I am sitting here awaiting Heidi’s arrival from Omaha (yes!) Nebraska. She is traveling quite a bit this week and next and I still don’t like it. I can’t do anything about it but I can at least state that much. Summitt is asleep in the chair beside me. I have had coffee and now couldn’t sleep anyway.

Fun fact of the day: nerves grow one inch a month. One never knows what you will hear in a hospital elevator. Who knew?! I had to laugh as the resident who was privy to this factoid as she looked at the neurosurgeon with this “oh yeah, I knew that” look. Knowing full well of course that she had NO clue of such things.

There are residents all over the hospital these days. Nurse residents, doctor residents, CPE residents (that is me!). All very wide eyed and trying to do the cool doc thing. Or whatever it is that they do. I forget sometimes that the docs are real people. To stand behind one in the lunch line or the conveyor belt hallway to Children’s is amusing to say the least. They have to pay bills, break up with boyfriends or girlfriends, fix their cars, or make plans to hang out after work. I forget that.

Maybe that is a good thing. I would want them to know nerves grew an inch a month.

Monday After

Ok, so CPE is turning me into an amatuer poet. Which I am not. Some things can't really be told in prose. I am amazed and blessed to be part of this hospital, if only for a while. It will be a lifetime of reflection I am certain. And hard to leave. What I haven't said is that I am responsible (assigned to really) for 2 main parts of the hospital: the children's oncology floor and the emergency department. I have manged to tentatively name a place for myself on the oncology floor. I am unable to describe my experience there but I am working on it. To say it is amazing is impossibly difficult. Words can't describe the spirit there..the "ethos" if you will. Words like "brave" and "courageous" just don't cut it. It is so much more than that. This 6th floor. The work done there is nothing short of a miracle each day. Difficult work to be sure, but oh such incredibly gentle work.

So for today, here is the latest post. This one is a bit cheesy (I think) to begin but it will get worked over I am sure. Just bear with me. Something else will come out for certain. Heaven help us when it does but...

Monday
A fortress against fear
Never far away
A mission sometimes impossible to know
Hearts strong in faith
Spirits rail against the sure foe
The bustle of morning gives way to quieter times
Laughter breaking over bacon
Care in confusion and chaos
Steady hand and hearts
That break sometimes
When they come in.
The little ones and their smiles and their pink rides in the hall
Stopping to “honk”
Echoing each other in chorus
Necessary laughter
Naming, life claiming, love

10:12 AM June 23, 2007

Tender hands on tiny feet
Blue ink stains
Beautiful, beautiful boy
Snuggle deep into Grandma’s folds; sleep tight
Fussy response of the unspoken yet
Never unheard
“A.Donor” is unnamed
Not you.
You are named
Named with God’s hand imprinted on our hearts

England and More

So we have been to England and worshipped in Salisbury Cathedral and Westminster Abby. How incredible it was. I am amazed –still- that these incredible buildings were built in ages when cranes and bulldozers and heavy equipment were not there. People literally lived and died while building Salisbury Cathedral. And often with in the walls of the building. When the spire (don’t call it a steeple!) was added the stones that held it literally bent inward. So the architect at the time – in the 1200’s or so—decided that flying buttresses would hold up. And they did. And the spire stands.

Two world wars spared this cathedral. I have no idea how as it was possible that the Germans used it as a landmark for their bombing runs over the city. The British army training grounds were not but 8 miles from there. Right next to Stonehenge. Again an incredible feat albeit a disappointing site. But how did the cathedral survive? How is it that in May of 2007 a forty year old woman from East Tennessee could awesomely worship every morning for 8 days in a 700 year old chapel? A blessing.

One of the more incredible stories (and there are many) of the Cathedral is the story of the stonemasons. They were asked to carve faces for one of the chapels. So, they looked around and saw each other! All along the walls of one of the chapels and throughout the Cathedral really, are little faces. 700 year old faces frozen in time. Jolly faces to be sure. Still there. Some with noses rubbed off. Most with curly curly hair. And they watch over us these many years later.

We build megachurches and churches in coffee houses. Built of steel and glass and concerns over the parlor seating. Yet these sites of stone are indeed built to the glory of God. I wonder what we are thinking when we hire architects and planners. Millions of dollars and fundraising efforts. And it is nothing compared.

Six Figures for what?

In the course of less than 24 hours, my partner has been recommended for a job and subsequently will be interviewed for a job. At 7:30 am on a Saturday morning. She says it maybe that they are desperate to find someone! How does that happen? It is a job for a different company. Insurance to be sure, but a competitor. It pays significantly more than she is making now. In some ways that is nice. A nice compliment to her work, her work ethic, and her. Who knows who recommended her? She has worked with many companies and brokers and firms. Always professional and a great attitude and all those things you want in an employee.

We ran errands tonight for a trip to England. She will be going with me on a Div School trek to study worship. God love her for that. She is excited and I am excited to be able to share this part of my life with her. In all of its work and worship and wealth of experience. I don’t expect her to love every minute of it or become a seminary student herself. But it is an opportunity we could not pass up. It is a way for us to bring parts of ourselves together again. As we ran errands for the trip, we talked.

But as she says, it is an outrageous amount of money for something really doesn’t matter to her. In her words, she doesn’t work nearly hard enough for someone to pay six figures. “It just shows how screwed up the world’s priorities are.” She said it is an outrageous amount of money considering there are people who don’t make enough to feed their families. It is far, far from what she is trained to do. She fell into it. She tells me often that she feels as though she “plays pretend”. She is an Illinois girl who was raised with her two brothers on a dairy farm. Her father died when she was nine and her mother was a school nurse. She has never wished or wanted wealth. Only to live comfortably and able to pay the bills. She has more than provided for us. Particularly in this last year.

But when did it become a bottom line world? I see her struggle with the needs we have and yet remains unfulfilled. She is trying to determine what it is that she wants to do when she grows up. It is difficult to see where her road will take her. She misses her student contact and feels very far removed from her work with disabled students. Her heart is often trampled for the sake of someone’s bottom line. And it is not always her company’s bottom line. It may be a broker or a sales guy or a customer.

I so want her to find a way to use her talents in a way that feeds her. I have no idea how or where or when that will happen. She is realizing it too. I wouldn’t care if she quit tomorrow and worked at an Easter Seals camp. I can’t see the bigger plan and how all of this works. Why now? Why in Philadelphia of all places? And why keep pushing things toward a life of luxury? She doesn’t want it or need it. Neither of us do. A friend today told me she didn’t see our lives changing much no matter how much either of us made. It wouldn’t. We’d travel but I don’t see the Lexus or new house or jewelry.

I am amazed at times and confused and in conundrums. This too shall pass. Yet I have no idea where we shall pass to. We trust and hope it is for some greater reason. These goofy things that seem to be sent to remind us of how the other half lives.

Street Corners and Little Miracles

I went to Orientation for my Summer CPE today. I will be serving as a Chaplain Intern at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital throughout the summer. I am excited, nervous, anxious, and thrilled all at the same time.

I stood at the corner of 21st Ave and the entrance to the hospital recalled a conversation I had a little over a year ago. It too took place on a street corner but in Chattanooga. It was a beautiful day and I had finished lunch. My friend Gwen looked at me and said “don’t let this place take your soul”. I had just been promoted to a managerial position at the company where I worked. She too had been in management for a good bit longer. She actually was my trainer when I came to work in August of 2000. She was well aware of the perils I was about to navigate. And she knew me much too well to attempt to buck up my ego.

And that is when the journey to this place began. I was struck this morning by how different my life is now than how it was this time last year. I am certain I am different but in ways I cannot name at the moment. I feel more peaceful though Heidi would tell you I am still hyped up 90% of the time. Only subject has changed. Another friend calls me “Capt. Anxious”. That too will fit.

My key relationships have been challenged to the very core of their being but are on track now. Thankfully. God bless that. We have come through the storms of uncertainty I never dreamed would face us. I know how blessed I am to have the people around me that I have. Who keep me grounded and hold me when I sleep at night. It is a miracle in so many ways.

There is some sense of moving I think. Not on as if to move along, but a movement toward something. I am trying to get used to actually having a summer for a few weeks. I will be back on an 8-5 schedule in June. That will be odd. Someone today told me they didn’t realize I had “grown-up” clothes.

I have actually taken to gardening. I have done it in part because I lost a bet to Heidi but in larger part because I am starting to see the therapy in it. Granted I needed some help in identifying the difference between a yellow leaf and a cucumber bloom but I will get there. I cussed one morning while trying to drag the water hose into the front yard in my pajamas. But, I go and check the garden every night and find myself looking over it as though it were a miracle. It is that indeed.

So as Josephine liked to say, “We shall see”. England is next up. It will be fascinating. To be where John Wesley was and the ages.

Good grief, we are but a twinkle in the eye of our Creator.

Backpack Garbage

I spent exactly oh say 14 hours away from the computer. Pitiful really.

I finished my first year of Divinity School yesterday. I took the world’s longest Reformation Exam. Not hard really. Just long and most definitely thorough. “Comprehensive” as it was described to be.

I went to see our Field Ed supervisor afterwards. She sat me in her office and asked me what my very first reactions were about completing my very first year. I could barely complete a sentence. But I think challenging, personally more than I expected, worth every minute to be sure, I never got to get all of it and that bugged me but there was summer for that. And a few other things.

I was really making rounds to say hello to the Administrative staff. They are a funny bunch and remind me of the good old days when I was in Higher Ed. The staff in the Dean’s Office and Field Placement serves as our friends and allies when the faculty seems unapproachable. With chocolate readily available and good warm hugs, they are the people to see when you are tired and need a pick me up. And we are tired a lot it seems. Mentally and often physically.

So my first action of the summer was to run errands. Which I gladly did because I had time to do them. I took shoes to be repaired, I ate a leisurely lunch. I had the oil changed and transmission fluid flushed in my car. I got the dog’s medications for the next month. I usually hate errands but on this gorgeous spring day, I felt like a real person again. Not just a student whose time is concentrated on deadlines and papers. No thoughts really. A little numb. And realized through the tears I shed with Heidi that I was greatly relieved.

I cleaned out the backpack today. Finally. I THINK I cleaned it out last semester but can’t be so sure. It doesn’t look like it at any rate. Among the contents were receipts and Oreo crumbs. The random Cheerios which are my between classes staple food. I found a Cheerio on the floor behind my desk when I sat down for my exam. I had been there before it seems. A paperclip. A nametag for some event. Pens. Pens. Pens. All at the bottom of the bag. I for once rubber banded them. Why not? The semester is over…. The back pack is now on the stairs in the attic closet. It will sit there until England in a few weeks. Then who knows what it will carry back.

So a school year has gone. It did fly by and I know the summer will go and then the fall and then more time will have passed. I am still grateful and blessed to be here. To be able to reclaim a bit of time that many of us over 35’s don’t get to do for one reason or another. I hope for a good summer and one of some rest. I watched CSI for the first time in weeks and did notice that yes, Miami does have an orange and green color scheme just as Chris said they did. How odd…and I can ponder that now.

Minutiae but I like it.