Is it really just two weeks to graduation week? Oh, my. It seems like it was just a week ago that it was Holy Week madness and utter unpredictability. Now many of my big not-quite-finals-but-close projects are wrapping up and I am preparing for the end of the school year.
I still have one major paper - a 15 page doozy for History - and a presentation to create along with it, but otherwise the finals are looming.
The only upside to all of this is that I am suddenly finding a few moments within the crazy run of my days to catch my breath and enjoy the sunshine once again. Not to resent it for shining on my book-of-the-moment and blinding me in my homework reading, but to actually enjoy it. Fortunately, the sun is accommodating and is spending a significantly lower percentage of time hiding behind the clouds.
So now it is back to the research and writing, studying and memorizing, praying and running around!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Holy Week
Well, we survived Spring Break. I think. It is the morning of Monday in Holy Week and I already feel as if I have been running an exhausting marathon. Usually I feel this way Easter Morning after Holy Week. All those services and the emotional and spiritual lows and highs that go with it.
Spring Break was not particularly relaxing, nor could I call it refreshing, renewing, or even much of a break. We were away from school and out of town, but for me it was a bit like exchanging one stressful setting for another. Instead of research papers and being up to my eyeballs in reading (which faithfully traveled with me) we were researching apartment complexes and up to my eyeballs in the details of setting up a second household in a place neither one of us is familiar with. Welcome to the Army.
I shouldn't complain. We did it. Other military families do it as well. This won't be our last time, either. But the first time seems a bit more unfamiliar and confusing than any subsequent times, and so I tuck the mental notes away into the back of my mind and create a file of little things that will make the next time that much easier.
Just in time for me to return to classes, I waved my husband off very early this morning. The apartment here looks like a bomb went off; things piled randomly here and there, what seems like (but isn't) most of the furniture missing, and way more empty space than I remembered from moving in evident everywhere. It is too quiet. Not just the He's-gone-to-work-and-will-be-back-later quiet, but a different quiet. One that feels more present and somehow aware of my solitude. So as I take a deep breath and begin to try to catch up with my school work, I am also taking bits of time to tidy up, reorganize around the newly empty spaces, and rearrange the furniture so I am not just creeping around the walls but living in all of my space.
After the all-consuming experience of getting moved in just two weeks, I am remembering the why of why I am still here and not moving with my husband. School. Even though I took some reading with me, it was very distracting and rather all-consuming. I gave up after a couple of nights of theology studded with moments of "what-about-the-(fill in the blank)." I suppose that is one way to make sure your new household gets a good blessing, but it really isn't all that great for the theological development of the reader. I find I am having to re-skim so much of the homework I tried to read that it almost would have been better to leave it home. On the other hand, this experience has given me wonderful insight into my upcoming Pastoral Theology project, and I am grateful for that.
So this Holy Week I will try to remember to be gentle with myself. Not only will I be dealing with the emotional roller coaster that is the final week of Jesus' earthly life, I am also adjusting to being a geographic bachelorette. The combination makes my prayers for this week incredibly simple. Be gentle, be aware, breathe. Repeat as needed. Don't be afraid to cry if I need to. Don't make big plans for this time, and leave space for adjusting. As always, lean on God and my guardian Angels. Let them take care of me and don't try to do it all myself. Amen.
Spring Break was not particularly relaxing, nor could I call it refreshing, renewing, or even much of a break. We were away from school and out of town, but for me it was a bit like exchanging one stressful setting for another. Instead of research papers and being up to my eyeballs in reading (which faithfully traveled with me) we were researching apartment complexes and up to my eyeballs in the details of setting up a second household in a place neither one of us is familiar with. Welcome to the Army.
I shouldn't complain. We did it. Other military families do it as well. This won't be our last time, either. But the first time seems a bit more unfamiliar and confusing than any subsequent times, and so I tuck the mental notes away into the back of my mind and create a file of little things that will make the next time that much easier.
Just in time for me to return to classes, I waved my husband off very early this morning. The apartment here looks like a bomb went off; things piled randomly here and there, what seems like (but isn't) most of the furniture missing, and way more empty space than I remembered from moving in evident everywhere. It is too quiet. Not just the He's-gone-to-work-and-will-be-back-later quiet, but a different quiet. One that feels more present and somehow aware of my solitude. So as I take a deep breath and begin to try to catch up with my school work, I am also taking bits of time to tidy up, reorganize around the newly empty spaces, and rearrange the furniture so I am not just creeping around the walls but living in all of my space.
After the all-consuming experience of getting moved in just two weeks, I am remembering the why of why I am still here and not moving with my husband. School. Even though I took some reading with me, it was very distracting and rather all-consuming. I gave up after a couple of nights of theology studded with moments of "what-about-the-(fill in the blank)." I suppose that is one way to make sure your new household gets a good blessing, but it really isn't all that great for the theological development of the reader. I find I am having to re-skim so much of the homework I tried to read that it almost would have been better to leave it home. On the other hand, this experience has given me wonderful insight into my upcoming Pastoral Theology project, and I am grateful for that.
So this Holy Week I will try to remember to be gentle with myself. Not only will I be dealing with the emotional roller coaster that is the final week of Jesus' earthly life, I am also adjusting to being a geographic bachelorette. The combination makes my prayers for this week incredibly simple. Be gentle, be aware, breathe. Repeat as needed. Don't be afraid to cry if I need to. Don't make big plans for this time, and leave space for adjusting. As always, lean on God and my guardian Angels. Let them take care of me and don't try to do it all myself. Amen.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Lenten What?
Everyone talks about Lenten disciplines. You know, giving up something you enjoy like chocolate or alcohol. Maybe you take on an extra something, a daily reading or meditation time. Apparently this year I have given up discipline. Actually, it appears that a hand greater than mine has chosen this for me. To walk in chaos just when I want to embrace structure and, well, discipline.
My husband is being moved to Riverside during Holy Week. That means that yesterday I picked him up from three months of training and dragged him into the one week that we have for him to get moved. The movers come on Wednesday to pack up everything that will be going with him. That's right. He has two days to decide what gets packed from our shared household. Sure, we've already talked about things like furniture and the obvious clothing and such. But how do we separate it all out so that the movers know what to pack and what not to pack? What about the little touches that make someplace home?
We will be spending Spring Break - next week - in Riverside scoping things out. Looking at possible apartments, trying to figure out where things are. A relaxing break from theology, right? Ha. More like diving head first into a Pastoral Theology Case Study. Only without the neat answers.
I can only hope that by embracing instead of fighting all of this chaos, fitting reading, writing papers, and studying for midterms into whatever little snippet of time I can find, I will be stronger for it. I can't say that I am sure that this is good for my research papers, but we'll just have to put that in God's hands. In the meantime, I am walking this hand in hand with God knowing that this is the only way to make it through this transition. Besides, who else chose to time it this way?
My husband is being moved to Riverside during Holy Week. That means that yesterday I picked him up from three months of training and dragged him into the one week that we have for him to get moved. The movers come on Wednesday to pack up everything that will be going with him. That's right. He has two days to decide what gets packed from our shared household. Sure, we've already talked about things like furniture and the obvious clothing and such. But how do we separate it all out so that the movers know what to pack and what not to pack? What about the little touches that make someplace home?
We will be spending Spring Break - next week - in Riverside scoping things out. Looking at possible apartments, trying to figure out where things are. A relaxing break from theology, right? Ha. More like diving head first into a Pastoral Theology Case Study. Only without the neat answers.
I can only hope that by embracing instead of fighting all of this chaos, fitting reading, writing papers, and studying for midterms into whatever little snippet of time I can find, I will be stronger for it. I can't say that I am sure that this is good for my research papers, but we'll just have to put that in God's hands. In the meantime, I am walking this hand in hand with God knowing that this is the only way to make it through this transition. Besides, who else chose to time it this way?
Monday, March 5, 2012
Shake it Up!
Things here are on the move. Literally.
My husband left Friday morning to continue with his current students as they complete their training out in the field. This leaves me doing the logistics dance of getting his more permanent move set up. It also leaves me once again moving in and out of the dance that is balancing my school and community with taking care of myself and my own little nest. Without him here to act as an external cue my timing is off. The routine that I built up through the first part of the semester relied on him returning home at some point in the evening to remind me to stop and focus away from the computer and gave me a time frame which I could reference. Now it is all up to me, and in these first days I find that I am in a bit of a fog when it comes to recognizing how time is passing.
But God does indeed have a sense of humor. This morning I had decided to luxuriate in setting my own time to wake up. 6:30 sounded good, sleeping in by an hour or so. At 5:33 a 4.0 earthquake rattled the apartment and shook me awake. Only 15 minutes later than the time the alarm has been going off daily for the past three months. I suppose I am grateful that I was already drifting toward waking so the shock to my system wasn't any greater, but I am not generally a huge fan of earthquakes and when I am alone my mind immediately begins to think about all the things that could possibly go wrong if this turns out to be "the big one."
As Lay Assistant in our chapel today, it is my responsibility to write the Prayers of the People. I have been praying with the propers we will use: Holy Women, Holy Men, pg 42. Only a slight hope in all of the readings and much to create a "proper" Lenten sense of abasement. Daniel 9: 3-10. Psalm 79: 1-9. Luke 6:27-38. Not much there to cheer anyone up. The collect has the beautiful images of washing "us with the pure water of repentance" and preparing "us to be always a living sacrifice to you" which I find evocative and hopeful, however.
I suspect that my upbringing has a lot to do with my lack of utter discomfort with the association of Lent with repentance, atonement, sacrifice, and preparation. I actually look forward to this as a break from the unrelenting cheerfulness that sometimes pervades the Christian outlook. While I do not particularly enjoy the reminder that I am not as perfect and holy as I sometimes like to think I am I do believe that this is a good chance to remember that my relationship with God is a two-way street. As long as I realize that I have strayed and look for God wherever I find myself God will always be looking for me. Yes, I join in the jokes about a suitably penitential Lent; but in the end I will always be grateful that there is a time to recognize my fallibility and my mistakes. I rejoice that we still gather together to acknowledge one another in our current state in life and look forward to the resurrection as a community of faith.
My husband left Friday morning to continue with his current students as they complete their training out in the field. This leaves me doing the logistics dance of getting his more permanent move set up. It also leaves me once again moving in and out of the dance that is balancing my school and community with taking care of myself and my own little nest. Without him here to act as an external cue my timing is off. The routine that I built up through the first part of the semester relied on him returning home at some point in the evening to remind me to stop and focus away from the computer and gave me a time frame which I could reference. Now it is all up to me, and in these first days I find that I am in a bit of a fog when it comes to recognizing how time is passing.
But God does indeed have a sense of humor. This morning I had decided to luxuriate in setting my own time to wake up. 6:30 sounded good, sleeping in by an hour or so. At 5:33 a 4.0 earthquake rattled the apartment and shook me awake. Only 15 minutes later than the time the alarm has been going off daily for the past three months. I suppose I am grateful that I was already drifting toward waking so the shock to my system wasn't any greater, but I am not generally a huge fan of earthquakes and when I am alone my mind immediately begins to think about all the things that could possibly go wrong if this turns out to be "the big one."
As Lay Assistant in our chapel today, it is my responsibility to write the Prayers of the People. I have been praying with the propers we will use: Holy Women, Holy Men, pg 42. Only a slight hope in all of the readings and much to create a "proper" Lenten sense of abasement. Daniel 9: 3-10. Psalm 79: 1-9. Luke 6:27-38. Not much there to cheer anyone up. The collect has the beautiful images of washing "us with the pure water of repentance" and preparing "us to be always a living sacrifice to you" which I find evocative and hopeful, however.
I suspect that my upbringing has a lot to do with my lack of utter discomfort with the association of Lent with repentance, atonement, sacrifice, and preparation. I actually look forward to this as a break from the unrelenting cheerfulness that sometimes pervades the Christian outlook. While I do not particularly enjoy the reminder that I am not as perfect and holy as I sometimes like to think I am I do believe that this is a good chance to remember that my relationship with God is a two-way street. As long as I realize that I have strayed and look for God wherever I find myself God will always be looking for me. Yes, I join in the jokes about a suitably penitential Lent; but in the end I will always be grateful that there is a time to recognize my fallibility and my mistakes. I rejoice that we still gather together to acknowledge one another in our current state in life and look forward to the resurrection as a community of faith.
Monday, February 27, 2012
One of Those Days
The last week has been quite hectic, and I can barely remember more than the last day or two. My trinitarian path has been particularly difficult, and I wish that I could separate each journey to make them easier to deal with. Today would be labeled a "seminarian" day; full of papers and reading, catching up on the homework I didn't do while I had "army wife" and "future army chaplain" days.
Friday afternoon and Saturday I allowed myself to put my books aside since my husband had his first day off since early January. There were a lot of errands to run in order to prepare for his upcoming move, so I can't say it was a day of fun and relaxation, though we did manage to squeeze in a few moments of sweetness among the other moment of necessary preparations for separation. I don't envy his schedule - he has a short term separation that starts at the end of this week and only a week or so between his return from that and his relocation 400 miles away. Trying to figure out how to get all of his stuff taken care of and ready leaves little room for things like making sure we have enough groceries. Especially when he is still working 12-14 hour days most days.
Sunday, I was able to join a Chaplain friend as she conducted a military memorial service. This was my "future army chaplain" day, learning about the many moving parts that come together in the touching display of full Military Honors at a funeral. It helped that I was not emotionally involved, which I have been in my other experiences of Military Honors at a funeral. I admire the troops assigned to this duty as I imagine that it is difficult to be around so much grief on a regular basis and not really be able to do anything about it.
Today the schedule reverts to "normal" and I once again struggle to balance my three-fold path and not find myself stuck in any one label for too long.
Friday afternoon and Saturday I allowed myself to put my books aside since my husband had his first day off since early January. There were a lot of errands to run in order to prepare for his upcoming move, so I can't say it was a day of fun and relaxation, though we did manage to squeeze in a few moments of sweetness among the other moment of necessary preparations for separation. I don't envy his schedule - he has a short term separation that starts at the end of this week and only a week or so between his return from that and his relocation 400 miles away. Trying to figure out how to get all of his stuff taken care of and ready leaves little room for things like making sure we have enough groceries. Especially when he is still working 12-14 hour days most days.
Sunday, I was able to join a Chaplain friend as she conducted a military memorial service. This was my "future army chaplain" day, learning about the many moving parts that come together in the touching display of full Military Honors at a funeral. It helped that I was not emotionally involved, which I have been in my other experiences of Military Honors at a funeral. I admire the troops assigned to this duty as I imagine that it is difficult to be around so much grief on a regular basis and not really be able to do anything about it.
Today the schedule reverts to "normal" and I once again struggle to balance my three-fold path and not find myself stuck in any one label for too long.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Ash Wednesday 2012
Already? What ever happened to that stretch of time between Epiphany and Lent? Yes, it is shorter this year. It means an earlier Easter, but I am not ready yet. I am not even ready for it to be Lent.
I have felt that the semester really took off before I was completely aware of it; it is racing along as I struggle to keep up. Classes are going well and keeping me very busy, and the rest of my time is taken up with adjusting to the new realities that the Army is throwing at us. After three months of days so long we might as well not be living in the same house, we really will not be living in the same house. We will be one of the families separated by service. I will remain here at school and my husband will be 200 miles away, working with an ambulance company.
There are blessings in this separation. The chance for actual weekends that can be scheduled ahead of time instead of a few minutes to see each other snatched out of an early release from the class he is teaching. A schedule that can be relied upon.
With the plans that come with preparing for this separation, I am finding that Lent is falling between the cracks, so to speak. With classes and the ever-present homework colliding with the tasks of setting up a second household in a place that neither of us has seen yet, I wonder what discipline I could set for Lent. Some sort of giving up? Too penitential, and a little too harsh as I am preparing to give up the companionship of my husband on a daily basis. Some sort of adding on? In what time, and with what little scrap of what is fast becoming a mind like a sieve?
And so I am taken unawares and unprepared for Lent. Somehow, it seems appropriate this year to simply be in the waiting and watching through the transitions that this season is bringing. To remain faithful in the unknowing and the what-next, and to say a few extra prayers in the moments that come to me.
I have felt that the semester really took off before I was completely aware of it; it is racing along as I struggle to keep up. Classes are going well and keeping me very busy, and the rest of my time is taken up with adjusting to the new realities that the Army is throwing at us. After three months of days so long we might as well not be living in the same house, we really will not be living in the same house. We will be one of the families separated by service. I will remain here at school and my husband will be 200 miles away, working with an ambulance company.
There are blessings in this separation. The chance for actual weekends that can be scheduled ahead of time instead of a few minutes to see each other snatched out of an early release from the class he is teaching. A schedule that can be relied upon.
With the plans that come with preparing for this separation, I am finding that Lent is falling between the cracks, so to speak. With classes and the ever-present homework colliding with the tasks of setting up a second household in a place that neither of us has seen yet, I wonder what discipline I could set for Lent. Some sort of giving up? Too penitential, and a little too harsh as I am preparing to give up the companionship of my husband on a daily basis. Some sort of adding on? In what time, and with what little scrap of what is fast becoming a mind like a sieve?
And so I am taken unawares and unprepared for Lent. Somehow, it seems appropriate this year to simply be in the waiting and watching through the transitions that this season is bringing. To remain faithful in the unknowing and the what-next, and to say a few extra prayers in the moments that come to me.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Week Two of the Adventure
It may be week two, but it still feels so new and unsure. The best part of last week was returning to community worship; gathering in the chapel that is finally beginning to feel a little bit familiar, in spite of all that makes it as awkward as a teenager on a first date. Our midday Eucharistic gatherings drew me into the rhythm of prayer that weaves through my weeks during the semester and ties me ever deeper to this place and this community. Thursday night was Candlemas. Also known as The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple or The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Candlemas is much easier, shorter, and certainly has a ring to it. We began by gathering outside, each of us holding a lovely beeswax candle. These were lit and blessed before we processed into the chapel, a nod to the tradition of blessing all of the candles for the year on that day. I love that continuation of tradition, the sense of being rooted in the past while moving forward into the future. Not to mention the glow of all those candles together as we moved from the twilight outside to the bright inside of the chapel.
Most of my books have finally arrived; they are filling my shelf and looking wise. There is a great deal of reading to be done this semester, much more than last, and it looks intimidating if I stare at the schedule for too long. Just a day at a time, a page at a time, is all I can do. I know it will get done, but it sure seems like a lot!
The main excitement this week is the coming trip home to attend Diocesan Convention, which will be held Friday and Saturday. It will be good to re-connect with friends from around the diocese and to see all of the exciting plans and ministries we have there. Sunday I'll be worshipping at All Souls', my home parish. Then it is back on a plane and back to school; a quick trip indeed.
Most of my books have finally arrived; they are filling my shelf and looking wise. There is a great deal of reading to be done this semester, much more than last, and it looks intimidating if I stare at the schedule for too long. Just a day at a time, a page at a time, is all I can do. I know it will get done, but it sure seems like a lot!
The main excitement this week is the coming trip home to attend Diocesan Convention, which will be held Friday and Saturday. It will be good to re-connect with friends from around the diocese and to see all of the exciting plans and ministries we have there. Sunday I'll be worshipping at All Souls', my home parish. Then it is back on a plane and back to school; a quick trip indeed.
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