Today's Sermon - The First at Saint Middle School

Luke 16:1-13 Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' 3 Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' 5 So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' 7 Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. 10 "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

“Clean Up Your Mess”



First things first: a parable is not a fable.

You remember what a fable is, right? If you read any of Aesop’s Fables as a child, you know that a fable is a little story that teaches you the right way to behave. Whether it’s the story of the tortoise and the hare, or sour grapes, the one thing that’s always true with a fable is that you know exactly what the moral of the story is…and if you don’t, the writer always states the moral of the story at the end.

Not so with parables. Jesus is telling us a story to make a point – just like a fable – but often the moral is not exactly obvious. Sometimes we have to think hard to get Jesus’ point. So it is with this parable. It raises a lot more questions than it answers.

Why do you think Jesus would do this? Is He deliberately being vague and confusing? Or perhaps He wants us to think very hard about what is being said, to struggle to understand, so that once we figure it out for ourselves, we really own that hard-won bit of knowledge. Some parables feel like the whack of a 2x4 on the side of the head.

And so it may be for this parable, that of the dishonest servant.

What’s happening in the story? Let’s put it in modern-day terms. The Chief Operating Officer of the company hasn’t been managing the company too well, spending the company’s resources on the wrong things, not paying attention to the Accounts Receivable. You know the sort of things I’m talking about. The Chairman of the Board gets wind of the mismanagement and calls the COO in. “I’ve been hearing disturbing things about the way you’ve been running things. I’m going to call the auditors in, and if things are as bad as I hear, you’re fired.”

You can picture Donald Trump in the role of the Chairman of the Board, can’t you?

So the COO, in a tizzy, says to himself, “I’m in a world of trouble here. If the Chairman fires me, I can’t get another job. How could I show my face at the club if I took a lesser paying job?”

He gets an idea: he calls up the company’s debtors and cuts them a deal: he’ll discount what they owe if they keep him in mind and take care of him if things go south.

By the way, the phrase “cutting a deal” has ancient Biblical roots: the Hebrew phrase “kerath berith” means to make a contract, specifically, to cut a covenant. So cutting a deal is not just something we know from “The Apprentice.” It was well-known in Jesus’ day.

So he cuts these deals with the debtors, hoping that they’ll think kindly of him, that they’ll give him a soft landing, if the boss fires him. He thinks he’s cleaned up his mess.

Jesus tells the story, and then seemingly praises the COO for his shrewdness.

This is the point in the story where I start scratching my head. Is Jesus saying that cheating the boss for our own benefit is a good thing? That doesn’t sound like the Jesus I think I know. What is this about? It’s a 2x4 moment.

I go back to my original statement. This is a parable. A parable is not a fable. The moral isn’t quite so obvious. Let’s look at the larger picture of this parable, and see if we can figure out what’s going on here.

If we remember last week’s gospel, we heard two stories of lost and found. They were pretty straightforward, and Pastor Jeunee’s message – “Don’t get lost” talked about the ways that it’s easy for us to get lost, and how important it is for us to keep together with Christ if we want to be alright. These were also stories that talked about what is really valuable. That’s a hint.

So, too, in our gospel passage, Jesus’ explanation of the parable gives us a hint that the stories are related. It’s about what’s really valuable, and how we are to treat it.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

Jesus is reminding us of what is important when he talks about the true riches, the riches of heaven, the riches of being a faithful follower of Christ. He is reminding us of the importance of caring for what we have been given. In that age, and in our own, people tend to get overly focused on “the stuff”, whether it’s the right kind of car, or the right brand of jeans, or the number of bedrooms in our houses. We become so focused on the stuff of this world that we are distracted from the truly valuable: loving and caring for one another, even the least among us, being honorable in our dealings, working hard.

It’s easy to get distracted, so we get this 2x4 to get our attention. We get a story that seems the antithesis of what Jesus has taught us. But it isn’t really. In the end, Jesus explains it to us, in simple words that we all can understand: "No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." But there are lessons to be learned from the world. How do we apply them to what is truly valuable?

We have a choice. We can cut a deal to cover ourselves for the bad times in this world. We can make sure we have a soft landing by cheating the boss. We can clean up our worldly messes in ways that are worldly ways. That’s certainly the smart thing to do when we measure ourselves in terms of success in the world isn’t it? How about another option: can we cut a deal that is a deal which recognizes the truly valuable? Can we clean up our messes in ways that Jesus would appreciate? Maybe it means that we can forgive those who have treated us badly. Maybe it means we can reach out a hand of fellowship to those with whom we have had a disagreement. Maybe it means we can offer help to those who need it, without expecting a sweetheart deal in return.

When I starting preaching this morning, I told you that first things first, a parable is not a fable. Now it’s time for last things last. Last things, last, parables are prisms, they aren’t a flat piece of glass. They may have more than one meaning, depending on your angle of view. I’ve laid out what this parable means to me, how I’ve tried to figure out what Jesus is saying to me through it. But parables are able to speak in many ways to us. We see what Jesus is saying to us as we need to hear it, mediated by that prism of grace. So I’m encouraging you to take this scripture passage home, put it under your pillow, think about it, pray about it. Let the light of God’s grace shine through that prism, illuminate those words for you. Hear what the Lord is saying to you, so you can learn all you really need to know from Jesus.

Amen.

Prayers, Please

For the repose of the soul of Angel, the 15 year old AIDS patient with whom I developed a close friendship while doing CPE this summer. She died a few days ago. She was one of the bravest and brightest young women I've ever known, and was an extraordinary teacher to me. I was grateful to be able to be a safe person for her to talk to, and some comfort to her family.

Her favorite musician was Michael Jackson (!) and her favorite colors were pink and purple. She loved having "spa days" and getting manicures and pedicures. She wanted to be a journalist, and had a pile of personal journals that she had filled with her thoughts by her bed. Even when she was too sick for conversation, she always asked for a prayer, and the thing she always asked for was not healing, but to not be bored.

When I saw her last at the end of CPE, she was about 85 pounds and quite ill, but was hopeful she could go home and be home-schooled for her sophomore year of high school. Her chart made it clear to me what was ahead, but my prayer for her was that she might go home, at least for a little while. It didn't happen. She has gone to another home, a better one, and I am glad for her, even as I weep for her.

To the gates of Paradise
Lead your child home.

To your mercy seat
Lead your child home.

To the kingdom of heaven
Lead your child home.

To your true sanctuary
Lead your child home.

To the multitude of the blessed
Lead your child home.

To the fount of life
Lead your child home.

To the gates of pearl
Lead your child home.

To the ladder of angels
Lead your child home.

To the land of milk and honey
Lead your child home.

To the clouds of glory
Lead your child home.

To the refreshing stream
Lead your child home.

To the reward of the righteous
Lead your child home.

To the dwelling place of God
Lead your child home.

Amen.

Too Much To Do

...and I've got a bad back. In the interest of getting some healthful exercise, I went to yoga class. I forgot that I hadn't done yoga in almost two years, and did too much. So I woke up this morning in utter misery, for a day that stretched from chapel at 8 am to a vestry meeting at 7 pm. I am on the couch with a hot pad on my back, about to take a muscle relaxer.

There's a hundred pages of Pastoral Theology to read for tomorrow afternoon's class, I've got a paper for Church History to complete by Monday noon, and a proposal for a Systematics paper due shortly thereafter. Heaven help us.

Time to take some meds. BBL.

Saturday Random Dots

• Saturday is full of dots - the bullet points on my to-do list.

• I did go to the Farmer's Market this morning with PH (he didn't ride a gazillion miles on his bicycle for change) and get the last sweet corn of the season, the last peaches of the season, the first apples of the season, the first winter squash of the season, and fresh-made mozzarella. Buying local feels good and tastes good.

• Of course, we had the corn for dinner this evening with shrimp that probably came from Vietnam. So much for buying local.

• Icon-writing today was fun. Saint Matthew is almost done, maybe one or two more sessions and he'll be done. An angel is next in the queue (an eventual present for my Field Ed church). we did some work on finishing an icon of Saint Gabriel that was started by a dear friend who died recently, much too soon, of pancreatic cancer. We are not finishing the face and hands, which were a few layers short of completion, so the personality of the angel is what came from my friend's hands. I did the lettering of the name of the angel, another friend did the gold overlay on the wings and the robe, and our teacher corrected our mistakes. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. We've got to do the halo and the border, then the teacher will varnish it and we can give it to the family of our friend. The teacher was very chatty, for some reason, which was delightful, except going from Russian to English doesn't always make for the most coherent sentences, and we have to work hard to understand each other.

• I prepped for the senior high Sunday school at Saint Middle School for tomorrow. Nervous, because the kids are really a mixed bag, but I like the curriculum (Holy Hogwash - what people think the Bible says vs what it REALLY says) and we'll be talking about whether Christians are allowed to be angry.

• One more week until I preach. PH is preaching tomorrow at another church, but I don't get to hear him, because of Field Ed. The following week I preach, and he will come. Yay! I need his support and wise critique.

• Not enough time to do all the reading for Monday's classes. Again, plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. I'll get enough read so I don't embarrass myself unduly.

• Antiwar demonstration and liturgy across from the White House tomorrow evening. A few of us from the seminary are going there tomorrow for it. Almost forty years ago, I did the same sort of thing when the Vietnam War was at its height. Sad that we have to do it again.

• Assorted little paperwork chores. Gack. Middler evaluations, field ed work-learning agreement, stuff and more stuff. Bad enough to have papers coming at me quickly, without this kind of busywork. Of course, here I am blogging instead of doing it, so I suppose I should hush now.

Friday Five: Meetings Meetings

1. What’s your view of meetings? Choose one or more, or make up your own:a) When they’re good, they’re good. I love the feeling of people working well together on a common goal.b) I don’t seek them out, but I recognize them as a necessary part of life.c) The only good meeting is a canceled meeting.

Like my pal RM, I've been a part of all three, but agree that a and b are my most frequent feelings about meetings.

2. Do you like some amount of community building or conversation, or are you all business?

Depends upon the meeting. If it is a church-related meeting, I like some Bible study at the beginning. Some casual banter at the beginning is nice, but I don't like it to go on for too long. It's hard enough to meet time deadlines without extended socializing. Sometimes I'll have some goodies there "for conversation time when we've wrapped up." Not too Macchiavellian, are I?

3. How do you feel about leading meetings? Share any particular strengths or weaknesses you have in this area.

I'm fine with leading meetings. I'm big on agendas. In the past, I told employees if they couldn't express the idea in a couple of minutes, they hadn't thought about it long enough - I'd then ask them to wait until they could keep it to two minutes. I can't do that quite so harshly anymore...but I do like to move things along (in a pastoral way, of course!) I'm sure some folks find me too directive in meetings, and they're probably right.

4. Have you ever participated in a virtual meeting? (conference call, IM, chat, etc.) What do you think of this format?

In my past life, I sat in on a zillion conference calls. During those conference calls, I also got a lot of other ditzy paperwork chores done (and I must admit I occasionally played a game of solitaire.) Given the time and money of meet-ups, particularly when you're part of an across-the-country organization, it makes a lot of sense, and I do like the idea of meeting in my jammies, but I don't concentrate quite as hard as when I'm in the room.

5. Share a story of a memorable meeting you attended.

Presided over an extraordinarily difficult meeting when I was Senior Warden (senior lay person) and our pastor was being attacked by a small group of members. Nobody survived that meeting without wounds. Nevertheless, it was necessary to bring the accusations out into the open, where they could be addressed and put into proper perspective, and ultimately dismissed. Never fun to lance a boil, is it? But it's better than letting it fester.

I'm Running As Fast As I Can

...but I'm still not into the rhythm of this semester yet. The reading isn't any more intense than last year, the writing assignments are eminently manageable, but I'm still feeling like I'm mentally limping all the time.

The surprise of the semester thus far is how much I love Systematics. It may be the incredible lectures by our prof, who goes for 90 minutes without notes or a break. It may be stretching my brain in new ways. The readings are dense, but the lectures and the thought processes are pure bliss. I don't understand how the pieces fit together yet. I hope that will come with time. We shall see.

Church History also continues to delight me. The readings there aren't bad at all. I think I will write my first paper on the maternal warrior imagery in the Martyrdom of Perpetua, and how it harks back to Greco-Roman mythology. Or not. We shall see about that one, too.

I've got to spend an hour and a half in mutual interviews with another classmate in my Pastoral Care through Contemplative Listening class tomorrow. Then I've got to write a spiritual autobiography...I've done several of these as part of my discernment process. I do't know if anything radically new will come out after the interview but...we shall see.

Tomorrow I'm leading small group worship with my advisee group at my advisor's house. I've crafted something from the Iona Community's worship book, with music from Hymns of the Earth by Malcolm Dalglish. It will definitely be different. I expect the advisor and a couple of the students will like it, a couple will not, and a couple will just not get it. We shall see.

At some point, this semester will start to feel semi- in control. I wish that time would come sooner rather than later. The comforting thing is that several of my classmates report the same feeling of disjointedness. Interestingly, it is we mature students who report this. My ego would say that this is because we appreciate the experience more and want to do well, as opposed to the younger ones who take it for granted, but that would be pretty mean-spirited of me, and I am really trying to tone down the snarky factor this year. Will I be successful?

We shall see.

Another Day, Another Pile of . . . Confusion

It was a mixed-blessing kind of day. Started off with Homiletics, and gave my little three-minute sermon on Ps 139. It was very well-received, although as I was preaching, I could think of five other things I wished I had done with it. Afterwards I went to the library to work on my sermon for a week from Sunday (Luke 16:1-13) and got most of a first draft done. It's got some good stuff in it, but it turns to thin gruel at the end. Come, Holy Spirit, come!

We had our first Seminary Choir practice today. I was the only soprano. Sheesh! Gotta recruit some others.

Church History was a gas; this prof's lectures are so well-constructed, I want to weep. If someone had told me I'd adore Church History, I'd say never. So glad I got to be in his last semester of teaching before he goes to be a parish priest. Tomorrow is small-group section for the class, and I'm jazzed about it.

My Pastoral Care through Contemplative Listening Class was also wonderful today. I went into it late in the afternoon feeling tired and unenthusiastic, and we started with centering prayer and then went into some interesting practica and a great lecture. Got my juices going again.

I had grand plans to go to yoga this afternoon, but a friend needed a jump-start and I was running late, so after the car adventure I just came home and spent two hours being frustrated by the office computer. That, of course, cut into my Systematics reading time.

Systematics is still a dark alleyway for me. I'm generally getting the drift of the readings, because the prof groups them in a very logical way that illumines their common themes, but I can't say I feel any sense of mastery of the material. It may come. It may not. I just hope it doesn't come in an utterly wrong or heretical way...

I must confess me of my sins.

When the reading in Systematics gets me too bumfuzzled, I play a game of Solitaire on the computer.

It's either that or more chocolate. Solitaire seems the healthier choice.

First Sunday

Today was my first day at my Field Ed site, Saint Middle School. It's a mission of a much larger old church and our services are held at a middle school (thus the name). I served as Lay Eucharistic Minister, and after the service I taught Senior High Sunday School (very stressful for me, as teaching kids is not a natural gift and I worried - it turned out okay, though). Then I went with the Middle School and Senior High kids to bowling.

Saint Middle School is 38 miles from home, so I had almost an hour's drive in each direction. I came home, PH cooked us omelets (he is a prince) and I promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half. One of the downsides of MS is periods of extreme fatigue, and it definitely hit me this afternoon.

So now I'm up again, finishing up my reading for tomorrow's classes, getting ready to fix dinner, trying to get everything done in time to watch the Inspector Lynley Mystery on PBS at 9.

Trying to schedule everything now that I'm working on Sundays is going to be a bear. I got up at 6 this morning to run a couple of loads of wash before I left for church. Thank goodness I only care a little bit about the condition of the house!

Back to School

We started today, with many administrative things plus one class. We also had a debriefing/spiritual reflection on CPE, which was more helpful than I expected.

Our prof for Systematics is in Europe giving a paper on Barth (her specialty), so our new dean gave us our first lecture. He's a very entertaining and challenging lecturer. I'm going to make sure I can take a course with him before I'm done with seminary.

It's good to be back amongst friends. We seem to have crossed some sort of boundary this summer. People are more caring and genuinely interested in each other.

It's also good to be back amongst my co-religionists. I can do the ecumenical thing, and I respect and appreciate the richness of other traditions, but this place and these traditions are the ones that I cherish. Having Morning Prayer this morning and Compline at the end of the day was such joy.

A week from now, when I'm bogged down with readings and the sermons I need to write, I may feel less blissful, but for now I'm enjoying it tremendously.

Home from New England

PH and I had a lovely visit to New England, where we visited with my stepson and his wife and the grandchildren, Princess (who just turned five) and Petit Prince (he who was just born a couple of weeks ago). A pleasant surprise on Saturday afternoon was the arrival of stepson#2 and his two boys, my grandsons Cowboy (4 years old) and Smiling Lad (16 months). It was a wonderful visit on many levels, not the least of which was some great adult conversation with the stepsons, whom I raised from the ages of 7 and 11. They are marvelous human beings and I'm so proud to have been a part of their lives, and that I continue to be a part of their lives even though I haven't been married to their father for many years.

Herewith, some pictures. Above, me with Petit Prince.

Smiling Lad with his dad, stepson #2

The Princess and her cousin Cowboy and their "band."

At right, Princess and her brother Petit Prince, who is modeling his Elizabeth Zimmerman Surprise Jacket and cap, which his GrandMary made for him. He has already almost outgrown it. At least the hat will fit for a bit longer.

And here's the whole clan avec moi.

Being GrandMary is the best!

Friday Five: Seasonal Edition

Friday 5: Seasons Change

I'm recovering from my morning painting the commuter lounge in seminary by doing the Friday Five. The questions are brought to us from RevGalBlogPals by Reverendmother.

1. Share a highlight from this summer. (If you please, don't just say "our vacation to the Canadian Rockies." Give us a little detail or image. Help us live vicariously through you!)

Driving through Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado with PH.

2. Are you glad to see this summer end? Why or why not?

Two reasons: CPE is done, and as much as I loved it, it was exhausting. School is starting again, and I really missed it. (Remind me of this when I start complaining about the workload in a couple of months.)

3. Name one or two things you're looking forward to this fall.

My classes and beginning Field Ed with a great supervisor. Restarting choir is next on the list.

4. Do you have any special preparations or activities to mark the transition from one season to another? (Cleaning of house, putting away summer clothes, one last trip to the beach)

Doing a de-cluttering of last season's school stuff (see below). Buying another batch of books for classes.

5. I'll know that fall is really here when we take out the sweaters and the Danskos and put away the t-shirts and the crocs.

Shred-Happy

In a vain attempt to get organized before school starts next week, I performed massive paper-pile dissection and shredding today. I haven't gotten to the bookshelves yet to sort the tomes, but I think it's time for a break. There is now room in my file drawer for all my papers for this semester's classes, the desk is down to a small, manageable pile of stuff to finish off (much wood now shows), and I found a few things I'd long ago forgotten about.

Back when I worked in an office downtown in Gucci Gulch, all my business and personal paperwork was better organized. More file drawers, more time in the day to sort such things. Part of this big purge of paper is to keep the home office (which I share with PH) a bit neater, part of it is being able to find the things I need quickly, but another part of it is stripping down to the essentials. I have a tendency to accumulate random interesting pieces of paper, and then they get lost in the morass of my office. It feels good to toss a bunch of useless stuff.

One thing I've learned from PH, though, is to save the things related to sermon ideas by Scripture passage, so when the passage comes up in the lectionary, I can easily find the ideas or poems or stories efficiently. I also am now saving my sermons organized by Scripture passage as well. If anyone else has any bright ideas about taming the paper beast (yes, RM, I'm looking at the David Allen book), please share!

Of course, two weeks into the new school year, the pile may once again overwhelm me.

Grateful

...for everything and nothing, for all the little things and a few really big things.

We middlers did an orientation session for the incoming class. They've been in intensive biblical language classes for three weeks and look shell-shocked. I remember that feeling well. I am very glad to be past that point in my seminary life, so I'm grateful for a year under my belt.

I went for a haircut today with the incomparable Lucien, who always says I look beautiful in his wonderful Parisian accent, and has forgiven me for no longer dying my hair. He also is giving me a student discount while I'm in seminary, and when we're done with the haircut, he gives me a hug and says "I'm so proud of you!" I'm grateful for people who have supported me in this journey in all sorts of ways.

Before I went for the haircut, I had a little time to kill, so I went into Balducci's, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine of the food world. Much to my pleasure, I found they had two jars of the Tiptree "Little Scarlet" strawberry jam. This jam is made in very limited quantities (see this article about its scarcity: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20046-2004Sep14.html ) and is sublime. I'm grateful I not only found it, but I could afford this little luxury.

Earlier in the afternoon, I spent a few hours in the Center for the Ministry of Teaching looking at curricula for my teens at my Field Ed site, now known as Saint Middle School, in honor of the place where it meets. I found an awesome one (Generation Why?)and I'm hoping our vicar will okay it. I'm grateful that I didn't have to create one from scratch, and that I found one that doesn't sound like it was written in 1908.

I was exhausted when I got home - the downside of MS in hot weather - so I stretched out on the couch and took a nap. Grateful for the couch, the air-conditioning and the roof over my head.

I got up and made supper and afterward, PH took me out for a little dish of frozen custard. (http://www.thedairygodmother.com/). As grateful as I was for good dinner and the sublime custard, I was most grateful for PH, who not only bought us a new garbage can today (odd things please me, I know) but took me for the custard without saying, "Gee, I thought you were on a diet...", knowing that I really, really needed a dish of frozen custard this evening.

God is good.

To SO

A great heart sometimes suffers great pain. You asked me why you feel so deeply. I don't know. All I know is that you have a great heart. Don't shut it down so you don't feel the pain. It is too important to feel deeply.

You have many gifts. You will figure this problem out. One foot in front of the other, slowly. It will not feel good, but it will feel better than no feeling at all, than things remaining the same.

I wish I could hug away the pain and kiss away the doubts, and make a list of things for you to do to get past this time.

I can't. You must write your own list, and heal your own pain. You must love yourself and do what is right for yourself, in your own time.

I love you. God loves you. All will (eventually) be well.

Random Dots of Sunday

• I finally got around to cleaning off my desk this afternoon. It was covered with detritus (receipts, thing needing filing, catalogs, assorted nonsense) from last semester and from CPE. I can now see wood. We shall see how long this lasts. I usually do my studying and other schoolwork on the living room sofa, anyway, but it's nice that for a little while, my desk looks almost as neat as PH's, with which it shares a room. I still have the computer and such from the bank work, (I'm a lobbyist for a large bank on a part-time basis) and when that work ends in mid-December (hallelujah!), the bank computer and monitor and printer goes away, making considerably more room. Room, of course, for me to collect more detritus. So it goes.

• PH is helping one of his buddies - the one who did yeoman work helping us finish our basement last summer - tear off an exterior wall to his house. Don't ask. You know there are some men who love these big projects, despite the fact that they can afford to have a pro do the work much more efficiently, because they want to say they did it themselves, truly believe they do a better job than the pros, want to save a few bucks, and love the excuse to go buy stuff at the Big Box Home Improvement Store. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon, but since it's quite hot here in Your Nation's Capital, I'd much prefer to sit inside the air-conditioned house and knit. My vices are limited to the yarn store and the discount shoe place these days, anyway.

• I finished the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket for grandbaby Ben (whom I will see next weekend) along with a matching hat. I used a self-striping sock yarn, so it's varying stripes of light and dark blue. Very cool. Hopefully, the weather will cool down so he can wear it before he outgrows it. I'm working on a white cable sweater for my classmate C's baby (he and R are expecting the little one in two weeks); it probably won't be done in time, but I think they won't mind. Feels good to be doing stuff with my hands.

• I'll be going to Morning Prayer every morning this week to get back into the schedule of the seminary, although classes don't start for another week. I love going to Morning Prayer. The week has filled up with all sorts of appointments and meetings. Debating whether to get the bifocal contact lenses, or just to get an updated prescription for bifocal eyeglasses. I much prefer how I look without glasses, but my wallet prefers glasses to contacts. Ah, well.

• My dear in-laws are contributing to my Stole Fund as their birthday gift to me - when I graduate, I will need liturgical stoles. A lovely gift, and one that I will really use and not feel guilty about.

• Okay, here's the recipe of the day. In this part of the world, we have many Central American immigrants, and their food is fantastic. There are all these rotisserie chicken joints, and the chicken is awesome. It's marinated in lime juice, garlic, and lots of pepper, then rotisseried. We don't have a rotisserie, but we figured it would grill well. I had picked up a couple of bone-in organic chicken breasts on sale, put them in a ziplock bag with freshly squeezed lime juice, some chopped garlic - all right, a lot of chopped garlic - and mucho pepper, as well as some olive oil. Let them marinate for about 90 minutes. PH fired up the grill, threw some salt on them, and grilled them until done. I wish I had doubled the recipe, because these babies were tasty - I would have loved the leftovers. I'm trying that recipe again, maybe throwing in a little Spanish smoked paprika next time. Yum.

• This will be my year to have all the family at my house for Thanksgiving. I'm trying to figure out how that will work with Field Ed etc. I guess (gulp!) I'll have to ask for help from the family instead of doing it all myself. What a radical concept!

• I'm calling the chaplain at nearby Big Hospital to ask to do some PRN chaplain work this year (yes, in my vast spare time) so I can earn a few dollars and get more experience with adults, after a summer with kids. This chaplain is the ex-spouse of one of my supervisors at the children's hospital where I worked all summer. Small world.

• The beef stew is ready, so I think I'll wander off. Tonight's a new Inspector Lynley Mystery on PBS. Life is good.

Small World...Biblical Hebrew Joke

So we were having dinner with friends. Among the guests were a female pastor and an American missionary from Congo, where PH grew up. He, of course, can speak French and Lingala, the trade language of the region, and could converse with the female pastor, who spoke some English but was more comfortable in Lingala and French. I could understand most of the French, but my spoken French is pretty rusty. She found out I had studied Hebrew in seminary, and said (in Lingala) that she had studied Hebrew in seminary in Kinshasa, but couldn't say she was really good at it. She then looked across the table, this delightful woman whom I had barely understood up until that point, stared me in the eyes, and said...

"Dagesh Forte!"

At the risk of making a funny moment unfunny by explaining it, this is a doubling of a Hebrew letter to make it stronger. In English-speaking Hebrew classes, we call it strong dagesh. She told me it was the only thing she remembered from her Hebrew studies.

We both burst out laughing hysterically, the only ones (besides PH) who got it.

Never thought I'd be referencing Biblical Hebrew with a Francophone Congolese woman pastor in our Nation's Capital.

It is a small world, indeed.

A Few Pictures...

Moi and StrongOpinions at her place.

At 12,000 feet. Note I'm looking at the camera, not the view. That's a little too high up for me.

Home Again

We're back home. The last leg of our flight was delayed, so we ended up not getting home until 1 am or something. It was good to be home with the cats and our own bed.

It was a great trip. We spent a few days with StrongOpinions, saw the house she's sharing with roommates, got her some cooking tools as a housewarming present, and wandered around Boulder. Got to visit with a seminary classmate who's curate of a church out there as well - so much fun to see him and hear of his experiences. On Monday we drove up to the Rocky Mountain National Park and went through the park, including a stop just before crossing the Continental Divide at the Alpine Visitor's Center, above 12,000 feet. I didn't have altitude sickness, but for someone who has a fear of heights, some of the views were a little hard for me to take. No matter. I just closed my eyes for the hard parts.

We also got to spend some time with PH's aunt and uncle and cousins, the Ds. Such delightful people! Among these folks are the ones who helped StrongOpinions and me when she was hospitalized out there with suspected bacterial meningitis in May (my mother's day celebration). Good to see them in less stressful circumstances.

It was good to be away - it took me a day and a half to stop talking about CPE stuff and start talking about the coming semester in seminary!

Yes there are pictures, and I will post them soon, but right now I've got to plan my next trip, to go up to New England over Labor Day and see my new grandson.

Done

CPE is over - we graduated today. I had a final go-round with the prickly person in our group in our last IPR, and, mirabile dictu, the supervisor told her she was transferring her unresolved stuff on me. This was something I had been trying to get her to for several weeks, and the supervisor had just stepped back to see if she would get it, and if I could lay it out clearly enough, and finally she realized that the prickly one wouldn't listen to it from me. It is a relief to have been backed up.

I got a chance to say goodbye to staff and patients that I had developed relationships with.

My neck feels way too light, without my ID and pager, though. This being done will take some getting used to. Eleven very difficult and wonderful weeks of my life. Three baptisms, five deaths, two commendations, a funeral, innumerable Kleenexes (for me and for parents), deep conversations with nurses, witnessing open heart surgery, developing working relationships with so many new people.

We leave early tomorrow to go out to see StrongOpinions and PH's relatives in MileHigh City. Tonight PH is taking me out for a belated fancy birthday-end of CPE dinner. I couldn't have survived this without him, bless him.

Champagne, anyone?

One Day to Go

We survived final evaluations. The prickly person was predictably prickly and somewhat condescending to me. Everyone else was supportive, complimentary and kind. We also did an exit interview with a team of senior people, mostly about what could be done to improve the program.

I spent time with the AIDS patient and also visited the CICU, and the babies there. I feel like I've done a good job of saying goodbye. I've been touched by the warm thanks from patients and staff alike.

Tomorrow feels anticlimactic, with one more IPR, a play session, lunch, and "graduation".

Tomorrow I'll go around and say goodbye to a few folks I didn't see today, but I'll be glad to turn in the pager and the keys and the magnetic ID.

I'm so done.

A Full Heart

...and my 15 year old AIDS patient has taken a turn for the worse and is categorized as end-stage. I feel like I'm abandoning her, ending CPE right now. Another difficult learning.

The chocolate cake was good, though.

RIP, M

My dear friend M died early this morning. She had pancreatic cancer; it had only been diagnosed a few months ago. She was 57.

She taught me many things:

• it is alright to question authority
• passion is a gift, not a dysfunction
• family matters
• the phos is hilaron.

She was a stalwart of our icon-writing class, and was the person who got me started on this wonderful spiritual practice. She also was the personification of hospitality. We had many wonderful dinners with her and her husband. She was my spine at a time when I needed it.

I will miss her deeply. I suspect that as I write this, she is asking Saint Paul, "So what did you really mean about women not speaking in church?"

Rest lightly in the arms of the Lord, M, you deserve the rest. Have a glass of Chateuneuf du Pape for me.

Random Dots of CPE: Three Days Left

• I did my final verbatim today. Not bad, not good, just glad it got done.
• Baking a chocolate cake for the IPR tomorrow - maybe it will sweeten us all up a bit. It's a birthday cake to myself that everyone else gets the benefit of.
• Tomorrow will be the last formal day of clinical visitations, plus a reading seminar and IPR. I will miss a couple of patients that I've worked with for almost the whole time I've been here.
• I do have a new patient who is an infant who is missing the bones in her thumb. A strange sensation, holding the hand of a baby whose thumb just sort of flops every which way. Sadly, the thumb problem is probably indicative of a genetic syndrome that may mean more problems than the heart defect we are looking at. Cute baby - tough outcome most likely.
• Thursday will be final evaluations and the exit interviews with the committee, with Friday IPR and graduation, followed by a lunch. Our IPRs have been something of a bust, compared to the fireworks in other friends' IPRs. We have only had a few major blow-ups, only a couple of tense moments. This group just didn't seem to have it in them to fight much. There was one person with whom I didn't get along, but we came to a rapprochement of sorts. Not stuffing things down, just dealing with each other's differences reasonably respectfully. I'm not really sure that it was necessary for our group to have that kind of intense disagreement - or maybe the supervisor chose us as people who probably wouldn't fight much. Hard to say.
• I'm tired. I've got all this CPE stuff wrapping up, a son in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy, a dear friend with end-stage pancreatic cancer, and not enough time to process it all. Meh. At least the chocolate cake will be good.

Prayers, please...

...for Litigator, who had an emergency appendectomy this morning. I was ever so tempted to hop on a plane to go to City of Angels and be with him, but he is 23 and wants to prove that he is an ADULT, don'tcha know, so he doesn't want 'rents around. He will be coming home from the hospital tomorrow, and it just so happens that Stepson #1 will be in LA tomorrow on business, and will just so happen to check on him.

Not that we're being overly parental or anything...

Sometimes this empty nest thing is a challenge.

Oy.

New Toy

My birthday present from PH was an IPod. I am happily downloading some of my favorite podcasts and CDs. Hopefully, I won't break it within the first week of use. I'm also looking forward to using it for audiobooks. Bliss!

Random Dots of Saturday

• Tomorrow is my birthday. I will have to adjust to the idea of telling people I'm 55. In honor of the day, I went to the nail salon and got a manicure, pedicure, and brow wax. I feel very soigne.

• I ran a number of errands, including the weekly weigh-in (down 1.6 pounds) and the farmer's market (tomatoes! zucchini! peaches! ginger gold apples - the first of the season! homemade ravioli!). Our farmer's market is the oldest continuously running farmer's market in the nation. It has not only food items of every variety, but also flowers and some beautiful crafts. I've learned to manage how much I actually buy there, but it is all a temptation. I also hit the library and the regular supermarket.

• I also went to hospice to visit my dear friend M who is dying of pancreatic cancer. I suspect she will only be with us for a few more days. She whispered for us to leave so she could take a nap - there were four of us in her room - then gestured for me to come closer so she could say something to me, since her voice is down to a mere whisper. She said, "Talk to S. (another friend who was in the room with us who has undergone some difficult surgeries this year). I'm worried about her." This is so emblematic of this wonderful friend, who always put the needs of others ahead of her own. Her dying at 57 seems particularly unfair.

• PH and I are going to dinner at an Ethiopian Restaurant tonight with my CPE group and their significant others. Will we actually be able to talk about things other than the hospital and CPE?

• Spooky the cat has decided she will help me with my typing, so I think I'll end here before she types something untoward. She can be so rude!

Are We There Yet?

Six more days of CPE. The last two days are final evaluation and graduation and stuff like that, so there are really only four more days of clinical work. Remarkably, we have an IPR (group work) scheduled for the final day. I'm ready for it to be over. I got my last verbatim written and have pretty much finished my self-evaluation (it came in at a modest 12 pages); I may polish the final eval a little bit more over the next couple of days, but if I so chose, I could say it is done right now.

We all seem just whupped right now. Even the supervisor seems to have checked out. The string of ungodly hot days hasn't helped matters.

I've learned a lot through this experience, as I had expected, but now I need some space to process it all.

I still think I want to do some on-call work in the fall, but I need a month away from this kind of work. I need a couple of weeks of knitting and reading trashy mystery novels and cleaning the house (or not). I need some time away from dying babies and crying parents. I need silliness. I need chocolate.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Heat index of 105 degrees today. I stood on the Metro platform this evening waiting for the train to come for 15 minutes, instead of the usual 3 to 5, because of train delays. Heat does not agree with our Metro system, and it also doesn't agree those of us with MS. Then I got a call from Litigator, saying I needed to get the paperwork in to be a guarantor on his new apartment, like, IMMEDIATELY. The management company, of course, wanted pay stubs, tax return, bank statement, my most recent bloodwork results, genealogy...

Suffice to say, it wasn't fun. And since I can only get my pay stubs online, on the corporate computer that runs slower than molasses, it was stressful. It got done, though, so my kid won't be living on somebody else's couch. All this freakin' running around getting paperwork done meant I missed going to Wednesday Evening Eucharist at the seminary. Drag.

On the other hand, I didn't cry in IPR today, and there are only 7 more days of CPE. I got my last verbatim written, and did a draft of my final evaluation. Once I polish that, I'm just riding it out until a week from Friday, assuming my patients stay alive until then.

Yeah. Wah, wah, wah. I'll shut up now. PH is grilling burgers outside, and the rest of dinner awaits, so life is actually pretty darned good.

A Hot Day

I did the funeral in the funeral home today. The deceased was a 10 week old girl whom I had known on the CICU. It went reasonably smoothly; even the ten year old cousin who was to sing did a good job. Got a lot of positive comments from the family who really appreciated my homily.

Then we caravanned over to the cemetery for the interment. My prayers were short, about seven minutes, but the family decided to wait to watch the baby's casket be lowered into the grave, then put roses on it. Took a long time. It was 98 degrees out. I had on a black knit dress. I thought I was going to pass out with the heat.

It was a long day, but I think I did a good job and it was a comfort to the family.

So what's a little heat?

Sunday Morning

On Sundays I get up early to take my anti-osteoporosis medicine. Yet another joy of middle age, dang it. Between that (which has to be taken 30 minutes before anything at all) and the regular morning meds (which have to be taken an hour before eating), I usually get up at 5:30. The coffee maker starts up at 6:50 and I bring coffee upstairs to PH at 7 am for some quiet conversation on Sundays - our little peaceful time together before the day begins.

All that will change next month when I begin Field Ed, since it takes a good hour to drive out to my Field Site church. Fortunately, I won't have to be out there until 9 am - only one service on Sunday - so my wake-up schedule won't change. Just the quiet coffee time will go away. Sad about that - it was one of my favorite times in the week.

We'll have to figure out another time for that.

Two more weeks of CPE, then we're going out to the FlatIron Range to visit Strong Opinions at her new place for a few days, and see some of PH's relatives in MileHigh City.

I. Cannot. Wait.

Random Dots of CPE: Ten Days Left

• So why am I the only person in our groups who cries in IPR? Am I in touch with my inner wuss, or out of control, or just more aware of the challenges that we're facing? Feels pretty uncomfortable.
• I am doing a memorial service in a funeral parlor on Monday, for one of the babies who died on CICU. Doing any kind of service like this, apart from liturgics practica, is a new thing. These folks aren't Episcopalian, just nondenominationally Christian, without an affiliation to a church. It doesn't feel like the sort of family that would be comfortable with a full-blown Episcopalian service, so I'm going to cobble something together from our tradition and PH's Covenant Book of Common Worship, which isn't quite so fussy. Some prayers, some Scripture, a few words about the baby, who was a beautiful little two-month old with light brown super-curly hair, a song from a cousin. Plus prayers at the graveside for the interment. Learnings abound.
• A friend from seminary and I ran into each other today, after PH and I came back from the Farmer's Market. He said, "You've got that exhausted from CPE look. You need some rest." No kidding, pal...
• I'm looking so forward to this being over, ecause I AM tired. And yet I worry about the patients and feeling like I'm abandoning them. Ah, well, I think they and I will both get over it. Yet another thing to cry over in IPR.

Okay troops, here's your question of the day, one that our group has chewed on for lo these many weeks: do you believe in miracles? Not just the "gee, isn't that a beautiful sunset?" kind of miracle, but God reaching down and fully and miraculously healing someone who has something awful? If you do, how do you think God chooses who gets a miracle and who doesn't?

Sermon for Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Luke 23:50-56
Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.


I’ve been doing CPE this summer, at Children’s Hospital in Washington. I spend much of my time in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, where tiny babies, some only days old, undergo open-heart surgery to repair congenital defects. It is a place of great hope, and sometimes great sadness.

One of our sickest babies died recently. Cassie was born with many medical problems, and in her ten months of life underwent a number of surgeries. She finally could hold on no longer. In the last few weeks of Cassie’s life, her mother often said to me, “I just want to hold her in my arms.” There were so many tubes and wires connected to that tiny body that it was impossible in those many weeks for her to be lifted off the bed and into her mother’s embrace. So at the end, the nurses undid most of the wires and tubes, and let her lay in her mother's arms. In death, finally, Cassie’s mother got her wish. The parents sat quietly with her for a long time, and after the last few pieces of equipment were unhooked, they bathed her and dressed her and continued to hold her in their arms.

This is a ritual that often happens in this unit when a baby dies - and babies do die here frequently because we do the most radical of surgeries, the true last-ditch efforts. The parents stay with the baby, bathe their child, and spend time quietly holding their little one. They are waiting. Waiting before they let go.

I wonder about these rituals of washing and waiting. Our Scripture reading this evening speaks of them after Jesus' death on the cross. Joseph of Arimathea collects Jesus' body, lays it in the tomb, and the women come to prepare the materials to wash and anoint the body. It sounds remarkably like the scene I described in the hospital. These actions are in sharp contrast to the responses of others to what has happened to Jesus on the cross. Luke Timothy Johnson highlights these different responses in analyzing this passage and the one that immediately precedes it: at Christ’s death, the centurion reacts by identifying Jesus as an innocent man. The people watching the crucifixion, presumably originally as a form of entertainment, turn away and head for home, beating their breasts in an act of contrition. Jesus’ followers watch, frightened, from a distance. These are expressions, in a way, of the mind: seeing, speaking, regretting, grieving. But Joseph and the women respond with expressions of the body, by doing something active: securing Christ’s body and beginning the ritual preparations for His burial. They are doing something concrete and tactile. Why the different response? Why the washing and waiting, in the hospital or in Joseph’s newly hewn tomb?

I believe that some of it is to lend tactile truth to the death. When you have touched a dead person, child or adult, before the body even goes cold, you know they are dead. You can feel there is no life in them. Some of it, too, is an honoring of the person by washing them, anointing them, preparing them to step away from this world and into the next. It is the last gentle act of love you can do.

There is another element to this kind of ritual. In our shock and grief, sometimes we can only do the housekeeping tasks to keep going. I remember when my mother had her first heart attack. I was fifteen years old. It was a bad heart attack; she was not expected to live. I went home from the hospital that afternoon in a fog of confusion. What was I to do? So I washed windows and cleaned the floors. It seemed a needful thing to do at the time. All I could manage was something tactile, something finite, something that I could control in a time of no control.

So, too, at the moment of death, we wait with the one who has died in a liminal space between the stilling of the heart and the uplifting of the soul to God. We hold them in this sacred moment, not just in our hearts, but in our hands. Before we can rest on the Sabbath, according to the commandment, we must do this work of our hands.

This ritual of washing and waiting is very old. Jewish scholar Ruth Langer describes it thus: “From the point that a person dies, not only the immediate family, but also the community collectively, has a responsibility to ensure that that person is buried properly, showing the greatest respect to the body which had housed life. In most communities today (and this has been true for many centuries), this is the task of a special voluntary burial society, the hevra kaddisha (holy society). Although today they usually perform their tasks at a funeral home, the rituals were designed to take place in the home of the deceased. [W]ith maximum concern for the deceased’s modesty, they first wash the body, and then ritually purify it by pouring over it quantities of water, dress it in white shrouds (and prayer shawl for a man), place it in a plain wooden coffin (if any coffin is used) and close the coffin. During the entire tahara (purification), the only words spoken are a few brief prayers and appropriate biblical verses. This relative silence developed from a sense that the deceased’s soul has not yet left the body entirely and can hear — and be grieved — by words spoken in its presence. The family and community also supply shomerim, watchers, who sit with the body from the time of death until the funeral begins, quietly reciting Psalms — maintaining a focused silence.”

They are waiting.

In this description of the rituals, we can see the details behind the very brief picture Luke sketches out in the Gospel. Joseph and the women were in that liminal space. They had no idea of the glory of the Resurrection to come. They were deeply grieving, only knowing they had lost their dear teacher in a horrific way. The only comfort they had was to use their hands to do the housekeeping tasks: to follow the traditions, the ritual, and wash Him and anoint Him and lay Him in the tomb. The only gift they could give Him was the work of their hands: to wash Him and anoint Him and lay Him in the tomb. They could not know yet of the rolling back of the stone, of the light of a new morning of the risen Christ.

I used to think that rituals like wakes were barbaric. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and the wakes were something out of James Joyce. I can still smell the cigars in the smokers’ parlor, and the Bushmill’s and the beer on the breath of the men. I can’t count the number of times I heard someone say at the side of the casket, "Doesn't she look good? Didn’t they do a great job on her?" Spending time sitting with a body? Having the dead person made up and dressed up and laid out for all to see? Awful!

And yet…and yet…

Now I start to see the wisdom of ritual to lend reality to what has happened, although the making up of dead bodies still seems wrong to me. I wonder if we can visualize a going up to heaven without the rituals that bid the person, or at least the person's mortal body, farewell. In our grief, we cannot yet see the rolling back of the stone.

These rituals, in that liminal place, shut the door of the past, of the living of this person who has died, and open another door to the glorious place where all pain is gone, all suffering, all limitations end, and new life begins. It allows the possibility of joy, even in our grief.

To comprehend that joy, the vast expanse of it, may be beyond us. But our faith in it can be incarnate, on the eve of the Sabbath, in the wisdom of the body, in the work of our hands, in the gift of love.

Amen.

Moi, A La Meyers Briggs

I took the Meyers Briggs Personality Test some 20 years ago. Seeing my buddy Cheesehead had just done it, I was tempted: would it be the same or different after so long? I'd heard one's results could evolve over time. No such luck. I'm exactly the same classification I was back then. What's an INTJ like? See below:

"...approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity." - The Portrait of the Mastermind Rational (iNTj) (Keirsey)

"...observer, values solitude, perfectionist, detached, private... does not talk about feelings, hard to impress, analytical, likes esoteric things..." - Jung Type Descriptions (INTJ) similarminds.com)

"To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how." - INTJ Profile (TypeLogic)

"At work, INTJs use their conceptual strengths to analyze situations and then develop models to understand and anticipate through relentlessly to reach their goals. They will continue on with their plans, even in the face of adversity and data that might suggest to other more practical types that their goals are no longer feasible. By nature, INTJs are independent individualists." - INTJ - The Free-Thinker (Lifexplore)

"INTJs are natural leaders, although they usually choose to remain in the background until they see a real need to take over the lead. When they are in leadership roles, they are quite effective, because they are able to objectively see the reality of a situation, and are adaptable enough to change things which aren't working well. They are the supreme strategists - always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency. " - Portrait of an INTJ (The Personality Page)


I suspect that my CPE peers would agree with much of this. I think it makes me sound more more strategic than I think I am, but who knows? Just call me Macchiavellian Mama.

ADDED ON: Now I've taken the multiple intelligences test, too. No surprises there : musical, verbal/liguistic/naturalist. Glad to know my suspicions about myself are confirmed.

Open Heart Surgery

Today, instead of our regular CPE duties (our supervisor is out of town for three days), I got to sit in on open heart surgery. For those in the know about such things, it was a Fontan procedure. The big daddy cardio-thoracic surgeon did it (actually he did part of it - more about that later). The patient came from halfway around the world for the surgery, which is actually the third in a sequence. This was a very chubby two year old, who was very unhappy with the world when wheeled into the OR, but silent shortly thereafter when the anesthetic kicked in.

Two other surgeons started the operation. Because of the past surgeries, there were a lot of adhesions connecting the lungs to the pericardium (at least I think that's what I saw) and they had to dissect them so that big daddy could do his thing. Took them over an hour with the scalpel, electric saw to the sternum, electro-cautery, and various other tools including a zillion clamps and retractors, to get the patient ready.

I'm not squeamish. That's a good thing, because this kind of surgery seems a cross between a butcher shop and plumbing work.

Big daddy surgeon came in after the initial prep work, finished separating out the artery that needed to be re-routed, got the kid on heart-lung bypass, stopped the heart with potassium (never realized how comfortable I'd become with the beep-beep of the heart monitor until it was silent), did the graft with a length of Gore-Tex flex tubing, put in pacemaker leads, reconnected all the appropriate arteries that had been sidetracked to the bypass machinery, and then unclamped. The blood started in to the repaired heart, and it started beating, slowly at first, then faster as the child was warmed up. When he determined that there were no bleeders, big daddy surgeon left the room so the two assistant surgeons could wire the sternum back together and stitch the muscles and skin. Unlike our newborns who undergo open-heart surgery, the patient's chest was big enough to accomodate the heart, even though it was swollen, so they could close her immediately.

Remarkable that the human heart can undergo such manhandling and holes and stitches, and come back, beating stronger than before. This child's future is still uncertain, but may be a lot better than it was before this surgery. It will be a trip to follow the patient in the CICU in a couple of days, and know I've seen that little heart, beating under halogen lights, bravely chugging along.

Metaphors abound.

Assorted Stuff

I'm on call through tomorrow morning, so my day consisted of various short errands close to home so I could dash to the hospital if need be. I intended to visit a dear friend who has terminal pancreatic cancer, but she had had a bad night, was waiting for the hospice doctor to come, and was not up to company. Please keep her in your prayers.

So the morning was a trip to the farmer's market for good local produce and cheese, a trip to Costco for large quantities of coffee (locally roasted!), cat food, and shrimp and scallops, allergy medicine for PH, and dishwasher soap, then off to the regular supermarket for the rest of the "normal" stuff we need to survive the week. Yes, I know. More than you wanted to know.

I got home and, after putting the groceries away and making a marinade for the mozzarella balls, plopped down on the couch to finish off Harry Potter.

I didn't get off the couch for the remaining 500 pages.

Great book...the woman knows how to spin a tale.

PH is off at a dinner party with friends from his MK days. Unfortunately, the home at which the party is being held is out in the 'burbs a ways, too far from the hospital to get there in the requisite 30 minutes should I get called in, so I'm having a solitary evening, which isn't really a bad thing. I finished another book that I'd started earlier this week, and the second load of wash is in the dryer. I may go to Blockbuster and pick up a movie...but then again, that would require I get up from the couch. Accio DVD!

Monday morning I'm supposed to observe heart surgery. The nurses in my cardiac unit said nothing was scheduled for Monday morning, so I may get in there Monday morning and have nothing to do, but sometimes things get scheduled at the last minute, so who knows? Our supervisor is out of town for three days, and we aren't supposed to see patients when she is not there to supervise us, so outside of the surgery, I've got three days off. Bliss. I've got a presentation on child abuse and our responsibilities as clergy in congregations on Thursday, so I'm not entirely without work to do, but being able to sleep in for Tues and Weds is a luxury. Monday, though, I've got to get into the hospital by 7 a.m.

Just twelve more days of CPE to survive. The last two days will be evaluations and such, so it's really more like ten days. I can do this...

CPE Related Notes

The car is fixed, so if I get called in while I'm on call, I can use my own vehicle. It turned out that I didn't spear the oil pan with a random stick - said stick merely shredded the serpentine belt, which then whacked the whoozis out of the oil lines. The resultant mess required a new serpentine belt and oil lines, but no new oil pan. It did require a spa treatment to get all the oil off the Saab's engine, but now it's clean and well-moisturized.

In our group work today I accomplished something major for me - I told someone they were exasperating me. Shocking, aren't I?

Still not breaking through in conversation with the teen AIDS patient. If I were the patient, I'm not sure I'd feel much like talking with anyone either. It may be clinical depression. Slow going.

I'm leading a prayer and meditation service on thankfulness tomorrow. Once that's done, I have a presentation to make on child abuse in the congregational setting and one more verbatim to write. Remarkable it's almost all done.

Time to go upstairs and read Harry Potter. Don't know if I'll get through the full 100 pages I've been allowing myself nightly, since I'm pretty tired. Gosh, it's a good book! My daytime reading is Harriet Lerner's "The Dance of Anger." I'm getting in touch with my inner exasperatedness...

No matter how challenging the day has been, I still am so high over the birth of the grandbaby, nothing can get me down!

And it's Ben!

Herewith, grandbaby #4, who arrived yesterday, all 9 lbs 2 oz of him! To GrandM's eyes, he looks brilliant, alert, and ready to play linebacker for the Redskins.

God is good!

Random Dots of CPE - 16 Days to Go

...not that I'm counting.

Much.

• I'm on call this week. This was complicated by the fact that my car died in a dramatic way on Saturday. The shop called today and the good news was that it wasn't the most expensive problem, or the moderately expensive one, just the modestly expensive one. I'm hoping it will be done by tomorrow afternoon, so I can pick it up. Thus far this week, I've been holding my breath hoping I wouldn't be called in to the hospital until PH got home and I could use his car.
• I did get called in tonight (just as PH was finishing up grilling the burgers), to baptize a baby who will be operated on tomorrow morning. I'm told the survival rate for the surgery is less than 10 percent. Makes you look at the baptism in a different way.
• Being on call, and getting called in, has gotten so much less stressful. Having survived working in the ER and being on call before, I was surprised to discover that I was feeling grateful to be able to provide this support as I was driving in tonight. The first week on call, I was simply a basket case of nerves the whole time. Maybe I'm learning.
• I've given up on feeling personally attacked by the prickly member of our group. It's her problem if she misreads me and doesn't ask me what's up. Of course, when I notice her acting funny, I always have the option of checking it out with her as well. It took me a while to figure out that I don't have to stop being who I am just because I don't do things in her style. Old dogs can learn new tricks.
• A baby whom we didn't expect to live (multiple congenital birth anomalies) has opened her eyes and is looking at us, is being weaned off the ventilator, and may leave the intensive care unit to go to a step-down unit on Friday. For a kid one of the nurses said was as good as dead, this is pretty darned close to being a miracle for me.
• We have a new baby on the unit who was born with active leukemia. She is two days old and on chemo. Sheesh.
• I'm working with a teen AIDS patient. Hardest work I've ever done, even harder than with dying babies. It makes me wish for miracles and/or magic wands. Expelliarmus!

It was good having family visiting this weekend. I feel back in touch with my own world, rather than just focusing on the hospital. My house got clean, I ate and cooked good food, enjoyed conversation about things other than diseases and accidents and death. Next Monday I get to observe open heart surgery, and yes I am looking forward to it. Then I have Tuesday and Wednesday off - a mini-vacation. I am sooooo ready for a break. Actually, I am soooo ready for this to be over, but I can hang in there for the remaining days.

Oh, and I'm preaching a week from tomorrow. Just to keep the pressure up a little bit more...don't want to lose the edge, dontcha know...

Processing

...attending the death of the little one I mentioned in yesterday's blog. It was my midday's work. It was heartbreakingly sad, and I was so privileged to be able to support the young mother in her grief. At the last, when it was done, the little one looked so at peace, and so very far away. Of course, he was far away; only his tiny (2.5 lb) body was still with us, a sweet boy at the last.

Of course, the chaplain then has to find a way to process it all.

My solution (one I've used since I was a teenager) was to clean the house when I got home. I'm a lousy housekeeper the rest of the time - my dust bunnies are unto the second and third generation by now - but when my heart aches, I clean.

Doing something tactile and finite seems somewhat Zen-like. It is something I can actually know I did, and completed, or something like that. And I used the real mop, not the Swiffer. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. I just can't think of it right now.

Tears do a good job of washing a kitchen floor.

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.

Probably a Good Idea...

...to share something OTHER than just peeing and moaning.

I spent time today doing a commendation for a little one from whom care is being withdrawn tonight. He never had a chance, although he's undergone three surgeries since his birth two weeks ago. I spent a long time at his bedside, just stroking his head. He has been in an isolation room because he has been so ill and is (frankly) a little scary looking. I was thinking as I was saying the prayers of commendation how little I've seen anyone touching him, not prodding or poking, but touching him the way babies need to be touched. So I stayed, and held his hand, and stroked his tiny head, and thought a lot about the meaning of such a tiny, brief life, just a flash of a shooting star across the sky. I truly believe he is going to a better place. This work is such a privilege.

I also visited a youngster who has suffered brain-damage from lack of oxygen after a near-drowning. The family is hoping for complete cure. It seems unlikely. So today we prayed for a hundred little miracles, like him gripping his grandpa's hands, or moving his legs a bit, or appearing to looking meaningfully at his brother. We also talked about how God's time is not our time, as much as we'd prefer the big bolt of lightning that fixes everything right now, and how we also need to pray for patience.

I'm thinking a lot these days about how, when one of our children is desperately ill, we become children ourselves, petitioning our Father God for a parental fix. We think as a child. At some point, if it is an extended recovery, or less than hopeful prognosis, we become grown, and we put away childish wishes. Our interactions with God seem to change.

Another mother and her child (who is HIV positive) are struggling to balance hope with reality, and the child's kidneys are failing. The miracle talk has shifted into simple requests for strength.

Neither is good or bad, or right or wrong. It's just an evolution as we process the suffering.

Four babies have died on the intensive care unit in the past two weeks. My heart aches.

Extremely Crabby

I'm having a major-league problem with another group member in CPE. Can't talk about it - that would be a violation of the group covenant, but I'm crabby. I guess I'll have to address it during our next group session on Friday. Not fun to deal with someone who's unreasonable and extraordinarily prickly.

Damn.

A Bit of Harry Potter Silliness..Which Potter Alter Ego Are You?

You scored as Hermione Granger, You're one intelligent witch, but you have a hard time believing it and require constant reassurance. You are a very supportive friend who would do anything and everything to help her friends out. Hermione Granger 75% Albus Dumbledore 75% Harry Potter 75% Remus Lupin 65% Ron Weasley 60% Ginny Weasley 55% Sirius Black 50% Severus Snape 45% Draco Malfoy 35% Lord Voldemort 35% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...? created with QuizFarm.com

Yes, it's silly. but it was a long day in CPE, with a movie on racism and a presentation of one of my most challenging and frustrating verbatims...

I find it odd that my answers yielded the same percentage for Hermione, Dumbledore and Harry; that certainly says something about the scientific nature fo the survey!

Besides, the book arrives on Saturday!

Random Dots of Counting Down

• 23 more days of CPE. Not that I'm counting down the days or anything...
• lovely in-laws are coming for the weekend next weekend. Although I should be stressed about getting the house clean etc., I'm just so happy to have them here, I'm not worried about the state of the house (at least not much).
• I survived mid-unit CPE review. The perception of the group seems to be that I'm some great energetic mamma bear. My own image of myself is one of the Israelites murmuring in the wilderness and complaining about the manna.
• it was a blessed relief to go someplace different for church this morning and not have to answer questions about CPE. PH preached at a church I've never been to before (he was serving as supply clergy) and it was great to just be quiet and listen.
• I'm preaching at Big Old Seminary - we have Wednesday night Eucharist during the summer - on August 1st. First time I've preached there. It's the passage from Luke about Joseph of Arimethea retrieving Christ's body, putting it in the tomb, and the women anointing the body. I think I'll do a reflection on the way the ritual of the handling of the body is dealt with by the hospital when a child dies, and the power of ritual in that liminal space between death and the reuniting of the soul with God. Nothing like something heavy...the key will be the pivot into that joyful moment when the mortal body is left behind and the soul is with God. Don't want everyone to be going from the Eucharist to the post-Eucharist cook-out in tears.
• I'm also preparing a seminar for my CPE group on child abuse and how we address it in our parishes/congregations. If any of you out there in the blogosphere can recommend some good resources, I'd appreciate it.

So let's see, I've dealt with two deaths of babies this week, I've presided over an interfaith service on children who were victims of violence, I'm preaching on death rituals in two weeks, I'm teaching a class on child abuse. The upside of all this is that I'll be so cheerful when it's all over, the start of school (with Systematics, Homiletics, Church History, and Pastoral Theology) will seem like lots of happy talk!

Words fail me...

The little one I baptized a few days ago died last night. It shouldn't have been a surprise - she had many physical problems - but she had seemed better. I had seen her with her mom at her bedside yesterday at 5 pm.

This has been a bad week on the unit, with two babies who were in beds right alongside each other dying within a day of each other. Teen Mom (see below) whose little baby girl is still in many ways a medical mystery to the docs with her many congenital problems, didn't come in to sit by her child's bedside, as she usually does. I fear she's been shocked and horrified by the two deaths, and it is finally dawning on her how sick her baby is. I hope she'll be there on Monday so we can talk.

I've been assigned an additional unit, since one member of my CPE group has dropped out for medical reasons. I'm picking up the Respiratory Care unit (think asthma, cystic fibrosis, that sort of problem). Sick kids, usually past the baby stage so I can have some conversations with them, not so acute as the babies downstairs. Different challenges that will be good for me.

As much as I'm learning, I will be glad when these last five weeks are over. Poor PH is patient with my every-night tears, but I feel badly that his wife dumps all her emotions on him over dinner.

The cure? I had frozen custard after dinner tonight. I'm much better, even though my jeans are tighter.

Tod und Verklarung

One of our sickest babies died last night. She was born with many congenital defects, and in her ten months of life underwent a number of surgeries to try and help her. She finally could hold on no longer, and as she was about to be coded, her mother stepped to the bedside and said, "enough." So they undid the many tubes, and let her lay in her mother's arms. The pacer wires were still attached, so her heart kept beating. After a while, her mother said to remove the pacer wires. Her heart stopped immediately. They sat quietly with her for a long time, and after the last of the various pieces of equipment was unhooked, they bathed her and dressed her and continued to hold her in their arms. It was a moment of terrible poignancy.

This is a ritual that often happens in this unit when a baby dies - and babies do die here frequently because we do the most radical of surgeries, the true last-ditch efforts - that the parents stay with the baby, bathe the child, and spend time quietly holding their little one.

In the case of the baby that died last night, for the past few weeks, the mother had often said, "I just want to be able to hold her." There were so many tubes and wires it was impossible for her to be lifted off the bed and into her mother's embrace. Last night, finally, she got her wish.

I wonder about these rituals of washing and waiting. Certainly Scripture speaks of them after Jesus' death on the cross. Joseph of Arimethea collects Jesus' body, lays it in the tomb, and the women come to wash and anoint the body.

I belive that some of it is to lend tactile truth to the death. When you have touched a dead person, child or adult, you know they are dead. You can feel there is no life in them. Some of it, too, is an honoring of the person by washing them, anointing them, preparing them to step away from this world and into the next. It is the last gentle act of love you can do.

I used to think that rituals like wakes (I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and the wakes were Joycean) were barbaric. The number of times I heard someone say at the side of the casket, "Doesn't she look good?" is more than I wish to count. Spending time sitting with a body? Having the dead person dressed up and laid out for all to see? Awful!

Now I start to see the wisdom of ritual to lend reality to what has happened, although the embalming and making up of dead bodies still seems wrong to me. I wonder if we can visualize a going up to heaven without the rituals that bid the person, or at least the person's mortal body, farewell.

I believe in another place after this one, a place of peace and rest. I don't know what it is like - none of us do - but I know it's there. When I die, I hope my loved ones can bid my body farewell as gracefully as these parents did, knowing that I am well and truly gone from them, and know, too, that the "I" of me is gone on to that other mystery for which there are no words.

Rest in peace, little M. Rest in peace in that mystery place for which there are no words.

Whoa!

So Friday the CICU was rockin' - lots of sick babies plus a couple of sick adults with congenital heart defects. I had spent some time with new anchor mom (the beautiful, fully made up one) and we talked about grieving the perfect birth and homecoming she had planned for her little boy. When you're a master (or mistress) of the universe, you think everything's going to go your way, and when it doesn't, it's a shock. A long and interesting conversation, and she was able to cry about it, which was a very good thing. The good news is that her son's problem is very fixable, and although the start of his life was not what she hoped for, the rest of his life most likely will be. On the other hand, mye xperience with my own children tells me that they tend to do follow their own path, not the one I laid out for them. Nevertheless, she is fortunate.

Then the social worker came to find me and said "We need you to do a baptism NOW." It was a baby I had prayed with before - the family is Catholic and Hispanic, and mom speaks very little English. I suggested she might prefer to have the Catholic priest come down...and was told that the baby was crashing and they were about to rush her up to the OR to try and fix what they believed was the problem (the baby had already had several heart surgeries and was recovering from her latest) and there was no time to page the priest. So I baptized the little one (who had every square inch of her body covered with tubes, leads, etc) reaching past the four nurses who were packing her up with all her equipment to go to surgery. Even with all the work they had to do, they stepped aside for a moment to give me access, and a few said some of the prayers with us. One of the nurses said to me, as I was by the crib, "You better do some extra prayers for this one. It's really a long shot." Nothing like a little pressure. We had an interpreter translate as I baptized the baby, and they recited the Lord's Prayer in Spanish as I did it in English. Then we brought in the two siblings, aged ten and six, to kiss their baby sister before they took her up. We had to gown and glove the brother and sister, which they thought was great fun. The only thing they could reach to kiss was her little foot.

Suffice to say it blew me away, and I had to step out after they took the baby up to compose myself.

An hour later, she came back down from surgery. The problem was not as acute as they feared, and was fixable. The baby still has a long road ahead of her, but she got through this one. I'd like to believe the Lord (and my clumsy baptism) helped. At the very least, it was a comfort to the mother and to the staff who (remarkably) thank me when I pray with a baby.

Intense.

The other biggie: the newborn baby of a teen mother (both baby and mom have a raft of problems) was taken up for surgery unexpectedly - we thought she would be waiting until next week for her repairs. She was in surgery for twelve hours, on heart bypass for over five. She will still need more surgery down the road. It's miraculous that they're able to do these repairs, but it raises a number of ethical questions as well. Teen Mom has been leaning on me (as has her mother, a grandmother at 36) so it has been a challenging week. I expect this family will be with me for the rest of my time in CPE this summer, and I already feel very close to them. I don't know whether their reliance on me is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm certainly learning a lot in the midst of it.

Plus we have a preemie who has just had his first heart surgery despite the fact that he weighs under three pounds.

Whoa, indeed!

Six more weeks.

Movie Recommendation

If you love to cook, or love to eat, or love general good-hearted silliness, may I recommend you go see the new animated picture "Ratatouille?" Beautiful animation, charming story with a good message, and lots of good stuff for the foodies amongst you. Ian Holm as an evil chef, Peter O'Toole as a mean-spirited critic, Brian Dennehy as the ghost of a famous and big-hearted chef. It's my understanding that the writers and animators spent a great deal of time with renowned chef Thomas Keller of the French Laundry, Bouchon, and Per Se, and it shows. Not for under 7-year-olds, I think, even with the G rating, but otherwise even your Great-Aunt Sadie would find nothing objectionable.

I'm still smiling...

CPE Random Dots - Week Four +

Today was a short day - I had a funeral of an elderly friend this afternoon. I spent the morning doing clinical visitation. I've got tomorrow off, too - a blessed relief.

Here's what's happening:

• more very sick babies on my acute unit. We are all braced for the inevitable sadness with a few of them. It affects the whole unit.
• I am getting a rep as a "baby whisperer," good at calming down fussy little ones. I claim to have grandma hands, and I can sing a whole bunch of lullabies. And yes, I do pray a lot with them.
• the dad of one of our babies is a news anchor, and he and his wife are too gorgeous for words (the baby was born less than a week ago, and she is back into her original jeans, and shows up on the unit in full makeup - the only sign of recent birth is a luxurious bosom, which makes her hips and tummy even tinier). We all feel like schlumps in comparison. On the other hand, they're not surgeons or nurses or repiratory therapists or baby whisperers, so I guess even in our schlumpiness, we're useful.
• a baby with (literally) half a brain, can still look in your eyes and you can feel the connection.
• I'm getting better at talking desperate parents off the ledge when things are getting really rough. And I'm getting braver at asking the hard questions (do you understand your baby is really sick and may die? kind of questions) plus the follow-up hard questions (what's happening in your relationship with God with all that's going on?). No one has smacked me literally or figuratively yet.
• anointing a sick child is the most transcendent thing I've ever done.
• teen moms are not necessarily immature. Mothers of teen moms are not necessarily mature. No generalizations, just an observation.
• some of the staffers are so goal-oriented, they forget they're working with people.
• if I trust my instincts, I'm generally okay. If I worry about what someone else thinks, I'm generally not.

Tomorrow should be a quiet Fourth. PH is going on a long bike ride with his buddies, I'm going to attempt to sleep in, and we're going to see "Ratatouille" in the afternoon, then grill some steaks on the Weber. I should do my ethics project, but somehow I think I need a completely non-CPE day. Gosh, this is exhausting work.