Grace Upon Grace

Exhausted

I conducted the memorial service today for our patient who died on Sunday; it was apparently a suicide but we're not 100% sure (99.5%, from my point of view). We had a good turnout for the service and one patient took it upon herself to find a big sheet of paper and a box of colored pencils which she invited everyone to use to write a message to the dead woman's family. I always do a "shared eulogy," allowing staff and clients to comment about the person. Not only do we get a better picture of the person than we would if I alone spoke, we also do some ventilating of feelings, an important step in healing. We had lots of participation today, including one staff member who offered to play a song he wrote for his father as a tribute to the young woman who died. The music really was better than the words.

Last night I was at the hospital until 9:30 in my role as a member of the Critical Incident Stress Management team, joining my colleague Dr. Pamela Fuller in doing notifications about the critical illness of another patient. There is something very strange about telling (accurately, precisely) over and over again what happened to somebody, but that's part of the CISM process. The patient fell ill around 3:00. By 6:00, rumors were flying, including, "He was DOA," "He'd been falling down all the time for the last week," "I saw blood on his face," "It was a heart attack" -- none of which was true. I know because I was there as our docs and nurses worked on the man. It's really important to get accurate information to everybody as soon as possible.

The sick patient is alive but not in good shape. We will learn more tomorrow.

I am wondering what it would be like to work in a place where you don't have to go into overdrive to try to prevent copycat suicides when something like this takes place. Or where you don't have to do debriefings because staff got beat up or patients witnessed another patient do some serious self-mutilating. The world I live in at the hospital has become almost routine to me, and I wonder sometimes if I have been warped by it as well as deepened.

I was so stressed out myself today that I had a hard time stringing words into sentences. That's when I know I'm reaching my limit, when I can't do words. Thanks be to God, I was restored long enough to say some comforting things to close the shared eulogy. God really does give you what you need to do God's work for God's people.

Here endeth the lesson for today, and so to bed.

Please keep praying for us!

Pray for Us at the State Hospital....

We've had a patient die (likely suicide) and one come close to dying (apparently from natural causes) in the last three days.

Many of the other patients are very upset. Many staff members are, too.

I'm working 12-hour days. So please pray for all of us! And I'll be back to regular blogging as soon as I can.

More on Addiction

Here's a dispatch from the U. of Utah Alcoholism School -- my weekly column in the Salt Lake Tribune.

On the last day of the week-long School, we found ourselves trying to put our new-found knowledge to work. A friend relapsed. It was heart-breaking. I can't say much more for fear of breaking confidentiality. I'll just ask my readers to pray for all people affected by addiction, please.

It's hot today! But a breeze is blowing and the humidity is low. My garden is a-bloomin' away. I hope to have a picture of it to post soon.

Off to the nursery to buy more plants .... The gorgeous, salmon-colored poppies I'm seeing all over town are calling to me!

Yo Mama?

I have received some correspondence recently from the national Episcopal Church and other church sources in which I am addressed as ... Mother Clark. Or Mother Connie.

The truth is, I am nobody's mama. And never will be. Oh, except the mother of my dogs, and late lamented cats. And then only in a manner of speaking.

I have, on the other hand, often been called "Mom" or "Mama" by psychiatric hospital patients who need a nurturing, kind mother figure. This is not something I've encouraged. Sometimes I've actively discouraged it. Sometimes I let it be. Always I accept it as a compliment.

Though I lived in a "Father/Mother" parish for 12 years, I just don't know if I can be Mother Connie. Less still, Mother Clark -- a name some family members called my paternal grandmother, a lady with whom I would not like to be identified for the rest of my life. Yes, there's a story there.

"What shall we call you?"

How about .... Connie?

Or, and I know this doesn't sound very Episcopalian, I do love the title "Pastor."

Fresh and Sassy

Tonight I took two new-ish church members, Cheryl and Joe, down to Salt Lake Seminary with me for the third of four classes on the Book of Amos. Cheryl and Joe did not come to faith easily or out of childhood habituation. Their journeys have been hard and dangerous, yet here they are, full-fledged members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and now summer students at a seminary!

We had a great time on the drive to and from tonight. First we stopped in Park City on the way down, where I picked up my first week's worth of fresh produce from an organic farm called Zoe's Garden. We have a subscription to receive a portion of their organic produce throughout the summer. It is gorgeous! Haven't eaten any of it yet, but it looks fantastic.

On the way back, we talked about our dreams for St. Paul's. Cheryl and Joe want to see us reach out to unchurched people. This is an idea I've floated from time to time in the congregation. It has been met with a stupendous "ho hum." But here are these two new members who really want to make it happen and have great ideas about how to focus the effort (reaching out to single parents and their children, specifically) and how to make it attractive (free home-cooked meal for the whole families then child-care afterwards so the single parents can talk to fellow adults for an hour or so).

We were laughing about ways to sneak this idea over on the more change-phobic members of the congregation. Joe is on the vestry, and so is my husband Guy, so there are two infiltrators right there. We got a bit irreverent in our discussions of how to "sell" the idea and wound up doing imitations of the old Phil Hartman routine from "Saturday Night Live" -- "I've just stepped in a steaming pile of SASSY!" Also, when we got a little too irreverent, we started singing: "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love" and somehow segued to "My Boyfriend's Back" and "The Leader of the Pack." Don't know exactly how that happened!

I personally just feel grateful for (a) fresh organic produce and (b) sassy, spirited, smart, and dedicated new church members. Fresh and sassy -- sounds good to me!

Lunch in Park City

Two delightful women from the Episcopal Church in Park City, Utah took me out to lunch today at the Windy Ridge Cafe. Claudia, Judy, and I chatted away like old friends. This must be one of the main benefits of being part of the Body of Christ -- the connection we share with other members of it.

Then I bought some house-made rhubarb sorbet, basically out of curiosity, at the Windy Ridge Bakery and came home. The cold is still plaguing me and I was embarrassed to meet my new Park City friends with a red, chapped nose.

At least it isn't Stress Nose, an ailment that has plagued me from time to time since moving to Wyoming. But you, dear reader, do not need to know the unpleasant details of Stress Nose.

Much sadness all around this past week -- the death of the Rt. Rev. Jim Kelsey, Bishop of Northern Michigan, has touched our Wyoming Diocese closely, as he and our Bishop and the Diocesan staffs have closely collaborated on the Total Ministry or Mutual Ministry approach that both Dioceses share. Everyone who knew Bishop Kelsey seems to have loved and admired him. Closer to home, a young woman was murdered out in the Bridger Valley, just east of here; a long-time parishioner of St. Paul's was found dead up in the Uintas where she liked to go hiking; and a dear friend is about to undergo surgery for a tumor on her pituitary gland.

And I have the nerve to complain about my nose! Here's hoping for a better attitude in the morning.

From the Presiding Bishop...

... courtesy my friend Seeking Servant, words from our Presiding Bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori, that I can live by:

For me, one exchange of note [at a forum at Virginia Theological Seminary recently] came about when a woman priest, soon to begin a new ministry, asked the PB about what it means "to be a good and faithful priest".  Her simple response was "Feed my sheep, Tend my lambs, and Stand before God with His people in your heart".

Praying for Friends

I'm reading a book of collected interviews with and articles by Timothy Radcliffe, OP, who is Master of the Dominicans (worldwide, apparently). I really enjoyed his piece on Catherine of Siena. I need to learn more about her, I think. He includes a prayer she wrote and said for her friends:

Eternal God,

I pray to you

for all those you have given me

to love with a special love

and with special concern.

Let them be illuminated with your light.

Let all imperfection be taken from them,

so that in truth

they may work in your garden,

where you have assigned them.

This seems a pretty good prayer to me.

On another note, it is extremely windy tonight and we are expecting snow tomorrow, which worries me as I am scheduled to start a four-week course at Salt Lake Seminary with my favorite teacher, Tom McClenahan, on Amos, tomorrow night. I have written here before about what the drive over Parley's Canyon (on the way to/from SLC) is like in the snow. As discretion is the better part of valor, I may not go .... but I hate to miss that first class of only four!

Church at Its Best

Tonight I taught our Stephen Ministry trainess at St. Paul's. (Stephen Ministry is a wonderful system for training and supervising lay pastoral caregivers.) The evening's work included an assignment of giving each other affirmations -- saying something to each other person in the group that you appreciate about them or wish to thank them for. All of the affirmations and the giving and receiving were beautiful to be a part of, but here's my favorite part.

One of our wise elders/preachers/prophets, a woman in her mid-70s, addressed this affirmation to a relatively new member, a young man, convert from the LDS faith, who has come to his vibrant spirituality through many trials and tribulations and is, shall we say, street-smart:

"When I'm in a nursing home, I want you to bring me the Eucharist."

The young man wept a bit at that one -- as who wouldn't?

Maybe every church group should have to do this same exercise on a regular basis. It certainly builds community!

Welcoming?

My local parish, St. Paul's, is a small and warm congregation. Its vestry and ordained leaders consider it very welcoming to newcomers. I am going to challenge my fellow leaders in that congregation to fill out a "Hospitality Checklist," by Carolyn Moomaw Chilton of the Diocese of Virginia. You can find it here.

I haven't yet even visited a church that began to do half the things on this checklist. How about you?

About a year ago, I was meeting with the other ordained leaders of St. Paul's and our Vestry's Senior Warden. I started talking about evangelism and growing the church, and one of my colleagues said, "But do we want to grow?" That was an honest response and a useful one because it expresses the ambivalence most congregations feel about "upsetting the applecart" by bringing in new people. And upset the applecart they will -- either that, or they'll come once a month or just on Christmas and Easter, or they'll slink away unnoticed.

Personally, I want to be part of a congregation that is as close to unambivalent about growth as it is possible to be. Maybe in my next gig, wherever that may be!