Remembering an Old Life

Today we went to a BBQ that was recognizing commuters and how their lives are not always recognized in our community planning and decision making.  There were some CDs made with a travel mix recognizing that trips are different and longer and sometimes some tunes to listen to are a big help.  Sound like I may know something about the commute?  It was my past life last year.  I maintained a completely different schedule so that I could still live and work, making me a commuter with a couple days down at LSTC and rest of the week in WI.  Making that happen includes many choices and small inconveniences, it could be...
-choosing to take classes like Greek and Pentateuch online rather than to stay longer in Chicago or traveling back and forth more times
-hearing about something like playing football or basketball or a great party idea you can only go if it matches when you are already around or willing to drive back in.
-and if something scheduled is canceled like basketball for a floor cleaning or a mandatory meeting has been put in the wrong date, you have showed up for nothing and probably canceled something else
-your spouse or partner cannot always attend things because it is not feasible for two cars to come to something or 
-it feels like you have two lives
-many meetings and classes let out or begin right around rush hour
-you are odd man out as those things you missed for work or family, are now the birthplaces of inside jokes and stories that need to be retold only to you, so you can have a vague idea of what your community is doing. 
I had a life in my van of clothes and supplies ready for anything that may happen when I was down in Chicago.  These comments are not only my own but those of other commuters as well.
Now is this a taunt to the commuters as I reflect on how much my life has improved since I moved to school??? Never!!!  It is merely a glance back of appreciation for the ups and downs of that life and the ups and downs of a new one.  I loved that I still saw my family once a week and friends from high school were still keeping in touch with me.  I was able to be with the people I cared about and give them a real chance at the jobs and calls they have in their life, as well as my own.  I think commuters help us recognize the difficulty of the call and that it can be easy to move when we are single and in our twenties. Try attaching a spouse or kids and all their needs, or a real financial threat of ending a prominent and successful first career, these make life harder to uproot and go.  Commuters are the real Abraham's and Ruth's, as they trust God with so much and many times ask their families to do it with them.  Everyone chooses to give up on something to come to seminary, I believe that is really the case.  But I believe commuters give up something and in their choice to commute usually they must give up the conveniences of a seminary life.

4 Years

Last night, I opened my LSTC file on my Dropbox to locate an old paper. Four neatly organized folders sat before me. One for each year of seminary. I was stunned.

For one, four years of my life look so neatly organized in their little folders. A sub folder with each class title. Completed papers tucked inside. Notes taken during many hours of my life spent in classrooms on campus and off, learning at the feet of others and soaking up their knowledge.

I have a week left. Two week, technically, before graduation around this time on the 13th. We'll be lining up in our graduation caps and gowns, processing about with our many colleagues in ministry.

A week left of a long four year journey. It has at the same time crawled and flown by. The hours and days seem slow and the months and years fast. Or perhaps it is the opposite? And in several more years, I will be reflecting back on a first call (God willing) and beginning to look towards the next adventure.

What an incredible journey. I have been pulled at like taffy, nurtured in the dusty sunlight, and filled up with good news and hope. I have wept and rejoiced. I have been positively snarky and pissed off. I have been politically correct. I have chosen my words wrongly. I have spoken prophetically. I have been a part of this place and space and time.

LSTC, thank you for forming this visionary leader. I hope I will make you proud.

(the photo is of me and one of my best friends at my birthday party 2nd year)

The Good, the Less than Good, and the Wonderful

The end of the first year at LSTC is looming on the horizon and I can hardly believe it.  I remember asking myself when I wrote the first post on this Taste and See page whether or not I would actually fit in here.  I have some good news and some less good news.  The good news is I totally feel comfortable at LSTC even after one year of discernment in action.  I have become a part of several communities (most of them musically related) and have enjoyed my participation in all of them.  I have made friends with people who I can play Frisbee with and can share a meal almost anytime.

The less than good news is that it took me too long to put myself in the community. In keeping myself caught up with studies and my life outside of the seminary, I had a hard time experiencing the communal quality of this place at first.  I am not slamming on the community here.  The community is wonderful and always adapting to new contexts at this institution.  I wasn’t ready to jump in, although I was certainly welcome to do so.

And so, my big regret for the year is that I took too long to get to know the great people I work with at LSTC.  Now 2/3 of these wonderful people (with some wonderful exceptions!) are leaving and moving on to internship or out into a call of some sort.  As with many others, I will miss them very much and look forward to any visits in the future. Before I say good-bye, however, I am fortunate enough to keep making connections and hanging out with many people before they leave.  It’s kind of nice to know that, for some at least, I won’t have to say goodbye until the end of summer.  The time together is certainly something for which I am thankful.

Until Next Friday!

Cowboy Hat and Boots

Dancing at a Hoedown

    "Where are you going next year?"  A question asked many times about what comes next after year two for a seminarians?  "So do you get to pick or they just place you wherever?"  Then, I always explain how I have no idea and that churches apply to our school and then we interview with them and then we rank each other and then someone decides and we find out... they have usually wished they never asked and look as disinterested as I am in explaining it all again, but as of a week ago something changed.  Someone did decide, and I will be spending a year in Austin, Texas as the intern or Vicar (fancy word used more in my Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) days) for First English Lutheran Church.  I was so nervous to find out, that I scheduled myself to work so that I would not be around to find out.  But I had my classmate Chris pick up my envelope and text me where I would be.  I remember sitting at work knowing that the time was right around the corner and as I was in the middle of doing something I felt my phone buzz and I felt a chill come over me.  I slowly drew my phone out of my pocket and there it said simply and plainly...First English Austin, Texas... there was no congrats or you are at... but rather it was just the words I needed.  I felt so confused and excited, I thought surely someone else should have, would have gotten this site.  Or, maybe Chris is playing a joke, but really he is not that mean and he has not said anything else.  I excuse myself and call a couple key family and friends to get the weight off my chest a little and text my supervisor at the church I work at now and a couple of others I wanted in the know.  Then I worked the rest of my 5 hours knowing my fate for the year.  Since a week has passed since that crazy day, I have been answering those questions with a new found confidence..."Austin, Texas."  To which now I hear, "Better pack your cowboy hat and boots..."

Clerics

It’s unclear to me who designs women’s clergy shirts, because they don’t appear to fit any actual women. My roommate is short and curvy; I am tall and angular, like a beanpole. Women’s clerics fit neither of us. Over the past few years of field ed and internship we’ve both learned tricks to looking professional despite the limitations. I layer all clerics under a sweater; my roommate gave up completely and invested in a dickey (a piece of fabric with a collar attached that fits around your neck and tucks under a shirt). I did also find one company that makes a line of “petite” clerics, though I’m 5’7”, so I don’t know what short female clergy do.

A couple weeks ago the junior class received their field ed assignments for next year. In excitement and preparation for their future ministry sites, two of the junior women came over to try on clerics and get a feel for what they liked. One of the juniors is tall, but curvy like my roommate. The other is short, but thin and angular like me. It was a fun evening of clergy dress-up as they raided our closets, trying on different sizes and styles, getting a sense of what worked and didn’t work. It felt like a strange passing of the torch, getting to share the wisdom we’d gained in several years of learning to make oddly sized clerics work for us.

I have learned a lot in the past four years of seminary. Much of that learning has come in the classroom, but probably an equal amount came from my colleagues. Tips and tricks passed on by word of mouth through generations of pastors; like keep peppermints in your pockets at a wedding (they help settle nervous stomachs) or that horse troughs make excellent full immersion baptismal fonts. After four years of taking in wisdom, it was fun to get to share some of my own and continue the chain of experience.

This is not a cleric, notice it fits. I made this by cutting the collar off a regular shirt and sewing a button on the back.

Entranced, Endorsed, Approved, and...

Hey Taste and See Readers,

This week I am sharing a reflection from Tyler Rasmussen. I asked Tyler if he would be willing to write on his experience of getting a call, which is something that affected a significant population of the seminary community as we watched our friend struggle. He has written the following article and I think this is an important life story which presents the challenges of being called to ministry, some harsh realities that still linger, the support of LSTC community, and the work of God at the end, or beginning, of it all. I am grateful for Tyler's words and willingness to share this story on the Taste and See LSTC page.

"When it came time for assignment, I have no idea what happened. Sometimes, the process doesn’t always go according to plan. In the summer of 2011, it had been two years since the churchwide vote to ordain people in publically accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships (PALMS). After talking with a few bishops who said they had promised congregations they would know if they received the paperwork of non-straight clergy and that they wanted to know if a first call candidate fit that category, I decided, unwise though it may be, that I would put on my paperwork, “I have the hope of entering a relationship with someone of the same or opposite gender.” I always figured this church should know what they are getting into, and if they don’t want me, they don’t want me. As best I can, I do not want the pain and depression of being in the closet ever again. Alas, fall assignment time came around, and I reverted to my home synod, who had no place for any first call candidates, much less ones who weren’t straight. It turned out that there was no place in this church for me at that time, solely because of my sexuality. To put it in the blunt terms I was told over the phone, “You reverted because you’re gay.”

Those were rough days; I cried a lot. I wasn’t naive, but I had hoped this church had grown to a point where there were a number of ministries ready and willing, even if still tentative, to receive pastor regardless of sexuality. I had generally given up the hope of small town (>5000) ministry because of my sexuality, but there had to be open congregations somewhere out there. It seemed, however, all my brothers and sisters who had spent years on the Extraordinary Ministry roster had filled those positions. Sincere blessings to them, but there are so many of us coming up that I have no idea how we will all find a call. Then, a week after assignment, a bishop made the remark that gay people need to be prepared to wait a long time, because it has been 35 years and we are still having a hard time placing women in ministry. BAM! There was my answer.

I was heartbroken by the bishops who made it sound hopeless. No hard feelings toward any bishop – I know it is tough to be leading this church, and this issue hasn’t made it any easier – but there’s hope; I know there’s hope. As brutally honest as I hope my first call bishop is with me, I hope she is able to be my pastor and helping me to live into the hope of faith, because it crumbled that day.

I was also heartbroken as I heard a number of my fellow seminarians start talking about alternative careers if ministry doesn’t work out. God had called you, my brothers and sisters, and if God has called, the Spirit has to have a place for you, right? It was hard for me to give an affirmative answer to that question for many days, so I understood exactly why they were putting alternative careers in their corner pockets.

Feeling hopeless and hung out to die, I searched for any word of promise I could find in our recent social statement or the revision of “Vision and Expectations” that this church gave for people in places like me when things go wrong due to sexuality. Beautifully, in “Vision and Expectations” I found a promise to people in PALMS relationships, a promise “to find a way for [these people] to serve as rostered leaders of this church.” Sadly, I am a single gay/bisexual man. I do not have a partner, and this church made no promises to me because single people weren’t supposed to be a problem. I love my church, and after all those years leading up to the social statement, I have no idea how we missed this.

My fellow seminarians were also searching for words of promise. On the day the remark was made about how long it may take to place gays in ministry, the whole community was hurt. I had “Preaching John” class that afternoon, my friends preaching that day quickly modified their sermons to give hope to those of us who were consumed by tears. Within a month, I had heard twenty sermons detailing the hope and love Christ gives us, even when our church can’t. So much Gospel – this community is blessed to be able to care for those in it in such a powerful way – and I still craved more.

I can admit to preaching sermons to myself; I think those sermons, when done with the community still clearly in mind, are the best because I am not satisfied until I hear a gospel that truly satisfies my longing heart. A month and a half after assignment crashed into a wall, I found myself preaching one of those sermons, using the text of the master who gave his servants talents. Reflecting on Christ as the worthless servant who brought back the buried talent (for the image of the one who came to serve can surely be found in the servant in any parable), I said, “As I look at this talent, God keeps calling to my mind all the times I’ve felt buried in my life only to have Jesus bring me out of the ground into a life I never imagined. What will Jesus bring out of the ground this time?”

I don’t quite have a full answer to that question yet, but there have been good hints. I finally came out to my father, as difficult and painful as that was. I went through assignment a second time, and my new bishop says I should have paperwork for a congregation in my hands by the end of the month. Moreover, because I did not get a call following the fall assignment, I was able to move home after my brother broke both his legs to help support the family and fill in his shoes in the family business while he spends the year healing. Icing on the cake: I get to spend a lot more time than I would have gotten with my 8-month-old nephew. Whatever God had in mind when the doors of this church were closed to calling me in the fall, it seems like the ideas were good ones, even if the it hurt like hell for a while."

Thank you and God bless you in your call to ministry, Tyler.

Until Next Friday!

Accepting Tolerance

Three days ago I received some medical news that completely alters the future of my life. I have been living with lupus for over 12 years now, and I thought that I understood how my condition affected me. I now am adjusting to a new reality, and it is hard to know exactly how to put one foot in front of the other when the path of my life is leading me down a road I'd rather not travel.

I'm a pragmatic person, and despite feeling the wind knocked out of me, papers need to be written, meetings need to be had, finals need to be taken, and packing for CPE needs to begin. I am in a state of tolerance with my health. I am tolerating the fact that I am angry and frustrated because despite having my health put limitations on me, I still have a full life with very full responsibilities.

There is a difference between tolerance and acceptance. We tolerate things that are frustrating. We tolerate things that are challenging. We tolerate things that are less than. This is vastly different from acceptance. We accept our limitations and find ways to work around them. We accept our differences so that we can grow together. We accept things because in acceptance there is an acknowledgement of worth.

Right now, I am not accepting how my health is affecting my future life goals. I am tolerating it. I can still move forward with tolerance, but it is not as full or rewarding as the progress made with acceptance.

When we think about other areas of our lives where people use "tolerance" and "acceptance" language, which do you choose? Do you tolerate the dominating personality in the classroom, or do you accept them? Do your race relations come out of a place of acceptance, or merely tolerance? Do you think we should tolerate LGBTQ unions, or accept them as equal to a heterosexual union?

Both lead to progress. Both lead to a brighter future for our tomorrow. But which word is the word that speaks more to the gospel of Christ, tolerance or acceptance? Are we forgiven for our sins because we are tolerated as being victims of a fallen humanity, or because we are accepted despite being a broken person?

Right now, I am in a state of tolerance, but with God's grace, I hope to move to a place of acceptance.