Happy Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India, took place one year ago today. I remember that it was on the news Wednesday evening as we arrived at Aunt Elaine and Uncle Ray's house. To commemorate the anniversary, PRI's news show "The World" ran a 3-part series of stories this week about Muslims in Mumbai. I haven't listened to it yet, but I've downloaded the MP3s. Each story is only about 5 minutes long.

Speaking of downloading MP3s, this is also the one-year anniversary of when I started to download and listen to a whole bunch of podcasts, especially those from "The World." I remember listening to several "The World in Words" podcasts as we drove back to NJ on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I soon got in the habit of listening to podcasts while I ate dinner instead of turning on the TV (some days, at least). I was very enthusiastic about discovering the podcasts, and I still really enjoy them. It was great to have them while I was working at the Theology and Ministry Library, since we spent a lot of time in the stacks or shelf-reading, which can get very boring very quickly if you don't have something to listen to. Now with my busy schedule I can't listen to podcasts as often, but I still appreciate the fact that they help me stay informed about the world and keep my brain active.

This week has been very different from most Thanksgiving weeks for me. It's only the second time in many years that I am not with Mom and Dad and Becky and Aunt Elaine and Uncle Ray and Joseph and Grandma in Virginia Beach (the first time in recent years being Thanksgiving 2005, when I was in San Francisco for JVC). Tuesday and Wednesday this week were normal workdays instead of being travel days. (While in college and grad school I would take the train from New England to New Jersey after classes on Tuesday, and then we would drive to Virginia Beach on Wednesday.) And even though today is a Norton Healthcare system holiday, I am signed up to be on call for a few hours this afternoon. (I'm not complaining too much, however, because I was originally scheduled to be on call for twelve hours, but one of the chaplains was going to be working in-house today, so he's covering for most of that time.) And tomorrow is also a normal workday (although some of the staff are taking the day off). So yes, it's a different week than what I'm used to. But in 2005 four of the eight of us in my JVC community were in town, and several of them had relatives come, so we did have plenty of food and a full house. And this year I am spending the afternoon with my mom's side of the family at Uncle Gil and Aunt Ann's house, where there will also be plenty of food and plenty of company. The setting will be different, but I will still be surrounded by a loving family.

And even with the different plans for the day, I can still have some things that are the same: a nicer breakfast than usual, good tea after breakfast, watching some of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, watching some football, taking a walk outside, and listening to the Windham Hill CD Thanksgiving and George Winston's December. It will be a good Turkey Day.

This week is the last week of the church year, the 34th week in Ordinary Time. In odd-numbered years we read this week from Daniel, stories that drive home the message that God is in control of the world, and that earthly rulers and regimes do not have absolute power. The psalm response each day is taken from the hymn of Azariah, Mishael, and Hananiah (or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) in the fiery furnace, the hymn that features the refrain "Sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever" (NRSV). And the Gospel readings are six sequential selections from Luke 21, which features Jesus' apocalyptic and eschatological speech just before his passion and death. It too serves as a reminder that there will be an end to the world as we know it, that a period of great suffering and turmoil will be the birth pangs of the return of the messiah, the full establishment of God's reign.

A blessed Thanksgiving to one and all!

November to date

With last Sunday's shift back to Standard Time, it's finally light out when I'm going to work at about 7:30 am. During Daylight Savings Time I was leaving in pre-dawn twilight. Now sunrise and sunset times seem reasonable to me. It's probably good that I'm not in Boston, since the sunrise and sunset times are about an hour earlier there. I didn't mind it while I was there, but I don't miss it now that I'm not there.

Last Monday was All Souls Day on the Catholic liturgical calendar, the day when we remember those who have died and pray that they may soon enjoy the fullness of life with God, what we often refer to as the beatific vision. I was thinking especially of two teachers who have touched my life. (I don't have any family members listed here because I haven't had any close relatives die in my lifetime.)

• Lorraine Calderon was my physics teacher in high school. She indulged my interest in calculus even though the physics course was designed to be taught without calculus. We were told that she had a very advanced degree and could have had research jobs that were much more lucrative than teaching in a Catholic high school. Just a couple days after we returned from Christmas break my junior year, she collapsed in her driveway and died--she had had a heart condition. She wasn't yet fifty years old.
• Rodney Delasanta was a professor at Providence College, and the director of the Honors Program when I began at PC. As director, Dr. Delasanta was the academic advisor to all students with undeclared majors in the Honors Program. He was a wonderful mentor to me, encouraging me to find what I was really interested in and to follow it. He believed in me very strongly and helped me to believe in myself. Even after I declared a major and was therefore assigned an academic advisor in that department, I still liked to talk with Dr. Delasanta every so often. He died a few years ago of pancreatic cancer. I was living in Cambridge at the time. Eric and Kristen picked me up and drove me to Woonsocket, RI, for the wake at the funeral home. Many students and professors attended the wake, and it was heartwarming to see the community that came to honor Dr. Delasanta.

May they rest in peace.

Last week the Yankees won the World Series for the first time since 2000. I was very glad to see this, but just wasn't very emotionally involved in the Series. The night of game 6, which ended up being the last game, I really needed to catch up on sleep from an on-call shift the previous night. I went to bed early but woke up a little after 11:30. I turned on the TV, saw that the Yankees had won, watched interviews for ten minutes, then went back to bed. It feels very good that my team won the Series after lackluster postseason performance for the last several years.

In the Lectionary, we finished reading Paul's letter to the Romans during the first week of November. Now, for the remaining three weeks of Ordinary Time, the Lectionary gives us readings from late Old Testament writings: Wisdom, Maccabees, Daniel. It's very appropriate in these last three weeks before Advent to read from these books that reflect the Jewish mindset just a couple centuries before Jesus was born.

This week, instead of having our clinical hours, the chaplain residents have been going to medical ethics seminars at UofL with second-year medical students (led by one of our staff chaplains). We have also been attending events at Louisville's Festival of Faiths. In one event a Muslim scholar who teaches in California talked a bit about what the Qur'an says about water--the topic of the Festival--particularly about ritual washings. He said that the Arabic word for these washings corresponds very closely to the archaic English word 'lustration'; in both languages the word makes reference to light and brightness. On Wednesday afternoon I heard two poets read some of their poems about water. One of the poets was Coleman Barks, who has published poems by the Sufi mystic Rumi, but even though the title of the event mentioned Rumi, Barks made only a couple references to him. The other poet was Lisa Starr, who lives on Block Island, RI, and has several poems about walking on the beach and seeing seabirds and the ocean. Her poems reminded me a little bit of Mary Oliver's work. They also brought to mind my years near the New England coastline in Providence and Boston and the trips I made to Mary's house on Cape Cod. Then last night was a "Children of Abraham" dinner and prayer service, hosted this year at a Reform synagogue. (This apparently is a part of the Festival of Faiths every year; last year it was at an Islamic center.) I met several people associated with St. Meinrad's Abbey and school in Indiana, as well as a few people from Bellarmine University here in Louisville. The prayer service included a couple short songs in Hebrew. When the service ended, the woman in front of me turned around and complimented me on how I pronounce Hebrew. It felt good to hear this, especially because I really enjoyed studying Hebrew and wanted to keep it up this year but have had no time to do so. I don't know if I'll ever be an expert, but I would like to know it well enough to get through the OT relatively easily. Ditto for Greek and the NT.

October thoughts

We've moved into October, and it's finally started to feel like fall for the last couple weeks--cool mornings (not chilly enough to feel cold but cool enough to make a cup of tea more inviting), sunny afternoons, less heat and therefore less discomfort caused by humidity, etc. This is the part of fall that I really like. And I mark this time of seasonal change with the music on my MP3 player. Usually around the beginning of October I put a Windham Hill CD called Thanksgiving onto my iPod. It's got instrumental pieces by various musicians, including George Winston's "Thanksgiving." I use that CD to mark the advent of fall. "Thanksgiving" serves as a nice transitional piece because it's the last song on Thanksgiving and the first one on George Winston's December. My aunt usually plays both CDs when we visit her house for Thanksgiving, so there's a very strong association for me there. Once we hit late November, I take Thanksgiving off the iPod and put December on. Then there's also Christmas music for Advent. And then I have another George Winston CD, Winter into Spring, that comes on in January and February when I take off the Christmas music. (Which is always a little sad, because I really enjoy Christmas songs.) And then there are some CDs that I only listen to during Lent (and I take off all songs, even secular ones, that include the words 'hallelujah' or 'alleluia'). I don't really have anything special for late spring and summer, so there's a slight letdown there. But now I am at the beginning of this several-month-long period marked by seasonal music, and it's delightful.

In this year in the Catholic Lectionary, we also have some readings that I really like from the later years of the Old Testament period: Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Baruch, Malachi, and Joel. The readings on Thursday through Saturday of this week come from the latter two books and talk about "the day of YHWH." I've always really enjoyed the eschatological and apocalyptic readings that come at the end of the church year in November, and so I also enjoy the little preview that we get here in early October (in odd-numbered years). Certain readings at certain times of year also remind me of previous times in my life when those readings were in the Lectionary. Currently I'm thinking of four years ago, when we had these same readings in early October 2005. We were attending our fall retreat for JVC, at some retreat center somewhere in the woods of California. I remember sitting outside one morning amidst fallen leaves or pine needles and reading from Joel. That was the retreat for which we asked for two small cars from the rental company and one of them ended up being a convertible. We raised a few eyebrows when we drove that car into the retreat facility that weekend (and a little late to boot). And I got to be behind the wheel when we drove home from the retreat on Monday. It is the only time that I have ever driven a convertible.

And what would October be without the MLB playoffs? I hadn't bought cable TV when I first arrived here, but after several weeks of dealing with relatively weak over-the-air signals in my lower-level apartment, as well as a converter box that occasionally would shut itself off and come back on, I decided to buy. And I am genuinely happy to be able to watch the playoffs.

Watching playoff baseball means I haven't listened to my podcasts for a few days. Now that's just temporary, but having fewer opportunities to listen to podcasts than when I was working at the Theology and Ministry Library means that I've had to cut back a lot. I am no longer regularly listening to Car Talk, This American Life, or the technology podcast from "The World." And since I'm listening to NPR more regularly here in Louisville (as I get dressed in the morning--in Boston I listened to WBZ, the CBS radio affiliate--and in the car if I drive to work), I can sometimes skip parts of the NPR Books and Religion podcasts. I do miss my time working in the stacks at the library, listening to podcasts and "The World" for a few hours each day. But that was a unique experience--I can't expect most of my jobs to be like that in the future, especially ministry jobs.

I finished El Aleph a few days ago. I haven't really thought about what I'll replace it with (if I replace it at all). I am trying to finish off I Believe in the Holy Spirit, and I still am in Confieso que he vivido. I am disappointed that I haven't found time to go to the library more often. But I don't have any more free time than I did several weeks ago. Errands and chores and catching up on sleep eat a large part of the little free time that I have.

I know I've written frequently here about the difficulties of CPE. And it's true that this year is easily one of the most difficult things that I have ever done. But I don't want that to give a bad impression of CPE. My supervisor is wonderful, I am welcomed and respected by the staff chaplains, and my fellow residents are engaged in our group learning. It's a very good program, and I would confidently recommend it to anyone seriously interested in hospital chaplaincy. But as a matter of fact, its significant challenges, as I experience them, really keep me from being very enthusiastic. If I talk a lot about my struggles this year, it's at least as much a reflection on me as on the program itself, if not more.

Finally, some brief commentary on two news events this week. First, there was the announcement that Rio de Janiero, not Chicago, will host the 2016 Summer Olympics. I can understand that Chicago is disappointed to not have won the games--although there are probably many residents of the area who are not at all disappointed to avoid all the construction that is required to host the Games and the tremendous influx of people when they happen. But I am very happy to see that South America will host the Games for the first time ever. Second, we learned this morning that the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to President Obama. I do not thing that was a very good idea. He hasn't been in office for even a year yet. Yes, he's reached out to the world with an attitude that many perceive as more open than President Bush's. But I don't think he's done enough to win the award, when compared to past recipients of the award or this year's other nominees. And if it's true that this was the Nobel committee's way of sending a message to President Bush, as some news analyses this morning suggested, then I have lost significant respect for the prize. I think the prize should be use to highlight someone who has diligently worked for peace for many years, especially at great personal cost. Using it to send a political message is petty.

woken up before September ends

My job keeps me pretty busy. I'm not going to have the leisure to blog very often.

A little over a week ago, I was talking with one of the staff chaplains about the wedding I had attended the previous weekend, my living situation, the struggles of being a single twenty-something in ministry, etc., and she helped me brainstorm some activities in which I can meet people and go somewhere besides to work or to my apartment. (Yoga classes seem the most exciting to me.) She also recalled how alone she felt when she was in her twenties and single and in a ministry career. This was not the first time she had done this, nor was she the only person to offer me support, but for some reason it really reached my heart this time. I rather suddenly had a much more positive view of my time here in Louisville, this particular job, etc. Even if I get nothing else positive out of this residency year, I can say that I met this particular staff chaplain and that she cared for me--that event alone would make this whole year worth the effort. Now the responsibility is on me to build on this resurrection of hope, to get myself involved in things and with people that will help me to not only survive this year but even thrive a little bit.

The job is going well. I am getting familiar with the hospitals' unique cultures, our typical policies and procedures, etc. I am starting to know some people's names on the particular floor to which I am assigned. Today I got my first referral from a nurse to see a patient. There are some times when I feel experienced; there are other times when I still feel very green. There are times where I'm very confident in what I'm doing; there are other times when I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants.

Also contributing to my recent renewal of spirit was the fact that I was finally able to organize my bedroom a bit. For the last couple of weeks I have been on-call Monday through Thursday evenings (until 8 am the following morning) for two of Norton's hospitals in residential areas. These hospitals do not call the chaplains as regularly as the downtown ones do--so far, out of nine on-call nights, I have been called into the hospital on five of them--and on each of those five nights, I only had to go in once. But I can't predict what will happen on any particular night, so I need to stay at home or extremely close, and avoid any activity that I can't quickly drop if I get called. So no exercise, no significant cooking, etc. (Luckily, I was able to catch the first two episodes of this season's House, M.D.) But since I don't get lots of calls, I often have a fair amount of time to start some small projects; last week I was able to hang a bulletin board (which fell off the next day--I suppose the adhesive strips are old), unpack a bookcase, and load it up with books. It was a step in making my apartment a bit more homey.

I have begun the last story in El Aleph. I am still working through Confieso que he vivido. No books in English yet. Hopefully once my weeknights free up I'll have some time to hit up the library for some new reading material. This is where the list of books I'd like to read comes in handy--I really haven't thought hardly at all about what book(s) I want to read next.

I still wouldn't mind the opportunity to go to Spain for a while.