A'boot' Happiness

At approximately 6:49pm, Monday, December 10, 2012, I completed my first semester with a simple mouse click on the "send" button, and with that last paper submitted, I was uber excited to explore Chicago a bit more.  Today the spirit of exploration guided two of my classmates and me to the Christkindlmarket (a Christmas market) in Daley Plaza.  We spent the morning roaming around different holiday stands, searching for potential presents, and tasting a variety of holiday treats.  'Twas a perfectly lovely experience, especially with a boot of hot drink in my hand.  That's right, a boot!  

Celebrating at the end of our first semester.

I had no idea, but using a boot-shaped drinking vessel is apparently a well-known tradition(?).  Still, for this girl--who lives under a rock--the boot mug was one of the highlights of the market!  Turns out that this tradition began (or so my research says) when a Persian general swore to his troops that if they were successful in battle, he would drink out of his boot to honor them.  Cleverly, the general had a glass-maker create a boot-like drinking glass so that when the general was required to fulfill his vow, he didn't have to taste his own toe-jam.  To this day, people still celebrate victory by drinking out of these boot-shaped glasses.  Awesome.  Although I had no clue of its significance when I was taking sips from my Christkindlmarket boot, I will gladly claim my victory drink retroactively: first semester of seminary is in the books--celebration!  

Having enjoyed the crisp afternoon laughing with friends, listening to Christmas music, and drinking out of a boot, I believe today was a fantastic way to meander my way into winter break.  Here's to Chicago, to fall semester, and to the expectation of many joys ahead. I raise my boot to you all!

The Impending Surgery that Wasn’t and the Holy Spirit, Her Pink Boots

Systematic Theology is becoming one of my favorite courses because it is where I am able to intertwine my thoughts and spirituality into a beautiful theological yarn. Pouring out of Creation, it is ready to be slipped into my waiting hands and knitted into a fabric of protection and of comfort where one would want to snuggle underneath, watching an afternoon shower of rains on an unseasonably warm day.  Each moment I am present, the love for my vocation and for this call grows especially understanding how important the Holy Spirit truly is to all of us as people of Faith. Can you imagine the Holy Spirit hanging outside your door, splashing around in the courtyard in the mud or hovering, nestled in a tree outside your windows wiggling Her toes in Her pink boots waiting for your gaze to meet the new day; waiting for you to be open to what The Creator has for you.

For the past couple of weeks, however I’ve crawled back underneath that comforter because I wanted to hide and not face the brilliance of how stunning each morning appears to me.

In Seminary, I have found that health potholes whether we are running into them or family members or dear friends slowly crumble into view in our lives and we either stand there and are shocked or are screaming to the heavens “Really??Now??”

And so, I found myself facing a reality of having minor surgery for something that had been bubbling at the surface but not so intense until now. Even though I have had major surgery with the birth of both of my children my vision was clouded with the veil of what could lie ahead for me. I found myself nervous, weepy; life as I knew it was now uncertain.

Music that was birthed strictly for the nurturing the soul has always been a deeper part of my spiritual journey. In the midst of discerning, Shekinah Glory Ministries’ song “Yes” had me always weeping. Roaming around camp and singing “Oh Up Above my Head” allowed me to be open to what God was filling my life with. How we sing Psalm 95 in chapel causes my entire being to be alive enjoying worship. So last week during chapel and driving to church, gospel songs and hymns prickled at me, and the Holy Spirit whispered…

“Let Go and Trust God.”

My prayer was strangely not, for healing but to be with me as I went through this experience..that never happened.

Thanks Be To God.

A Dip Worth Taking

For everything there is a season,
but every once and a while we can get away with things...  

Chicago's infamous windy chill has yet to snap me into the reality of the impending winter.  In fact, the temperature reached a high of 79 within the past few days.  Yeah, I know!  I couldn't believe it either!

During this brief jaunt back to summertime, I walked around campus clad in sandals and short-sleeves.  While I did tote around a light sweater*, I was eager to take advantage of this odd warm snap any way I could, and my friends pitched an idea worthy of some consideration:  an afternoon at Lake Michigan.

Earlier in the school year, a few of us enjoyed walks down to the lake** where we would throw a frisbee around and jump into the water for a swim.  Late August through early September this was not only a reasonable activity, but actually a quite popular pastime for a number of Hyde Park residents.  Whether or not those other swimmers were caught in traffic yesterday as the President's motorcade made its way around the neighborhood, one thing was certain: they sure weren't in the lake when four of my LSTC friends and I ran screaming into what we would later refer to as an ice-bath.  That's right, my friends--the five of us conquered a late-October Lake Michigan, and it felt great.  

Chaaaaaarge!

As we walked back to LSTC renewed, refreshed, and wiiiiide-awake, a light rain kicked up and so began Chicago's return to a weather pattern indicative of autumn: within a few hours the temperature had dropped 30 degrees and it was pouring.  Still, for everything there is a season, and in this season we got away with a short swim celebrating new friendships, warm-weather, and living within a mile of a vast, beautiful, and bone-chilling Great Lake.  

"And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." Genesis 1:2b

*Felt too strange not to at least have the option of layering, it being the end of October and all!

**I'm still not convinced that the title "lake" does this enormous body of water justice.   

One of Those Cat Ladies

I have become one of those women who a month ago I used to make jokes about - a cat lady.  While I have always loved animals and been attached to family pets as a kid, I never really understood the people who post pictures of their animals on Facebook or who start a conversation saying, "You'll never guess what Socks did today..." 

This summer I completed my clinical pastoral education unit (CPE) working as a hospital chaplain for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire.  My primary unit on the hospital was in the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN).  A challenging and formative environment, caring for sick and dying infants taught me that in order to minister in times of crisis, I need to further develop my self-care habits.

I had heard fellow seminarians say that their pets have served as accountability partners for them, being a reason to stop working, go home, and relax.  Upon returning to Chicago, I visited the Anti-Cruelty Society.  It was there that I met Cozmo, a seven-year-old, 17 pound cat who had been in the shelter for the past 2 months.  I learned that because of his age and size, not one visitor had taken him out of his cage.  He reminded me of the babies on the ICN, an innocent being that deserved love despite having qualities that may be seen as obstacles. 

Rescuing Cozmo has been a great gift to my life.  So grateful for love, he is always at my side.  Even as I write this, his head is stretched across my hands as they type on the laptop.  I knew that rescuing a cat would give me the opportunity to share love with another, and I thought it would fill the void of caring for my patients as I transition from CPE.  What I have found is that receiving Cozmo's love is a better gift than receiving.  As seminary students, it may be easy to focus on sharing Christ's love to others, but we must also be willing to recieve it in return.  We cannot give what we do not have, and everytime I snuggle with my cat, I remind myself that to truly care for God's people I must first care for myself.

I now think differently about people who gush about their pets.  If sharing with others the gift of giving and receiving love makes me one of those cat ladies, then it is a label I am happy to wear. 

The Year of the Interiddler

Coming to you live and direct..the Gypsy Project

Okay so perhaps I do not have my own radio show....

I am thankful that the end of this week approaches, and I am able to celebrate as well as being immensely  exhausted and saturated with community. Thankful to once more be joining you throughout another year of Seminary; for me this is the beginning..or the end?

It's strange when your pathway veers slightly and you are the only one remaining at the crossroads, your traveling companions continue and you lose sight of them in the distance and over the horizon. Then again I am not alone. I've coined the phrase "Interiddler" that is technically and officially I am still a middler having not embarked on Internship but I will be in 2013. I believe I've mentioned that it's different as orientation looms over us not seeing many of my classmates.

This beginning of the Seminary academic year however has been painful.

Each morning that I have gathered in the Grand Hallway or the Common Room, and seeing familiar faces I thought I'd still be in pain as last week we gathered to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of one of our classmates who now rests with the Creator. It was also strange as those events unfolded that my spirit could not mourn.

As I requested prayers through Facebook and Twitter one comment that arose covered in thorns was "There is a lot of depression at...."

Teachers who have to deal with students who are either homeless, abandoned by their parents because of their own shortcomings or involved in violence..they are depressed. Police Officers, EMT's, medical personnel, chaplains whose duty and passion is to protect, heal, save or walk with people and see the absolutely ugly side of humanity...they can be down. Community organizers who want to uplift a neighborhood or community and have political as well as personal roadblocks placed in front of them...can be locked in despair. Because where and what God has called us to and blessed us with this call, because we are dedicated to being bonded to our brothers and sisters in Christ, our brothers and sisters through faith sometimes we get disappointed in what life does not or will not yield to our very being and we feel...well...drained.

What I saw last Friday as we gathered together as the wider community were people who came to share the peace as strangers, neighbors and friends. What I witnessed was one young man's life that had touched so many. What I knew was that our lives can not just remain rooted in the depths of mud and muck; that the showers that rush and playfully douse our physical presence remind us of who we are and whose we are. What I know is that this year, striving to be intentional, vulnerable and pastoral to one another only fuels the fire of what our risen Christ wants us to learn and wants us to live out.

So it is alright to laugh and connect and just be as if everything was the same this week. And yet, reaching out to one another we have a deeper understanding of what it truly means to be brothers and sisters in the risen Christ. For many it is the beginning of a journey of self discovery, for others it is the end of a cornucopia of craziness and delight as first call begins its rise upwards to reveal itself. 

For myself it is the beginning of a deeper understanding of what it means to be truly called and the end of being in familiarity and embarking into the unknown, knowing that through the power of the Holy Spirit, God, Our Creator cradles us and Christ travels with us.

Rest well Alpha. Hope you are eating all the Honey O's with tons o ice cream(?) and chocolate syrup(?) that you want. Even while you are not with us, you still make us laugh.

Lape Bondye, God's Peace.

Oh the Places You Will Go...

What? Is that really my name?

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Gypsy Seminarian, reporting to you live from Metro Chicago Synod Assembly!....

...actually it happened this past weekend.

Spring not only brings the flowers that leaped forth from Mother Earth and yelled "Hello world!"; Spring not only brings brightly colored homemade fruit and veggie stands with red and white awning, bursting forth with a wonderful harvest and awakening our taste buds to new and interesting foods. Spring gives the floodgates a shove as all the Synod Assemblies begin.

Awaiting the masses of the faithful

The Tinley Park Convention Center was transformed almost into one of those mega churches (perish the thought) with beautiful banners proclaiming the power of the risen Christ but of also the throng of witnesses proclaiming the Good News in every tongue. 

Interesting that the next weekend, the Illinois GOP would be meeting in the same space.

Glad a little Jesus got a chance to bless this place...

It seems like the years I have been able to go, I have gone in a volunteer capacity: I served on a Committee, greeted people at check in and this year, I initially participated in both Worship Services but also was asked to sit at the Lutherans Concerned/Chicago booth.

Collectively, we as a Synod are speaking with one voice. Perhaps we don't understand everything or even why we need to stand with those who historically some aspects of humankind tend to damn altogether. There were those during the hearings and debates didn't want us as a Church to speak out on this resolution supporting the Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Act; that we should advocate individually. 

Yet what about the Church's voice during the Civil Rights Movement? Didn't people of God, brothers and sisters in Christ come from the confines of their four sacred walls and walk through the streets proclaiming that restricting, limiting, enslaving a people just because of this or that or the other was wrong?  Perhaps people are afraid to step out on faith, and it's alright because we as children of God are not perfect. We are ever changing, growing, learning and sometimes just being who we are and remembering whose we are. 

My Synod passed this resolution but there is still more conversations to be had, and even more so, prayers to be joined together holding hands when we agree to disagree. Hearing those voices speaking out in that hearing room whether they agreed or were unsure or even frustrated meant that our spirits were alive, calling out our prayers to Our Creator knowing that He was also in that room with us, listening, surrounding and loving us.

Oh yeah..as a post script..someone nominated me to be a part of the Synod's delegation to Churchwide's Assembly next August 2013. I didn't know about this until well into that Friday afternoon. I have my suspicions about who did and well, it's awesome and humbling to be recognized and as I delve more into my Church and the people who link hands with me, I realize that my vocational walk becomes more and more real.

Until next time, Lape Bondye! God's Peace!

Wisdom and Summer

"What wisdom have you gained in your 25 years?"

is a question I was asked over lunch last week druing my Maymester class, Reading the Bible From a Multicultural Perspective. The question fell on my birthday, of course, and so I scrambled to think of a response. Now, I've learned any number of things, but for some reason the first thing that blurted out of my mouth was "laugh at yourself" followed closely by "don't spend money on cheap food, it's never as good". I fully believe those two things, but the question has stuck with me over the past few days, and I'm trying to come up with a better answer. Now, I don't really know that 25 years is enough time to gain true wisdom, but I've certainly had a lot of mentors along my life journey that have taught me various things: My mom taught me about unconditional love and homemade cooking. My dad taught me that being myself is the key to life. My friend Sandy taught me the importance of a good romantic comedy when I'm feeling down. So, yes, I've learned things. But I still have a lot more to learn in the years ahead, so I guess I'll keep on laughing at myself when I need to, and I'll keep enjoying good food, with good people. And that's exactly what this summer is for. I just finished up middler year, and it's the first year in a long time that I haven't had a full time summer job or anything else (like CPE...good luck juniors!). So, in between working with the Youth in Mission program at LSTC and volunteering at the Youth Gathering, I'm here in Chicago to experience my first Chicago summer, which I've been told are pretty awesome. I'm excited for festivals and free concerts, bike rides along the lake and laying by the beach, and all around experiencing God's creation as fully as possible. I'm hoping this summer of relative Sabbath will help me be refreshed and renewed before I head off to my internship at House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, which will be a whole new adventure. Undoubtedly I'll learn some wisdom from people who are important to me (and I've also learned wisdom from strangers too) this summer and I'll add it to my list that I can pass on to others some day. To get me started, what is the best bit of wisdom you've learned from someone important to you?