From one marathon to another

My second year at Luther Seminary is complete, and it's a little hard for me to believe. The spring 2008 semester seemed to fly by even faster than the semesters before it. And as last week's marathon of final papers neared its end, I found myself looking around the seminary campus in amazement: "I'm already halfway done with seminary, and I'm done with this place for 15 months. Wow."

The 15 months, of course, will be filled with Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and internship elsewhere in the Twin Cities, so I'll still be plenty busy. And there isn't much time to catch your breath when you complete one marathon only to begin another.

Oddly enough, my current 10-day breather between the last day of finals (May 16) and the first day of CPE (May 27) included another marathon. But this marathon was actually kind of relaxing in its own weird way. Just hours after I e-mailed in my last final paper on Friday, I returned to ComedyCity, my old improv troupe in suburban Green Bay, for the 28-Hour Marathon of Comedy. The marathon was one of my favorite events back in my day as an improvisational comedian, and for the last three years since a couple troupe-mates and I reorganized it, the event has benefited two Green Bay-area charities that serve the families of local children with cancer. Tired as I already was from finals, I wasn't about to miss it.

Although I'm effectively retired from improv, my friends invited me back to resume my role as the Jeff Probst-like host of our "Survivor" show. It was our 20th such show, in which audience members vote a comedian off the stage after each round. It's a rare ComedyCity show in which the gimmicks go over just as well as the improv games. The Hostess Sno Ball-eating tie-breaker (shown right), for example, has become somewhat legendary. As usual, the "Survivor" show went well, and, with that, I figured I could pretty much sit back and relax for the remaining 24 hours of the marathon.

That was mostly true. Although I was signed up to play the midnight-to-3 a.m. shift and a good chunk of Saturday afternoon, there was a healthy turnout of performers, and I had plenty of time to sit around and catch up with old friends, meet a whole bunch of new people and even sleep four hours (a personal record high). But, to my surprise, I also ended up playing in the "American Idol"-parody "Improv Idol" show. Even more to my surprise, I won the show.

I think I was more shocked to win than David Cook. (I don't know ... maybe David Cook wasn't that shocked. I don't watch the actual "Idol" show.) My performance certainly wasn't dazzling. For one thing, our Randy, Paula and Simon were likely being nice to me as the out-of-towner. And in the final vote via text message by the audience, I can only thank Jesus. It's less of a cliché than it sounds: We as contestants were supposed to wear clothes that fit our personalities, and I luckily had brought along my "Jesus loves this guy" shirt, which seemed to be a big hit. I think the evangelical vote pulled me through. (For the record, the other finalist was wearing a Spam shirt.) So call me a commandment-breaker for becoming a false "idol," but Jesus was clearly my accomplice.

The comedy marathon was a big success. It once again raised several thousand dollars for the charities, thanks largely to some Green Bay Packers raffle items including a football autographed by Brett Favre. But it was also exhausting, and I wasn't about to try to squeeze in another marathon the next day—the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon was also last weekend, but I went to church instead.

It was a great way to cap my second year as a seminarian, but it also made me a little sad. The deeper I get in the life of ministry, the harder it gets to return to such facets of my pre-seminary life. I know I'm going to experience that even more in CPE and on internship. But Jesus does love this guy, and this guy is happy to live this new life—to run these marathons of ministry—out of love and thanks.