Some ramblings...

I have been exploring the idea of relationships in CPE this past week. This is what I have come to understand about relationships. The relationships we create, whether they are boyfriend/girlfriend, parent/child, or a friendship, pose greatest threat to our inner most self while at the same time pose the greatest benefit and need for our overall self. Where would we be if it was not for the relationships that we have formed and sometimes broken up? Our relationships, and lack there of, define us as people. Our relationship to God and Jesus define us as Christians; our relationship to our employers define us as workers in a particular trade: pastors, electricians, doctors, nurses, ect. It is these relationships that help create our identity as individuals in this world. I hope to explore this a bit more in later blog entries.

In response to my blog entry from the other day about the struggle I am having over life and death issues and I want to continue my thought. It is amazing to me that we can question our faith so easily when countless men and women have been and still are willing to give their lives for what they believed in. My future roommate, Robbie, commented a few weeks ago on his own blog that he feels that nobody is willing to stand up for what is right anymore. We allow governments and individuals to oppress people based on the race, age, and gender. Martin Luther said, "You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say." Simillary, Martin Luther King Jr. also can be quoted by having said, "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere" How can we sit by and let our morals that define us as humankind, whether they are religious based or secular based, be compromised? Why do we so easily conform when our values, norms, and beliefs are compromised? Why do so easily not believe and trust in the values of our faith when one event, whether major or minor, happens to us?

Christians are amazing creatures. We are all taught the Easter story at a young age (or sometimes at a older age). It is something that many of us know by heart. But yet, every year, Christians around the world read the passion story; we hear how Jesus is handed over to the Jewish and Roman authorities, how he is tortured, how he is hung on the cross. We hear the last seven words that Jesus said before his death and then we hear how he was raised from the dead. We need this yearly reminder because without it, our faith would lost and we would forget the great love that Christ had for us. Every year we sing, "Christ is Risen, Alleluia" to remind us that Christ is raised from the dead. Sometimes we must remind ourselves of the promises Jesus gave us. For me, I need to be reminded daily and every time I walk into a patient's room of the Gospel and the promises proclaimed in the Gospel just as Christians, myself included, need to be reminded every year that Christ is Risen and has broken the bonds of death.

CPE Journal Entry for Week 3

I remember an episode of Star Trek Voyager where Harry Kim is sucked into sub-space and then spit out on different planet. This planet believed in a spiritual after-life but Harry knew that their bodies were just sent to an astroid when they died. The people did not know this. For many of the people on this planet, Harry Kim’s explanation created doubt in their heart. Harry even began to wonder about his own mentality. But at the end of the episode when he is talking to Captain Janeway, she told him that they notice some sort of brain activity would leave the astroids every time a body was transfered there. Was that their “Spirit” or was that just a computer glitch? The episode never went into anymore detail but it did create a even greater wonder in the afterlife for Harry Kim and the Voyager crew. After completing three weeks of CPE, I am beginning to reflect on my own personal mortality just as Voyager’s crew did in this episode. I attended a funeral on Sunday and every time I attend a funeral I ask myself, “Is this the end?” “Am I going to just die one day and rot away in a wooden box?” I know this is not the case and my faith has taught me differently but my initial reaction every time I first walk into a funeral home is the same. I wonder if this is the end or is there more too it. Now when I receive a decedent care call I still have the same wonders and doubts in my heart. I still go up and minister to the people in the room and tell that by their faith God will prevail, but I personally still have doubts in my own heart. These doubts do end whenever I hear the promises that Jesus made for us in the Gospel but I have to hear them in order to believe in them. I guess seeing and hearing is believing. Death is a funny thing. For one person it is an end and for another it is just the beginning. I feel like I am stuck in the middle most days.

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

A gift for my dad on Father's day...A day off from preaching...Enjoy.


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Today we honor the men in our lives who have been a calming and loving presence for us. We remember and honor our Fathers this day for all the hard work they have done for us. Some of us are fathers themselves, I am not one of them. We all can owe a great deal of gratitude to fathers for raising us to be successful men and women. They were the ones who loved us, yelled at us at times, and shown us value of doing the right thing. So today we thank them for what they have done for us and we honor and remember them not only today but everyday just as we honor our mothers and women in our lives. But we must not forget our Heavenly Father, our Great and Holy God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Our God is the greatest parent we will ever know; possessing the power to be a healer, a comforter, that calming presence, whatever we need. We know that God is with us on every possible journey we face.

And today I want to focus on the journey of our life. I believe our lives can be summed up in the age old question of “Why did the chicken cross the road?” We are always determined to get from one point in our lives to the other. From Birth to death, 1st month of pregnancy to the time of birth, from the initial diagnosis of stage one of cancer to the point where their is nothing more the doctors can do. We are very much concerned with how to get from point A to point B but we never look at the in between; the how we go to point B.

It is the getting from Point A to Point B that the Gospel writer, Mark, is trying to get us to focus on. There is African Folk Story that goes something like this: There is a African Folk story. A young boy wanted to get his teacher something special. So he walked to the ocean, which was a great distance away and grabbed a handful of sand and then walked back. This took the young boy days to complete the journey. When he returned and gave his teacher the sand, she was very moved by the boys actions but said to the boy “you walked so far to give me this.” The boy responded, the journey is apart of the gift.

Our Gospel story starts our with Jesus telling his disciples that they are going to go to the other side of the sea of Galilee. This was probably a very common trip for the disciples to take. Many of them being skilled fishermen made the journey all the more easier. Maybe this is why Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat. They leave the shore, the crowds that have faithfully followed them are left behind and they start their journey for the next shore, unknown of what awaited them. Now that in itself all we really need to know right? Jesus is leaving one shore to go to another shore on a boat. Jesus is going from Point A to Point B. But the writer does not really care about the Point A to Point B part. Mark doesn’t even really tell us where Point B is. Rather Mark wants us to look at the actual journey; the trip; the boat ride.

Now boats are a funny thing. I have had my fair share of boat trips. I can remember my family’s trip to Maine. While we were in Maine we decided to take a boat out on a whale watching trip. So we go out and the seas were rough that day. My brother is at the bow or front of the boat video taping the boat going up and down. I am in the stern or back of the boat puking my brains out. Then the captain decides to turn the boat around. I was expecting a nice slow turn but the captain turn the wheel hard left. Needless to say, I was done with boats for awhile. Then I met my friend Mike who had a boat. He never really named it but I named it the USS What ever you do, don’t forget your life jackets. I remember one particular time when we were working on this boat and decided to take the boat out for a test ride. We get the boat out and then all of a sudden the engine starts sputtering. We turn to look back and smoke is pouring from the engine. We were about ready to abandon ship because we have spilled way to much gas on the back carpet. What took 10 minutes to go out took 45 minutes to return back to shore. Who would of thought a few barnacles on the propeller could make the engine go haywire? Needless to say, boats=hold on for dear life.

And what happens to the disciples? Their somewhat normal trip from one shore of Galilee to the other shore turned into a Holy Crap!?!? This storm rolls and causes the experienced fishermen to panic. They begin to fear for their lives. They know this storm is bad and that their small little boat is no match for the wind and the rain. The disciples are freaking out but Jesus, their great teacher, the guy who has done some pretty amazing miracles, you know this really cool guy, is asleep in the back of the boat. They wake Jesus and say “Do you not care/ not concern/ not worried that we are all about to die?” Their journey was being turn upside down and they feel like Jesus doesn’t even care enough to help them with the boat. But Jesus stands and says something so profound, so amazing, so brilliant. Jesus doesn’t help with trying to get the water out of the boat. He doesn’t jump into the water leaving his friends. He just says, “Peace! Be still!” The waters calm and the winds cease. The storm was over. Jesus had calmed the storm of their journey but more important, Jesus had calm the worries of his disciples. Jesus was that calming presence for the disciples as Jesus is the calming presence in our lives.

How many times have we been in a situation where we thought a simple journey was awaiting us but this journey turns into something far more difficult. A simple doctors visit turns into terminal cancer. A simple run to the store turns into a life and death trauma situation. A simple baseball game results in a head injury and a family having to decide when it is time to end treatment. These “simple journeys” turn into highly chaotic and confusing moments in our lives. They demand us to act sanely in the mist of insanity. But throughout these chaotic journeys Jesus is the calming and soothing presence for us. Jesus says “peace, be still” in the trauma bay, at the kitchen table where bad news is share, in the hospital room. Jesus is the calming presence for us just as he was the calm presence for his disciples some 2000 years ago. Know this presence, feel this presence, believe in this presence. For it is by God’s free grace that we hear those three little words, “Peace, Be Still.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

After completing my first week of CPE at Reading Hospital I now know why Luther saw the world as "hell." Between the trauma calls and deaths on the floors my days have been kept very busy. I met some very warm and loving patients and families and very cold and harsh patients; patients with very stable minds to patients who are on the brink of a mental break down. The world that I see at Reading Hospital is a very hurt world. When I walk through the hospital I think about Martin Luther. I think about what was going through his mind when he turned his house into a hospital for people who were suffering from the Black Plague. I think about all the hurting and all the suffering that Luther saw. No wonder he thought earth was hell. But I think Luther was wrong in not seeing the good. Luther missed all the care he provided to those dying and sometimes people just want to be heard and remembered. Just something to think about...