For the last two years in seminary, I've heard a lot of negative comments towards the 'Otas and Nebraska. Let me back up. Seminary is basically the most stressful four years of your life. You begin your junior year, panicking over this transition to a new place with a new career path in mind, because you know, GOD IS CALLING YOU TO BE A PASTOR *said in a booming voice with thunder and lightening*. By Christmas, you should have already applied to Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) sites. By Easter, you should have put in your preferences for your Ministry In Context (MIC) site for middler year. By June, you've started CPE. By mid-June, you've watched people die in the hospital and had at least one breakdown over frail human life and how are you incapable of ministering to people in this place and blah blah blah. By August, you're back at seminary, starting your middler year. By December of middler year, you've put in your internship paperwork. By spring, you have an internship site, and BOOM, out the door you go to internship. I can't tell you much about the timeline of internship for most people yet, but here's how mine has been:
1.) Oooh...new place!
2.) Oooh...new place.
3.) Ooooooooh....this....place......
4.) .....
5.) WhatAmIWritingAListAboutBecauseIDon'tHaveTimeToProcessInternshipOrEvenShower....?
After internship, senior year starts up fast. By December, you've got assignment paperwork in for first call. By February, you've got a region of where you'll be going, and it's all downhill from there.
So, for the last two years of my life, in addition to being stressed and exhausted and "stretched," I've tried to envision where my first call will be. As I said earlier, we talk at LSTC about ending up in the 'Otas and Nebraska a lot, these states being less-than-ideal first calls. For me, I think being out in the middle of nowhere scares me for first call, regardless of what state it is.
After getting to know the pastors in the Bear Butte Conference, I'd be okay with coming to South Dakota. They are some FANTASTIC people! I was also happy to attend a clergy retreat, since it's good to talk with others who are "in the field" trying to balance all of life's components, and keep healthy.
Some highlights included extraordinary conversations, lots of walks in the beautiful surroundings at Outlaw Ranch in Custer, SD, worship with beautiful voices and staying up late to laugh over ridiculous things.
In one of the smaller conversations, one pastor shared with me the reality of what it means to be a pastor in simple, rough terms. "When we put on that stole at our ordination, we're putting on the bar, or the yoke, of our peoples' shit. We are carrying around their shit with us."
And that, my friends, is why I am simultaneously honored and terrified to be a called and ordained minister in the ELCA. We all walk around with so much weighing us down that, as a pastor, to be invited into that shit, I am happy to share that yoke with you. At the same time, I need to learn how to process all of your difficulties as well as my own, in a healthy way, so that I don't get pulled down by that yoke. So what do most pastors do? Retreats. Therapists. Screaming. Crying. Whatever it takes to get it out.
After reading this blog post, please take a moment and honor the people who have carried a bit of your burden for you, at some point in your life. I invite you to "honor" them in whatever you feel appropriate--send a note/email, perhaps pray for them.
Another highlight of this awesome weekend with these awesome pastors, was some awesome Taize and Iona worship. Having spent time at Taize, I'm a fan of this worship. I've never been to Iona, but I think I need to add it to my "Sabbaticals to Take Someday" list. I'll leave you with these words from the Iona worship:
"We affirm God's goodness at the heart of humanity, planted more deeply than all that is wrong."
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| And, if the Church sends me to South Dakota, I know that God's promise to never again flood the earth, also promises that God is there, holding me up as I am wearing the stole of the peoples' shit. Thankful for this surprise rainbow reminder on my drive home from the clergy retreat. |
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