a day in the life

I'm back!  I found this entry that I never published from last March (the 22nd, to be exact), and it really got me thinking.  I find it hilarious that I never made it past 12:50.  A bunch of stuff has changed in the last nine months (I didn't end up moving appointments, for example, and Jeff is out of the halfway house and doing awesome - he just got his one-year sobriety chip), but the hectic pace is still the same.  It's really very telling that I could only keep up with cataloging what I do until early afternoon.

I just got back from a little vacation to visit my best friend outside San Francisco.  One of the things I love most about spending time visiting with him is how slow and simple life is.  We linger over coffee in the morning.  We walk the dog in a great big loop.  We have time and space to just talk about ideas.  I spend all day shopping for and fixing dinner.  And it's so, so not how my life is every day.  I don't know if I would like my life to be that open and simple all the time (and I don't really get much of a choice, anyway), but it makes for a perfect place to reflect and get my mental life in order.

I love these kinds of zoom-in posts to see what the warp and weft and weave of the fabric of a person's life is like.  Forgive me if you just don't care that much, but I thought some of you might find it kind of amusing.

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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

7:15 - we wake up late.  Todd has his allergy-induced coughing this time of year, so he kept me up a lot of the night after coming to sleep with me at about 11:30.  The dog is tucked tightly into my armpit on the other side.  I love this feeling of being pinned between two warm little lumps who love me.

8:20 - after showering, getting the kids dressed, fixing them six hundred different things for breakfast, realizing I'm slightly hungover after I had three drinks and no dinner at this storytelling thing (don't worry, my senior pastor drove!) for my birthday last night, eating some homemade granola, and forgetting to take the dog out, we pile in the car.

8:30 - we pick up my ex-husband at the halfway house where he is living.

8:50 - we drop the kids off at their preschool.

9:00 - I drop Jeff off at a Burger King so he can meet his boss and go work for the day.

9:05 - I call my attorney to discuss the eventuality of my moving and needing to renegotiate our custody agreement.

9:15 - I walk into church, wave at everyone, finish the call with the attorney, and answer emails and texts for awhile.

9:30 - I'm interrupted by a few folks needing bus passes and food bags.  No big deal.

9:45 - time for chapel with the daycare kids!  I go to the Sanctuary and meet them, light candles, tell the Easter story, sing a few songs, pray, and answer some of their very thoughtful questions about why we have purple in the Sanctuary right now (Lent), why where are so many crosses in there, why there is a screen behind the cross (vents for the organ speakers), and why we light candles.

10:00 - I come back to see that the Moroccan woman who doesn't speak any English and is being divorced by her husband and has no recourse or resources is back speaking with the Senior Pastor.  She has been in a lot lately, and we have no idea what to do about her situation.  I remember that the son of some congregants is fluent in Arabic and try to reach him.

10:15 - edits, edits, edits.  This is Holy Week, plus there is a funeral today, so there are a million things to proof and edit.  Early and late service bulletins for Sunday, funeral order of worship, Good Friday bulletin, children's bulletins for Sunday.  I also miraculously find the Easter offering envelopes that I thought I was going to have to sell my soul for at some Christian bookstore this week.

10:20 - the family of the deceased for the funeral later is here and setting things up for the visitation to follow, and I have to text the custodian a bunch to get things squared away with them.  They set up a chocolate candy bar display that looks, frankly, phenomenal.

10:25 - interrupted by some more folks needing bus passes and food bags.  They need to get down to Metro General Hospital for some appointments.

11:00 - I realize that I need to eat before leading the Madison Homelessness Commission meeting at one.  I also need to call another District Superintendent about a possible move.  Multitask.  Panera sounds good.  On my way out, I notice that the Moroccan divorcee is gone.  I also remember that I haven't brushed my teeth yet today, but I did pack my toothbrush and a little travel paste in my bag this morning.  After lunch then.

11:20 - I talk to the DS.  I remember that I need to text my mother-in-law and tell her I left Todd's medicines in the preschool office when she picks him up later for his sleepover.  I order French onion soup, a veggie sandwich, chips, and water.  I get out a book like I'm going to do some reading for my D.Min. program, all studious, but then I just Facebook the whole time I'm eating.

12:30 - I get back to church.  The office volunteer tells me about a man to whom she gave a food bag.  I realize I need to move the Homelessness Coalition meeting from the gym to the library.  I contemplate a third cup of coffee and decide to live dangerously.  I brush my teeth first though.  Then I give some thought to how I'm going to lead this meeting.

12:50 - I remember to starting downloading the episode of "GIRLS" I'm going to watch tonight on my iPad after bedtime.

preparations

Reading like crazy, trying to get all prepped for the big upcoming two-week D.Min. course.  I came across this awesome quote in Bob Farr's book Renovate or Die:  "As pastors, don't forget your first love is Jesus.  Don't forget your second love is people because Jesus loved people" (22).  May it ever be true!  See you all on the other side.

the doctor is in!

Okay - not quite yet.  Or not for like three more years.  That is, if I can keep up and finish the program.

It all started back in August.  I received an email from Tom Laney, who is a friend, a pastor, and an administrator at Vanderbilt Divinity School.  He led the fellowship program that funded my final year as a seminarian as a Turner Scholar.  So, I see that I have an email from Tom, and immediately open it, expecting a friendly shout-out.

But I was confused.  As I read down the list of other recipients on this email, I saw about thirty names.  These were the names of very high-profile United Methodist pastors in my area.  District Superintendents, successful church planters, leaders of some of the largest churches in middle Tennessee.  One of these things is not like the other played in the back of my head.

And the message was also perplexing.  It said something along the lines of:  We are so excited to meet with you in Jackson this month, to discuss the opportunity put forward in our previous communication.  Previous communication?  What?  I had seen no previous communication.

So I emailed Tom back right away.  Thank you so much for the inclusion on this illustrious list, but . . . uh . . . I think you have the wrong person?  I'm not even sure what you're talking about?

Tom replied.  He said there was no mistake, except I was somehow left off the original email.  This was an opportunity I wouldn't want to miss, he said.  I needed to make plans to be at this two-day meeting in Jackson at the end of the month.

So I did.

I packed up the kids and my grandmother-in-law and headed to Jackson.  They stopped off at her lake house for the overnight and I went on to Jackson.  (And Todd proceeded to get a horrendous stomach bug that he eventually passed through our entire family. . . cue mega parental guilt.)  When I got there, I gathered in a church classroom with this lovely group of influential people from the Nashville Episcopal Area.  I saw Dr. Meeks, a presence who guides my ministry almost every day.  I saw Tom.  I saw the Bishop.  And I heard about an opportunity that I couldn't possibly deny.

See, the Bishop said, we all know that we are in some kind of trouble.  We will be facing a large-scale retirement as our Baby Boomer pastors age, and we are staring into a leadership vacuum.  Many of you in this room will be forced to take positions for which you are not ready.  That should make you nervous.  This is a chance for you to be better prepared, and to form a cohort of friends that can last throughout your careers.  

(Or something like that - don't quote me.  It's not like I was recording!)

The details ran something like this:  4 two-week sessions over the next two years (January 2015 in Nashville, May 2015 in Memphis, January 2016 in DC, May 2016 in Pulaski); another year to write the final project; graduation May 2017 at the National Cathedral, with the degree of Doctor of Ministry.  The program is through Wesley Theological Seminary.  The focus is on Wesleyan Theology, Mission & Evangelism.  Coursework and reading would be done ahead of the sessions so we could intensively devote each day of the sessions to conversation and teaching from 9 am - 5 pm.  There would be opportunities for worship, fellowship, recreation, and learning in the evenings.  And it would be paid for.



Wait, what!?

Paid for.  Tuition, lodging, food, travel.  Everything but books.  Paid for.  By the generosity and dedication of people who support our church and its leaders.

Paid for.  This kind of program regularly costs people in the tens of thousands of dollars.  It is not something I ever thought I would be able to achieve.

As I looked around the room, letting this information sink in, I saw similarly amazed pastors.  Pastors of all stripes - men and women, black and white, conservative and as liberal as they come.  The only thing we have in common is that we all love our church and look forward to what God will do with us in the future.

We were instructed to go home and pray about it.  Talk it over with our families.  See if our churches would support us in taking this much time for continuing education.  See if we could make it work.

I knew my church would support me in this because they are amazing like that.  Plus, I have the great benefit of not being the solo pastor here, which means I don't have to find someone to preach and cover all my duties for the times I'm gone.  But I was worried about my kids.  Two weeks is a long time to leave a toddler.  I felt lucky in that our first session is here in Nashville, so I wouldn't face being apart from Todd until May of this year.  I talked it over with my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law.  Would they be able to help me take care of the kids so I could pursue this?  Once again, I'm so lucky to get this kind of unequivocal support for them.  They understand that they are not just helping me, they are helping the church they love when they help me.

So, with some fear and trembling, I pressed "submit" on the application.  I started the reading.  And now our first session is right around the corner!  I am getting more and more thrilled (and more and more bogged down in the reading) as the time nears for us to gather on Monday at Scarritt Bennett.  I have always felt a yearning for further study, but I didn't ever see how it could be possible, what with my kids and my work.  Now, it just seems as if the dream is coming true!  If you are into prayer, would you pray for me?  It's all just a bit stressful, even as exciting as it is.  I could use the good vibes.

a word on failure

Ministry has to be one of the more difficult callings in the world, because we are frequently called to fail.  Oh no, we are not expected to fail, but we do.  We are expected to produce more disciples, to draw people to Jesus Christ, and to enlarge the church (and the church's financial giving to further God's kingdom on earth).

But I think we forget that Jesus failed to convince a whole lot of people who met him in the flesh.  How could we be expected to do any better than his track record!?  We seem to think that being presented with the Gospel is an easy decision.  What we are asking of people, when we introduce them to Christ, is exceedingly difficult!  We are asking them to forsake a lot of what makes them happy and comfortable.  Even people who nominally claim Christ are (or should be) challenged to reform their thinking and their actions continually.  It's called sanctification, and it's not pretty.

So we, who should be bearing Christ, face a lot of rejection.  And that can really get to you after awhile.  Only people in sales have a thicker skin for being continually told to get lost.  A lot of times the rejection is quite subtle.  Will Willimon describes the gentle snub that a lot of pastors receive every week:  "often [it] takes the form of that at the end of Paul's speech in Acts 17, the polite, urbane, "Well, that was interesting.  Yes, very, very interesting.  We'll just have to think about that one.  Think about it, yes.  (We intend to do nothing about it, but we'll think about it.)""*

The nice part is that the kingdom of God actually depends very little on my failure or success.  At the end of the day, as inconsequential as it may make me feel in my quest for meaning, the church will rise and fall at the will of God.  God's Kingdom will come on earth in God's time.  I get the privilege of being a little part of that big plan, but I certainly don't determine whether it will happen or not.  Thank God.

*Willimon, Pastor, p. 296.

on friendship

A great fortune cookie told me this once:  "If you want to have a friend, be a friend."  (Not strictly a fortune, but we can get into that pet peeve on another day.  Much more of a platitude?  A truism?)

I have always sort of habitually sucked at the practice of cultivating friendship.  I totally recognize that the best way to make close friends is to be there for people - to call just to chat, to offer them gifts and advice, to live life together in the big ways and the small ways.  The best way to make a friend is to be a friend.  And I usually fail.

For this reason, I have always been attracted to communities that foster friendships through shared experience.  Working at camp, living together with roommates before I was married, going to college and joining a sorority, joining a Bradley birth class.  These provide opportunities for like-minded people to gather in one place and share life.  And even still, all my closest friends are from these different opportunities.

My sister told me that making friends gets a lot harder after college (graduate school, in my case, which was kind of a college extension).  It's really true.  Losing an age-level cohort with at least some level of mutual interest is hard.  I like my colleagues a lot, and working at a church is much more social than, say, analyzing data.

But I'm not much of a friend.  My own life seems to take over all my time and energy and there is just no time left for long phone calls and shared coffee.  If it weren't for Jeff and my job, I might go a whole week without talking to another adult!

This is why I'm so shocked that people continue to be such good friends to me.  From bringing me to New York for a bridal shower to buying me lunch to overwhelming my family with gifts at our baby shower last weekend, I am shown examples of selfless friendship from every side lately.

And this wasn't even half!

It seems to be a kind of divine reminder that, in this life, there are no relationships that are equal.  There is nothing I can do to earn the grace and love of others.  All I can do is seize these precious gifts and attempt some level of reciprocity when the time comes.  I hope and pray that I can learn these lessons of grace!

consumer conundrum

So, I just found out last night that the lovely ladies at church are going to give us a shower.  What a blessing!

I truly was not anticipating a shower this time around.  I know it's not customary for second or subsequent babies, and we got so much stuff with Vicki that we never ended up using.  We had two showers when I was pregnant the first time, and they were both really special.  We are still working through some of the stuff I got over two years ago!  Things like lotion, bath wash, and diaper cream (which we have never needed because Vicki doesn't really get rashy).

So, I spent several hours on Amazon this morning, trying to think of things we need.  I can honestly say I'm really struggling!  We still have a crib that we never used the first time.  We have a little cradle that Jeff's granddaddy made for him to put in our room.  We never used a baby bath - I just got in the bath with Vicki. We have tons of unisex newborn clothes, and then family and friends to supply boy-clothes hand-me-downs forever.  We never used a changing table or mat.  We still have a monitor and all our bottles and brushes and pacifiers and all that.

The few things I feel like we do actually need are very pricey.  A new carseat (we are just getting a convertible this time around - not messing with the bucket since Jeff ran over it on accident), a new high chair (the Tripp Trapp I want is a little exorbitant), and some diapers and covers.  I will need a breast pump, I know, but the one I like is $1600 and it makes much more sense to rent it from the hospital for the time I need it!  A double stroller would be lovely, but again - costly.

This Bob Duallie would be sweet - only $471!!

So, I ended up with 22 items - 10 of them cloth diapers or diaper covers!  I've decided to stock up with a few more Thirsties size small covers, and then get some Fuzzibunz extra-small pockets to start.  I just scored 13 Fuzzibunz size smalls from a lady in town (30 bucks!), so I think we will be covered, diaper-wise.  I registered for the Tripp Trapp, and the carseat, a Moses basket, a few little toys like a ring stacker, a gorgeous Flensted mobile, and just a few clothes.  And if we don't get any of it - I will still be happy with what we have.

The mobile.  I love it!

I remember feeling very overwhelmed when I registered the first time around.  Was I getting the right things?  How would I know what the baby needed?  A lot of it stemmed from not knowing what our parenting style would be like.  Well, now I know:  it's minimalist, just like the rest of our lifestyle!  Honestly, gift cards would be as helpful, or more helpful than anything.

And then there's the gift my mother-in-law got us the first time around:  eight weeks of housekeeping from a professional service.  I would trade all the other gifts to get that one again!  It was a dream.

I feel like I'm forgetting something vital.  And yet - when I think back to what we needed in Vicki's first year, that was it.  We have a Moby wrap and an Ergo carrier.  She slept in bed with us.  She needed just clothing, diapers, love, and closeness to the two of us.  And those things will be non-negotiables for any of our children!

14w3d

Oh, that fun stage of pregnancy where you just look/feel fat.  No discernable "bump."  Just a thick middle.  Not big enough for maternity wear.  Regular pants are bad.  I need to grab one of those Bella Bands next time I'm at Target.

 

The big development this week:  movement!  Can you believe I felt the tiny thing move!?  I hardly could either.  With Vicki, I wasn't sure what I was feeling until it became unmistakeable at nineteen weeks.  This time, I felt that little fluttery tumble so much earlier.  It helps to know what you are looking for.  It's such a funny sensation.  Jeff feels left out and sad because he'll never know what it feels like.

I'm really cherishing the little things right now.  For example, my feet are a perfectly normal size and I can see each metatarsal moving when I flex them.  I'm sure they will swell right up before I even know it.

I remember the day Jeff and I sat together on the couch, four or five days after Vicki was born, telling stories about her birth like we'd seen combat together.  He looked down at my feet propped up on the coffee table and said, "I think I'm seeing parts of your feet I haven't seen in months!"

I'm thinking of Advent, of course, as we church people frantically dive into one of our busiest seasons.  One of the readings for Christmas Day tells Jesus' full birth story (the best one is in Luke).  It tells of all the grand happenings, the census, the traveling, the birth.  And then one little line toward the end:  "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." 

Did she treasure the feeling of her baby tumbling and kicking inside her?  The birth story of her first child?  There is so much to ponder in your heart in all of this.  I know how she felt.

new friends

All three of us are adjusting pretty well to our new life in Nashville . . . including Vicki Jo.  Here she is with her fan club at Vacation Bible School:

Looks like she inherited the Grammer/Starnes curse:  the shocking ability to make friends and influence people in any situation and under any circumstances.

guest post: ordinary time

My friends, welcome to the stage Jacquie Hauth.  Jacquie and I met when we started together at Vanderbilt Divinity School four years ago.  I have always been impressed with the precision and depth of her thought.  She also blogs over at Constant Conversion.  I asked if she would write a little bit for us on what "ordinary time" means for her.  For those who are not living and breathing the church calendar, ordinary time represents two LONG stretches from Pentecost until Advent, and then from Epiphany until Lent.  It eats up well over half of the year, as you can see:

Church leaders sometime struggle with what to do in ordinary time.  Do you stretch out Pentecost and Epiphany and act like they are seasons, rather than just days?  What do you emphasize?  In what direction do you drive the life of the church, or your own personal spiritual pursuit?  Here are Jacquie's reflections.

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Ordinary Time

Does the church year really mimic the academic year, or has my experience lead me to that conclusion?

For nineteen years of my life, I have had my seasons dictated by the school calendar.  It is hard to suddenly think of the 
year beginning in November instead of late August (or for that matter, January).  But this isn't meant to be a reflection on 
the start of the year, but the middle.  Or rather, the first long stretch.

The Christian year begins with Advent, and then comes Christmas and Epiphany.  Soon after, Lent arrives to mark the road 
to Easter.  Easter comes and goes, then begins the even longer season of Ordinary Time.  Unlike Lent, Ordinary Time is 
not marked by a sense of anticipation or special longing.  It is the first long stretch of time in the church year when there is 
nothing hovering just along the horizon.

In my academic career, Ordinary Time has always coincided with summer--vacations and blissful forgetting of all the lessons 
learned the previous year.  When I was growing up, this was a season of low attendance at my church.  No one said it aloud, 
but I got the impression that it was acceptable to miss some church in the summertime because nothing really "important" 
was happening.  Jesus wasn't being born, baptized or executed, nor was he rising.  Mary wasn't waiting patiently, and we 
weren't fasting or feasting.  Instead, it was a time for parables and summer reading lists.  Not terribly exciting.

But now that I have been outside of the academic pattern for over a year--and I haven't had the ending and beginning of a 
school year to approximate Ordinary Time--it's starting to sink in just how odd this understanding of this season really is.  
Ordinary Time is by no means unexciting (as a time devoid of other more thrilling things) but this popular perception fails to 
recognize just how exceptionally ordinary the rest of the year is, too.  This is the first season of Ordinary Time in which I'm 
not gearing up for some new beginning: I've just been chugging along in my life at the intersection of love, worry, work, and 
food.

How much of my life really is wrapped up in those four things: love, worry, work, and food--even and especially in those 
other more exciting seasons of the church (even in those other more exciting semesters of schooling).  And now that I don't 
have a new semester or a new thrill to look forward to, I'm beginning to fully realize it.

So perhaps this is more a reflection on how much my life's seasons have been dictated by the school year rather than the 
church year.  Or perhaps this was a chance to muse over how much I love Ordinary Time's insistence that the everyday 
matters just as much as the exceptional (otherwise, why devote a whole season to it)?  I rejoice in the ebb and flow of daily 
life... in the knowledge that this first long stretch of the church year is in many ways more like our everyday lives than the 
other seasons: the long quiet stretches when we get to practice life without glamour or pretense or any other "event" to 
make life meaningful.  It just is.  And that's the wonder of it.

In a way, this is a season for me to regret all the past seasons of Ordinary Time that were nothing more than filler between 
things that I thought were more exciting.  It is a time to give thanks that--despite all the imbued glamour we give to other 
seasons of the church--life itself is fantastically (miraculously) ordinary.

a place to grow

We spend a lot of time in young adult-ish clergy-esque academia-like groups talking about what is wrong with the church.  Too many expectations.  Too much rigidity.  Too much defensive posturing.  Too old.  And, at different times, a lot of that is true.  You don't need to be a genius to figure out that the mainline Protestant denominations are declining fast.  And that Americans don't like losing at things.  At the risk of sounding defeatist, I struggle frequently with the sense many churches have that if they cease to exist, God will cease to work.  But anyway, today, I want to talk about some stuff that is going right.

I have been so blessed, as I have tumbled through this whole seven-years-minimum ordination thing, to end up in congregations that have accepted me and taught me.  Blakemore United Methodist Church nurtured my skills, cheered me along, and blessed me in my engagement and marriage.  The pastors I worked with taught me so much about ministry, and about giving your life to something more than yourself.  They taught me in both word and deed, and sometimes they showed me what not to do.

And now, Countryside United Methodist Church ("a place to grow") is giving me a chance to flex and strengthen my ministerial muscles in so many ways, every day.  Rather than disregarding me because I am young, or female, I am included in making important decisions.  I work with an amazing senior pastor who is not afraid to let me preach frequently, attend the sacraments, and lead in the ordering of the church.  This church has embraced me and helped me grow my daughter (both inside and outside my body!). 

So, ask me on another day, and I can tell you everything that is wrong.  I can give you all the doom and gloom you care to indulge in.  But today . . . I'm so grateful for a place to grow.