Celebrating Graduation...seminary style

Yesterday was the 141st Commencement of Luther Seminary. I wasn't graduating, but I was in the procession. For a while now Luther's graduation has taken place at Central Lutheran Church — the largest Lutheran worship space in North America and South America. It's quite the celebration. The faculty are of course all dressed in their academic regalia (from the school in which they graduated from) and the students in their regalia follow them. The crucifer led the procession followed by banners, bells and mylar ribbon kites (see pic). The sanctuary at Central Lutheran preaches itself with its beauty. Speeches, awards, faculty promotions and all the standard elements were there, but also scripture reading, sermon (not a commencement address), prayers and a call to mission were also part of the gathering. It was a ton of fun to participate in.

Now to give you perspective...my friend Jeppe joined me for the afternoon at Central Lutheran. Jeppe is a doctoral student from Denmark who is spending time at Luther Seminary writing his dissertation. On the way out, Jeppe was just radiant with smiles. He then told me that when he got his bachelors degree in Denmark, he simply walked up to the secretary's office and got a piece of paper. When he got his masters, same time...plus a piece of candy. Yep. That was it.

So for all the (perhaps overkill) of the pomp and circumstance of graduation ceremonies...its far more fun then just getting some lame piece of candy.

Thanks to Chris Scharen for snapping these iPhone pics of me wielding my mylar kite outside of Central Lutheran as the bells rung in celebration.

Posted via email from curatingthejourney.org

GRADUATION!!!

graduation weekend!

It was a super busy weekend, and I have been taking naps non-stop now in an attempt to recover from it! Each graduate I've seen has said the same thing: "I'm exhausted, and I really didn't do anything!" Well, entertaining family, trying to remember your gown on Sunday afternoon, getting ready, staying cool in a warm church, high emotions, graduation parties...yeah, there was stuff going on! I'll do a separate entry for the graduation itself, but here are a few pictures so you can see what the class photo looked like on Saturday.

There was a wonderful (brats and chicken = YUM!) meal following baccalaureate on Saturday, and barely enough chairs to seat all the guests. What a great celebration with friends!

LifeCast Update // coming up to the surface...

It has been a very busy three weeks to wrap up another semester. I'm just now coming up to the surface and so I've not blogged in what seems like forever. But a lot has actually happened over the past three weeks and there are even more exciting things in the weeks ahead.
 
Earlier this month, my good friend Nate Preisinger was briefly in the Twin Cities. Nate is the cultivator of Organic Faith Community in Buffalo, NY trying to figure out what it means to be church in today's strange, new world. Nate is one of the most creative and honest leaders I know. Don't ask Nate about me, though...he knows me from my Lutheran Poster Child days. Nate did this clever Church Draft; my favorite: Saint Joseph of Cupertino because he levitates, according to Nate. Brilliant.

The semester wrapped up well and I've only got a short break here before summer classes start up. I'm starting to solidify my thesis research and that's been a blast. At this point I'd like to do an ethnographic study of a faith community that identifies with one or more particular tradition (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc.) but that structurally is outside of what we've come to call a "congregation."

It looks lke I'm going to get to do some travel this summer albeit it's for two academic conferences. In June I'm heading to Chicago with a group of MA/PhD students in our Congregational Mission and Leadership programs to the American Society of Missiology. Last year's theme was emerging church and this year it's multiculturalism. It should be a good preview (though highly academic) to the upcoming Emergent Theological Conversation in November. In August I'm headed to Toronto for the International Conference on Religion, Media and Culture. Both should be great and I'll be sure to blog about them afterwards.

This past week week I spent two days at a cabin on a lake in Wisconsin working on a chapter for a book that I'm contributing to. Tentatively titled Hyphenated Christians Speak: How The Emergent Conversation is Shaping the Mainline Church (Chalice Press, 2011). My chapter is on "Improvising With Tradition" or in other words re-thinking how we think about tradition as a dynamic place of finding faith and creating meaning, rather than equating tradition with "status quo" like we so often do. I'll be blogging more about this soon so look for more on this.

Finally I'll be back on Andy Root's BlogTalkRadio show this week talking about a chapter from The Promise of Despair. I did this back in April, it was a ton of fun and as it turns out that episode got a lot of hits which is great. This time around we'll be answering the question: will death ever fall in love?

Posted via email from curatingthejourney.org

bounce house/movie night

Mary Stoneback and Scott Egbers working the cotton candy machine...completely oblivious to the sniper attacking their stash! :)

preparing for the end

Tonight the staff of the Concord, and our families gathered at Annie's Parlor in Dinkytown for burgers, malts, and loads of fries. I mean, LOTS of fries! I felt like my pores were seeping grease when I walked out, but it was worth it! Great company, and cuisine! Talk of graduation made it all too real for me that Luther Seminary will soon be a thing of the past, and these wonderful people will be scattered all over the planet. Andy is giving the commencement address, and processing with that was entertaining for sure. We challenged him to incorporate the 5 core values of Luther Seminary in there while noting "missional" is not really a word. We'll see how he does on Sunday! My family arrives on Friday for the Saints game, baccalaureate on Saturday, class photo, and meal, and GRADUATION on Sunday! CRAZINESS! Feel free to come to commencement if you want to be in amazement for the masses of people who fill Central Lutheran!

more from the softball game...

Celebratory Weekend

This past weekend was a good one. Celebratory for two reasons. One was the end of yet another semester. But the more important celebration was 9 wonderful years with my wife. Our anniversary is actually tomorrow, but since going away in the middle of the week is usually somewhat of a challenge, we set up a weekend away.

Where did we go? Red Wing, MN. Right on the Mississippi River, about an hour away from the Twin Cities. Some old friends of mine are from Red Wing, though they don't live there any more. Red Wing is also the home of Red Wing boots as well as the (apparently) world famous Red Wing Pottery...which I will admit to never having heard of prior to this weekend. Some other interesting history, my senior year of college, I actually interviewed at a golf course in Red Wing. I remember the day. It was cold and the weather was lousy (as it was the middle of winter) so I left Ames way early and therefore had about 2 hours to spare when I made it into Red Wing that day. So I ate a leisurely meal at Perkins that day. We drove by that Perkins this weekend, but we didn't eat there.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. Friday afternoon, I got off work and we took the kids down the street to the in-laws, who were watching them for the weekend. After a few minutes of loading the car we headed out. Ironically, it took a bit to load the car because we took our bikes along. We fully expected to go biking on Saturday. More on that in a bit.

After gassing up the car, we actually hit the road about 4:45. We drove for about two hours and made our first stop in Albert Lea, MN. There's an Applebee's there that we've stopped at several times before, so we pulled in for supper. From there we roadtripped the rest of the way up to Red Wing, which seemed to go quite quickly. I can only cite the lack of noise from the back seat as making the trip seem faster.

We checked into our hotel and finished out the evening pretty quietly. It had been a long day after all.

The plan was to go biking on Saturday as there is a pretty extensive bike trail in that area. However, when we got up it was cloudy and really looked like rain. So we put biking on hold. Instead, we went and explored the town. They have a lot of little stores and we perused several of them as we walked around the old down town area. One of my favorites was a store called Uff-Da's. Can you tell its a Norwegian center there?
One of the other things that we noticed as we walked around was that the churches in the town seem to be centered around about a 2 block area. There are a total of 4 Lutheran churches in this town. One is Wisconsin Synod but the other three are all ELCA. We discussed how that managed to happen for awhile, but then my confirmation teacher hat popped on my head and I realized something. The ELCA formed in 1987. So I'm guessing that these three churches represented the different Lutheran denominations that merged together to form the ELCA. Still, I wonder how a town of 14,000 people manages to maintain that many churches that close together.

After awhile we had lunch at a little cafe and toured a small museum focusing on the Red Wing pottery. That was interesting to see. At this point we were trying to decide what to do, and so we headed back to the hotel for a bit. The weather still wasn't looking overly promising for the bike ride, but as it turned out, we both konked out without even meaning to. We were sharing a pillow and everything.

We woke up about 4 in the afternoon and by this time the sun had come out, but we weren't in the mood for a bike ride at that point. Instead, we decided to go on a hike that we'd heard about. There is a big rock bluff along the river called Barn Bluff. So we buzzed around for a little bit until we managed to find the parking area and hiked on up the bluff. It provided a really great view of the town and the river. In fact we could look down and see the restaurant where we were planning on having supper.

After a few minutes, we hiked back down to the car and buzzed in to the restaurant. Before we walked in, we looked around and saw the bluff. It looked a lot closer from the ground than it did when looking down from on top. I guess distances can be deceiving at times.

After supper, we headed back to the hotel and had another low key evening. We thought about getting up early Sunday and going for our bike ride, but when we got up the weather was even less agreeable than it had been on Saturday. Cloudy and it looked like rain, plus it was really humid and hot.

We decided against the bike ride, which was funny considering that we'd hauled the bikes all the way up with us and then didn't use them. About 9:15 we headed out, thinking were were going to stop in Owatonna at Cabela's along the way. As it turned out, we ended up detouring up into the cities and went to the Mall of America for awhile. It ended up being a completely pointless side trip, but we enjoyed it anyway.

After awhile we finally did head for home, but with several more random stops along the way, we didn't get home until about 5 o'clock. It was a very enjoyable weekend.

wedding weekend

One of my closest friends from college, Karishma, is getting married this weekend in a four day Christian/Hindu wedding celebration. Tonight was the first night of the festivities: mehndi. Mehndi is the application of henna to the skin. It was a full night celebration complete with singing and dancing. Two henna artists from the twin cities drove to Mankato to put henna on close to twenty people. It was awesome!

it wasn't even close!

Let's just say the students held nothing back tonight as we wiped up the staff/faculty. Even with the staff recruitment of a few [traitor] students to their team, by the 7th inning, the staff were hurting for spirit and energy, and we took advantage of it! It was a beautiful night, lots of folks out eating hotdogs...YUM!

Time for a Deep Breath

Well, its done. Finished.

Another semester is in the books...at least unofficially. I'll breathe a touch easier when I get the email from the professor "officially" giving me the big P. P is key as several of my classmates like to say.

As I mentioned in my last posting, Friday night was my final presentation for Hebrew. By the time 5:30 rolled around, I was completely chomping at the bit to get it over with. But finally it was time to get going...just as my wife and kids walked back into the house with a pizza. Smelling that for the next few minutes was torture, I can tell you that much.

But at the same time I was pretty focused on the presentation at hand. I knocked that out, and I was pleased with how it went. I did end up chuckling to myself just a touch after the fact though. I had tons of notes laid out to use while making the presentation. I do this, I prep a lot of stuff to reference. Then when I'm faced with the presentation itself, I don't even look at my notes. I just flow with what I know.

Hey that rhymes...nice.

But as I wrapped up my final duty in Hebrew I had to smile...and walk upstairs to grab the remains of the pizza so I could chow down while listening to the other two presentations. Once the call was done...I took a deep breath...and then broke into a strange little song as I ran upstairs from the basement (where I did all the calls) and into the living room. I don't even remember exactly what I was saying in this song, but it was to the effect of no more Hebrew for me...I'm done with Hebrew.

Yes, my wife looked at me like I was crazy...but that's okay.

I celebrated the end of the semester by doing some manual labor. I spent most of Saturday hanging a couple new lights and painting. This time I was working in the stairwell into my basement, which meant that I had the ladder propped up and I was hanging out over an infinite oblivian...at least that's what it felt like. I finished that project yesterday morning. So my first weekend of freedom was spent working my tail off.

Such is life.

I've got the next two weeks off before starting up my summer class. I'm taking Jesus the Savior and the Triune God. Long title that I tend to shorten up to Systematics 2...or just Jesus. That tends to be the go-to name amongst my classmates. I'm excited for this class for a few reasons.

First is that it's a new class. Every new class brings a certain amount of excitement at the get-go. Second, I really enjoyed the first systematic theology course that we took and so I'm looking forward to this one as well. Third, this will be my first class with my advisor, so that will be a plus to interact with him. Finally, following completion of this class, I will officially have enough credits under my belt to be a middler. It's only taken two years to complete my "first year" of seminary.

Of course, I am half time, so I guess that make sense.

celebrations!

A weekend in Worthington was a much needed break to the hectic finale of my seminary career. Kevin and I went down for a four day weekend, and got to celebrate out 3 year anniversary while we were at it. Dairy Queen in Spirit Lake, IA helped make our 60 minute celebration/break from the family a memorable time!

Strong Women Part 6

After five weeks of conversation, e-mails, and responses, my 'strong women' series is coming to a close. Today is our final day of Gender Issues in Preaching. Our task for today is to talk about the different projects we've been working on. I'll be honest, I was hoping to get a whole TON of responses from women in ministry, but the truth is: people were busy! Deb said it well in our conversation, "there's always something to do!" Sooo true! I am deeply grateful to the two women who engaged me in conversation and through writing. Deb and Kae, thanks for taking a moment out of the craziness to reflect on who you are and what ministry means to you!

After spending six weeks discussing books and sharing stories in class, I was really surprised to hear and see the amount of hurt the women and man in our class have already suffered on internship, during teaching parish work, and in their current jobs. Most of us haven't even gotten out into ministry yet and we're already harboring these feelings of unfair distinction, embarrassment, shame, and fear. Karoline told us a story one day about a woman (we'll call her Jessica) who she met at a speaking gig. Jessica is a pastor who lives in a more remote area where all her colleagues were men. Jessica mentioned to Karoline how meaningful it was to hear her voice on sermon brainwave each week because it made her feel as though she wasn't alone in her isolated context. Jessica also told Karoline a story about often at her weekly text study with only men, how they say inappropriate things toward her, but because she's afraid of losing their friendship, she has never spoken up to tell them how hurtful their comments are to her. Karoline's presence in her context gave her the motivation and support to say that next time an odd remark was said, she would speak up. I tell this story because it made me see how important it is for both women and men to have colleagues who respect and support your ministry.

Based on what Deb and Kae said, it is evident that trying to go at ministry alone is a miserable task, and will ultimately make us want to give up. Role models, mentors, spiritual directors, same-gendered colleagues, and friends, are essential if we hope to stay healthy mentally and spiritually.

Here are a few of the books we read during our six week course:

The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God- Rebecca S. Chopp

Birthing the Sermon: Women Preachers on the Creative Process- Jana Childers

Saved From Silence-Finding Women's Voice in Preaching- Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson

*A Church of Her Own-What Happens when a Woman Takes the Pulpit- Sarah Sentilles

Birthing the Sermon is a collection of sermon writing and self-care techniques by women preachers. Barbara Brown Taylor contributes, and as always, is a fantastic read. The final book, A Church of Her Own, I would highly recommended. She is one hilarious writer!

Thanks to all the members of my class who opened their hearts and minds by sharing their stories, support, silliness, and skills. Best wishes to all of you as you go into ministry growing into the person God carefully crafted you to be!

The End of the Beginning??? I'm So Confused

Does that title tell you anything?

Yes!!!! This is the end. The last day of the semester...the last day of Hebrew...as I type this, I am now within 10 hours of being officially done with language study at Luther Seminary. 9 hours and 45 minutes if you want me to be exact.

Perhaps it's fitting that for the first time in about a week, the sky is clear and the sun is shining. What's that saying? "The sun even shines on a dog every once in awhile."

Side note---that quote is usually a little bit more colorful, but this is a kid's show after all.

Wednesday night I did the legwork getting my presentation ready for today. It took me a lot longer than I expected. But I'm glad I got it done because it allowed me the freedom to slack off last night. It was good TV night after all. Survivor (the last regular episode before Sunday night's season finale) Grey's Anatomy (the second to last episode of the season) and Private Practice (the only season finale of the bunch).

Through in a Dairy Queen run midway through the evening and it was a pretty good night...with the possible exception of under-ripe bananas in my Strawberry/banana Blizzard mixed with what might have actually been cherries instead of strawberries. It was an interesting flavor last night...but that's alright. I will forgive the girl that made it.

But, coming around full circle. 5:30 pm, I have my final Hebrew conference call. Three of us make our presentations tonight. Last Friday, I volunteered to go first this week. So I know when I'm going, right away. The presentations are supposed to be about 10-15 minutes (ish) so by 5:45 I'm done. Finished. Fineto (probably spelled that one wrong).

I'm actually glad to go first for one simple reason. My group has the final call and by having two people going after me tonight...it ensures that I'm not the last one to be finished. There are two people that have the opportunity to be jealous of me being in the "finished" group. They probably won't be...because they are both much more mature than I am. But hey, its a small victory.

You may be thinking that I won't officially be done until the grades are posted...well yes...this is true. However, I have a pretty good feeling that I have passed the class. I may not be ready to go translate the Dead Sea Scrolls just by looking at them, but I'm pretty sure I passed.

Actually, now that I think about it...aren't the Dead Sea Scrolls Greek?

That figures.

Last Concord

Did you miss the last Concord of the year? I hope not, but if so, here's the link to the online version. It was a blast working with the Concord staff this year to create some memorable and crazy issues! A huge thank you needs to go out to former Dean Patricia Lull who approved the proposal earlier this year, giving us a creative outlet for photos and art during the school year!

Strong Women Part 5

On our first day of class, Karoline asked all sixteen classmates in "Gender issues and Preaching" to write down the lines they have gotten in ministry. Lines that they heard and thought, "mmm...probably not the right thing to say." Some of them are humorous, some are hurtful. The point of this is to bring to light what kinds of things pastors hear (men and women). Have you heard stuff like this? Know you are not alone. Know it is ok to speak up if someone crosses the line.

“You gonna be one 'o them women pastors?”

"A single female? She must be gay."

“Did you need time to check your makeup before we go?”

“Got your lipstick?”

"Babe.”

“Tuck this into your tiny little brain....”

“Do you really think it's necessary to kiss your husband during the sharing of the peace?”

"Why are you wearing those shoes?"

“Don't do your nails at work.” (like I would!)

“I would hate for people to miss what you have to say because of the way you look.”

“You need to get some powder for your shiny forehead.”

"Can you dance like that (hip hop, Latin) if you are a pastor?"

"Oh, you look so young, I thought you were one of the youth group kids."

"Are you dating anyone? If not, we'll hook you up with someone."

“An ELCA member asked, “What do we call female clergy in the church? Are they called pastors too?”

“Bets on if the hair is up or down.”

"She's just being emotional right now. Maybe her time of the month."

“Can a pastor wear that?” (a tank top with 1" wide straps).

While wearing peeped toed shoes: "I've never seen a pastor’s toes before."

What a Difference a Day Makes

It's Wednesday of the last week of the semester. Perhaps I can call this the Middle of the Beginning of the End?

Maybe not.

The good news, Monday night I finished my final paper for Hebrew and emailed it off to my professor. So that's a done deal and it felt pretty good to have done.

The bad news is there is still a little bit left to accomplish before I can call this semester officially in the books. Friday afternoon I have a conference call and I need to do a short presentation based on my paper. It won't be overly drastic and I'm not super concerned about it, but I do need to do the prep work for it.

My original thought was that I was going to do it last night, but there's some background to this whole deal. Tuesday night's I have golf league through the summer. As the weather was pretty lousy yesterday, I was wondering whether or not I would actually play last night.

One of the other league members works with my wife, and he told her that it was called off yesterday afternoon. So I thought "great" and we decided that we were going to do a follow up run to Menard's and get some more stuff that we didn't pick up Saturday (aka the ceiling fans from my last posting).

I got home from work yesterday and thought to myself that I should probably confirm with the course. Turns out we still had league. The other guy was miss-informed. Now I was in scramble mode. I had called my brother (who was subbing for my partner) and let him off the hook and by this time he was otherwise engaged for the evening. So he was out. I did manage to get a friend of mine to come fill in, so it was all good.

I enjoyed playing golf, even if it was pretty chilly and I didn't play overly great...but hey...its golf. So I'm not going to complain.

The downside of it, by the time we got done and I got home, I was too worn out to do any homework. I thought to myself, "its only Tuesday, I've got till Friday on this thing."

Well now its Wednesday. My presentation is in two days. Suddenly I'm starting to feel the crunch. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I felt like I had plenty of time. Today I feel rushed.

Women in Ministry Part 4

I am finishing up my project in women in ministry, and received a written response from Kae Evensen, who is a pastor at Mercy Seat Lutheran Church, and also an Adjunct Preaching Professor at Luther Seminary (who knew!) Here's what Kae had to say about being a women in ministry:

"A few of my favorite things are theology, drinking bargain white zinfandel with Benedictine nuns, literature, blowing stuff up, weightlifting, circus life, animal training, twigs, punk rock, and worm farming.

I'm married to Martin Marty (who is as funny and charming as Jack Black, but without the celebrity baggage). Marty is the founder and co-director of COPE, the Hennepin County mental health crisis intervention program. I am the mother of two amazing and wonderful children, seventeen-year old Emily, a senior at Concordia Academy and twenty year old Jimmy, a junior at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. I am also the legal guardian of three dogs, one cat and four fish.

And what does it mean to me to be a woman who is a leader in the church?

I've thought about this a lot because I've gotten critiqued on it a lot. Mostly because I'm not like a man, and because I'm not into business models of leadership (though I'm not against those per se, it's just not my primary model for leadership). Still, I never could exactly pin point what was 'wrong' and so of course, like most women, I thought something was wrong with me.

After being ordained for almost 10 years I thought about leaving ordained ministry altogether because I just grew tired of feeling like I had to fit in this box, which for a couple thousand of years, if not longer, has been framed and constructed by men. Then I happened across an ad in Christian Century about 8 years ago to study with a group of Benedictine nuns in Indiana through a Lilly grant. It was all about women in leadership. I applied to the program and got in. It was a six-year program, long, intensive, and hard and a huge investment on everyone's part.

But what I discovered about myself and leadership was wildly simple, deeply intuitive, and finally comforting. I learned after all the studying and tests and time with other women that being in leadership for me was grounded in such simple Christian practices as prayer, bible study, hospitality, offering thanks to those who encouraged and gifted me. That in a way, it wasn't about me at all, and the fact is, I would get critiqued, sometimes harshly and unfairly. But knowing who I was as a child of God, leaning into the promises given to me in my baptism, allowed me to let the critiques run off. I realized often it was 'their' issues and misguided expectations, and I didn't have to let 'their stuff' affect me. Sometimes it still does, and I need a day or two to breathe, but ultimately, I learned from all the studying and reflection on different styles of leadership that I wanted to go back to to the basics, not only because that is being true to who I am, but also because it models for others what Christian leadership can be. Prayer and time for personal bible study might not be as fancy or flashy as following the latest trends; it is not about power or current management styles, it is ultimately deeply sacramental: God chooses to use the ordinary stuff of life -be it wine or word or even people (like me!) - to proclaim God's promises to the world. And that is enough. I don't have to BE more, though I can always learn more.

Now, for me, leadership in ministry is about being human, and not just human, being a female human. It is about the most basic and lovely of Christian practices. In the gospel of John, Christ first revealed who he was to the woman at the well, and it was the women who discovered the empty tomb. We, as women, may not make the who's who of the disciple list, most often we go unnamed, but Christ knows and his Spirit works through us. And great things happen, even if we don't get lots of packs on the back; even if we don't see the fruits of our labor manifest. Yet."

'God chooses us to use the ordinary stuff, even people!' Well said, Kae! Men and women in ministry get to do this awesome work and we are chosen because WE ARE WHO WE ARE! God definitely chooses us for ministry knowing tht we have a lot to learn, and knowing the Spirit is going to be working on us as our brains and bodies change. God didn't choose us for this work because God has unrealistic goals for us. God wants the very best for us, and stops at nothing to make sure we don't give up on ourselves when God is at work. As I read Kae's story about her program with the Benedictine Nuns, first of all, I was stunned by the commitment and length Kae went to to discern. Second, I have heard of a few people who gave up on ministry without giving God a chance to speak into their decision. Taking time to pray, listen, read, and read the Bible often get set aside for our own agenda. Losing a person like Kae in ministry would be a huge loss, so I give thanks today for the ad she saw and for her commitment to listening to God in her life. I'm thankful the criticism never out-powered the promises of baptism. Blessings on you Kae as you continue to grow into the awesome woman God created you to be!

The Beginning of the End

We're finally here...the last week of the semester. This makes me ecstatic as well as feeling dread all at the same time. Ecstatic from the stand point that in a few short days I will be done for the semester...which is super this time around as I will officially be done with Language studies for my seminary education..Greek is done and I'm wrapping up Hebrew.

I feel dread because I know that I need to knock out my final project/paper/presentation through this week. I've made some headway on it, but at the moment not a ton. My final translation is now completed. I've got a pretty good idea about what I'm going to write for the paper and I've got a pretty good idea on my focus for the presentation, which will be Friday afternoon at 5:30...which at the time I write this is 104.5 hours...and counting.

It'll all get done...to be honest, I'm making a bigger deal of it than it really will be, but I do still need to do the legwork.

In terms of the final presentations, the class is divided. Some did their presentations during their group conference calls last week, some do them this week. I got jealous last week see different people posting on facebook that they are done. But then, I did a lot of slacking last week while they were slaving away getting their stuff done...so I guess I shouldn't complain too loud.

Last Friday I sat in on my normal conference call and listened to the first two presentations. I admit that it gave me a pretty good idea at how I wanted to approach mine, and I had high hopes of working on the whole "final project" over the course of the weekend. But once my call was done and I walked down the street to the in-law's house for supper, I got lazy. Friday night...no homework.

Saturday afternoon we had a birthday party for my niece, and then we headed off to Menards and bought some stuff for home improvement projects. On the to-do list: remove old ceiling fans and install new ones (4 of them), repair hole in the dry wall cause by me getting testy and smacking the wall a little too hard, get new bedroom door to replace the one that had a crack when we moved in, paint the steps and walls leading into the basement.

We didn't get everything that we needed for this list, but we got enough stuff to make a pretty good dent in it. Mainly the ceiling fans though. Once we got home, I went right to work on the one in the living room as the kids would be going to bed and since I would need to rely on natural light for the installation, I thought that a big open window facing west would provide the best conditions as the sun was rapidly sinking.

2 hours later, I had the ceiling fan installed and functioning...it was fully dark outside by that time and some flashlight action was required during the process. It turned out pretty nice.

One thing I noticed was how lazy the my cat is...she actually sacked out in front of the tv...just look at this.

Apparently I was bugging her with my work.

But with all that, I didn't get any homework done on Saturday.

Yesterday morning we headed off to church. After that I got the 2nd fan done and then we headed off for a really fancy Mother's Day lunch buffet. Expensive, but really good. After that everyone took naps, which was wonderful, and then I tackled the last two fans. Wrapped that up about 6:30 last night.

After the kids went to bed, I knew that I couldn't put it off any longer, so I sat down at the table and went to work on the final project. Made some headway...but there's still more to do. Hopefully over the course of the next couple days I can get it wrapped up.

Hopefully.

barbie gets married

I finally (after 4 years on a Gateway) made the upgrade and got a macbook pro. What a difference. A huge learning curve, for sure, but imovie makes it all worth it. Here's my latest creation:

hipsta seminarians

Last night some friends and I took some these photos over at the Tho's place here on campus. Mirjam and Bjornar Tho are from Norway and are here for a year to study. Mirjam is at the UofM taking classes in design and Bjornar is here at Luther Seminary. These shirts were the final project from Mirjam's class this semester so we decided she needed some hipsta seminarians to model for her.
+++

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from curatingthejourney.org

Spring Concerts

Spring concerts...a phenomenon that I need to get used to.

Last night was my son's kindergarten concert. The whole class, or perhaps I should say grade, consisting of over 90 kids, all on stage for about half an hour singing songs.

Their theme was being healthy and WOW were they ever excited to be up there. Every single one of them was bouncy and all grins.
In addition to singing the songs, each kid also had a line of dialogue to say. I didn't realize that every kid had one, so after about the third song, I was surprised to see my son come bouncing down to stand in line and wait for his line.
He kicked a little bit of dialogue tail too...if I do say so myself.

He's turning into more of a chip off the old block every day.

Scary huh?

Strong Women Part 3

Thanks so my conversation with Deb last week, I realized the importance of my addictions class and our topic for this week about sex addictions. Mind you, a 3 hour class was NOT NEARLY enough time for this serious issue, but I didn't write the syllabus. For those of you who will not have the chance to take addictions class this year, here’s what we learned today about sex addictions:

30% of sex addicts in treatment are women, 70% are men

Usually it’s while in treatment for another addiction (alcoholism, drugs, depression) that women realize they have a sex addiction.

In order for women to really focus on their issues, they need to be in a group with other women, and vice versa.

Sex and love are highly addictive! “Love addict/romance addict” sounds nicer than “sex addict,” but ultimately the dynamics are the same. Pornography, going from man to man, affair to affair, masturbation are all forms of sexual addictions. It should really be called a intimacy disorder, but we got stuck with the term “sex addict.” The behavior is usually the tip of the iceberg for other problems. Many sex addicts are untreated sexual trauma survivors. 1 out of 3 females, 1 out of 5 males will be sexually abused by 18 years old.

When you go to look for information about sexual addictions, you can’t get away from pop-ups on the side of the screen, porn on YouTube. How can someone get help when they can’t get away from it?

When a person enters treatment:

1. 60-90 days without sex

2. Talk therapy—let people talk about the addiction (often the stories of victimizations come out from their childhood). The addict gets to talk from the perspective of the victim.

3. Reconsider the role of victim now that they are an adult through the lenses of morality and ethics. Now, you are not allowed to be a victim. Oftentimes this is permission giving.

Dr. Patrick Carnes, director of Gentle Path in Mississippi. In the Shadow of the Net (Internet).

2/3 of kids watch pornography while doing homework.

Definition of an affair: Giving to anyone else what belongs to my spouse or partner.

www.sexhelp.com

Strong Women Part 2

As promised, here is the first of (hopefully) four posts reflecting on phone conversations and e-mails from women in ministry in the Twin Cities. Let me introduce first, Pastor Deb Stehlin, of Light of the World in Farmington, MN. Her name was given to me by one of the women in my class, so after shooting her an e-mail, she wrote back and said she would NOT participate through e-mail, but would be glad to participate in person or on the phone. Well, sadly, Farmington is a long ways away...so we settled for a phone conversation.

Monday morning I had written myself a note: "Call Deb at 11:00!" But I cannot deny the fact that I am a routine person, and unless I glue a post-it to my forehead, anything outside my normal routine often gets forgotten. 12:30 rolls around and it hits me, "I FORGOT TO CALL DEB!" So, without any prep to our conversation, I called her up and began with an apology:

Me: "Hi Deb, this is Amber Marten from Luther Seminary. I'm so sorry I am just now calling, I completely forgot to call you at 11:00."

Deb: "No problem Amber, I found a few things to do in the meantime."

Me: Huge sigh of relief, and a prayer of thankfulness that this conversation would likely be insightful and enjoyable, and that she had a sense of humor!

At 12:30, I knew nothing about Deb. Kevin said he had met her a few times, but couldn't contribute much supporting information, so I went into this conversation with a blindfold on. I was amazed to see how a 15 minute conversation could move me from complete darkness about a person to a place of bright lights and admiration. Here are the basics you should know about Deb:

1. She’s 4'10", and packs a serious punch!

2. She comes from a corporate background.

3. She first went to church when a woman who lived across the street invited her to go.

4. She served her first call for 6 years with some awesome (sounding) women colleagues.

5. Now, she's a mission developer at LOTW in Farmington.

Ok, now that you know the basics, the point of these conversations is to find out how to be successful, strong, beautiful, and have impact in ministry without taking on male characteristics (along with a bunch of other wanderings). Here’s what Deb had to say:

Deb was fortunate enough to have a number of female role models and mentors in both her corporate job, and now in ministry. Along the way, she has been able to watch other females in ministry, and that has helped shape her into the pastor she is today. Fortunately for Deb, she's had great settings where she was surrounded with other female colleagues.

Of course, no ministry would be complete without some hiccups along the way. For most women back from internship, and within months of first calls we have a list a mile long of all the inappropriate things people have said to us about our hair, clothes, mannerisms, make-up (I could go on). Deb was no exception. She too has heard her list if crude things in her ministry, so how does she handle it?

Deb said, “Sometimes I have to be direct and say, "I find that comment to be inappropriate." Oftentimes, they [parishioners] look at you with such surprise. They think you are just joking and say, "I didn't mean anything by it."”

This fall, in our senior preaching class, we had a panel of pastors come and speak to our class, and I was really disturbed to hear the women pastors say they just shrug these kinds of comments off. I get that you shouldn’t reward a bad behavior with attention, but at what point do you have to say to someone, “Stop telling me what I should wear! And stop telling me how my children should behave!” Do men get these kinds of comments too?

My final question for Deb was, “What’s something you wished you had learned in seminary that was skipped?” Her reply: “I never learned in seminary what to do when a man seeks pastoral care for infidelity or sex addiction. I've had to think and pray on my feet really quickly when those surprises pop up.” Most commonly, Deb has a hard time ministering to the men who come with their sex addictions. Deb said she has three times as many sexual addicts than she does alcoholics. I couldn’t believe it! We’ve spent 11 of the 12 weeks in Addictions class talking about alcoholism, and the 12^th week gets split between eating disorders and sex addictions. Maybe there needs to be some restructuring there! Anyway, when I mentioned this statistic to my class, my instructor said that almost always, females should refer males to someone else, and vice versa. There ya go Deb, off the hook! j/k

Deb and I both agreed at the end of our conversation that much of her leadership qualities came from the role models she was blessed to have in her life. When you have other strong females to look up to, who have a powerful identity, you can feed off of their identity and help form your own rather than coming up with it all from scratch! She stressed how women (and men) need to be surrounded by others who can mentor us throughout life. So, what do you do when you grow up LCMS, or in a church where they’ll probably never call a female pastor? Find another woman. Find someone like Deb as a corporate diva, find an awesome teacher, talk to your mother.

A HUGE thank you to Deb Stehlin for your time and wisdom!

Martin Sexton at Fizgerald

He's baaaaack!

3 years ago, Martin Sexton was in the twin cities, Kevin coaxed me into going on a 'non-date' with him, and the show was amazing!!!! Now we're engaged. Amazing how things change. 3 years ago Kevin signed up for Martin's street team, got free tickets, and we got to meet him and get our photo taken.

Well, Martin came back and rocked the Fitzgerald Theater on April 25 for another amazing show. Kevin worked the street team again, but sadly, we didn't get to see him again. Sad. He has quite an eclectic following. Mostly people in their early 30's-late 50's. During one of his songs a group of about 8 men and women started dancing in the aisles of the theater. After they stood there for two more songs, an usher walked up and asked them to move. People started clapping. Heaven forbid they get up out of their seats and watch the show. That at least gives you an idea of the vibe of this show. Sitting, a little clapping, some singing along, but most of all, ENJOYING! Search for him on youtube and enjoy the awesomeness that Martin is for yourself!

Explaining Catholic Mass To A 6-Year Old

One thing that I've learned over the past couple of years that I've been in the journey of seminary is to appriciate the traditions of other denominations. They may not line up with ours, but there is still merit within the traditions that help others to worship the Lord.

My sister is Catholic, and therefore her three daughters are also being raised Catholic. Yesterday was her middle daughter's 1st Communion. As my sister lives in Decorah, IA and I live in Okoboji, this meant a road trip. So Saturday morning we loaded up the car for an over-nighter and headed east. Its about 3.5 hours worth of driving to get there. Not bad for adults, but that can get a little on the long side with a couple kids under 6. We made it though, so I guess that's all good.

Yesterday morning we headed to the church (along with a whole bunch of other family members as well). I always get a bit of a charge out of attending Mass. Its not quite the same, though we have a lot of the same things. Its always easy to pick out the Protestants in the crowd. Their the ones not kneeling.

My son was sitting on my lap and he got a kick out of the kneeler. I was trying to explain what it was for, at least until we hit the first occurance of kneeling. My aunt and uncle (also Catholic) were sitting next to us so they busted out the kneeler. Then the lady (that we didn't know) sitting behind us tried to get my son to kneel. He just looked at her. Which I thought was a little humorous.

A little bit later, the priest came by with the little thing that sprinkles the congregation with Holy Water. I'll admit to not knowing what that little thing is called, but I had to explain it to both kids.

Once we got to the portion of the service where they served communion, I had to explain to my son why we didn't go up for communion. "How come we didn't go Dad?" I did my best to explain why Catholics have a closed communion table. Not sure if I really got the point across to him or not though.

The thing that gave me the biggest charge was to see the curiosity from both kids. They saw things that were unfamiliar to them, which tells me that they've been paying more attention in church than I realize.

I call that Good Chicken.

paschal retreat

today our worship class gathered in Scandia, MN for a Paschal Retreat where we created three versions of the Lutheran liturgy of the Three Days Feast: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil (Saturday).

In between, we had sometime for silence and reflection so I snapped a few iPhone photos of what caught my attending as I communed with the beautiful countryside.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from curatingthejourney.org