Pithy, Witty and Sweet

Its always fun to have friends describe you in a short amount of time. Pithy, witty and sweet was what I got tonight, as part of a conversation encouraging me to post. Being the sucker for flattery that I am (and I am choosing to take that description as flattery), here I am in the computer lab, writing a post when I should be going to bed. With friends like these…
I have actually had several posts in mind, but without my internet at home, I seem to forget about posting most of the time.

First, an update. Luke left tonight for Washington DC. He will be seeing a couple friends tomorrow, then lobbying on Capitol Hill (which sounds completely surreal to me still, so I have to keep saying it), and then attending the 2020 Democrats conference this weekend. His vision statement was selected for this initial conference, along with two friends from college. He is incredibly excited about the whole trip. I am too, except for the part that means him being away for five days.

Backing up a couple days now… CPE is changing drastically for our little group down at Bethany. Those of you who follow Tripp and/or Andrew’s pages may be aware that we have had significant issues with our group supervisor. As of Monday however, she is no longer our supervisor. The group feels an overwhelming sense of relief about this. It is also an adjustment to go from being stressed, tensed and beaten down all the time to having a healthy non-dysfunctional supervisor. Thanks, but I’ll keep the adjustment. I’ll also keep our former supervisor in my prayers. It was really a difficult experience for everyone, and we had a group to support us.

My summer reading is coming along, slowly but surely. I finished Telling Secrets by Fredrick Buechner (Thanks, Leigh!!!). I really enjoyed it. The writing style was very conversational, which I love and is easy for me to follow. Maybe thats an extrovert thing? I’ve been known to say in the past that I don’t particularly enjoy reading because I would rather be chatting with people. Telling Secrets felt like I was chatting with someone, and I liked that feeling. It is about the importance of telling our stories, because in telling our stories we come to understand that the Living God is at work in our lives, all the time, and enables us to witness to that presence. I think I will read the one he wrote about being in seminary sometime. First, though, I’ve started Life Together. The first four pages had so many ideas that I had to put it down and think about it for a day or so though. This could take a while. Luckily, its not too long.

Finally, I’ve been following a bit of the discussion over at Tripp’s page with his friend Megan about forgiveness and the Church. On a vaguely related note, I was thinking about how we accept repentance. A situation at work today led to one of the associates apologizing to most of the chaplain interns individually. It was incredibly awkward. The poor guy had good intentions, but simply crossed some boundaries. Our former supervisor was no different - she had good intentions, but severely missed the mark. We spend a good deal of time talking about repenting our wrongs and very little time talking about how to be on the receiving end of that kind of grace. Is this connected to the trend that we are more comfortable calling others out than being called out? I don’t really know. Maybe I will have to say about this once I get further into Life Together. Maybe not. Only time will tell. Until then, Vaya Con Dios!