The Flying Seminarian?

There is freedom being immersed in Creation and as the autumn enfolds before us, the blossoming of each dawn gives a new opportunity before us to enjoy the majestic of summer’s mysteries. Autumn also brings the return of the fast paced chaos that consumes our lives. Children return to the routine of school, adults return to the normalcy of the world of work and we as seminarians delve once more into our spiritual journeys.  Sundays finds most of the middler class out and about in our Ministry In Context church sites, learning about parish life from a pastoral leader’s point of view.  Our MIC sites are the fork in our journey; an opportunity to explore parish life outside of the safe bubble of our home congregations  where we were perhaps always revered, cherished or elevated to being complete strangers, introverted-learning from the very beginning the complex systems of a congregation.

Gliding and navigating through the streets of Hyde Park on an early quiet morning allowed my mind and spirit to dwell in a comforting place of solitude. There was no crush of traffic, endless streaming noise of an Ipod or MP3 or satellite radio; no words filling up the space between just the realization that there is beauty if one allows themselves to ponder yet there are places where Creation is in pain and calls out to us, God’s children to not forget. There is a difference from riding through neat subdivisions in Chicago Heights, IL  as I bike ride to my MIC church and riding through vast wastelands of emptiness, barren lots and shuttered stores on the other side of Cottage Grove as I, this past Sunday was out on an ecumenical assignment visiting a well known Episcopal Church not too far from the “safe” bubble of Hyde Park.

And yet, there is no difference how God sees us, no difference how His Love pours out showering us with mercy and grace, no difference how His healing hands continually soothes within our souls.

God’s Peace.

Football

Fall is coming to Chicago. The semester is in full swing and already the leaves are beginning to change color. At LSTC that only means one thing. Football season is upon us!

Seminarian football is serious business. Every year eight seminaries meet in Gettysburg to fight for the title of Luther Bowl champion and the right to bring home the coveted Book of Concord and Luther bobble head doll. Hardened on the mean streets of Chicago, LSTC is the furthest traveling Luther Bowl team and one of the most formidable.

But before we can do battle on the hallowed fields of Gettysburg, we must practice. On the football field, we learn new things about one another. Like how the quiet fellow who sat behind you in Greek can weave a football through a rush of on-coming defenders. Or that the friendly-looking woman who helped out in chapel last week is in fact a grizzled middle linesman you would not want to meet in a back alley. We learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses; learn to anticipate each other’s moves and read each other’s signals. Relationships form and community develops.

Seminarian football is in the end not so much about football as it is about community building. But in the midst of community, we are serious about our football. Watch out Luther Bowl, LSTC is equipping the saints for victory once again.

Responsibility

Responsibility is that big scary word that means you are a grown up. For ministry, it is that word that carries a holy weight - being a leader of people and walker with people as pastor.

And then internship ends and a final year of school begins. The responsibility is there but it is oh so different. At least, the differences are standing out much more than the similarities.

For one, I get to sit down in chapel and I only have to arrive a minute or two before worship begins. What a treat!!! (Please note that it was such an itch to help that I have already been hospitality for one Eucharist service and am currently helping to plan another in which I will assist with communion!) So my responsibility is merely to worship. To lend my voice to the chorus of voices surrounding me. Hallelujah!

And then there's my housing situation. Instead of an old artist's house, filled to the brim with things I never asked to be responsible for, I get to have my little room in my LSTC apartment with two good friends. We share food, share the tasks of cleaning and dish doing, of hanging up things on the walls, and purchasing items for the apartment. It is bliss to not be wholly responsible for my home.

Oh, and then there are the classes. That odd responsibility that is not to teach but to learn. To be actively engaged, prepared, and invested in the topic at hand. To notice the Holy Spirit present in the various assignments and the many words from our professors. To honor the holy and the hard work all at the same time.

It's good to be home. But odd, so very odd.

Here and There

Yesterday was my first day of class for this semester. I spent the day reading course syllabuses, planning assignments, and feeling behind on reading. It is exciting to be back at LSTC, exciting to think of all the semester has in store. Most of all, it is great to be back among friends. Tuesday night several friends came over for a “last first day of school” party. We laughed and joked, and I remembered the joy of community.

Yesterday was also the first night of Wednesday Church Night at my internship congregation. On internship, the Wednesday Church Night community was one of my primary responsibilities. They were the community I got to know first, the first ones for whom I understood what it meant to be pastor. Wednesday nights were the most intense part of my internship experience. My highest highs and my lowest lows happened on Wednesdays.

So it is a weird feeling to be here and not there. I’m excited for my classes, excited for the learning and the discussions. But I miss the community who became my own. I miss the faces and the stories, the people I came to love, who came to love me. I find I want to be here and there. I want my friends and my congregation. And so I find that this experience of internship still has more to teach me. I am still learning the process of how to say good-bye.

Word and Sacrament: MIC

In the religious seminary system, Uninformed seminarians are considered especially heinous. In The Windy City, The dedicated professors that drown us with thirty plus books for one class, inundate us with frightening tales of endorsement essays from years past and hold us to task are members of an elite squad Known as the Book of Concord Unit, These are their stories...

Welcome back to another episode of Seminary Life.

Unchartered waters are normally considered dangerous, for within those churning sandy stained waves hides jagged slivers of blackened rock, deceitful tangles of moss and seaweeds and swirling sinkholes in one can lose their footing easily. Yet, the beauty and promise of softness and cradling of the waters around the fragility of one’s skin is the allure that pulls our spirits closer as a respite from the pouring heat from the noonday sun.

It is through the beginning once more of waters which can refresh or enrich our souls that brings us once more to the shores of Seminary, resting if only for a moment awaiting our next sojourn among the waters. We pause to reflect on our voyage through the storms of CPE in solitude except for the hand of Our Creator who steadied us when we lost the cargo, attempted to repair frayed ropes or collapsed under the weight of stress of just keeping our strength for one more day.

Yet, we have earned our stripes so to speak. As a larger shadow looms on the horizon we stand no longer novices now recognized as budding leaders and don those badges of honor bestowed upon us, draped in black not in mourning but in respect of the journey God has set before us.

God's Peace.

I'm home...

As i write to you showing you a picture of my new apartment with my new table, and my roommates old bed, I think about home has been six different places over the last 5 years. And although I can only imagine that this list will only change with internships and hopeful graduation and ordination, I take a moment and think through the travels. I realize that calling these many places home has made me more apt for thinking about the next step, rather than enjoying the hear and now. Last year I spent much of my spring already excited about moving here, and I could spend this year being excited about internships and where that could be. But rather I will be looking forward to today and maybe tomorrow, as I work on living in the now. Looking forward to my first class of the semester...Life and Letters of Paul with Ray Pickett, or choir coming right after chapel, with the one and only Dan Schwandt. Earlier this morning, I was out long-boarding around Hyde Park and running some errands, and it's a beautiful day not too cold not too warm, just comfortable. And as the semester starts I can say I feel much the same, comfortable. Comfortable in my calling to this place, comfortable with my home, and comfortable with my future and all that I don't know about it. I'm home now, and as you can tell with a bed in the living room, I still have some unpacking to do. Maybe next week I will show you all the disaster area that is my room...Yikes!

Geocaching...ministry?

The semester has officially started!  Today was the first day at my Ministry in Context (MIC) site, which is Shepherd of the Hill in Lockport, Illinois.  In between the two services, Pastor Dealey was trying to explain what "geocaching" was to a parishioner.  After a few minutes of attempting to explain it, he decided we'd better just go experience it.  So we did.  We went geocaching in between services.  If you don't know what geocaching is, click on the link back there to figure it out.


It seemed perfectly fitting that we should be geocaching between services.  Caching is sort of like ministry.  You do your best to follow coordinates (the liturgy in the ELW, a curriculum for confirmation classes, a plan for marital counseling, etc), but the reality is, you have to search around the base of a lightpost for awhile until you figure out exactly how to get to the cache, or the need at hand.  You sign the log, just as we seem to sign the logs of one another when we enter into relationship with each other.  Your story becomes a part of my story and mine becomes a part of yours.

This day pretty much rocked.  Welcome back to LSTC!


Picture from http://gpspersonalnavigation.com/the-fun-of-geocaching.html