room to grow

Our new site is here!

It's not pretty yet, but old entries are there and I'm sorting the archive. Coming soon: an expanded Magdalen Institute site, with more about What We Do.

Thanks to all loyal Institute readers for your support so far. Join us in our new home!

Don't try this at home... I am a trained professional.

Friday's workshop went all right, considering I had drastically misjudged the attendance in both number and character and had to do some quick editing on the fly. My talk for a dozen working nurses, about spirituality for the healthcare workplace, became a talk for nearly 50 nurses who were all doing end-of-life care for family members in their copious free time and had come eager to hear the church's response to their struggles. My little talk was well enough received, especially the five minutes of Deep Breathing With Your Eyes Closed Prayer (well, I did suggest reciting the Jesus prayer at the same time, but I didn't go around and check on them). I want to go back to this conference next year with something that does more justice to the population.

I felt the weight of this audience's trust in my role of chaplain. I really wanted to bring them something good, something healing and true. I hope I did, and I keep thinking of more things I want to do next time.

The retreat after this was heaven-sent. I slept off and on for nearly 36 hours and every time I woke up there was a prayer service starting so I would go to it, eat a yummy meal, and then go back to sleep. Owlmother is allowed to be jealous of this; eat sleep and do devotions is nice work if you can get it, and I got it for a day and a half. (Even the real nuns have to keep a balance of rest, prayer, and work; I got out of the "work" part this time.) The monastery chapel has on one wall an icon I really like of Jesus with a book reading "Behold I make all things new" and on the other wall a maybe 18" high black madonna statue. She is holding the baby on one hip and a golden spindle (sure looks like) in the other hand. Matches her red and gold dress. I should go up there more than once a year.

Came home to find the new issue of the Journal of Supervision and Training in Ministry, in which appears an essay about chaplaincy training and September 11th by... me. Don't rush to your newsstand; I think this is the journal of that august body, the North Central Region of CPE Supervisors. But it does have a cool name, and my essay is in it. Now if the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling (a publication with a slightly broader circulation) would only run that article of mine they've been sitting on for a year about patient assessment in nursing homes, we'd have something goin on here at the Institute.

Now back to classes. Trevor's class this week is reading a book about snake-handling churches that I had actually read back in NC. Lots to think about. I haven't decided whether to post my thoughts about it here or at the school site. But I'm taking votes. Who wants to hear reflections on snake-handling and postmodernism?

and there was much rejoicing

Just wrote and submitted the essay on Easter worship services, after very helpful meeting with spiritual director. Now off to pick up my husband and go to Lenten Evensong; tomorrow receive the groceries we ordered online, lead conference workshop on Workplace Spirituality, then head out to monastery for weekend retreat.

If you had asked me at age ten what my day would be like at age thirty-four, I don't think I would have described this exactly, but if you had described this to me then, I think I would have approved. (The computer groceries are a nice touch I wouldn't have thought of; sometimes I really like it here in the future.)

What was that about making a life you can stand to live now?

can these bones live?

Good questions from Susie inspired me to make a distinction between institutions and communities. I reproduce my comment here.

I see institutions as the skeleton, and communities as the way our relationships flesh out and breathe life into those dry bones.

For example: a seminary as an institution exists in the endowments, the non-profit status, the buildings and assets, the denominational charter.

As a community it is formed new every year from faculty, staff, and students and their relationships, and cannot exist without each one's willingness to be vulnerable, to be changed and to change others with witness. Institutions can't minister to people. Communities can.

Institutions are machines. We build them and they run. If a person gets caught in the machinery, how would the machine know? Maybe it would notice something jamming the proper function, and eject it as a threat.

Communities can take account of the people in them, maybe strive to fulfill some of the duties I outlined last week.

But we need both.

Without the structure of an institution, a community can't take on a project that's very long or very broad.

Without live people working at creating and sustaining community, an institution can only be soulless and mindlessly destructive of people's spirits.

I'll say more:

it is the responsibility of EVERY person who participates in the life of an institution to help create community among the humans who work within that institution. We do this by listening to each other, speaking truth in love, praying our fears and resentments and acknowledging our vulnerable selves.

wise owl

"The only thing that will make it okay later is turning yourself heart, spirit, mind and body to making a life you can stand to live now."