Author / Michael

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Posts by Michael

I am a husband, father, minister, and writer.
by Michael

Finishing Courses

Semesters have always been natural endings for me as an adult. I’ve been impacted by academic calendars a lot in my life since college. As a student and teacher, finishing a course has been a normal way for me to reflect, consider, and plan for change.

I just ended a unit with students in clinical pastoral education. And I’m finishing a semester/year with my students at GETS in another week. I’m looking forward to an intensive course at NPTS that’ll happen in June. As some things close, I’m thinking about the things that we do as learners when we finish courses. Here are helpful questions worth sitting with when the course finishes:

  1. What did I do that I loved?
  2. How did I learn?
  3. Who will I be now that this is done?
  4. What does my spent energy say about my passions?
  5. Where can I do better?
by Michael

The Demands of Loss

When I was on sabbatical, my spiritual director was processing an injury with me. In that session, she suggested a story by Rachel Naomi Remen. I found a lot of help in the story, and it led me to Dr. Remen’s work. It seems that there are always more injuries to consider.

I’ve been slowly reading her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings. Here is a quote from one of the beautiful, brief reflections:

Every great loss demands that we choose life again. We need to grieve in order to do this. The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life. When we don’t grieve, a part of us becomes caught in the past like Lot’s wife who, because she looked back, was turned into a pillar of salt.

Grieving is not about forgetting. Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain. It is a sorting process. One by one you let go of the things that are gone and you mourn for them. One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of who you are and build again.

 

by Michael

And What Do You Need?

My spiritual director has what feels like go-to questions. She’s too experienced to use go-to questions. In reality, she listens to me and to the Spirit and follows those cues.

Her questions hover with where I am. What they really show are the basic questions I keep needing to return to, revisit, and re-hear. They repeat because I’m still needing to hear them.

The particular question–because there are a few that occur to me in this way which I’ve scribbled into my soul over our eight years together–is “And, Michael, what do you need?”

I can hear the questions the way I can hear my breathing. Usually after running or exercising or working hard, I hear what’s been there, unacknowledged and unnoticed. I hear my breathing. The questions are like that. The longer I’m in direction the more this happens: I find Lucy’s words coming up. She is a means of grace in that way. God speaks through her to me. And I’ve been hearing that question. Michael, what do you need?

It turns all my energy, energy I often direct toward being good for others, ministering to others, caring for others in the church, home, and hospital–all that meaningful energy comes to me in a question. It’s hard to pay that kind of attention to yourself when you serve others. Until you have to. Sometimes you don’t realize you have to until it comes up in a good question.

So, here it is for us: what do you need?

by Michael

Your Sabbatical

I was thinking about your sabbatical and this came to mind. It from Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out:

We often are very, very busy, and usually very tired as a result, but we should ask ourselves how much of our reading and talking, visiting and lobbying, lecturing and writing, is more part of an impulsive reaction to the changing demands of our surroundings than an action that was born out of our own center. We probably shall never reach the moment of a “pure action,” and it even can be questioned how realistic or healthy it is to make that our goal. But it seems of great importance to know with an experiential knowledge the difference between an action that is triggered by a change in the surrounding scene and an action that has ripened in our hearts through careful listening to the world in which we live…a response that is really our own. In solitude we can pay careful attention to the world and search for an honest response.

 

by Michael

Sitting in Pain

Sitting in pain. That’s a phrase I hear often. I see people doing it, sitting in pain.

Sometimes you can look into a person’s face and see it. Pain takes many forms. It’s good at masking itself, staying hidden, but it leaks out too. It’ll snatch the face you were trying hard to hold. Pain will break the exterior guarded smoothness of your made-up self. Pain has a way of having its way.

I think what honors pain–and I do think that pain like other feelings should be honored, respected–is giving it due room. When it comes, you can’t make it go away. You can’t force pain to leave. Even drugs numb the senses rather than remove the pain itself. No, pain needs space. Pain that’s respected is pain that’s given space.

Clear the field of your soul. And if you see pain rising in that field, give it the whole place. Sit with that pain. It may take over, hijacking your life for a while. It may feel scary, burdening you with new fear. It may be suffocating, taking the breath and life out of you. But pain, after its done, will pass. Then, you’ll see what’s next.

by Michael

Giving & Receiving Hugs

I approached her the way I would anyone in her situation. Softly. Gently. Quietly. My head was bowed. It was a form of what I’ve explained to my wife is my chaplain walk.

The woman was crying. It’s not all she was doing but crying sums it up. More broadly she was at the side of her dead father. I had already been with him. Now, I got to meet his daughter and stand with her to witness life once father is gone.

I came to her side. I asked her if I could touch her shoulder. I did so, recognizing the tender permission you give to a stranger you realize is only there for you. You may never see him again. You may never have to explain yourself. You may never have to re-live that moment. So you say yes with a shrug that can be interpreted as a grief heave, even though it’s the answer to his question.

My hand was on her and at some point, she turned to me. She asked me if I could hug her. My arms were already open. That opening was not planned, though it was intentional somewhere in my soul. My posture knew what it meant to be there, knew those tears. I knew something about that woman’s grief. And we both gave and received each other’s hugs.

by Michael

Ceilings

I was in the library between meetings last Sunday. I went to get books for Bryce. I’m pretty sure we or he’s read all the books in our home that aren’t in my or Dawn’s library. Though we never restrict him from any book in the house, he prefers books with pictures to pastoral theology or media studies. He’s seven. I’m giving him time.

At the Harold Washington Library Center, when you rise on the main escalator, you can look up and see a curiously marvelous installation. There are thousands of dog tags from veterans of the Vietnam War. I didn’t read the description on the wall, but I did stand on the landing for a few beats and imagine how many tags were there. I wondered about those warriors. I was thankful and conflicted. I thought about the protests of that war and the images I’ve seen of the war and the protests.

While I was there, no one else looked up at the ceiling. I’m not sure how many people saw the breath-taking identifications. It dawned on me that most people could come and go and not see overhead.

 

by Michael

Cues to Connect

I learned of a dear teacher’s upcoming retirement recently. I thought of a conversation with someone over the weekend when we spoke admiringly of a different teacher’s impact upon my life. I’ve been sitting with those and other teachers in my spirit. I’ve been thinking of them in my mind, talking to them and telling them how much they’ve meant to me.

As a rule, I don’t keep such secrets. I’ve told these folks before how they’ve influenced me. Sometimes I’ll even write an email or make a call when someone has passed my mind more than twice. Teachers and non-teachers, if I’ve thought of a person multiple times, I take it as a cue to connect.

Perhaps someone has passed your mind, passed your vision. Send them something. Reach out. Take the cue.