Photo Thanks to Jon Tyson
I’m posting quotes as we go through the fuzzy zone of being new parents again in these next days. This quote comes from Jaco Hamman (Becoming a Pastor, 71):
Ministry, like any other truly human activity, emerges from your inwardness, for better or worse. As you lead and pray, you project the condition of your inner space and those around you. Ministry opens the window to your soul.
Thanks to Danist Soh
I finished my residency in clinical pastoral education at the end of August. As part of that ending, I was in transition to stay in training by beginning work in supervisory education. I needed to stay on somewhere since the church was keeping me part-time. And an opportunity opened.
In effect, my life will continue to look like it has over the last year. I’ll continue to serve my church as one of the pastors, and I’ll continue to serve my patients as a one of the chaplains.
Most people in my church seem surprised when I mention my CPE training. They don’t feel the impact of my work. They don’t notice the differences in how I spend my days.
As a church that focuses its mission on twenty and thirty-somethings (and certainly not exclusively), most of our people are involved during their days. They aren’t coming to a church, meeting with pastors, or attending ministry meetings. That was very much the culture of my last church. At New Community, people I meet with meet me at night or on weekends because they work, study, or otherwise occupy themselves.
So, attending weekend activities at church, while working during the day at a hospital and working at night to see our church people, lends to a congregant’s surprise when learning that I’m also working in CPE. But I am continuing that work. And I’m glad to be doing so.
It’s been an interesting mix of experiences starting my program these last weeks. I’m still serving as the primary chaplain in the medical intensive care unit. I’m observing the work of my supervisor as he works with a new set of interns, starting to see supervision from a different ledge. I’m preparing didactics, reading a lot, still seeing the ups and downs of people’s lives in a busy level one trauma center that sees death daily. I sit with people going through hard spots. I pray all the time. It seems that way. It’s getting easier to sit quietly.
I’m not sure how that’ll impact my posting. I’ll still post quotes of people I read. I’ll write reviews of some of the books I’m appreciating as a way to keep my mind engaged in a number of ways with the authors of those books. I may not be able to post as much as I like.
The process before me is faith-filled. Like any growth process, the most constructive parts are unseen. The strongest impacts ahead aren’t written in a description. And I couldn’t tell you all the gifts I’ll receive as I step into what’s next. There will be love there though. There will be people that love me and people that I’ll love.
There will be learning and I’ll necessarily make more mistakes. My average has already gone up this year for mistakes! I’ll require more from my family and friends, and I’ll return the gains I’m getting from one work environment toward the people within the other environments I’m placed. I’ll deepen my conversations with my spiritual director. Me and Dawn will speak and listen more meaningfully. Bryce will get a better dad. And we’ll see what else there is.
I’ve been thinking about the creation of saints, the way saints are made, and it’s been a head swirl of a time. I’ve been both captivated and sullen, giving my ears to the interviews between Charlie Rose and leaders in the Roman church, for instance, and struggling with questions in my own ministry of what a saint looks like and how many we have and who is so far away from the word that they themselves would laugh.
It’s a basic question. After all, I spend my days doing ministry. I spend a lot of time pushing, coaxing, praying, encouraging, and teaching people–all because our work is about creating saints. Not in the Roman tradition of course. There are no robes, no newspaper articles, no banners or flags or printed billboards. There aren’t interviews of all the people these saints have met, notes about every conversation, explanations of the details of their miracles.
There are miracles but they’re boring, unseen miracles. They are the daily events that God must be underneath but that Presence is so far that is silly to call them by the same name. They’re too terrestrial, these miracles. But we make disciples in churches. We talk to people and recognize the gifts that only God could implant. We create saints.
And creating saints in my way of practicing is both encouraging and debilitating. It’s draining and fun. It’s hard and people are ungrateful while, at the same time, in some other way, there’s nothing more interesting and full and enlivening.
Creating saints brings no cameras or coverage. There is hardly any notice of this mundane task; even colleagues may not notice or understand since our services are so specialized and context-bound. There is less fanfare.
Creating saints means dinners away from family, vacations at weird times when they come, taking days to recover from an experience of self-giving, or never having normal Sundays, even while Sunday is the momentous occasion of remembering what it’s all about. Creating saints is waking up with someone’s name on my tongue, someone who’s life was given to me in 2 hours and in a way that it’ll make me intercede at odd hours. Creating saints means insomnia and isolation because of confidentiality and appreciation for a long laugh that my son just can’t control.
No one wants to see that on television. It would be too boring, too close to real human experience. It’d be better to read a good novel. At least you could close the book and move on.
The room of you, a small circle of goodness, lights in your faces that remind me of grace waiting, tentative scenes from your lives turning into a dozen gifts wrapped for us all.
The table cloaked with comfortable chairs, the package of cookies made by our leader’s friend and the ones Keebler made with dotted pecans, eaten and enjoyed.
The framed pictures of godly people, people who hopefully lived well, people who hopefully called upon others to do justice, love, and mercy, people whose ecclesiastical garments hopefully never blocked them from service.
The lightning, the thunder, the darkness from Ogden Avenue spilling over to us, framing our voices and reflections in the tones of divinity. These were the images and sounds of our first meeting. What a wonderful unit this will be!
Michael Washington 