Magdalen Institute

2003-04-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

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!

2003-03-31T16:12:00.000-08:00

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?

2003-03-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

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?

2003-03-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

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.

2003-03-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

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."

2003-03-25T09:01:00.000-08:00

community and mission

What makes a bunch of individuals into a community?

Different bases for community create different levels of connection. For example:

Communities of origin

Communities formed around things like geographical location, or even place of birth, risk being what Kurt Vonnegut's characters call a "granfalloon," that is, a deceptive appearance of having something in common, a group identity based on no intrinsic commonality. I believe "Hoosier" was actually his example (sorry Jane).

Now as a student of Southern literature I have to admit that places shape people. But I contend that categories of identity that are based on, what, accidents of birth? are not necessarily the most powerful makers of community. Communities of origin are communities we belong to in spite of ourselves, and our relation to them can be wildly ambivalent. (Denominational membership risks being one of these!)

short term goal

Short term goals can bring together coalitions from very different communities. People who don't think they have much in common can act together to put out a fire or rebuild after a hurricane. But when the emergency is over, the connections don't necessarily last.

formative experiences

Shared formative experiences provide more enduring links. As Jane suggested recently, people who have been together in war, in any intense training program, in travel, etc. tend to share a language and an understanding that is difficult to convey to people who haven't been at the experience. I have had a couple of conversations recently about Cursillo and the potential of that experiential boundary to form both a crucible for formation, and a temptation to insularity. If the definition of your community's bond is "people who have had Experience X," then it's difficult to tell when the group wanders away from its original intentions. If the leadership begins to close ranks against outsiders, or even attack them, there's no standard for judgement because they are still initiates, people who had Experience X and cannot be critiqued by those who haven't. The Owlicious One has been ruminating about this pitfall of initiatory definitions of community, and I'm looking forward to more from her on that subject.

shared experience of getting a certain reaction from the rest of the world

When the shared formative experience is an experience of being seen the same way by others, its effects are particularly weird. I was intrigued last quarter to hear conversations between the African-American and African perspectives. Our visiting African students see African-Americans as Americans, participants in an American history that is foreign to the Nigerians and Ghanans. Subjectively, they look at the world very differently. But walking around Evanston, the African students experience the same treatment as their dark-skinned American colleagues. The common identity here is not a chosen one, but an imposed one. A kid who's descended from slaves and has grown up in poverty and American racism, may or may not be a danger to those around him. A middle-aged priest from Ghana probably isn't. But strangers may act equally cautious of both of them. This is also the question of third wave feminism: just because Margaret Thatcher and I are both female, do I really share an identity with her? If I don't feel all sisterhoody about this, does that matter? Or is there an inescapable connection in that no matter how well either of us do our jobs, people will be focusing on whether or not we are attractive, in a way that professional men aren't judged? Or is that not my problem? Don't know. Like the African students, I resist the idea that other people's perceptions determine something about MY sovereign identity. I know who I am. But the pressure is there to accept, even embrace, the category I've been shoved into by someone else's projection.

shared sense of what is important and good in the world

Here's the one I'm really interested in. Shared sense of what is important and good. Or, as we might have said before this word got dragged through the conservative mud: values. It seems to me that if this is articulated clearly, then people can tell whether or not they want to join a given community, and that joining THIS kind of community, by choice, imples a greater commitment to all kinds of things like staying in dialogue, working through conflict, etc., precisely because the dedication is not just to each other, but to Something Bigger.

Clearly, Something Bigger could be the glory of the Nazi Party, or big sales of Amway products, or expanding one's collection of china baskets (seen it). Or the shared value of Being Countercultural And Rebellious And All Mysterious About It (bought the T-shirt).

But at its best, religious community is about being drawn closer to each other by seeking to draw nearer to the Source of goodness. That, I think, is a sustainable basis-- maybe the only one-- for collective identity and action.

How'm I doin? Making sense yet?

2003-03-24T11:33:00.000-08:00

Easter Term

As Seabury so quaintly calls it (we've just concluded Epiphany Term, which followed Michaelmas Term. How Anglican).

It does offer the promise that sometime during this final quarter, there might be some kind of resurrection and new life.

Plus, those chocolate eggs in foil, with the gooey center. I used to love those.

For serious commentary on the spiritual struggles of the Lenten disciplines and the promise of Easter, go read the last couple of weeks of Cliff, who is a continual inspiration to me in my more reflective moments.

Meanwhile, around here there's less formal prayer (though I was quoting last night the prayer for blessings "better than I know to ask," and admitting that even that one is hard for me to pray just now-- how about "exactly as I ask"?? Huh??) and more, you know, paper shuffling and document submitting. Thanks be for walks with friends, the fruit market down the block, all this SUNSHINE (in Chicago, in March) and the faith to keep moving forward in small ways at a time.

2003-03-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

sunday again

I don't understand how anyone ever gets anything done in the church. I just purely have no idea. Never mind the church's oppressive history and horrible actions. How did the Pope ever get half a dozen Crusaders marching in the same direction on the same damn day? If we could recover that technology we could build the Kingdom right now, that's all I'm sayin.

Looking forward to a weekend-long retreat at St. Benedict's starting next Friday. Call it spring break a little late, and not a minute too soon.

2003-03-22T06:18:00.000-08:00

discerning

Today is the first real meeting of a group from my parish that formed at a retreat last month. We were trained to begin functioning as a "discernment group," first for each other, although such groups elsewhere have become parish ministries in their own right. The group's process is deceptively simple; one person presents an issue they need to decide, and the group members take turns asking simple questions with a lot of silence in between. The emphasis is not on problem solving or giving advice, but on helping the person to clarify what it is they know and feel about the issue and what is really at stake. We tried a shortened sample last month at the retreat and people went away exhilarated by the simplicity, elegance and effectiveness of the work. Just to be in the room with it felt wonderful. So I'm looking forward to today's group and hoping it still works at our own church, without the facilitation of the retreat leader.

Have spent break week writing overdue papers. One short one to go. At this rate will finish just in time to start spring classes. Spring work will have to be done early, so I can... graduate?? Looks like transcript may be complete by Easter-- part of Lent is retracing steps and getting credit for past work. Rewrote resume last night. Convinced it is a doomed endeavor. M. very consoling. Not sure if I am afraid I won't get a job or afraid I will.

Lunch with Jane yesterday, so comforting. She is equally ready with tales from the world of Softball Mom and wise observations about parish politics. Ah, the sanity. The kind folks at the Medici just cleaned up around us and let us lunch till three. Enjoying it while I can.

2003-03-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

small pieces

Tripp says I've been noticed in New Zealand. Is the Internet wacky or what?

I'd say something about the war, but I'm having flashbacks to the previous Bush admin. and Gulf War, during neither of which was I having a particularly good time, politically or personally. Trying not to sit hypnotized staring at the Propaganda Channel (which is all of them, but especially Fox). Last time I had an NPR Only rule for war news. This time I don't even want NPR. I do care, but am trying to focus energy on what a wise man called my Circle of Influence, which does not currently feel as if it includes even the actions of my own government, let alone foreign dictators. Am keeping those many who are immediately involved on the prayer list. That's all I can see to do.

Coming soon:

mission focus for individuals and communities

Lenten penitence

more about Magdalen Institute

some other stuff I can't think of right now

2003-03-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

How I Got This Way Part XVIII

CPE site committee today. Working to explain how our program fulfills government standards for training chaplains. Government (Dept. of Education) standards are built to find out if your students come out knowing more facts about American History, or welding better, or whatever it is you allege that you are training them to do. CPE is hard to describe in those terms, because it is not primarily about information or results but about process.

CPE teaches people a method of going about nearly any business. This method attends to several things that most people don't attend to, particularly when they're trying hard to do something right. It presumes that emotional reactions may contain valuable information; that if you're not making mistakes, you're not learning; and that strengths and weaknesses are inextricably intertwined and That's O.K. It rewards curiosity and humility. It cultivates presence in the moment and near-immediate reflection on experience. It's integrative. It cultivates an awareness of Spirit and grace, an appreciation for the unpredictable.

It's countercultural; that's the obvious thing about it. Many students struggle with the concept of training in which they are supposed to make mistakes, encouraged to have emotions, and supported by intangibles. We work so hard at splitting ourselves off to achieve, that the invitation to bring one's whole self to an enterprise can be frightening.

But I've gotten used to turning my whole self to a task, mind, body, heart and spirit. And I'm finding that it's powerful not only in clinical settings but everywhere I go. It's when I start to focus on externals and outcomes that I get in trouble. Being fully present is the only hope of doing the hard work I've been writing about, of living interdependently with other humans. Holding back won't save anyone. Only vulnerability and compassion even have a chance.

Feel free to cross-apply this to the religious or political framework of your choice. It fits nicely into mine; I commend to you the teachings of Vaclav Havel, Adrienne RIch, Jesus of Nazareth, Starhawk, and Rachel Corrie, to name a few. The point is that it doesn't happen by deciding to make a statement or embrace a cause. It's all about living into truth, moment by moment.

2003-03-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

speaking of communities

delivered at today's mail call: a brand new novel involving monastic women, Mary Magdalene (!), secrets & mysteries. Looks delicious, from the first few pages where I dipped in before remembering that I've got two more papers to write for the quarter that just ended. Soon and very soon, I'll have time to lie around & read this satisfyingly fat book. For those who care to join me, it's called The Divine Economy of Salvation , by Priscila Uppal.

My benefactor (who completely rocks) is quite right that this is a book I'd like-- and very kind to pass along the book itself as well as the recommendation. Hardcover copy of Algonquin's latest-- better than a mailbox full of barbecue.

2003-03-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

in fact

Living in right relationship to community is such a difficult and complicated task that I can't see any possible way humans can do it without pretty much constant help.

Which, as I understand it, is available for the asking.

The pretty much continual asking.

Amen.

2003-03-16T12:06:00.000-08:00

another sunday

Did I mention that all of those things we can do (to improve communication between the individual and the community) are really, really, really, really hard???

2003-03-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

breaking the silence

Yes! Trevor today gives me the words to say what I've been thinking about the relation between individual and community.

"I have deep abiding commitments to myself and to individuality. I routinely force myself on my community... One reason why I do this is because I am so committed to my community. My community needs my voice."

Jane said a while back that the boundaries of community are often experiential: shared experiences that create a common world. But every individual has experiences that the rest of the community hasn't had. To live in community, we MUST be able to communicate what we know that comes from those differences.

Communities need that, but they rarely want it. A community rapidly develops its own narrative. Challenges to that story can be difficult to make, or even to hear or imagine. How hard is it to speak or hear an insight? That depends on how deeply the individual's insight challenges the community narrative.

If my story mostly reflects the community story, maybe it's not hard for me to be known and feel at home.

If my story bears no resemblance to the community's story, then my community is somewhere else and I will leave.

If my story is factually similar to the community's story, but carries a different emotional weight, I should feel at home but I don't, and it's hard even to express why, because the common language has to be broken down and reconstructed to carry different implications. It's hard work to speak, and my speech may be misunderstood, ignored, or resisted.

If I encounter this same resistance often enough, and don't have the tools or the support to overcome it, then eventually I stop trying to "force" myself on the community. I stop communicating things that challenge the community narrative. The community is impoverished and I am isolated. That's what I meant by self-censorship.

Since this hurts everybody, it's everybody's job to fix it.

I need skill and courage to give my community what it needs, to speak up with the piece of inspiration that would otherwise be lost. To receive the gifts I bring it, the community needs an intentional commitment to growth and openness.

As an individual in community, I have to learn how to:

. notice when I am reflexively censoring myself

. articulate to myself what it is I'm not talking about

. figure out what it is that other people see differently

. assess whether it really is risky for me to raise this issue now

. translate my insight into language that the community might be able to hear and understand

. speak truth in love

. listen hard to community responses

. try again if it doesn't work.

As communities, we have to learn to:

. notice who isn't speaking and not assume that they agree

. invite speech respectfully and persistently from those who are silent

. teach the skills of engaged discourse to everybody who wants to learn them

. teach our community language to newcomers

. do some translating ourselves

. notice when we are defending community narratives and in what spirit

. and cultivate a spirit of learning and growth rather than rigidity or complacency.

Tomorrow: community and mission.

2003-03-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

world of posses

(Thanks to Trevor for this satisfying phrase!) So far, I've linked only some of the blogs I read, and no other sites. But my Lenten discipline may be to put up a whole list of links, chosen specifically to reflect my community affiliations, past, present, and future. Context made visible. For Lent I'm giving up the myth of isolation & the luxury of the outsider. Everybody gotta live somewhere.

And toward that end: I think I've figured out how to describe myself in Episcopalian. You native speakers check me out. I'm not asking for verification of the content of this statement; just that I've correctly used the language.

"I believe that God is calling me directly into specialized ministry."

Now that is a statement that a committee could reflect on. Right? They might disagree with any part of it (most likely candidate for disagreement is "directly," especially if pulpits are going unfilled), but they could certainly understand what I was claiming. And most importantly, it demonstrates that I have an understanding of how the system usually works and what I'm suggesting that's unusual. Have I cracked the code?

2003-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

ain' a that good news

I am assured that my endorsement for chaplaincy should be forthcoming from the national office in fairly short order. At least, I am assured that folks at my bishop's office are doing all they can to facilitate that. It would be great to have my denomination's support to show prospective employers in the next month or two.

To review: I'm not pursuing ordination as an Episcopal priest just now, but not ruling out that idea for later either. For now, my goal is board certification as a professional chaplain. This requires a lot of chaplaincy training, which I've had here and there. It requires a professional degree in ministry, the M. Div, which I should finish in June. And it requires this endorsement from my church. After that, I can apply for conditional status, which becomes full certification when I've had a job for a year.

This is the plan I had five years ago when I applied to seminary. Now it's almost done. As issabird's karate teacher used to say: Congratulations: now you may begin.

2003-03-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

stunt writing

Today we see what I actually know, 'cause I sure don't have time to research any further before I start typing. Got the gospel tunes cued up, wish me luck.

In other news, yesterday at lunch I met Alex of Digital Genres conference (Y'all go see, too). Thinking about whether I might have anything to say about online community/ art/ literature/ performance. Got emerson thinking with me about his online world and wot it all means.

I really am going to take up AKMA's gracious invitation to say more about self-censorship and community, just as soon as I get out from under the end of this quarter. I'm also going to answer issabird's email about how I got to be Episcopalian, although possibly not here. And Mom, those photos are practically in the mail. Maybe Friday.

Meanwhile, y'all pray for me as I try to compose my OTHER thoughts about community for Cross Cultural Pastoral Care. I know good stage magicians never describe a trick ahead of time, but I think I'm about to write a comparison of my racially balanced home parish with an African-American South Side church and a mostly-white North Side parish that I've visited recently, in terms of pastoral care as it affects/ is shown in the worship life. For me (having grown up in and being most comfortable in communities that are racially mixed, though I now realize that took a lot of work on somebody's part-- hey, it worked, and I'm a 34 year old with the crazy idea that it's normal) both monochrome parishes are "cross-cultural" experiences, and I'm hoping to find that Augsburger is right to suggest that experiences in those Other Places can illuminate my experiences At Home. If anyone wants to connect that to "cultural resources" or experiential boundaries or what have you, please jump on in: I'll be here workin'.

And hey- let's be careful out there.

2003-03-09T15:38:00.000-08:00

vocation

Two of us finally went today to take communion from church to a homebound parishioner. As I am co-chair of my parish's lay eucharistic visitors committee, it's ironic that today was my first official act other than calling meetings attended only by the other co-chair & one loyal visitor. This afternoon's sharing of communion, and conversation, reminded me why I got into this biz. My co-visitor (soon to be a priest) complimented my "pastoral" style afterwards and I nearly collapsed with gratitude. I'm much more tired and angry than I thought from trying to get my official status sorted out. Maybe switching denominations in my senior year of seminary wasn't as clever as it seemed. But I couldn't go on functioning in a denomination that reacts defensively to any language about God, much less Jesus. I can do pastoral care with atheists and agnostics-- they get sick and scared just like anyone else-- but I couldn't face drawing my spiritual strength from a community built to avoid acknowledging any kind of dependence on anything.

So now I'm in a community where it's OK to talk about God (and the idea that we're not completely in control of everything) or the Gospels (and the idea that we should try to treat each other with compassion because we're all imperfect and going to die eventually). And that is good for me. It was not good for me to be the only fool trying to express these two ideas. (Well, except N., bless her weary soul.)

And perhaps it is not remarkable that this community was not prepared to take the word of my previous community about my qualifications for a leadership position.

I even think it was right, this winter, to decide (in consultation, sort of, with parish and family) that ordination is not my next priority and that I should focus on getting a job that uses my training as a chaplain and doesn't require me to be a priest or deacon.

But Tripp's comment to my "community" essay reminds me that the reason I feel so weird in community may be that I do have a role and I'm not currently in it. Two years ago, I was a strong candidate for ordination to the ministry. Last year, I had a nametag that said "Pastoral Care Department" and a weekly paycheck. This year, I'm a parishioner who periodically steps out of line by acting strange, as if I thought I had something to do with the clergy. Or a seminary student who can ask the obvious question because I'm not afraid my bishop will hear what I said-- because my bishop isn't especially interested in my opinions just now.

I was going to write today about self-censorship, re: the individual and community. But right now I'm feeling: who am I kidding, nobody wants to hear what I think about self-censorship. Maybe that's pretty much what I had to say about the phenomenon after all.

2003-03-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

community

This viral conversation about "community" is spreading from blog to blog in the, well, community. Jeff (who I'm pretty sure I don't know) wrote a piece about how "independent scholar" is kind of an oxymoron, which is part of a bigger conversation about academia. AKMA and Trevor are kicking around pieces of it, which shouldn't surprise me because I'm taking Trevor's class which is more or less about ethics and community. Tripp and Jeff R. are each struggling with issues (maybe two sides of the same issue, I'm not sure) about faith, grace, and religious institutions, and those struggles are getting grafted on to the community conversation (like a wild olive branch??). It's set me off on my own reactions to the topic of "community," which I've been trying to articulate all day without much success yet.

Here's a piece: Trevor and AKMA seem to be coming at this from the perspective of the community. That is, How is it that WE (any community) can simultaneously have an identity, and have the possibility of growth and change? If I'm misunderstanding the talk about how re-formation happens, someone please set me straight. But if not: my intuitive approach to this issue is from the perspective of the individual. How can WE (a collection of individuals, each of whose experience is in some way not represented very well by the narrative of the community) ... stay in conversation with the community? What can I, as an American, do in a historical moment that I'm afraid is later going to be chronicled in a book like Hitler's Willing Executioners, when my government is representing-- well, apparently some people, but not me? I voted, but that doesn't seem to have been very effective. How shall I, as an Episcopalian, live in a parish, diocese, seminary, national denomination and global communion that go on about their business and don't necessarily offer me a clear role other than accepting consumer? I'm not discussing the validity of their agendas, here; just their mechanisms for ongoing input. When I was received into the Worldwide Anglican Communion at the Cathedral of the Diocese of Chicago by our own Bp. Persell-- what did I get into? What did I agree to do and who else agreed to something about me? And, for Rich, Cliff, and Tripp: what's different about that than the promises that were made on my behalf and about me at my baptism as an infant?

Most of the time I find my relation to institutions, per se, frustrating and alienating. Most frustrating because I hold out so much hope, for some reason, that institutions will somehow prove to be spaces for change, places where individuals gather together for some common cause and find enough leverage to act visibly and effectively in the world at a level that individuals just can't do alone. Maybe that's the same as Trevor saying I can't understand my life outside the context of community.

Meanwhile, the reason I don't just go around alienated and frustrated is that if I don't have a Community, I have small-c community, friends and colleagues, correspondents and brainstormers. I live on the edge of a lot of worlds these days, but with close ties to a handful of people in each. Their support, challenge, and conversation is life-giving to me. But I would have a hard time saying that any of those environments defines my identity. In some ways I am envious of that claim (from Mennonites, Baptists, and Anglo-Catholics alike), and in other ways I recognize that I'm always constructing this borderland identity, choosing the role of observer. That's part of what led me to chaplaincy, I know: it's one place where you get points for watching while interacting. But I think even an observer has to have some place that is home base. As Richard and Linda Thompson used to sing, "The heart needs a home." I'm trying to understand whether some of you have found one in the/a church, and why others who haven't seem to expect to. I would love that. Do you think it's possible? Do you think it should be? Parish? Denomination? Seminary? Anglo-Catholicism? "lowchurch" identity? What is the size of the group that can have a narrative that doesn't roll right over the experience of the individual and erase or silence it? Or, what sort of individual can stay in groups and resist that erasure?

Coming soon: more about self-censorship, Havel, vulnerability, risk, & Christian discipleship (whew!)

2003-03-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

saturday

Scheming how I can write two more papers without doing much more research. Sometimes that trick works; it's a lovely side effect of going around interested in things all the time anyway. I need it to work this time.

Got so mad about things Episcopal I called my Episcopalian great-aunt for advice. She says, "I always thought my parish was that way because it's in Magnolia, Mississippi. Nice to know Chicago is just as peculiar." I find that strangely comforting.

All quiet on the South Side. Bookstore later maybe.

2003-03-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

Magdalen

Cliff asked, somewhere else, about me and the Magdalen. I wrote this back, and then thought it really belonged here:

I am grateful for the scholarly recovery of the "historical" Magdalen, first apostle of the Resurrection and not necessarily identified with stories of other Gospel women. I also love the medieval tradition of devotion to her, which understood that apostle to be the same woman who poured out perfume and tears over Christ's feet, "she who loves much because she has been forgiven much." (They also understood that she had travelled to France and preached there, converting the Breton coast, where there is strong devotion to her still.) In both images I find amazing witness to the possibility of resurrection, the transformation of suffering, the miracle of love that is stronger than death.

2003-03-07T05:59:00.000-08:00

outside world

Magdalen Institute is brought to you today by Hal Crowther's beautiful rant about the war, thanks to owlmother, who reminded me he's still holding up the conservative liberal cause in central NC. When I think I don't fit anywhere, Hal reminds me I'm just homesick.

Special note on my spirituality workshop at the healthcare conference later this month: No, Ken, I couldn't get you invited along to "Nurses' Expo," but that's OK-- it's not what you think. I will, however, be explaining how the Desert Fathers' techniques for fighting demons convert nicely to dealing with HMO managers. Watch this space for more.

Go see Tripp's gorgeous Lenten icon.

OK that's it. Waiting for the nice man from Peapod to come and bring me breakfast. If you don't know about Peapod, write to me for a code and try it at a discount. I know it's changed my life.

2003-03-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

Feeling very blessed tonight. Some really good conversations today (thanks.) and some clarity tonight on the drive home. And tonight, Evensong at my parish-- during Lent we actually chant Evening Prayer, it's one of the things I first loved about this church and then Easter came and we stopped-- it's a beautiful service. It's true, as someone pointed out, that the older liturgy doesn't have the most inclusive language. But the singing of the prayers makes me really happy. And then bread and soup supper with church and friends, and then Micah is teaching a Lenten class on spiritual practices of various people-- tonight was Benedict and making a personal Rule. I actually have had a Rule for a couple of years, but it's probably time to look it over again and see if it's stuff that I actually do and if not, was it unrealistic or should I get back on it.

"That there may be peace to your church and to the WHOLE world..."

"We entreat you, O Lord."

And the best night prayer ever:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

2003-03-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

irony

Just wrote a long rant about spending all morning trying to get institutions to admit I exist, & how frustrating it is to feel invisible and ineffectual. Then all my text got erased. See what I mean?

Don't know which is sadder and funnier, my attempt to get grades posted for 4 years of seminary classes, or this game of Who's On First with my denomination about chaplaincy endorsement. Trying to follow my own advice and remember the wisdom & compassion of the desert monks. So far today mostly whining & shouting at my computer.

Off to meet with Trevor, I hope.

2003-03-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

RADIO SILENCE

Lent sounds like a good idea right now. Time for me, and many of us, to spend six weeks or so listening more than talking, letting some more layers of what's in the way between me & God burn off. Today, silent retreat at Seabury. More tomorrow.

2003-03-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

Here's the site I've been looking for. Now everybody can be mad at me at once. And I didn't even have to write my paper because it's all here.

Had a good meeting with P., who did finally arrive. Two hour conversation about why we train chaplains the way we do and how to explain the process to people who haven't done it. The more I talk about clinical education the more I know it's what I want to do when I grow up.

Not sure I have the energy now to go to Ethics (usually my favorite class) and have a rousing discussion about this week's book, which is Bioethics: A Primer for Christians. I think this is my week to feel the way some folks felt for the past few weeks. I have a sinking feeling that the class consensus is going to be that this book is too conservative and therefore evil and stupid. I recognize that if I have a different opinion it's my job to say so, and say why. I don't think I am up to it today. Let me just say with AKMA: "It's more complicated than that."

Off to class. Will try not to blog three times a day most days.

2003-03-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Stood around for half an hour waiting for tall, dark, business-suited guy to show up and take me away from all this, finally left message that I'd be right back if he showed up. Never did. I suppose P. will have a good explanation, probably that I got the plan wrong. Front desk thinks I've finally cracked under finals week and am living in fantasy world.

Jane says it all today. Ora pro nobis. On the other hand I am delighted to see that Jeff has stuff to say about my blog! More of that conversation soon, I hope; clearly I touched a sore spot, but he and I may have more concerns in common than he thinks. And Cliff has added me to his links. I feel welcomed into this online community, and humbled that apparently people are actually reading what I'm writing.

lwj

2003-03-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

Meeting in a few minutes to work on my old CPE site's application for independent certification. I was very pleased when my former supervisor asked me to be on the committee, and it's been a learning experience already. We're just starting to get down to the real action: comparing the program, as it stands, with the rules about what it should be like in order to be certified at the next level. Today I'm reviewing the handbook, which is to the program as the Constitution is to the U.S.: it's the operating system, the program code that generates and structures the day-to-day experience of people trying to do a thing together. It's kind of like legal writing, or a magic spell, but I think computer programming is the most accurate analogy. In any of those cases, linguistic precision and... elegance... are moral virtues. You really want to say all the things you mean, and nothing you don't mean, and you want to make it hard to misinterpret.

Trying to get my mind into the mode of precision and elegance, while compensating for the fact that I forgot to bring with me either the standards or the manual we're reviewing. I found the standards on line and printed them; hope P. is bringing the manual. The older I get, the more philosophical I get about mistakes like this. Not that I don't try to show up where I'm supposed to be with the tools I need. But when I don't exactly, somehow it always turns out to be all right.

I guess this means I am handing in ethics paper as is. Maybe Trev will let me revise again before he publishes it online (!!)

2003-03-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

Finished the baptism paper. May not have time to rewrite the ethics one again. Accidentally watched most of a game show in which viewers vote on which contestant a person should MARRY. I suppose it can't turn out with a much worse average result than when we let people choose for themselves. At least in this one their friends and families get to eliminate the people who are obviously unsuitable. A tradition I think the rest of America probably ought to revive. Still, the whole "might as well" tone of this show is so counter to my whole theology of marriage... as you ethics classmates will remember, I was so tickled by Gene Rogers' sacramental description of marriage as a parallel discipline to monastic vocation, that I barely paid any attention to his question of whether same-sex couples could profitably take on the same project. Mostly I was just delighted to hear someone describing marriage as work, not in that snide Married With Children way, but the way learning to do anything you love is difficult and rewarding.

Which reminds me: it's gotten awfully quiet in the other room. I think it must be my bedtime as well. And an early day tomorrow.

2003-03-03T07:41:00.000-08:00

Cutting it close on the baptism front. This can't be harder than an ethics paper on abortion. The truth is that one's still taking up all my brain space. But the baptism one must be drafted today. Finished, really.

Coming up this week: a class discussion of St. John Chrysostom's writings on marriage, which are nicer than you'd think; a short essay about liturgical time and daily prayer, which if it's any good I will post; and a report on a church that's ethnically different (from me, I guess).

Also putting together a short workshop on the Desert Monastics and desert hospitality as a paradigm for healthcare workers, to present at something called Nurses Expo later this month. It pays, though not much. Hoping not to sound like an idiot, and perhaps to submit the same work as my final "talk" in theology class next week.

Mood: Fretful and procrastinating.

2003-03-02T17:41:00.000-08:00

Sunday night. Two more weeks of classes until spring break. Woke up this morning to discover the famed Chicago phenomenon of Snowing Sideways was in effect again. Four blocks from the lake and eight floors up, the wind actually howls; I always thought that was an expression. My fourth winter north of Carolina, and while this winter has been mild compared to a couple of years ago, I also think my standard of what's cold has gotten a lot tougher. And I've learned how to dress. Mary Schmich wrote a set of columns about how to survive Chicago winters, which I would link here if I were more technologically up to speed, or less lazy. "Hat" is a big part of the secret.

Responses to my ethics paper are coming in from friends & advisors, all supportive and challenging. Thanks to all who have taken the time to read and comment. I'm sure we'll see this material again.

I've been enjoying keeping up with friends: owlmother, issabird, tripp, and janellen. How's that for a technology experiment.

2003-02-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

What I learned today: My experiences with Hospice, and with chaplaincy, have been, let's just say, atypical. Or more precisely-- typical of about 15 or 20 years ago.

My vision of Hospice chaplaincy, & the kind of institution I expect to work in, used to be very common. Then there was a big fight and my side lost. This happened before I went to seminary, but the sweeping-up is still happening and the places like I like haven't all closed... yet. But the few of them left are struggling like the Brave Rebel Base, and if I had entered the field ten years ago I'd be working at one of them now. But since I didn't, I'm not sure I want to get into the argument about how Hospice ought to be done in a particular way that nobody does anymore because it got driven out of the market by a less idealistic, more financially effective way.

There is one Brave Rebel Base I heard about today that sounds worth checking out. It would be a long commute but might be worth it. Further research is indicated.

2003-02-28T05:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I finished it, except that the last third turned out to be the good part. May get around to turning the paper upside down (inside out?) before Tuesday. Ironically I just gave this note to someone else: first drafts tend to have the point at the end, because you wrote until you got to it. This is right. In the next draft, however, it ought to be at the front so people know why they want to read this. I know this! And yet, I need people to read my own writing and say it to me.

Today's project: Go and meet an actual employed Hospice chaplain, friend of a friend of a friend. Lunch and chat. I'm not even job hunting yet; it's February, and I don't graduate till June, and everyone I know who's ever finished graduate school advises me to schedule in a month or two for lying around afterwards being useless and muttering "You may call me Master" before I actually try to get up and put on office clothes and GO anywhere. Still, I'm hoping to get a sense of the Chicagoland Hospice scene, which I think has changed greatly in the last five or ten years (as it has everywhere). The Yellow Pages show me a dozen or more Hospice organizations. Back in NC, I could look at a name and say "Oh they're good" or "They were bought by an HMO" or "Didn't Suzy work there for a while?" and here they all sound about the same to me. I need that elusive sense of place and history-- context.

Remaining for this week: a paper comparing baptism in the early church and now. I think I have actually found a part of my brain that might care about this question. I am trying to move cautiously and not frighten it back into its hiding place.

lwj

2003-02-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm home today hammering out the final version of my ethics paper. (Some readers may find it in their mailboxes soon for comment!) I've been putting this off all week, during my nice Reading Week vacation. Arrgh. I think I just saw how to integrate the parts of the argument that were dangling out in the Appendix. I don't know if I'm more afraid of offending someone with this paper or of failing to startle anyone. Either way I'm having a huge case of wondering who the heck I think I am to even be talking about this stuff.

I recognize this stage of writing, at which it becomes clear that the whole project is irredeemably horrible and it would be better just to take up quilting. Generally this indicates that I am nearly finished. My quilter friends tell me they get the same thing near the end of a project; novelists, carpenters, and parents concur. I have a theory that the sudden loathing for the nearly-complete progeny is Nature's way of helping us to set it free to stand on its own in the world (send quilt to gallery, novel to agent, teenager to college). Once it's sent out, we're free to be fond of it again. I'm sure hoping this one works that way, but part of the essence of this stage is that I can't imagine it.

lwj

2003-02-27T06:19:00.000-08:00

HOUSEKEEPING

I would like to have Comments (you know, the feature where a reader can respond to an entry right here, without emailing me?) but I'm finding that the Comment services I like are not accepting new users, and the one I tried to use this morning, I'm not able to make work. Help from more experienced bloggers would be appreciated.

ANGLICANS

Queen Elizabeth I invented Anglicanism. As a young woman ascending the throne, she united a divided nation through diplomacy. With her advisors, she built a church that Protestant and Catholic believers could attend together without being driven to civil war AGAIN. We still have it. Anglicanism prides itself on a "broad church" mentality in which differences in belief and practice are accommodated. I was going to say accommodated in love. But here's the thing. As followers of Christ, we are called to encounter each other's differences in love. As members of the church Elizabeth designed, we are called to encounter our differences without starting open civil war and jeopardizing the tax base. I think both motivations are probably useful. But it's useful too to be aware of which one is guiding us, as I think they make different things possible.

I wanted to write more about those differences in belief and practice within Anglicanism (or even the Episcopal church in the U.S.). In short, the current internal divisions seem to be liberal "low church" Boomers against conservative "high church" Silent & G.I. generation. (To use Strauss & Howe's ever-tempting generational generalizations.) As a Gen-Xer, I find I'm not the only one in my generation who is looking for the liberal "high church" parish. This search seems almost incomprehensible to the established parishes I know about. The going theory-- and I paint it broadly to show my frustration-- seems to be that reverence, as a mode of worship, is the business of old-school, patriarchal, politically Neanderthal communities. Whereas social concern, tolerance, and acceptance of people as they are, can happen only in a community whose worship is elaborately and reassuringly-- dare I say reactively?-- casual.

More on this sometime. lwj

2003-02-25T14:13:00.000-08:00

Well, right now this will have to be more like a journal and less like a manifesto. Four months from seminary graduation, I'm not feeling so manifest as all that. Just had a reassuring cup of tea with my school chaplain, God bless her, which gave me about enough courage to register for spring classes.

On the docket for spring:

Trevor Bechtel's Ethics Elective at Seabury (his Christian Ethics course this winter has convinced me that the Chef's Special will probably also be yummy-- and reminded me that Ethics makes me all interested and sparkly, duh)

Formation for Children at Seabury (meets a ML graduation requirement, maybe it'll astonish me with relevance)

Adult Spiritual Development (yes please) at McCormick, with Homer Ashby, who comes highly recommended

and John Tolley's Arts & Ministry special at ML (fingerpaint!! Play therapy!! And maybe see some old friends before I graduate.)

When I am doing my real work, or something that will take me closer to it, I know it. It's like a giant game of Hot & Cold. I just can't name the shape of it yet. I know a lot of pieces: God, and health care, and ethics yes, and chaplaincy and Anglicans and retreats and discernment and prayer and policy. And clinical education. I am the only person I know who not only wants to do more CPE (chaplaincy training) but actually wants to BE a chaplain trainer, a CPE supervisor. I come alive in groups where the Real Conversation is happening. It's like little doses of pure oxygen. To be with a group of chaplains in training, or ethics students, or parishioners forming a discernment group, or friends over coffee-- when small talk is suspended and the focus is clear, and the Holy Spirit is moving among us. How can I arrange my life so that I get to do THAT a lot, and also plenty of time alone and one-on-one?

Part of it is about creating the kind of space where that conversation can happen. I have fantasies of finding it already built, but my Xer suspicion of institutions says that if it is to happen reliably, I will have to learn how to build it. And that is the job of the CPE supervisor, of the chaplain, of the ethics consultant... and, I suppose, of the priest, in a different way.

I'm thinking about what I need. As an off-the-chart introvert, as a soul on a soul journey. Selfish? Buechner says "The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." The world's got a lot of deep hunger. So these days I'm hunting after my deep gladness. I know it was around here somewhere. Most recently spotted in a long afternoon of group spiritual discernment practice, with a new group forming in my parish. Ahhh. Otherwise: writing, cooking, long talks with soul friends (including the one I had the good sense to marry).

Hey, it's really more like THREE months to graduation.

That probably means I should quit blogging and get back to work on my ethics paper for THIS quarter.

2003-02-24T09:01:00.000-08:00

Why Magdalen?

Church tradition associates several Gospel stories with Mary Magdalen, though her name is not mentioned in all. The Magdalen herself is clearly the one out of whom Jesus casts seven demons, and who remains to witness the Crucifixion, to prepare the body for burial, and to watch at the tomb both late and early. She finds the tomb empty, she is first to encounter the risen Christ and to recognize him, and she carries the news to the other apostles. Whether she is also, as tradition holds, the woman Jesus saves from stoning for adultery, the woman with the ointment, or any other woman mentioned in the Gospels, is less clear. Still, medieval monks and preachers cultivated devotion to her, striving to imitate her in her faithfulness to Christ and by extension to all who are suffering and dying.

As a Hospice chaplain, I find in my work echoes of her faithful witness both to the suffering of body and soul, and to the joy of the Resurrection. To stay with suffering is to be astonished and transformed by God's presence and redemption. To follow Mary Magdalen is to enter into discipleship at its level of deepest suffering and deepest joy.

I'm hoping this website will be a place to link resources (give me a few weeks on that), to highlight issues in religion and health care, and to start a conversation about how we are called to care for each other.