Evaluation

Final evaluation time. I just completed C.P.E. unit eleven. Wow, what a journey. I think you have to be just a little bit crazy to do this kind of thing and I certainly fit that description. I'm not a lot crazy, just a little bit crazy.

I'm working through a number of different things right now but the highlights are as follows:

1. Claiming my strengths. I seem to have an incessant need to highlight my struggle, my abusive past, my illness and not enough highlight the fact that I've got some real strengths like the fact that I have survived a lot of difficult things, that I chose relationships with people that guided me, that I chose to get an education, that I chose to learn about myself so that I can be a decent husband and father. Yeah, sometimes I can get passive in my life but considering what I've had to survive I think I stand up for myself pretty well. I can hold my own with most people, most of the time and not only survive but thrive in my personal and professional relationships. People tend to like me. I'm not the most charismatic person out there, but people are drawn to me because they sense that I really care about them and the world around us. I'm not apathetic at all. I'm a deep thinker with a big heart. I don't always know how I'm using them all the time, but I'm gifted with both and use both in my life and ministry. I tend to see the world too much in terms of black and white, either/or, but a benefit of this is that I have a strong sense of justice and am drawn to considering what is right or wrong. Because of this, I can be really hard on myself and others for doing the right thing. The strength for me is that I am always pushing myself to learn, grow and be better.
2. Theologically, I am still working on articulating my belief around how God is active in the world, where I see grace in my life and in the life of others and what really is the nitty gritty of sin. I want to continue working on articulating how God is in relationship with us in our sinful nature, our distortion. Exactly who are we outside of our distortions? Grace is accepting of us but it is also a call to justice and to love. Where do I see God in my story and what do I do with that. I think I am really on the edge of a theological breakthrough here and hope to write about that in the blog more and more. Plus, if I can't understand how my theology impacts my work with students and patients, it is not all that useful to me. At the moment, I'm not sure I can really articulate that very well.
3. Living with chronic illness. Learning to be whole and broken at the same time is a new way of looking at life. We are either broken or whole. It never occured to me that we can be both at the same time. Understanding that will go a long way for me to use this experience as a resource for my ministry. I can not escape my illness, but I can understand my self and my relationships in midst of that better and to use the reality of this experience to help me understand God deeper and to understand who we are in relationship with God deeper.

As I go into a new unit, a new year, and face major surgery, these are three things I hope to work on. This has been a difficult year in many ways, but a rewarding one is many other ways. I have learned and grown a lot. My body has failed me in many ways, but my spirit has strengthened. I pray that this next year is one full of continued learning. I have a feeling that there is no way that it can't be.

A Christmas Blessing

As a man, I can have no knowledge of what the miracle and pain of birth feels like. Yet, as the moment of the Christian calendar arrives in which I will once again celebrate the birth of God with us, I can't help but think of the ways in which all of us are called to create beauty out of our pain.

Today, for instance, has had a large amount of pain for me. I am suffering in ways I have never experienced. Yet, as I write about my pilgrimage in C.P.E. I am aware of how difficult and painful it is to write about my current journey. I do not yet have perspective. I am still in the midst of the labor pains and have not yet had the joy or satisfaction of holding the newborn, the beautiful creation I am birthing. This is not to say that my suffering is so that I might birth something beautiful into my life. Rather, my suffering is life as it is and my choices are to birth something beautiful through the pain of my suffering or to become victimized by it and allow a part, or all, of me die in the process. I choose to find beauty in this.

Christmas, the nativity, is not all happiness and lights. A young unmarried woman must still go through the process of birth in less than ideal conditions in less than ideal times. I imagine the first Christmas morning was far less romantic than sitting around a fireplace with tinsel and garland, egg nog and hot cocoa. No, the night of Jesus' birth was one filled with pain, fear and uncertainty. Even the joy of holding the newborn was probably tempered by the harsh realities of the political atmosphere, financial hardships and social taboos. I suppose this is what makes the Story of Emanuel so wonderful. I guess as I suffer, I need to know that life can come forth from such pain. I guess I need to know that suffering can some how be redeemed.

I do not believe that God caused my suffering or my pain, at least not directly. I suppose, ultimately, God is responsible for the fabric of life in which my self resides in which pain and suffering is a natural consequence. But I do not believe God willed my Crohn's Disease. I do however believe that God wills new life and salvation to come out of the most obscure and unlikely of situations. The birth of our savior in Bethlehem is a Story that proves that. So, as I struggle in my pain and struggle to understand my life in the midst of that, I am comforted knowing that this Christmas, I have a deeper and fuller understanding of Emanuel, God with us, than I ever have before. I see my whole life in a deeper and more fulfilling way despite the pain and in some ways because of it.

So I, have a birthing process of my own. It has its own pain naturally associated with that, but it also has the most profound potentiality for beauty in my life at the moment. I am excited to hold that in my loving arms. It is loving and holding God, for sure, but it is also loving and holding myself.

Merry Christmas!

Eating the Strawberry

Today I am reminded of the Zen koan of the delicious strawberry. Hanging between two tigers, I find myself reaching for the strawberry and enjoying its delicious taste!

So, my stomach has grown to the size of a small mountain. My belly is very distended and I am very uncomfortable. Can't eat. Can't sleep. I'm beyond tired, and yet, I can still laugh. In fact, I've never felt closer to my family. I love them so much. I look a little like Santa today, which is a good thing since Christmas is only a few days away. Life as it is today--beautiful and a struggle. I can honestly say I love my life. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared that day by day I feel my life in this body fading from me. I feel my body shutting down. Now I'm having a dramatic increase in heart palpitations the last few days. Some of which are actually painful.

I would like to say that I am not dying, but of course I am. We all are. But, this is the only time in my life I feel like I could be actively moving toward death. Something is just not right. I pretend that isn't so. I don't want it to be so, and yet, when I just listen to my body, it makes me wonder.

Of course, it could just be the anxiety of waiting for this damn surgery. Hardest thing I've ever done, waiting for this surgery. I am so ready to be done with this, and yet I know I will never really be done with this. Chrohn's Disease is with me, it is part of the fabric of who I am in this body. But, I am not just this body. This I believe whole heartedly. I am essentially spirit and part of the Tapestry that is God.

I'm rambling. That too is life as it is.

Isn't amazing that one can feel so bad and yet so wonderful at the same time? Isn't it a miracle that one can experience suffering and yet see the beauty right in front of you?

Ah, the strawberry is so delicious.

Prayer... What is it Good For?

This may seem strange coming from a minister, but I don't get the point of praying or prayer. I just don't. I guess at the end of the day, I don't think there is a "being" to hear me. I do believe our energy, our story goes out into the fabric of the universe and changes things. I do believe that. I believe that my life is more than this physical shell in which I reside. But the function and form of prayer has always been a troubling road block for me in my spiritual life. Meditation I can do, sometimes, but prayer seems so fruitless. I think I need to reevaluate my definition and view of prayer. I to often associate the act of praying with this idea of magical thinking. I don't believe there is a being who delivers on my desires. I do however think there is a benefit to connecting to the fabric of the universe. Is that prayer? I don't expect anything from my prayers. Probably the biggest reason I don't "pray" I suppose.

Recently it was suggested to me that I pray with my wife about this current situation. My initial reaction was the level of vulnerability and intimacy that requires. That is something I can certainly do with my wife, but I was also aware it is a very intimate thing. I am also aware, that we haven't done it yet. I don't know the "why" of prayer. Is it connection? I can connect without prayer. Is it the concept of "ask and God will provide?" I don't really believe God works that way. So what is prayer? And why do it?

I think what I am beginning to realize is that prayer is not simply communication, it is connection. Prayer then is a piece of the puzzle of revelation in the form of one way to tell, or hear, the story of ourselves in relationship witho ourselves, each other and the fabric of the universe that is God. Perhaps, when I "pray" with my wife, I am choosing to connect with her on a deeper level. I suppose this is why that idea seemed so intimate to me. It can be more intimate than sexuality in many ways. Deeper and certainly longer lasting. Probably even more satisfying.

So, my goal is to pray a bit more. To connect with my own thoughts and feelings and those of others more deeply. By doing this I connect more deeply to the God of the universe. I believe this "energy" effects change. In some way. Does it provide me with $5 when I need it or a succesful surgery. Maybe. Maybe not. But, it does have the potential to help me feel connected which can be healing in and of itself.

So, when I say I will pray for others, I am saying I will connect with you. I will connect even when you can't. When I ask you to pray for me. I am asking you to connect with me. To offer the body of Christ to me in relationship. I am not asking for magic. But, something mystical may just happen in relationship.

Amen?!

All I Want For Christmas...

I missed going to San Antonio today for peer group. The pain and the unpredictability of my bowels has kept me from enjoying the group process with my peers. I missed an opportunity for growing and for, at the moment, support.

I had to explore the more aggressive side of me today. Had to advocate for myself. Initially I was told today that the earliest I could be seen by the doctor was January 19th. I said that was not going to work for me. I needed something sooner. I was able to get to January 3, which means I will spend Christmas and New Years waiting for the surgery. All I want for Christmas is to feel whole again.

Yet, I do feel a bit of hope. More today than the last couple. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I have been struggling with this phrase the last several days, "You have to think positive." I don't know what to do with that. I do think positive. But is my health dependent on positive thinking. If I'm not positive enough am I responsible for bad health or even dying. And what is positive thinking anyway? I know what I want and hope for. And, I believe it will happen. But, I am also aware that it may not happen the way I hope. I want to be honest about that and express that fear. People don't want to hear that. I feel as if I can't fully express my fear. Doing so says I'm not "staying positive." Not staying positive makes me responsible for the progression of my illness. It is a path I cannot go down. I already feel so much shame and pain emotionally surrounding this illness. I cannot take on that responsibility as well. I understand that those that love me find it difficult to acknowledge the very real possibilities out there for me. I get that. But, I also need a place to express my equally real fears about what could be so that I don't miss living in the now. I know our thinking impacts our physiology. I get that as well, but equally damaging to us is pretending nothing bad can happen or compartmentalizing our fear. That will kill me. Being positive means living fully in the now acknowledging that life and death is a mystery. Look, all I want for Christmas is to get this sick gut out of me. But, to pretend that I will definitely be here for next year's Christmas is not healthy. I acknowledge the reality and my very real fear. That is all. At the end, what will be will be. I just want to love what I got in the meantime.

Pain

Pain.

I am so done with the pain. I can hardly think straight. I can't concentrate on anything. I just want to be out of the pain. Not desperate yet, but I certainly feel like I'm on that road. I am beginning to wonder if the pain will ever end. It eats away at your soul I think. I feel so completely and utterly vulnerable right now. Completely helpless to the pain. I feel a sadness lurking inside me I have not experienced before. A darkness that eats away at my joy. Even when I experience joy in the moment it is so temporary. Run out of town by this darkness called pain. Yesterday, my birthday, I watched my daughter sing. Beautiful. I smiled like I have never smiled before. A pride that is indescribable. Yet, today, I have struggled to focus on the words of those around me. Feels like a dark cloud following me. The sun breaks through, but the clouds quickly cover the light and cast darkness upon me again. I feel very alone. I feel scared. I feel shame and guilt. I feel a deep sadness. I feel a tiredness that goes to my soul. Suddenly my goals seem a little less important, I just want to be there for my kids. No more marathons. No more supervisory training. No more anything. Just survival. But, as my wife aptly put it, we are survivors. That is what we do. I too, will survive this. And, on the other end, thrive.

Pain, eats and feeds on the soul, particularly hope. Hope is so critical and yet it is the food upon which pain, or the darkness of pain seems to feed on and diminish so quickly. The physical pain is horrible, but so is the emotional and spiritual pain I am experiencing. I feel lost without a rudder in a sea during a storm. No light to guide me. Prayer is there for me, but it does not seem to touch where I am hurting most, and this I do not understand.

So tonight, I will try to sleep, again. Tomorrow, I will take that day as it comes. Talk with my surgeon, my doctor and pray for relief soon.

Surgery

I'm not even sure what to write really. So many emotions swirling in me.

Today I learned that I have several small bowel strictures that will need to be removed surgically. This won't be an easy surgery. The tissue will also have to be examined to rule out lymphoma of the small bowel.

I spent this evening with my family at the "tower lighting" in Round Rock. It was fun despite the fact I struggled physically. Still struggling.

I'm scared and I am not at all well.
I don't even know what to think about this whole thing. I just know I feel down, scared, and uncertain about my future. Hopeful? Sure, but tempered by the reality of having Chrohn's Disease. This is the beginning of major shift in my illness trajectory. The impact on myself and my family is very real. Figuring out where my support is and where God is in this is going to be the challenge. I go to God in prayer.

Enough for now, I'm hurting too bad.

Pain

Pain.

It does something to you. Chronic pain, with which I am familiar is a constant companion. It is always the passenger on this journey that is always with you, even when it is not. It can alter your plan, your day, your view, your choices, but you so badly want it to just take a back seat. It always wants to ride shotgun. You can dull it, ignore it, accept it, live with it, but it always seems to have a word, though you never want it to be the last word. It is a part of you but hopefully never what defines you. I mean, who wants to be a pain. Pain sucks.

Then, there is acute pain. It jumps on you like a rabid monkey. It is something you try so hard to get away from. You will do anything to stop it. Relief is so good.

Now. Right now. My life is dictated by both parts and sides of pain.

Right now, though I deny it even to my self, I am in pain. This is my confessional. I come before you admitting the pain. My chest hurts, my head hurts, my gut hurts. Most of all, at the moment, is that my spirit hurts. I'm tired of hurting. I feel a deeper pain creeping in. A sadness that goes into my bones, my soul. The pain, this constant companion, seems to have taking roots beyond my body and into my spirit. I don't want it there. I don't know where else to go. So, I go to God. That is all I know to do. It is all I can do.

God, I am in pain.

Voices in my Head

I had my final evaluation today of my first unit of Supervisory Education. It was very difficult for me. Not the evaluation itself so much, but the voices that were speaking in my head as I participated in it. I was very aware of some old voices telling me that I can't measure up. I felt like I failed. I knew in my head that the experience was an opportunity to learn, but I had a multitude of voices telling me that I just can't measure up. With my health, the process, the accident, the infection, my wife, my children, the loss of my car, the loss of my role in chaplaincy, the ethics case that won't end, the neverending flow of tasks to do. I am becoming overwhelmed. Not to mention that I am feeling a need for a spiritual break. A retreat. A time to just be with myself to discover who I am in relationship with God.

So, I cried. I sobbed really. A lot. The last time I cried like that I was watching Bridge to Taribithia. Before that it was Saving Private Ryan right after my dad died. So I cried.

Niebuhr talks about the Sin of Pride. One part of the sin of pride comes out of a feeling of insecurity rather than dominance. It is a self-absorption to compensate for the fact that I am insecure. The insecurity comes out of my woundedness for sure, but I compensate by chasing perfection. A pretty fruitless and self-absorbed pursuit. Of course, this pursuit is not without some beauty. I survived because of my ability to chase after being better, different than where I was from. The problem is that I am either perfect or shit. I am either worthy or not worthy at all. The dichotomy of my life is still so very strong. I would love to be able to sit with the idea that I am both saint and sinner at the same time. I am both justified and yet not yet sanctified as I live my life in reality. Niebuhr suggests, and I think I am beginning to understand, that sin and power are something that someone must understand side by side. Sin is a moving away from authentic relationship while power is a movement toward relationship, not as a negation of the individual, but in great respect for what is brought in the context of relationship, the truest expression of the authentic self. In other words, for me to be fully me, I need the other and vice versa. The sin of pride not only prevents me from seeing fully the other, but fully how the other is with me.

Good Samaritan

I don't remember the accident.

That is what is so strange about the whole event. What I do remember is what saddens me the most.

With the light green, I proceeded into the intersection. That is the last thing I remember until I was aware enough to know I was leaning on the steering wheel of my car. In almost ten minutes, not a single person checked to see if I was o.k. I was not. The first person to check on me was a firefighter. Not a single witness came forward to tell the officer what had happened.

I was taken to the local trauma center primarily because I had acute chest pain, very fuzzy memory (still do) and because of my Remicade and Chrohn's disease, I have a compromised immune system. While there are no broken bones, I am very sore. Very sore.

What is most saddening and disturbing is the lack of help provided to me. It is not the first time I have felt like the man by the side of the road. Where was my "good samaritan?" Rauschenbusch says that sin is being radically self-centered. Where is the sense of community? Could no one even spare a few minutes to report what they had seen and stay with me until help arrived? It really is symptomatic of our condition. This is the heart of sin as identified by Jesus I believe.

Though I have had a very rough time lately. I feel all the more closer to God and my family and to my call. I feel very connected to life right now. I feel myself walking toward God and community. I guess I would like community to move toward me, but the Kingdom of God is not something that just happens. I must move toward community. This life with God is a dialogue and a dance. I have lived life to much as if life happens to me rather than me living life. I feel as if I am living life now. I take authorship of my life. Yes, I wasn't helped, but I sin too and I learned the importance to walk toward those in need. May I do this for God's sake.

Faith Makes Me Well

This has been a particularly bad week for me physically. Because of this, I have had a particularly bad week emotionally. Despite the fact that I had a night of sheer delight and fun cruising New Orleans with my wife in an unexpected trip for CPE day at Notre Dame Seminary, I have not felt well. The fact that I have not felt well is really starting to get to me. I have now been on Remicade for going on four weeks and I have really seen no real results. I find myself lying alot recently about how I'm feeling. Including myself at times. I just want SO badly to feel better. Plus, it gets people off the topic for awhile. The reality though is that I'm still struggling though I am still going.

"Your faith has made you well."

I'm really searching this meaning for me. It certainly is not if I have faith in Jesus Christ, I will be cured of my Chrohn's Disease. I think it does mean that there is something about this relationship with God through Christ that offers us a space for healing. Christ offers me something that provides healing for the whole self. But, I have responsibility in this as well. There is alot I cannot change, like my disease, but there is a lot I can, like my choices in turning toward God in faith. The reality is that I haven't seen my dependence in Grace as something to be desired, but something from which to run. I have sought my own way, I have sought too often independence from God. It is the sin of pride as I understand that. The sin of not seeing myself in the proper perspective in relationship to God and others. Faith would make me well, regardless of my condition, if only I could trust. Trusting in God's grace is a process I am living in at the moment. I am beginning to understand ways in which I do trust and ways in which I do not. In other words, to accept in God's grace where I am while at the same time move toward a new way of relating beyond where I am today.

I often get caught in black/white thinking here. I understand that. I will try not to fall into that this go round. Just for the moment. The Kingdom of God may be at hand, but there are ways that I live in community with the faithful, and ways I do not. Probably always will. But my spiritual life at the moment is on the cusp of an awakening of sorts. This process, this intersection of my illness with my process is a powerful opportunity for me. My forty days so to speak in the wildnerness.

We will see where God leads me, and where I will follow.

Ready for Grace

Met my first committee last week here in Austin. My "Readiness" committee. I actually enjoyed the experience. I got a lot out of it. I guess I expected to get beat up and it didn't happen. So much for expectations.

I feel very aware of God's presence with me right now. I still believe in a self-emptying and vulnerable God, but one who does so in such a way that I do not have to. I don't have to be the sacrifice myself. I do not have to be the lamb for slaughter. I do not have to be the suffering servant. I can lead with the power I experience in God's gift and grace to me. That is perfectly acceptable. I have the gifts and strengths for this work, I don't need to lay myself upon the altar for either the expectation of abuse of the need for care. I am responsible for my own life and only my life and I am the author of my own story and I am understanding how that Grace of God is fully with me right now. I experience this reality in my daily life. I am deeply blessed by the love of God emptying for me. It gives me strength, it empowers me. It enlivens me to walk through the darkness of life. It helps me understand hope in the midst of great despair and hopelessness. I understand I have to get in the muck of life. Hell, I've lived it. But, perhaps, for really the first time in my life I really TRUST that grace is there. Sometimes it feels as if there is no light darkness cannot overcome. But I'm beginning to understand experiencially, at least for me in this moment, that perhaps, just perhaps, I may indeed see a light that no darkness can extinquish. Thanks be to God.

Good Bye U-Haul Truck, I'm Free At Last!

My earliest memory of my childhood involved my brother Stephen. We moved from Georgetown to Pasadena, Texas around the time I was three or so. I remember my brother luring me into the back of the U-Haul we were using for the move and closing the door behind me, leaving me in the dark. I was terrified. It was hot and it was dark. No one seemed to notice I was missing for quite some time. My dad discovered me when he opened the door to load up more things.

The memory always stirs up in me feelings of loneliness, abandonment and fear. I also feel very powerless against those that seem to have more power than me. I could not save myself, I had to wait in the dark for someone to notice I needed to be saved from the dark. Somehow find the way out to save myself. I also remember worrying that my family would never discover I was missing and that I would get lost in the dark.

I see a lot of these same themes play out in my life today and in my process. The powerlessness I feel with others, the sheer vulnerability I feel at times, particularly with those in authority is still very present with me. The other morning, one of my supervisors confronted me with material he felt was missing in my paper. Instead of standing up and really engaging him as a peer, I allowed him to bully me a bit. That morning felt a bit like the back of the U-Haul. I kept waiting for someone to save me, I felt powerless to save myself to stand up to this power. I shut down and resigned myself to that spot that morning. The door was opened when the session was over.

I think I let others lock me away in the U-Haul a lot. I go back there a lot. This feeling when it arises prevents me from being fully present and who I am with my colleagues and peers. I often resign myself to being simply a victim. Alone and abandoned by those closest to me. My fear of intimacy is related to this I think. I fear being abandoned about as much as I fear anything. I feel insecure in my relationships, always looking at ways that people might hurt me, leave me alone in the dark. Forget about me.

One interesting theological twist I hadn't contemplated before now. I often think of salvation as something each of us must seek on our own. No one, not even Jesus, can save us. We must save ourselves by following Jesus. By following The Way. However, this sense that God will save us through no power of our own has always bothered me. I seem to think of it as a "I'll show you the way, you do the rest" kind of a thing. Not a lot of grace in my theology.

As I reflect on this, it kind of strikes me that this is how I think of it when I waited so desperately for someone to save me in the back of the U-Haul truck. I knew I couldn't do it for myself. Perhaps my theology is more in line with my resistance to this sense of pervasive powerlessness I feel. Perhaps God's power is the one thing, in my mind at least, I have the ability to control. It is everyone else I let bully me. God, on the other hand, I have created to be vulnerable, just like me. This theology may not be serving me very well. It is authentic to who I am, but it may not be helping me claim my own authority and power. Just as I'm writing, I'm wondering would it would look like if I let God open the U-Haul for me and let the light of Grace really touch me for the first time. Would I be able to find my own power even as I let the power of God wash over me?

I am beginning to wonder if I have been living too long with a myth of rejection and not long enough with the reality of God as love in my life. Perhaps by letting God save me, by letting the light of Grace come upon me, I can find true freedom to be who I am really called to be: an authority in my own right. An author of my own story. Then perhaps I can shout the words of the old spiritual: "Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!"

The Myth of Perfection

If it were possible to become a CPE supervisor in three months or less, I would be working really hard to do it. In fact, my biggest weakness at the moment is one of my greatest allies much of the time: I work hard at processing, learning, growing and just generally trying to "figure it out." The problem right now is that I am working way too hard to have it all figured out. Not only that, but to have it all figured out NOW. I'm having trouble just embracing where I am and loving myself in it at the moment. Kind of goes back to the basic shame issue I wrote in a previous blog about my encounter with Brene Brown's work.

So, I continue to work through "Recalling Our Own Stories" and am impacted by this "Myth of Perfection" Wimberly talks about. I definitely get caught in this myth and this myth is preventing me from really blessing and embracing my gifts and embracing my weakness as a resource. I work so hard to hide my weaknesses from others and myself. I mean I work really hard. I do this because I want to show myself as "good," which to me means perfect. All I'm being asked to do at the moment is to demonstrate I am "ready" for this journey, and yet I am trying to prove I have met all the competencies and all of the theories and all of the self-awareness... and so on... The truth is, I am quasimodo and just where I need to be. I am not fully formed and not expected to be, especially at this stage in my journey. I'm just beginning.

In recalling my story, I need to remember how I have been gifted and how I have recieved grace in those areas of my life I am in a liminal state. I am in a liminal state and I need to be o.k. there or the stress of this process will hurt me, emotionally, spiritually and physically. Especially with my Chrohn's Disease. My family deserve to have me care for myself in this journey and I need to learn how to do that and still move forward. I can't stop "working" that is my nature and who I choose to be. But I also can choose not to work so hard emotionally in this process it hurts me in all other areas of my life. Instead, this is an opportunity for me to really embrace this as a spiritual journey. One that is in itself an immense gift, if I allow it to serve me and not hurt me. So, I hope to move from striving for perfection in this process and instead move toward living into realism in this process: grace. Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of vulnerability as Christ exhibited it. Living into the tension between being called to be disciples of Christ and recognizing and accepting that our way of living into that is flawed and imperfect. The fact is that I am wounded, and called. I am gifted and graced. I am living into my discipleship and yet flawed in my execution of my call. I am empathic and yet unable to be fully attentive to the needs of another. Accepting myself and loving myself in this process does not mean that I simply accept that I am powerless to moving toward growth or healing. But it does mean that while I am as I am, that I love myself in that process.

I will choose to live into my story in a new way, I hope. Not perfectly, but with grace and acknowledging my own woundedness just as I thank God for my being gifted with grace and healing movment.

My Call

One of the things I think will be helpful to me in this journey is to reflect on my story theologically. I picked up a book by Edward Wimberly on Spiritual Renewal for Religious Caregivers called: Recalling Our Own Stories. In his tradition, retelling the story of our "call" to ministry is an important place to start. He calls it the story of our "project of existence." It is the meta-story of our life. It is a re-membering of the fact not only "that we are" but of "who we are called to be."

The first time I walked into King of Glory Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas I knew that I was in a special place. I knew because Pastor Ramona Bouzard was looking at us as we walked up the sidewalk through the small square window in the door with a huge smile on her face. Upon opening the door for us as we walked up, she knealt down, met me face to face and extended her hand to me. She embraced me and walked me around to meet other young people in the church. I never felt so loved and welcomed in my life as I did in that moment.

I continued in that Church despite the fact that my father was none too pleased with a female pastor. I learned about baptism and decided to pursue that for myself the following Easter. As my baptism approached, I understood that the sacrament was a sign of God's work toward me, my atonement and salvation. But, I also understood, even as a young man, that the sacrament was a sign of my commitment and love toward God and this Christian community I was choosing to join. I understood I was choosing a life of discipleship.

That Christmas, as we prepared for our choral extravaganza for the year, I was sitting in the pews watching as Pastor Ramona walked to and fro in the church, talking with folks as she did, seeming doing all that she did with such joy. At that moment, a warm sensation came over me and my hair stood up on my neck. I felt a movement inside of me and I heard a message distinctly within me. "Be for others as she is for you." I began to cry with such joy at this message felt so deep within me. I told everyone who would listen that I was wanting to be a pastor. I wanted to study religion and the scriptures. I wanted to be for others as Pastor Ramona was for me.

Twenty-five years later, that call has not died. Occasionally, I even get that feeling that I am doing as God has called me. Whatever my ministry is, that message is at the heart. I love, because Christ first loved me. I discovered that love, that grace, fully in community and continue to. Relationship and community is the Body of Christ and where we both experience our at-onement with God and we come to understand our justification. It is the community of Christ that holds us accountable and responsible for our on-going process toward sanctification and holds us accountable when we miss the mark of God's call for us in and through Christ. Rauschenbausch stated that sin is the "private kingdom of self-service." Love is living life as a servant in and through Christ in the Kingdom of God. Not perfectly, but with intention. If my story has taught me anything, it is the power of that saving community to move me toward grace and understanding my at-onement with God, experienced in the Body of Christ.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

Well, I thought it would take me a little longer than my first presentation at SES Day to cry. But cry I did. I was invited to confront my own vulnerability with the committee I was presenting to and I wasn't going into that easily. However, I was extremely proud of my ability to move toward that during the hour. I was also amazed at the fact that this is what they wanted from me. In what other profession is the invitation to vulnerability and the willingness to accept it a mark of professionalism. It is a very strange concept indeed.

As I reflect on my own struggles with vulnerability, I realize that my struggle seems related to intimacy. I fear intimacy with God and others as this dependence seems like weakness. Bonhoeffer states that all relationship in Christian community occurs "in and through Jesus Christ." If this is so, the only way to fully become a part of community, to be intimate with others, is through the embrace of vulnerability just as Christ embraced his vulnerability in order to fully be in relationship with us. Interestingly, this can't be if Christ "had to" be vulnerable. This only works if God "chooses to." Rahner calls God the "context of being." God is wholly other. This is different than Process Theology that says that God is interdependent upon creation. Rahner seems to think that God's Love is only understood fully if one realizes that God doesn't "need" to be in relationship with us, but chooses to be with us and does so in the most vulnerable way possible. This requires a level of intimacy that is salvific and one God chooses for us. And if this is true, it is the basis of Chrisitian community, not in an ideal way, but in a way that is always open to Christ.

For me, this helps understand the need for vulnerability. It is not just for the sake of vulnerability, but for the sake of Christ. It is the power of Christian community and Christian community, as Bonhoeffer states, is the Body of Christ and keeps the incarnation a very real presence in the world. It remains the "context" in which all things remain.

So, I cried. I grew. I moved. I am closer to understanding the power and grace of intimacy in Christian community. And, in so doing, a bit closer to really embracing this vulnerability I see as so valuable theologically.

My First Presentation to SES Peer Group

Just came back from my first opportunity to present to my SES peers. I'm exhausted. I had a lot of different emotions going through me when I was done and by the time I got home a few hours later, the primary one was joy. I feel really happy about my ability to just be in that moment and be engaged with my peers and supervisors during that time. I was anxious, but not overwhelmed and I felt very engaged and ready.

Ironically enough, much of what I addressed today was my theology around the self-emptying, vulnerable God. While my writing may not always reflect my vulnerability, I felt like I was being vulnerable in my willingness to be present in that way within that space. I felt a big change in me today. One that I am particularly happy with.

And, I did get some nice feedback on content, but the thing I will take from that consultation today is that I was able to do some work I have found particularly challenging in the past. I don't like presenting half-baked ideas and I certainly did that today. I'm not sure those in the room know how vulnerable I was today. I also got one more thing out of today that I will take with me. I like that I am a complex thinker. I enjoy that part of myself. And, while I would like to be able to communicate my passion more simply at times, I also like that I dig deeper into things. I really like that about myself.

Rocks and Water

I think I am beginning to understand this peer consultation thing. It has been really valuable to me in my learning. I go in anxious, and come out feeling energized by the process. I think one of the things that happens to us professionally and personally is that we view getting feedback and consultation from our peers as a focus on our weakness. While the process takes a certain amount of vulnerability to seek out, the result often leads to growth, at least for me.

Sure, there is an invitation to address things that might be difficult to see or things I may not want to see or understand and I become resistant. I get that. But, for the most part, the process itself is one that seems to almost inevitably lead to growth, even if very difficult. Probably BECAUSE it can be difficult. It is hard to change the appearance of a rock, yet water does it in nature all the time. Flowing water can change the shape and appearance of rock.

I like the image of the growing edge. It is the place in nature, in a cell, in biology, where new growth happens. Growth does not take place on the smooth areas, the areas fully formed, but the areas not yet fully formed or broken. I am invited to grow in the areas that I am not yet fully formed, or broken. This takes a certain amount of embrace of our own vulnerability not to resist this growth too often. If we allow ourselves to touch the growing edge and allow others to take us there, we are far more ready and able to grow.

Last week I got a rock in a service of healing that touches me. It is very smooth, a rock worn by water, probably a river rock. It is beautiful and at first glance seems to be smooth all over. Yet, after picking it up and flipping it over, I noticed a broken, sharp jagged edge on the other side. The rock reminded me of this concept of the growing edge. I have a lot of well formed areas of who I am, but I also have areas in which I am not yet fully formed, even broken. Yet the rock, has it's beauty, it is not defective. It just is as it has come to be. Given enough time, the water that once flowed over it would smooth out the broken space too. God's love, to me, is that living water. Given enough time, and enough embrace of my own vulnerability to allow that water to flow over me, my own rough spaces will be made smooth, or at least move in that direction. The thing is though, I feel pretty well formed just as I am. Sure I am not perfect unless I embrace the notion I am perfect in my imperfection. With God's self-emptying love, I feel that really. I am formed in that love and by that love and that is enough in this moment.

Quasimodo

I watched the Disney version of Victor Hugo's masterpiece, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I had not put together before tonight that his name means "partially formed" or "not completely formed." Quasimodo experiences a great deal of vulnerability in his state as he struggles with finding community, love, acceptance and his strength as a human-being. He struggles to understand his value and his call. He lives confined to a world that is both his "sanctuary" and his prison. Held there by a man, a man with seemingly a lot of power, authority and strength but is himself imprisoned by his own fears of vulnerability and "sin" within himself. So much so he focuses all his attention on ridding the great city of Paris of all sinful elements, particularly ones he is attracted to, such as Esmirelda.

The vulnerable act of God's self-emptying love into us calls us to radically accept the "other" as long as we are able and willing to find strength, love and community in the midst of our own vulnerability. To radically accept and embrace our vulnerability, to choose it on behalf of the other. This is not to be done in a way that allows ourselves to be abused, used, or injured in any way. No this is a claim of strength. To not be able to embrace our vulnerability is likely to lead us to actions that will destroy relationships and misuse power. It is our inability to accept and embrace our vulnerability that leads us to pursue power over the other and toward hurting others.

I saw this in my father particularly. He was a man that experienced a great amount of vulnerability in his life but, partly because of his life situation and his own choices, fought against it acted out against his family in hurtful and abusive ways. He was a man that, when later in life began to experience the ability to embrace his own vulnerability with some shame resilience because of his relationship with the story of God's vulnerability, began to move toward healing.

I too struggle to embrace my own vulnerabililty as many are, but I am beginning to develop a deeper undestanding of this self-emptying love of God that invites me to embrace my areas of vulnerability as a resource rather than a problem. God utilizes vulnerability as a saving and healing act and invites us to do that as well, for ourselves, but also radically for the other. To have compassion for all who are vulnerable, which in many ways is all of us. There is a call to help ease to suffering of all, by getting closer to our own. This is the saving act of God, that God emptied that love, which is Godself, so perfectly into us that we are able to embrace our own vulnerability and truly claim the gifts that God has given us.

In the end, Quasimodo was not "partially formed" at all, but more fully a "child of God" because he was able to really embrace who he was and form community. His nemesis, however, could never embrace his vulnerability, could never embrace his shadow and lost himself in the process. This is what shame does to us, it makes us feel "half formed" and prevents us from being fully who we are, living in the perfect Love that is God. It causes some to retreat behind the walls of life and others to abuse power, but either way, shame of our vulnerability is the culprit. There have been times in my life I have felt half-formed, and I don't particularly like feeling half-baked, half-formed or not completely put together, but it is only when I accept and embrace that I am not, and never will be that I can move toward wholeness and healing in the Love of God.

Vulnerability

I just began to put something together for myself this evening regarding some anger I have been feeling, that has really been bubbling over for me. I have become very aware of the feeling I have been having, but not real aware of the why it has been happening. Suddenly, in reflecting, the word vulnerability kept surfacing. I have experienced a great deal of vulnerability lately and I am responding out of anger about this.

I feel particularly vulnerable with regards to my illness, as on any given day I may not always know how I will feel.
I feel particularly vulnerable with those that I love. Relationships move, they change and they evolve. This is normal yet I seem to be very resistant to that out of fear. I fear that I am not all I need to be to sustain relationship with those around me. It is a stupid fear, yet a fear I feel never the less.
I feel particularly vulnerable in this supervisory education process. I worry more than I need to about my ability to do it and not enough time just spending the energy toward learning about myself and allowing the process to lead me where it needs. I'm just in the first inning of a very long game.

Even the theology I'm attracted to at the moment is a reflection of the "self-emptying" "vulnerable" God. My vulnerability is even coming out in my theology. I even see it in my potential educational theory, personality theory, etc...

In other words, vulnerability, my own vulnerability, is taking center stage in this drama I am beginning. Understanding my vulnerability may help me understand this anger that is bubbling up for me consistently. Rather than running from my vulnerability, maybe I need to figure how I can run toward it and embrace it.

Next week, I am having lunch with Dr. David Jensen, a theologian at Austin Seminary who wrote "Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood." I am looking forward to that lunch as a way to articulate on a different level this feeling of vulnerability and how to utilize it as a minister and as an educator.

My vulnerability, ironically enough, may indeed serve as my greatest strength if I can learn to embrace it and myself in the process. It is perhaps the shame of my own vulnerability I am angry about. This is something to be explored much, much more.

Process Notes

Process Notes. I guess this is the art of articulating your inner self in reflection upon an event or series of events. It is a revelation of sorts into what one is working on internally in the midst of all the external work one is doing. It is a recognition that one is more than just the actions one does but the feelings, thoughts, motivations...etc that influence those actions.

This is my task at the moment. Process notes.

This beginning part of my journey in this process is to dis-cover who I am. I guess I didn't know I was covering it up. Of course I should have known that I was. I'm feeling very vulnerable and anxious at the moment. Very insecure. Much more insecure than I anticipated so early in the process. I think the fear of the process has gotten ahead of me a bit. I have focused that fear externally to begin with. Trying to learn theory, theology and group process. What I'm finding is I need to learn a little bit more about myself. Therapy with the right person will help, but so will my own process notes. I guess that is where this blog, if I am dutiful in my utilization of it anyway, will be helpful.

So, what am I working on at the moment? What is "popping" up for me? Anger has been popping up for me. I feel angry a lot. I'm sure the prednisone I take for my Chrohn's has a bit to do with that, but I honestly don't feel it has everything to do with it. I just simply get pissed off in ways I'm not used to. I'm a bit on edge all the time lately. I'm ashamed. I'm jealous. I feel inadequate in so many ways at the moment. And, all that pisses me off so much because I don't see myself that insecure just a short time ago. Is it the process, the medication, my illness, my shadow side revealing itself, all of the above...

I guess I am trying to work out all of this anxiety. And, this is only the beginning.

Oh well, I guess I'll have a lot of process notes.

Things Change

Two Sunday's ago, I was running along Lake Michigan in Chicago. That was the day before my disease began to take a new turn. Today, I tried to run the same amount of time and distance. Not close to successful.

Funny how quickly our bodies can change on us. It happens so fast.

Went to a friend's house last night for some conversation, music, beer and fajitas. I was able to enjoy three of those four. The beer was left out for me. It is one of the most awkward things to be at a party where the beer is flowing freely and you are unable to imbibe without dire consequences. At least it was for me last night. It may be one of the least enjoyable experiences I have had in a long time. I did however enjoy some of the conversations, at times, throughout the evening. However, I found myself, again, in a position to defend my profession, my illness, my parenting, and my dislike of the word F&^*.

Sometimes I find that my body is not the only thing changing. I'm finding that my way of seeing things is changing to, especially when I'm not wearing beer goggles.

Holding on to Water

I put a note in Jayme's lunchbox this morning. Nothing big, just a little thing to say, "Hey, I love you." I don't do it enough. Hardly ever. We have such a finite amount of time to tell those around us we love them. We let so many opportunities fall through our grasp, like holding on to water. Life is so impermanent like that. It is like holding on to water. No matter how hard you try to cup your hands together, water will always find a way around and out of your grasp.

I guess I don't want to get caught trying so desperately to hold on to my life like that. I'd rather be o.k. with it going wherever it is it is going to go. I saw Eian today just dancing. No pretense or care for form, just pure unadulterated joy at moving his body to a song that tickled his dancing bone. I love that. I need more of that in my life. The ability to just let the music of life touch me and send me to dancing. If I can do that, I think I would find more awareness of the beautiful moments around me to enjoy.

Dilitation

What a descriptive word. This is what they did to my small bowel today, a dilitation. Apparently it was successful and I have avoided surgery this time. I have new medication to try and I really want to see a dietician. I am extremely tired though. The prednisone I am on has insomnia as a side effect. So even though I can't keep my eyes open, I can't fall asleep either. It is extremely frustrating. Yet, one benefit, I have lots of alone time late at night to get some writing done on my Readiness Materials. Lots of opportunities to reflect on the past few weeks as well.

My body just feels off right now, but I feel that my spirit and mind are as sharp as ever. Spiritually I feel better than I have in a long time while my body is really struggling. I miss running and really need to get back on the road. My last run was alongside Lake Michigan in Chicago the day before I got sick.

So, I see the doc again in a couple of weeks to change meds and to go from there. Someone did ask me the other day if I still was going ahead with my plans to pursue CPE supervisor education. Hell yeah I plan to still pursue it. This illness can do a lot to me, but it will never keep me from living my life. If I can pursue it, I will. So, I plan to move forward.

Not much more to say tonight. Sorry.

The Bravest Thing You'll Ever Do

Brene Brown says, and this is not an exact quote, "accepting your story and loving yourself in the process is the bravest thing you'll ever do."

I would say that it may be the only work we ever will do that actually means anything. I'm discovering more and more as a chaplain that my ability to empathize and sit with the story of someone else, as difficult as that might be, is directly correlated to my own ability in any given moment to sit in my own story. Not only sit in my own story but to LOVE it. Really embrace it with a burning fervent love.

The problem of course is that we are too often running from our story or at least hiding from our story. There is always something in our story that makes us defective somehow. Less than. But less than what? Loving who we really are is a process and it sounds so simple, and it is in a way. The difficulty comes in really accepting that our story is already exactly all it needs to be. There doesn't need to be any embellishment or hyperbole. It just is what it is and I am called to just love it.

Why do we have to be brave to enter this process of accepting and loving our story? Why is this work so dangerous? Because, in the end, and even now, it is all we really own. Nothing else is ours. Money comes and goes, possessions too, even loved ones in perfect relationship (whatever that is) can't escape departing each others presence in death. We can't even claim our own bodies as ours. Our bodies change and decay toward simple organic material daily. No, all we have is our ability to accept and love our story. To accept life simply as it is. One must be brave if that one thing we have is deemed defective.

Our problem is that we try so hard to be perfect to cover up our perceived defectiveness. The reality is that what really makes us defective relationally is that we are unable or unwilling to accept the perfection of our own story and love it. Purely and simply loving it.

Joko Beck says that seeing and accepting simply "life as it is" is the heart of spiritual practice. With my life turning around me in ways I did not see even two weeks ago, I agree.

If You Make it to Kansas City But No One Is There to See You...

Well, I meant to make my first ACPE conference in Kansas City this past week. I made it to Kansas City, barely, but did not attend a single event at the conference.

I have Chrohns Disease. It has decided to take a turn toward the dark side. I have been doing fairly well since being diagnosed five years ago. Simmering I guess. Well, now I'm in a full boil. My gut decided to close up after the Cubs game last Sunday and I was on a train to Kansas City Monday afternoon. I made it to the ER at Truman Medical Center in KC just after midnight after getting off the train. I was in so much pain, I could not tell you!!!!! If not for Ken and our friend Jose who had already arrived in KC ahead of us with a car, I would have been in bad shape. Needless to say I flew home to Round Rock on Tuesday afternoon, barely making that trip as well. I saw the doctor on Wednesday and discovered I have a blockage and need to have a dilation this coming Thursday.

Now I face the reality of living with a chronic disease in a new and more profound way. IV infusions are most likely in my future and I have no idea yet how this reality will affect me professionally or personally yet. What I do know is that I am not letting this keep me from enjoying my life. I love my kids, my family, my baseball and everything else. I continue to do that. I NEED that. That is not to say that discouragement does not creep up on me. It does. Especially when the pain hits or the gut feels like a balloon with way too much air. The real problem for me, and the one I am least focusing on at the moment at least consciously, is what this illness MEANS for me. Spiritually, what is this illness going to mean for me. Look, the physical is the obvious. I am going to have physical issues, even ones that might cause me to die earlier than I would ideally like, that I understand. What I can't quite grasp is how I LIVE with this. I don't mean that I can't live with this. I do and I will. What I mean is can I live with it in such a way that I don't have to alter my course, particularly on a personal level, but also in my desire to be a CPE Supervisor. I mean, how do I use this to be a better person and caretaker, a better educator, a better parent, a better husband, a better minister... just better.

When I talked to my mother a few days ago to let her in on my life change, she said that this shouldn't be happening. My reaction was that, actually, it should. Not Chrohns Disease necessarily, but something. We all have deal with something. This is my something. Life is not avoiding the suffering, it is how we LIVE with the suffering. This disease is helping me learn how to live in such a way that happiness can always be my true home and companion. Thich Nhat Hahn, my teacher reminds me of this in his writings. The sound of the bell brings us to our true home. I guess the movement of my bowels does the same for me. Kind of crass I know, but the truth. I guess I'm saying that I seek not to suffer with Chrohns Disease, but to live with it and still find happiness.

On the train from Chicago to Kansas City, I apologized to Ken for being a terrible travel partner. His response helped me. He said given everything I was going through I was an excellent travel partner. I was physically in pain, great pain, but I was not suffering. I only begin to suffer when the pain departs and I have time to think about what is going on with me. In the meantime... I will live, laugh and love.

A Fear of Falling, oops, Failing

Too often, we as flawed human beings seem to work from a place of fear rather than from a place of empowerment. Fear dictates our actions. Fear keeps us from doing the right thing and from pursuing justice with our words or in our actions. Living in fear is devastating.

I was watching my daughter yesterday live in her fear of riding her bike without the training wheels and I became extremely frustrated. Angry even. Yet, she seems paralyzed enough by her fear she will not take a risk of trying something new, no matter how much she wants to do it. Risk aversion. To me though, it doesn't seem to be connected to her fear of falling, but out of her fear of failing. Almost as if she can't KNOW she will succeed, she will not try it.

The anger and frustration I felt comes from my own risk aversion sometimes. I don't particularly like to try things that I don't think I will be successful at either. In fact, I have often sabotaged myself out of this fear. Screwing up on purpose is so much easier than screwing up on accident.

This shame stuff is really playing with me lately. When I see it in people I love, it really makes me angry. I want my children to feel free to fail and still be o.k. with themselves. I want them to be spared of the shame that is inherent, it seems for me, in failing. Then I wonder how I end up shaming them myself and perpetuate their fear of failing.

Fear of failing. I'd rather be afraid of falling.

Prayer Flags

I made a prayer flag today with the guidance of a dear friend and colleague, Stephanie. The exercise was to create a space in which I could reflect on what I need to go out into the universe. I focused of course on the beginning of this journey of CPE and decided I needed to place on the flag what I most need to remember as I go through this process. I wrote on four panels of cloth:
Live
Always
In the
Present

I then wrote a haiku on each panel using the word I highlighted on each.

I want to live full
Like a firefly in sunset
Blazing bright, yet brief
(obviously still stewing on yesterday's prophecy)

Always, not able
For all things will change and die
Yet, I choose becoming

The present is just
knowing there is no greater
present to be had

Yesterday's encounter tapped into so much fear and anxiety within me that I was not even aware of. The key word is vulnerable. I felt incredibly vulnerable. Exposed. It exposed a deeper shame than one's I have been more keenly aware of. Namely this: there is something so wrong with me, I was not even designed to live a long happy life with my family. The point of whether the prophecy is "accurate" or not is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that it genuinely tapped into fear and shame that lives in me. I flew from that room with my tail between my legs and I am now beginning the process to learn more from this gift. The prayer flags is my start. I live in the present with this. Only there can I find joy. Tomorrow has enough troubles of its own.

A Prophecy and Other Delightful Things

A couple of years ago I had a bird land on my shoulder and stay for a while. He was just hanging out. At the time, many people said to me that it was an omen. A sign from God. What I wondered was what was it a sign of. Was it a good omen or a bad one? I'm not all that into omens to begin with, but the event was weird and rare enough that I wondered if there was a thought out there. My research turned up that a bird landing on you was a sign that you were going to die soon. Delightful.

Today while I'm visiting patients in the IMCU, I encounter a patient that states to me, "Why have you given up?" I was taken aback to say the least. Rarely at a loss for words, this time I was. I was rattled a bit for sure. I sought clarification on her statement. She tells me that my wife (whom I had not mentioned in our conversation) is meant for great things and will learn to live without me. My destiny is to prepare my kids to live without me. I can buy five more years by accepting the nurturing of my parents or I can continue to believe they are dragging me into the grave with them and die soon and leave my children without my love.

Was I just told in the context of a pastoral care visit that I am going to die soon and need to get ready? My sense is that she believes herself to be a psychic and was giving me helpful advice, and perhaps she is, even if I am not dying soon. Shouldn't I always be giving my kids the spiritual and emotional tools to live without me?

Not my best pastoral care work. I could have explored more about what this was about for her and what she was needing to tell me, but I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Perhaps what scares me is that she might be right. Maybe I have surrendered to a reality I envision for myself in ways I'm not fully aware of.

My meditation today focused on asking God for what we need. Like a parent knowing not to give a rock when our child asks for bread. God gives us so much more if only we ask. I never ask for anything in prayer. Maybe it is because I have given up. Maybe I have abandoned the notion God works that way. Or, maybe it is because I understand that I am responsible for answering my own prayers. Maybe I could begin a practice of asking for what I need. Maybe what I need is to know that for whatever time I have is time well spent with those I love. So, that is what I ask, not for more time. I will have what I will have. I just want what I have to be well spent. Amen.

A Night of Settlers of Catan and Family Secrets

I'm not really sure what the title means. I played Settlers of Catan this evening with my friend Ken and his wife Kelly with my wife Jayme. Ken is a CPE supervisor and started this process about the same age I am now. We were in CPE together briefly in Houston back in 2001. Now he works with me at Seton here in Austin. When we still lived in Houston we also did theatre things together. We always seem to have fun.

The game itself is great but if you start off your first settlement in a less than desirable location, your screwed from the start. That was my night with the game. I had a lot of wood and a lot of sheep but couldn't do a thing with them. I got smoked. What I did learn though is life can be like that at times. If you start life in a bad place, it doesn't mean you can't succeed, but it sure makes it much tougher to succeed. Some of it is luck of the roll of the dice and some of it is being able to make the most of what you have. But, you can have all the strategy you want to succeed, but you still are settled in the worst possible location of life.

Thinking about this I became aware of how my own historical location and family secrets are both a hindrance to me and yet I also feel that I have done a great job of navigating my way thus far in this game we call life. I'm going to need all of this perserverance as I go forward.

Thanks for listening.

Move Over Julie Powell

Not too long ago, I was affirmed in my desire to become a CPE supervisor. For anyone interested enough to read this blog, you probably already know what that is. But, in the very off chance that someone else cares enough about this journey to read any of it, let me explain:

An ACPE supervisor is an educator. A theological educator in the practice of spiritual care. The accreditation is granted by the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education and the process, when completed, allows one to supervise students in ministry practice in a variety of settings, though the hospital setting is the predominant one. Students who complete the program may go into a variety of ministries from pastor, priest, rabbi, imam etc... to being a specialized minister like a chaplain. CPE is a complementary educational process to graduate theological education. It focuses more on the practice of ministry and inner processes within the spiritual care provider that impact that work. For those not very aware of how their own story impacts their work, this process of education can be both very helpful and very painful.

The process to become an ACPE supervisor is a difficult one, and it should be. At least that is what I think today. I'll let you know about the days I love it as well as the days I hate it.

This blog was birthed out of my watching of Julie and Julia last night and my second viewing this morning (I kept dozing off last night out of exhaustion). Julie Powell chronicled her journey through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and the inner struggles she faced and the struggles she had in her relationships. It was an experience that served to create a space for healing for her and for her to find her true self and live into it. Ultimately, this is what the journey of CPE is, whether as a first unit intern or as a Supervisory Education Student. My hope is that this blog will serve me as I discover my self and my vocation in this journey. And too, I hope it will serve to provide a few laughs along the way.

Ultimately, I write for myself and my own healing, but a part of me also hopes that a "somebody" out there will find something in my writing that is healing for them as well. The world of CPE is a world only a few know about and only a "fewer few" care to know about. So this blog is not about CPE. It is about my journey. No different than Julie Powell's blog was not about Julia Child's cookbook, but her journey.

But for now, my soon to be four year old middle child, Eian, is in need of a puzzle. I guess I am too. Thanks for beginning this journey with me.