I am a Flight Attendant

Ok, so I'm not really a flight attendant.  But sometimes I want to pretend I am....or something that our culture deems more "gender-appropriate."  As one who often corrects people at the hospital when they exclusively refer to nurses as ‘she’ and doctors as ‘he,’ you should know that I don't believe there are gender-specific jobs.  But some days, when I just don’t have the energy to explain my life story, I think that saying I’m a flight attendant or a teacher or a nurse would be easier than explaining that I am a pastor. Let me give you two examples.

Example #1: Today, I was at Publix (Thursday is the start of the new shopping week for coupons – I saved $60! I digress…).  I was in the checkout line when the bagger started to wheel my cart like he was bringing my groceries out to my car.  I truly believe that shopping at Publix is a pleasure and I love their customer service; however, sometimes I wish they would lighten up on the whole ‘Which way to your car, ma’am?’ talk.  I actually enjoying bringing my groceries to my car and loading them myself.  There, I said it.  But the guy today was insistent, stating that he had to go outside to get the carts anyway.  And thus began the awkward small talk…

Him: “Are you on your way home from work?”

Me: “Yes.”

Him: “Cool.  What kind of work do you do?”

Me: “I’m a hospital chaplain.”

Him: “What does that mean?”

Me: “We’re like pastors for the hospital.”

Him: “Oh wow…so what kinds of stuff do you do?”  (ugh, where to begin?)

Me: “Ummm, we provide support and prayer for people, help families at the time of death, held identify people in traumas....”

Him: “Well, a job’s a job in this economy, right?” (he awkwardly laughs almost out of pity)

Me: “No, I actually love my job.  It gives me life.”

Him: “Oh…ok. Have a good day, ma’am.”

Why, whyyyyy didn’t I just tell him I was a flight attendant??

Example #2: I remember how much I hated getting my hair cut in college because I never went to the same person twice.  Who needs a personal stylist when all you do is cut your hair in a straight line?  So every time I went to get a haircut, the conversation led to something like this:

“What are you studying at UF?”

“I’m studying music education.”

“Are you going to be a music teacher?”

“No, I’m actually going to seminary after college.”

“Seminary, is that where you go to become a chef?”

“No, that’s culinary school.  Seminary is where you go to become a pastor.”

“You’re going to be a pastor??” (HOLD THE PHONE.  SHE’S YOUNG.  AND SHE’S A….SHE.)

Why, whyyyy didn’t I say ‘Yes, I’m going to be a music teacher and wear denim dresses and own lots of cats.’ End of story.

During one of my haircuts in college, I had a man debate me on the meaning of baptism and was insistent that in order to enter the gates of heaven, one must be baptized twice, once in water and then in the Holy Spirit so one can speak in tongues.  I am certainly respectful of other opinions and practices of religion, but WHY are we debating this during MY haircut?  The manager came over and asked him to stop questioning me.  I should’ve given my tip to the manager instead.

There are definitely times in life when I want to be in discussion about my work as a pastor.  I even find it fun if people bring it up to me on a first encounter.  I am in no way ashamed of what I do – I LOVE what I do and truly believe I am living into God’s calling in my life.  But sometimes, you just want to get your hair cut in peace.  Your nails done in peace (yes, pastors get pedicures).  Your grocery shopping done in peace.  Sometimes, you want to fly in an airplane without the person sitting next to you questioning your ability to be a female pastor (yes, in seminary I was seated on a plane next to a Southern Baptist minister who pulled out his engraved, red letter edition Bible and talked scripture with me while I frantically tried to study for a Hebrew quiz I had the next day).

I guess it’s ironic that I am in a field where every day I meet new people.  I still get the occasional “I ain’t never met a lady preacher before!” and “Wow honey, did you hear that? This nice little girl came to pray with us.”  But in almost all my visits, patients/families are grateful for support, for an empathic listener, and for someone who can lift up their deepest needs to God through spoken words of prayer.  We must remember Jesus was dead by 33 – so by Jesus’ standard, I’m in my prime years!

I guess I will continue engaging random people about my work as a chaplain.  It really can spark some interesting conversation.  But in case I’m not in the mood, I can at least locate the nearest emergency exit.

Party of One

I go shopping by myself.  I go to the gym by myself.  And sometimes I’ll go eat food by myself.  But for the most part, I’m with people.  I love planning hangouts and spending quality time with others.  Why?  Because I LOVE PEOPLE.  Being with friends gives me more energy than curling up alone with a book (my sincere apologies to all the introvert roommates I lived with in college and seminary).  This is the blessing and the curse of being an extreme extrovert.  I love being with people so much that sometimes it’s easier for me to be with others than it is to be with myself.

A 1,000-bed hospital rarely provides you with alone time.  As chaplains, we’re always with patients, with staff, and with other chaplains.  As a supervisory student, I have students on any given day who have questions and curiosities about pastoral care, theology, and protocol.  If I need to work on papers or do research, I have to go to my office.  It is the only place where I can be (mostly) uninterrupted.  But my office gets so lonely sometimes!  Let me paint a picture for you…

In order to get to my office, I have to go downstairs to the basement, walk past the morgue, walk through the hallway that has pipes in place of ceilings, go through the door of the unmarked hallway with nothing but a ‘ladies restroom ‘ sign on it, go past pest control’s office and unlock my office on the left just before the security guard’s break room and lockers.  I have a wonderful office and I am grateful for the space to get my work done.  But it sure can get lonely for the average extrovert.  On a related but slightly off-topic note, today I was walking to my office with a piece of pecan pie in hand.  I walked past the morgue, looked at the pecan pie in my hand, looked at the morgue door, and thought, ‘How odd it is that people on the other side of the door are dead and here I go with pecan pie in my hand like I don’t have a care in the world.’  This work teaches me something new every day.

Anyways…once I was in my office, I decided I’d go to the Bible and find all the awesome things that happened in the Bible where large crowds were gathered.  This task had two goals: 1) it would help me with the research for my theology position paper; and 2) it would help me see how the extroverts of biblical days found energy and life.  I found many stories: The feeding of the five thousand in the gospels; the rebuilding of the walls in Nehemiah; the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts.  Boo-yah.  I could definitely prove my point that God is present when we are in community.

But then I read the story of Jacob (Gen 28:10-22).  And Moses (Gen 19:20-25). And the Samaritan woman (John 4:1-26).  And yes, even Christ (Luke 22:40-44).  Example after example of people alone in the presence of the Holy One.  I was humbled.  I wondered if leaders like Moses were introverts or extroverts.  For Moses’ sake, I hope he was extroverted because he was always with the Israelites…and they definitely had no qualms about telling him how they felt on any given day.  And still, Moses is called by God to the top of the mountain in the presence of only himself and God.

And then I had a thought.  I wonder how much better introverts are than me at practicing stillness in the presence of the Lord.  I wonder how much I can learn from being alone.  This is one of my greatest growing edges as I continue my supervisory work.  How can I be alone with myself? With my story?  With my struggles?  With God?  It definitely won’t be easy for me.  But I promise you I talked to no one – not even myself – as I wrote this blog.  Little victories count, right?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

The low tonight is 19 degrees.  That is low considering two days ago, I was sitting around a bonfire in my backyard in beautiful 60 degree weather.  Feeling the cold makes me remember back to my seminary days.  My last year at Columbia, there was a big snowstorm.  Ok ok, so it was a big snowstorm for Decatur, but still.  It was snowing enough for the Atlanta airport to close down because there was no way to remove the ice from the runway.  Lots of us seminarians - young and old - came outside to play in the snow.  We made snow angels and caught snowflakes in our mouths.  We had snowball fights and made make-shift sleds to ride down the hill in The Village.  My favorite part was walking with friends to our professors' homes to built giant snowfriends in their front yards and then knocking on their doors and surprising them with our creations.  I always loved how our professors lived walking distance from the campus and often invited us into their homes.  One of our professors came out of her home with a shirt on that had a manger scene on it and said, "It's a GIRL!"  I really, really loved our professors.

The top of my blog says 'Seasonal Grace' and has a picture of snow.  May seem a little odd for a Florida girl.  But I didn't randomly google this image or find it on a website.  This picture was actually taken in the front yard of Rodger Nishioka's house, a professor of Christian Education at Columbia.  We built a big snowfriend in his driveway that blocked his car in the car port.  As we stood in his front yard, I remember looking at the trees and being amazed how different they looked from trees I had always known in Florida.  They had no leaves and therefore were bare, and yet they looked so full of life.  I just loved the way the snow rested on the tree limbs as if the limbs were some kind of holding place for nature to rest.  It is a beautiful glimpse of God's grace.  I thought I would share this story with you on this chilly night.  As the weather continues dropping into the night, may you feel the gift of love...the warmth of friendship...and the joy of a God who gives us such beauty in every season of creation.

Tears

My whole life, I HATED crying.  In my early years, I cried when my brothers picked on me.  I would run to my dad and he would come to my rescue.  I cried in second grade when my friends would purposely buy their lunch when I was bringing mine so they wouldn’t have to sit with me.  For several weeks of that year, I sat with the special needs kids because I was afraid to sit with anyone in my class.  (And yes, at the time I had a bowl cut, a speech impediment, and a KILLER Peewee Herman fluorescent purple jumpsuit that I wore on school picture day.)  I cried in fourth grade when some of my classmates said they wanted to start an “AJAS Club” (AJAS stood for “Against Jennifer Ann Sumner”).  In middle school, there were days when my friends would take bets on who could make me cry first in the day.  Now before you feel too bad for me, you should know I had my share of bullying others as well.  Making others cry made me feel better because it meant I wasn’t the only crier.  It was a defense mechanism and a way to feel cool, and trust me: I would do anything to take back the hurt I caused others.  Even in seminary, I cried in the middle of a lecture when my professor could remember the names of everyone in the class except mine.

My first unit of supervisory training ended last week.  This unit has been an incredible time of growth and learning.  One of the greatest things I have learned this unit is that old habits die hard and I am still learning to embrace my tears.  I thought I would outgrow my tears - and in some ways, I have - but I have learned that tears are just part of who God created me to be.  I struggle with my tears because I don’t feel like I cry at the right times.  I don’t cry when others are standing at the bedside of their sick loved one, or when I am called to a death, or when I deliver the news to a family member that their loved one was in an accident.  I certainly feel compassion and empathy towards the person, but that is not when my tears normally fall.  Instead, I cry when I am angry, when I feel powerless, or when I am passionate about something.  I cry when I feel invisible and when I feel I don’t fit in.  Part of my supervisory process is not running from my tears, but embracing them and talking through them.

Just this last week, I got angry with my supervisor over something and I started crying.  You know those tears that start in the privacy of your office and continue into the lunch line with bright fluorescent lights shining on your swollen eyes?  Yes, those.  I told him at first that I was just frustrated, but then I told him the scary truth: I was actually angry.  He calmly listened as I shared.  I was trying to shy away from my true feelings and he was inviting me into them.  After I spoke with him, he thanked me for telling him I was angry and for being authentic in my feelings.  I thought, ‘Hmm, what a weird job I have that I get thanked for telling someone I am angry with them.’

While tears used to be one of my greatest fears, now I am learning to make friends with them.  Tears are not my weakness – they are one of my strengths.  As one of my supervisors says, they are a gift from God just like all our other emotions.  I have wrestled with the projection that my supervisors are thinking, “Oh no, we made the little emotional girl chaplain cry again,” but I have learned they do not think that; even better, they don’t react negatively at all to my tears.  No handing me a tissue, no stopping the conversation, no awkward look like they’ve inflicted unnecessary pain on me.  Nope, the conversation continues like nothing even happened.  And their behavior with me is exactly how I am with patients in their tears: calm, quiet, present.  They have taught me to be present with others in their tears; now I am learning to be present with myself in my own tears.  It will continue to take time, but I am getting there.

My supervisor wrote in my evaluation, “Jenny’s perfectionism is tamed by her vulnerability. She makes it easier for people to be with her and to know her.”  I hope others have gotten to know me better.  I definitely have gotten to know myself more.  Tears and all.

Ornamental Chaos

Brian and I already have all our Christmas decorations up.  Inside, outside, front yard, back yard.  Our neighborhood puts up lots of decorations, so we really had to bring our A-game.  We have done lots of our Christmas shopping and made our Christmas cards.  We bought our tree the night of the UF/FSU football game (I needed something to do during that painful game).  We have a tradition of picking out our tree together and then decorating it with a collection of ornaments that we have gathered over the years, some that we bought and some that were gifted to us.  Our tree doesn’t look uniform nor does it follow one color scheme – it actually looks somewhat messy.  But what I love about the messiness is that each of the ornaments has a meaning.  Here are some of my faves:




An ornament from when I was born: 'Baby's First Christmas' (1984)

  

The Greatest Gift of All - church cantata (1990)



Made by a Michael's Arts & Crafts employee - my first job in high school (2000)

  


Given to me by an AHS band member (2001)

 


From Nuremberg Germany - a gift from my parents (2007)

 



Hemi's First Christmas (2008)

  


Olive wood Nativity scene I bought in Bethlehem (2009)

 


Our First Christmas - engagement ornament (2009)

 


An ornament I gave Brian - a deer in construction clothes (2010)

 

From Ten Thousand Villages - a gift from my parents (2010)

 


Gator Nutcracker - from Sarah (2010)



  

Just Married (2010)

 

Obviously, I could go on and on with more of my favorite ornaments!  I remember as children, we would have a tree decorating party.  We would pull out the step stool when we were too young to reach the top and put our ornaments up as we shared stories about them.  I loved putting up the Wizard of Oz and Winnie the Pooh collections of ornaments - I enjoyed hanging them all together like a family.  I also remember wondering why we put the old, worn down ornaments on the tree, especially the ones that lost their glitter, their hooks, or were broken.  They were put up because they held memories.  And now as I am married and Brian and I started our own lives together, I am eager to put up the ornaments, both old and new, that carry memories in our hearts.

I recognize that for some of you, Christmas is not a joyful time: it can be sad time, a stressful time, or an anxious time.  And each year, the holiday season looks a little different for everyone.  With all the changes that happen in my life at Christmas, I just love the chaos of the tree.  I think it’s a little bit like our lives.  As hard as we may try, life often doesn’t look neat and organized.  Life happens in the chaos.  Life happens in the busyness of shopping and traveling and cooking and caroling.  Life happens in the reading of 'The Night Before Christmas.'  And life happens as we read the story of a women named Mary and a man named Joseph who frantically looked for place to deliver - and all they could find was a manger.  But take heart that what came from that chaotic situation was Emmanuel: God With Us.  So from my chaos to yours:

I wish you a blessed Christmas season.

What I Do

I haven’t written a blog in a while.  It’s not that I don’t have things on which to reflect.  In fact, being in this supervisory process, I have to reflect theologically about almost everything I do.  Perhaps it's the fact that I do so much written and spoken reflection at work that I feel like I have no creative juices left to write blogs!  But on many occasions, I am asked what exactly I do as a supervisory education student.  So here is where I am in my process:

I still work as a chaplain on the floors, but I am with patients 15 hours a week instead of 40 hours a week.  In those 15 hours, I still carry the on-call pager and deal with traumas, codes, deaths, and other crises.  While I have been doing this work for over a year, I still find myself involved in tragic cases that surprise me in their level of difficulty.  It's crazy how much I can handle now.  At the same time, I am happy that this work has not made me emotionally numb and that I still have the ability to feel and express emotion.  For example, a couple weeks ago, I dealt with my most difficult case yet as I watched a mother and unborn child die suddenly from a tragic accident.  So, so sad.

In the other 25 hours of my week, I focus on my supervisory process.  I have weekly individual supervision just like I did when I was a resident.  I also silently observe my supervisor as he guides a group of five interns through their process.  Every other Friday, I drive to Orlando to meet with a group of supervisory students and supervisors in North and Central Florida.  We present verbatims and case studies and have our work broken down through questions, curiosities, and insights.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for an outside person to sit in on one of our meetings.  They would likely think we’re crazy as we analyze every thought and question.  Being in the hot seat is tough, but they are helping us prepare for when we meet committees.

I have begun working on my theology theory paper and plan to go for Candidacy in spring 2012.  If I make candidacy in the spring, I can begin supervising students in the summer without a supervisor in the room – I just have to video tape every group and individual meeting.  If I do not pass committee, I will continue growing in  my process and try again in fall 2012.  During that same time, I will also begin researching and writing my education and personality theory papers.  I have to pass all three papers (theology, education, personality) before I can go for the next step called Associate.  But that won't be for a couple years.  This process - start to finish - varies in time, but is usually in the ball park of 5 years.

So there you have it – an update on what work life is like for me these days.  Just like any kind of parish work, this career path is definitely a calling.  Friends, I’m not gonna lie: this process is tough.  It produces tears and frustrations, but also the excitement of self-discovery.  But in all the chaos and difficulty of this process, I love this work more than anything I have done before.  To put it simply, it gives me life.  It so exciting to discover the reasons I do what I do – to work on my theories, and then practice them with patients and students.  And it is an honor and a privilege to be with people in their grief and to be with students in their learning process.

So all is well right now.  Work is great.  And life is amazing.

Why is ‘Why’ so Awkward?

This week in class, I listened and observed as the fall interns discussed a particular case involving the question of theodicy.  In its basic form, theodicy involves the question of where evil stands amidst a God who is believed to be all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing.  Theodicy questions include things like, Why does evil happen in the world? Does God have the ability to stop it?  Is God a vengeful God, a forgiving God, or perhaps both?  These questions used to be too complicated and distant for me to consider.  When I first started seminary, I did not like theology.  I thought theology to be a time where ancient, abstract concepts of God were brought into conversation with each other.  However, once I began my work as a hospital chaplain, I saw theology come to life and have loved it ever since.  Because the questions of life and death are a part of people’s everyday lives, and instead of discussing ancient theologians’ answers to the questions, we help families look at their own stories and seek to find an answer to their own grief.

In this conversation with interns, we talked about a mother whose son (in his mid-20s) was on his death bed after a car accident.  His brain was bleeding and his death was imminent.  In my interpretation, this son was the glue that held this somewhat dysfunctional family together.  And here they were, watching it all unravel in a split second.  The mother asked several times, “Why him?  What did he do to deserve this?  He is a good kid!”  There was a fear among some of the chaplains in the conversation that this mother was going to ask the age-old theodicy question, “How could God let this happen?!”  The fear grew as some of the chaplains wondered how they might answer that question.  How do you answer the question as to why God would let this happen to her son?   I had an easy answer: you don’t.

It may sound like avoidance, but hear me out.  I think our hearts and minds have a way of eventually processing out why things happen in our lives - it is our way of grieving.  Let me be clear that I do not believe we always get a cut and dry answer; sometimes our answer is settling on the fact that we just don’t know why.  That being said, I do not think God created us to grieve and process all the same way.  For example, when my grandfather died, each person in my family grieved his death differently.  The beauty of our family’s grief was not that we grieved uniformly, but that God created the space and presence for each of us in our varied grief.

Another example from my experience came when I told someone about the death of an unborn child in my extended family.  That person had the nerve to say to me, “Well, I’d bet God took that baby’s life because God knew something would be wrong with the baby if it was born. But now you have an angel waiting for you in heaven.”  I wanted to slap him.  Seriously, do you think you know why this baby never got a chance to live?  And more importantly, do you honestly think THAT answer is helpful??  Perhaps you have had a death or some sort of loss in your life experience.  How did it feel when someone came to you and told you why it happened? 

I think when we answer questions of this nature, it is out of our own anxiety, or even avoidance, about the topic at hand.  I see it happen all the time at the hospital (yes, I sometimes find myself doing it, too, without realizing it).  The other day, I was with a family member after her long-time boyfriend suddenly died.  Perhaps out of his anxiety, I heard the physician say to the woman, “My only explanation is that God must’ve wanted him more than we did.”  In an effort to provide an answer to an answerless situation, I believe the physician gave a potentially harmful statement for this woman to carry with her: God must’ve wanted him more than we did.  Translation: if you wanted him more, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.  I cringed a little on the inside.

I don’t think the physician who said that meant any harm by it.  But I do think we as humans want to give an answer that makes people feel better.  So why is the ‘why’ question so awkward?  I think because the question stumps us.  And it is hard for us as people to admit we don’t have the answer to everything.

As a chaplain, I think my role is to create the space for grief.  It is a common misconception that we as chaplains come to explain why something happened to someone.  I don’t know why something horrific happened any more than the next person.  I have no idea why unborn babies die, why perfectly healthy people are suddenly diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, or why a good and loving person can suddenly die in a fatal car accident.  But giving families the space to cry out the “why” questions, and equally as important, allowing the space for the silence of the unanswered questions, helps remind me that I am not God and I have not begun to understand why bad things happen to people.  But I believe that in that awkward silence rests the presence of God, encompassing the space for every felt emotion.

My closing statement to the interns was equally helpful for me as I continue to wrestle with the question of why bad things happen: “The beauty of the chaplain’s role is that we don’t carry the pressure to answer questions of theodicy…but we do carry the privilege of entering into a family’s grief with them.”  And that, to me, is what makes the silence a little less awkward.