will be like to have a framed diploma on my wall, to be done with my internship and CPE, to have people introduce me as "Rev. --------".  But then other times, maybe even today, the thought of being done with this all is at once terrifying and heartbreaking.  Terrifying because of the responsibility that this vocational path will carry, heartbreaking because I feel like I'm only recently settling into my communities in an authentic way.  I don't want to leave it a year and half from now.  When I decided to come here to Master the Divine, I didn't foresee that I might want to make this "stepping stone" place my home.  

I think that's quite enough for my first foray into the blog world--more heartfelt ramblings to follow in the future :-)