Kids@Luther

My husband and I have found a way to have my son dropped off from his high school bus to a stop near Luther. He just travels up the hill and hangs out waiting for me to finish work (or class if I have a late class).

I am thinking of changing this arrangement.

Not because he's not welcome. Really, it's quite the opposite. While I'm sitting at work, my son is wandering around campus. During these wanderings, he has slipped right into life on campus. He hangs out in the cafeteria, chatting with cashiers and friends of mine. He wanders back to Northwestern where I work. Sometimes he comes back to my office to "do homework" (which really means creating art on the community white board where my bosses ooh and ahh over his art) or going to another office where there is a candy jar. My son has spent time talking with a great professor about Minnesota Gopher football, cooking with the family of another awesome professor, getting playful choke holds from an office manager, talking cartoons with department heads.

Needless to say, I'm jealous.

When my son was in elementary school, I was always known as "Patrick's mom." That was my official name. As he grew older, children learned each other's names and I was at least, "Mrs. Lathrop." So far, on campus, at least I've kept my own identity and Patrick has been, "Jenni's son." I think that may have changed last week...and with someone my son has never met.

So, I'm sitting in class the other day and we're having a precept discussion. I used an analogy using an event between my son and myself. The professor seemed to like my analogy and asked my son's name. "Patrick," I reply, sure that my argument was interesting and the professor would defer to me for more amazing analogies in the future. My professor smiled. Then something dawns on me. My professor may not in fact remember me as anything but, "Patrick's mom." Why? Because that's his own name.

Full circle. I think I'm going to keep that kid off campus.

You'd think I'd be used to this by now

So I've been pretty quiet for the last week. There's been quite a bit going on. Homework was a struggle this week, particularly my prophets class. Admittedly, that had my attention through the week, which explains part of my absence. But I've had some other stuff going on as well. Some of which I can talk about and some of which I need to keep mum about for the time being.

My aunt has been fighting colon cancer for awhile now. Its been a very up and down battle for her, but in the end, it seems like she's not going to win the fight. I got a call late last week that she was entering into hospice care. A day or so later I got a followup call saying that it might only be a few days to a week. Needless to say that threw me for a little bit of a loop. Then about another day later I got another call saying that their initial prognosis had been a little skewed, and the more realistic notion is that she's got up to 6 months. Better, but still not great.

I've been thinking a lot about it this week, and actually even talked to my partner pastor about it today. He discussed the fact that sometimes the line between our pastoral role and our personal life gets pretty skewed, this being one of those times. How do I offer care to my family when I am also grieving? Should I? Should I even be considering it?

Crazy stuff...messes with my head.

As I mentioned, there is some other stuff going on that I'm not quite ready to talk about yet, but it's weighing on me as well.

Seriously Lord...can the rest of the week just go nice and smooth?

Completely Official...Sort Of

I've been working at the church for a few weeks now, but Sunday morning the congregation had a commissioning service for me. It was a short portion of the worship service, but it was still very meaningful for me.

The reason that my pastor and I decided that this would be a good idea is to make the change in my duties at church more visible for the congregation. Most of them are used to my role as a contextual student, but the change to being a staff member does constitute something new for me. We both agreed that having a commissioning service would be a good way to highlight this milestone. We discussed it today, and I reported that it felt like a mini-ordination. I'm certainly not finished with school yet...and I'm not ordained yet...but this is one step closer.

Things Get Done Don't They

My how a busy week can fly by.

Going into this week, I was unbelievably apprehensive about the amount of stuff that I needed to get done both at church as well as for class. Had you asked me the last time I posted on Monday if I thought I would get it all done I probably would have either laughed, or perhaps scowled at you.

But now I find myself sitting here on the couch, Saturday afternoon and somehow its all gotten done. My confirmation preparation got done in time for class on Wednesday. I got all my reading done for both classes. I got my postings done as well. God managed to line up the topic that I was preaching on with a very similar subject in my Lutheran Confessions class, which really helped spark the writing process for the sermon. I went on several visitations this week and manged to get a report written up for CPE. I sit here now, amazed that everything got finished.

Now, as I sit here, I must report that I am alone. My wife's nephew has a birthday party happening today...actually right now as I am writing this. However, as I am preaching for worship in a few hours, and the party is several hours away from home, I stayed home. I talked with a buddy of mine, and we lined it up to play some golf this morning. We always try to play together at least once a year, and as it is now late September, we were running out of time.
Mother nature didn't want to cooperate though, so we found ourselves with 48 degree temps and very windy conditions. That being the case, I thought it only fitting that I pull out one of my favorite accessories. I thought you might all appreciate it.

Random Interaction

So yesterday I was on my home from CPE. It was our first real foray into the classwork for CPE (though the second time I had been there, the first being orientation). One of the things that we discussed in our group time was a feeling of being overwhelmed at the beginning of the week. All of us in the group are, of course, in a ministry situation and there is a strong fear that we won't get things finished when we enter into a new week.

Sound familiar?

Well, as I was on the way home, I was pondering on this very fact. I was about half way home, and actually talking to my wife on the phone. As I drove through a town, I happened to notice a rather large truck pulling out of a parking lot in front of me. The thought crossed my mind, "Is that my brother?" but I didn't think too much of it at the time, mainly as I was trying to focus on the conversation that I was having with my wife.

Said conversation wrapped up about 30 seconds later and I was still following the large truck. I looked at it again and once again though to myself "That really could be his truck." He lives in the next town over from where I was, so it was not unexpected that he might be there. However, as I followed the truck, I noticed that there were two people in it as I could see the shadows of their heads over the seats. This made me think that it was not my brother, as his wife would be at work during this time of day, it being about 3:15 at the time.

However, after following the truck for another couple of minutes, I realized that it was in fact him, and I called him up. Turns out he had recognized me in the mirror about the same time and was trying to call me as well. We jabbered for a couple of minutes and he told me to swing into his place if I didn't have to get anywhere right away, so I did.

We ended up spending about an hour just relaxing in his porch jabbering. We didn't really talk about anything overly important, but mostly just spent time enjoying each others company. I left his house feeling a lot less anxious about coming into a really busy week. There is still a lot of stuff that I need to get done, but this little random interaction and subsequent visit helped me remember that at times, we've just got to slow down and remember that ministry happens in the interruptions.

Sensing a Trend

I'm starting to sense a trend.

I've been working at the church for two weeks now and today was our first Sunday back in our normal (aka non summer) schedule. Because of this switch, there were quite a few people back at worship today that have been absent for awhile due to attending our drive in worship.

That being said, I assisted in leading worship again this morning at both services including providing a children's sermon. After both worship services were over, or I should say after each worship service, I had couples come up to me and ask a question.

"So are you an intern now?"

The first time, I didn't think about it much...but after the second time it occurred to me that this might be the beginning of something that I might hear quite a bit over the next couple of months. Maybe I'll keep a tally.

Current number-2.

Week 1

Where has this week gone?
Seriously, sometimes I'm amazed at how quickly time passes. I'm sitting here at the end of Week 1 of the semester. I'm on the verge of being done for the week at this point. Literally, the only things that I still need to do is a short reflective email to my Prophets professor. However, I'm waiting on one more responsive posting from a group member before I can do that. His response is due by midnight tonight, and the email is due by tomorrow. I was hoping to have it all wrapped up today, but alas...it was not meant to be.

If you had asked me at the beginning of the week how I felt about week 1, I would have come across as negative. I can admit that. It seemed like the reading assignment for the week was way bigger than most "first weeks" tend to be and it felt like there was a lot of information to sort through. In retrospect, it really wasn't that extreme, but the first week of the semester, especially fall semester (after a couple months off) feels daunting.

Here's the deal though. Week 1 is actually somewhat low key. Week 2 ramps it up and tends to be a little bit tougher. Weeks 3 and 4 get a little more manageable because we are able to start forming a routine. But all that being said...long story short...here we are at the end of the first week already.

I heard several different DL students this week...and by "heard" I mean I saw their postings on facebook...say Seminary day 1 year (insert proper year here). I can't believe this is my 3rd year already. I don't know where the last two years have gone...they flew by just as fast as this week. Crazy stuff.

Maybe graduation isn't that far off?

New Beginnings

My last posting involved the first day of CPE. Since then I've had a couple more "firsts" and just haven't had a chance to write about them till now.

Last Wednesday was my first day of work at the church as Lay minister. To recap, I'm working at the church to fill an absence in pastoral staff in an interim situation while the church searches for a new associate pastor in the call process. I'm half time there, which also fills out the clinical portion of CPE for me.

Its really exciting to be there. I spent Wednesday working in the main office of the church, but our Leadership Director (also half-time) commented that he very rarely uses his office and he volunteered to give me his space. So as of Thursday, I have an office. That's another first. I've had a desk before, but to actually have an office is a new situation.

I assisted in worship on Sunday, though certainly not the first time, I was I was introduced in my new position by the pastor. That and my name was listed in the bulletin as staff. All in all, pretty exciting.

In other news of new beginnings, the new semester starts tomorrow. At least it technically starts tomorrow, but as per usual, I tend to dive in a day ahead of time. So here we go again. Its time to start wading through the first couple of weeks, establishing the weekly routine. Every semester is different with different classes and different deadlines, and as DL students, we need to figure out how everything is going to fit into the schedule.

Speaking of my fellow DL students, my class is getting far enough into the program that people are going on some slightly different pathways. Everyone is still taking the same core classes, but people are getting in some different classes as well.

My semester looks to be loaded pretty heavily when I view academics on Luthernet, but in actuality its not that drastic. I'm taking the following:

CPE-Extended Unit
Contextual Education-Fall Semester
Lutheran Confessional Writings
Prophets

I took a look at this week's reading assignment, and was actually surprised at the amount of reading to do for week 1. Usually, reading is a little on the light side, but we've got a pretty decent amount that needs to get done. I guess I better get to it.

Seminary This Fall

I know there's a small group of folks who follow this blog who are invested in me and my seminary studies. As of this fall I'll only be taking courses that contribute towards my concentration and thesis areas. That's a relief for me because it means I'll be more focused! Some people who read this blog have also been known to comment when I've bit off more than I can chew so here's what the semester ahead looks like:
Developing a Writing Project  (Prof. Alvin Luedke) // this course is pretty much a research methods course geared towards masters level students planning on writing a thesis in the following spring.
Gospel & Culture (Prof. Gary Simpson & Prof. Marry Hess) // this one is actually a doctoral seminar; this course looks at confessing the Gospel in Word & deed in light of contemporary culture...with an emphasis on digital cultures and the public arena.
Worship & Politics (Prof. Chris Scharen) // this ethics seminar focuses on how worship might confront political systems, injustice, etc.
Independent Study: Theology & the Social Sciences (Prof. Chris Scharen) // a guided reading on anthropology, sociology and critical theory in conversation with theology

Rosedale Rainbow

Vivid color streaks across grey skies rolling away from St. Paul this evening.

Sent from my thumb-operated device...

Posted via email from curatingthejourney.org