Seminary – Page 7 – Pocket Sized Pastor*

A seven sermon day

Now, before that title worries you, I didn’t give seven sermons today. Instead, I heard seven sermons (one was a repeat so only six “new to me” sermons) today. With today being the first Sunday of my seminary year, that means that today was also my first Sunday at my field education site. It was great to be back serving the congregation I was at last year. People missed me and were excited to see me. I only talked to a couple of the people I really wanted to but it was great to be back, to be wanted, and to catch up with folks. And I remembered most of their names! After my time at my field ed site, I came home and tried not to fall asleep while studying greek vocabulary words. That was a struggle.

After my study time, I went back to my field site to witness an inter-faith service consisting of roughly ten congregations from a variety of faith traditions. The speaker was an iman from the Upper East Side. The place was packed and I believe there were more yarmulkes in the room than Lutherans. After the imans message (which was short and good), I left early and ran to another service at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Central Park West. In a beautiful building, I sat with an audience that was 65% clergy. We listened to bishops, presidents, and former bishops, talking about the founding of Lutheran Disaster Response New York. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson spoke as well as former bishop Stephen Bouman and the current Atlantic-Synod President of the LCMS. There was singing, contemporary interpretations of psalms, gospels readings, and four sermons. By the end of it, I was in lala land – I think I was sermoned out.

During those sermons, I found myself drifting. Rather than reflecting back on the events of 9/11 (and where I was), I found myself returning to a visit I had over CPE. I was comforting the family and friends of a man who was dying. The man had become a father figure to a large number of children who lost fathers in the WTC collapse. One of their mothers was in the room and, after some time, I heard the story of how many times they had exhumed and re-interred her husband’s body. Very few remains existed at first but more was found after the first burial. It happened so often that the graveyard director said that if there were any more reports of remains, they should just cremate them and keep them because they’re not going to open that coffin again. After telling me that story, the woman then – half-jokingly – asked me what happens with her husband once the bodily resurrection comes? Does he come back whole? Is he just walking around in pieces? There was a bit of black humor there but I could sense she was hoping for a slight answer and the opportunity to expand on what fears and concerns she had. Luckily I was interrupted by the dying man and I never had to answer her question. I didn’t have an answer for me. It was a question I never really thought about nor cared to ask. It’s possible that too many zombie movies have interfered with my ability to process that kind of resurrection.

Yet, as I sat in the pews tonight, I kept going back to that story. In a sense, it is one of my more recent overt interactions with the events of 9/11. I haven’t been down to the World Trade Center site in awhile. When I saw the structure while in the Village yesterday, I didn’t believe that it was as tall as it is (82 stories so far!). I don’t really think about 9/11 very much anymore. The outcomes of that event – the security shakedown in the US, in subways, the wars and deaths of thousands of people – all have, in away, become background noise to me. I was still in college when 9/11 happened. I’ve lived in a post-9/11 world ever since I moved to New York. 9/11 has always hovered in the air and, in away, is part of the fabric of the New York culture and story. The event happened and has woven itself into the culture of New York. New York has lived on because that is what it does with all new stories – it grows, evolves, changes, and absorbs all that happens to it and in it. In a sense, living in New York is living with 9/11 everyday. Even though I wasn’t in NYC at the time, it’s still in the very air that I breathe. Like the urine smells in the subway station, it’s just part of the New York I know and love.

In all honesty, it felt a tad lonely sitting in the pews during the service tonight and during the reception. I realized, while sitting there, that all the people in the room could imagine a different time because they had lived that different time. Most had suffered personal losses in the attacks. Many had served as chaplains to the first responders in the days following the towers’ collapse. Most of the pastors in that room still counseled people who are still trying to heal from the losses of that day. I felt like I was in the wrong generation for the service tonight (though it didn’t help that the LCMS required the service to be so stripped down and weird that it never felt like a solemn service to me). The people there knew a NYC without 9/11 and I don’t. I’m not sure if the speakers up there understood that (though I think my field education pastor does). But I’m at least glad that the food spread was pretty nice. We can at least join together while munching on spring rolls.

Seminary Round 2

And so, with today being the day after Labor Day, I have begun my second year of seminary. The bell, it tolls for me.

I don’t recall if I ever wrote that I am no longer attending the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. I transfered to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (or General for short). There are a few reasons why I transfered and I’ll admit that the fact that it had a longer name than LTSP was one of its draws. But, in all seriousness, I was sick of the commute to Philly and I didn’t want to do it for another two years. My church, my cat, my dog, and (most importantly) my wife were in New York and I wanted to be there too. So to General I shall go.

Last week, I spent my time at orientation. I sat through the usual junk (financial aid, introductions, registrar, yadda yadda). It was less painful than LTSP’s orientation and I enjoyed that it actually seemed like the administration cared about each individual there. That doesn’t mean to say that they’re perfect or that I won’t come to dislike the administration apparatus tomorrow but I like what I saw and felt. And I love the fact that one of our orientation classes consisted of getting familiar with how worship was done at General. That didn’t happen at LTSP.

So I’ve been spending my time getting use to the lingo at General. It’s nice that most of the M.Div students have a title that goes with them (Lutherans don’t) and I’m finding it nice that the school tries to be Lutheran friendly. My advisor is a new professor who is rostered with the ELCA and I keep seeing references in some class syllabi to the ELW. But there are only three full time Lutherans on campus at the moment (which is two more than last year) so it isn’t hard to feel a tad lonely being there.

I’m also considered a commuter student since I’m not living on campus. That means that I don’t have to pay some fees but it also means that, since I’m not on the meal plan, that I’m not allowed to eat lunch in the Refectory with everyone else. And with worship being at 8 in the morning, that’s a pretty good reason why I won’t be at worship either. I find both of these things a tad annoying but, hey, LTSP and General keep their campus-mates much closer to the chest than commuter students and I knew that going in. The President at General kept telling us to be at the refectory and go to chapel to help “be in community” but they sure don’t make it that easy for commuter students who need their beauty sleep.

All in all, I’m finding General to be a nice place. I’m one of the younger folks in the group and I seem to be part of the married majority. The campus has a day care center and babies are all over the place. And if I had a dime for every dog I see on the one block campus, I’d be able to pay off my seminary loans. Babies, dogs, and spouses/partners: you can’t throw a hymnal without hitting all of them.

As much as I’m enjoying the place, I’m also not liking it at the same time. I find the course offerings at General to be a tad unexciting and I have a feeling that I will not be challenged like I was last year. None of the courses really excite me at all. I’m taking New Testament, Greek, and Introduction to Music, Preaching, and two practical pastoral care courses. I have no particular passion towards any of these courses (though, don’t get me wrong, the New Testament is awesome but I’m just not too thrilled with what little of the syllabus for that course I saw). When I realized what my course options were, I know that my first reaction was to feel deflated and I’ve basically been at that point for the entire week. I’m taking courses I need to fill graduation requirements but nothing that really excites me. And the one class I had today didn’t help things since we sat there and watched a movie for 75% of the class period. I could do that at home people.

I have a concern that my seminary year is gonna be very blah. I’m gonna need to not let that interfere with my field education work though. I’m getting a lot more responsibility and I’m excited about that. A great field education experience will more than make up for a blah academic year (I hope).

Hurricane A Go Go

For the last week or so, I was on vacation. I’ll be sharing pictures of my trip soon but I just wanted to write a quick comment about what’s coming up: Hurricane Irene. It seems I missed an earthquake (darn!) but I made it back in time for a hurricane. Hurray!

I actually am not terribly scared of hurricanes. Growing up in landlocked areas, hurricanes were never on my radar. Now, spending my adult life in New York City has made me more concerned with nor’easterns rather than hurricanes. But it seems like there’s a chance that the eye of the storm might head right over my apartment (though the tracking keeps changing – yesterday, it was heading west, now it’s heading east). At Chez Stynxno, we’re working on doing some minor preparations for the hurricane by visiting the grocery store, buying a flashlight, and making sure to get all our necessary internet time in before the storm hits. I don’t think the animals are really aware of what’s happening but I think they’ll be glad to be home when it hits. We’re making a big pot of chili and we’re opening up our home to any of our friends who are in the evacuation zone if the calls goes out to move out. Being in the heights means we’re on the high ground in Manhattan.

Since the storm is hitting on a Sunday, one thing that I’ve thought about is church services. There was some debate at my home congregation about whether to cancel services or not. The decision was to keep the services as scheduled. There are rumors that the MTA will shut down service (or the subway will be flooded) so there’s very little chance that I’ll be making it to church come Sunday but I’ve been thinking about the idea of having church with the knowledge that a storm is barreling down on you. Thanks to satellites, we have days of warning that a storm will hit. As much as I think it’s valuable to break bread with the Lord during the middle of a storm, I also wonder if it makes any sense to have services in the middle of a hurricane. If it is dangerous for the assembly to gather due to natural conditions (and the disruption will only be one day), should the assembly gather? I don’t think I have a theological answer for that at the moment (though I’ll probably come up with one) but I just hope that everyone in NYC takes this storm seriously and if it looks bad, stay inside. The church is an old building undergoing repair – there’s no need to dodge flying tree branches and trash to make it into a leaky building. Stay safe!

Update: My new seminary was scheduled to begin orientation this Sunday but just announced that Sunday programs have been canceled. They’re in an evacuation zone so that’s probably part of the reason. Let’s hope that the subway and the close aren’t too flooded come Monday morning.

Well, that was scary.

I’d like to talk about babies for a minute.

During my round in the PICU, I tend to avoid crying babies. I’m not sure why but I do. If a baby is crying, I assume that the parents are with them and that it really isn’t a good time to stop by and say hello. Crying babies also tend to not respond to my funny faces, my “oohs ho ho ho,” my attempts at “where’s the baby” and all the other things I do to try and provide spiritual support to those who are ten months and younger. It’s a skill I’ve been developing and I have a good time with it. But crying babies, well, they’re crying. And usually they have good reasons to be crying. A baby in the hospital with ivs, tubes, and other such things – you’d cry too I bet. I know I’m not suppose to avoid them but I do.

But, for some reason today, I didn’t.

The social worker in the PICU referred me to a family who were Catholic and were open for a visit. They were busy yesterday so I planned to stop by this morning. I walked around and could hear their baby crying. I avoided it at first, saw a couple of other patients, but then decided to buck up and see the kid. I said hi to the nurse, suited up (the child was under isolation), and walked on over. The kid was squirming and crying. The kid had just had surgery the afternoon before and, from the chart at least, everyone said the kid was doing great. The docs had seen her fifteen minutes prior and were already trying to get her moved out of the PICU. The parents were so happy, they even felt comfortable enough to go home for a few hours. Things were looking up for this kid.

So I started my routine. I talked to the kid, made faces, told it I understood, and tried to get her to calm down. But it wasn’t working. I thought that maybe I was scaring her and I made the motions to walk away but that didn’t seem to be it. And the more she cried, the more I went into the typical “baby-crying-I-don’t-know-what-to-do-because-I-am-a-man” routine. But then she made a face I thought I recognized. She’s just struggling to poop, I told myself. The baby seemed to be calming down. But something was off. I asked the baby, “Are you alright? What are you doing? What’s wrong?” And then the crying stopped. So did the squirming. The alarms started going off and her heart rate dropped like a rock. I turned quickly to see that the nurse had stepped out. I looked back, and the baby was doing one final squirm and I saw it’s face starting to turn blue. I went “oh shit!” and ran from the room. I ran into the next room, told the nurses that something was wrong – that “there’s a baby that doesn’t look right.” My face said more than my words and two nurses quickly followed me into the room and got to work. The baby, in the words over the intercom, “coded” or “destated”. She stopped breathing. The nurses started to give her air and do chest compressions. More nurses came. Then doctors showed up. Soon, the entire staff was in the room working as a well oiled machine. They were doing their darnest with the kid. The communication was fluid. The movements precise. They knew what they were doing. But there was a panic in the air. The air was filled with suspense. And as they worked, I pulled back. I walked backwards until I ran into the far wall and the entire time, I did the only thing I could do – I prayed. I prayed hard. Over and over again, like a broken record, I prayed “Dear God, not her. Not her. Not her. Not again. You better save her God. You better fucking save her.”

It wasn’t long before the baby started to cry again. I saw her arms flail. She didn’t really like the air mask on her but she required it. She was back. She was breathing. And her heart rate returned to normal. She cried some more while the doctors kept working on her. The social worker came and chatted with me. So did the PCD. They told me she would be okay. And then, once the situation stabilized, the nurses started saying to me “Thank God you were here” and “This was divine intervention” and “You saved her life.” I took off my isolation gear, said if they needed me anymore, and when they said no, I stepped out. I needed to get out of there. I was freaked.

I went back to the office and called my wife. I talked to a couple of my colleagues and I told them what happened. I tried to calm down and get back to work. Several folks in the PICU reached out to me and asked if I was okay. My colleagues did a great job supporting me. My supervisor told me that I now have the best CPE story to share when I go back to school in the fall. But what was running through my mind was when I was going back to the floor, what was I going to see, what was I going to say, and “did I wait to long to get the nurses?” In the meantime, I attended a funeral, ate lunch, and had a class on group dynamics. It was near the end of the day before I finally had a chance to head back to the PICU. I checked the charts and read what happened. I gathered my things and went back up to the unit. I met the nurse of the room and we chatted. She was still traumatized by the event and so was I but I provided some pastoral counseling to her even though I was suffering from the same event she was. I don’t think I said all the right things to her but I think she was just happy to see me come back to the floor and to talk with her and say that it’s okay. I met the mom and she had been told what happened. She seemed rather calm and was grateful that I had been there. And I left feeling pretty good – still in shock but doing better.

But right before I met the nurse and the mom, I ran into the mother of a patient who’s child, who had been improving, had just taken a turn for the worse. She was frantic. She wasn’t ready to talk so I said I’d come back tomorrow. So when I walked back to the subway after work, and as I entered the stairs and into the artificially lit tunnels that led to the over-heated platforms, my heart sunk. Even though some good had happened today, it’s not over. In the next bed over, a family is heart broken and is suffering. Another child might die. As much as I am enjoying being a chaplain, I’m not really sure I could handle this every day. I joked at lunch that I have “won” CPE but I’m not so sure. I haven’t even properly processed what happened last Friday and then this happened. I’m not sure I could do this all the time (though I know this doesn’t happen all the time). This was a rather heavy baptism by fire.

And then there were five

Yesterday, we lost one of our colleagues.

One of the six, our fellow CPE summer student, had to leave the program. Due to their schedule and some things that came up, they just weren’t able to invest in the program fully and finish it up. It was all quite sudden and I was surprised by it. I completely understand why they withdrew (if I was in their same shoes, I would have done the same). And, like them, I wouldn’t have known exactly what CPE required until I actually tried it. But, even with the rationalization and the understanding, I was still very sad about it. I like the person quite a bit. Everyone in the group seemed to connect with them in a different way. And, for quite awhile, yesterday afternoon, I just felt down.

Right after we learned of our fellow student’s withdraw, we participated in our regularly scheduled process group. Our overall supervisor is a leader in a type of program (I am forgetting the name of it) where people explore their feelings, in the moment, and no one is suppose to be left alone. I think one of the goals of this type of experience is to get into better touch with what we feel and what it means to explore and be in those feelings (be they emotional or physical). We’re not suppose to explain away things. Like my supervisor says, we all know how to explain things. Ever since we were little kids, we are always asked why we did something or “explain yourself young man/woman!” And for those of us in seminary, explaining is what we do. But exploring is different. Trying to feel and be with yourself in the moment is different. This system, when explained, can easily sound like some silly new agey feeling talk (“You’ve just got to get in touch with your feelings, man!”) but it really isn’t. In the context that it is used (training chaplains to walk with people in their pain and hurting), being able to explore our feelings allows us to help people explore theirs. Instead of explaining away what people are feeling, or trying to uncover the hidden reasons why someone feels that way, we’re instead being trained to walk with people and live with them in their moments. What are they feeling? How are their feelings limiting what they’re able to do? How are their spiritual resources? What gives them meaning, hope, and connection in this time of need? Where are they at?

I like to uncover things. I like to ask questions and see if something that is unsaid is really the driving force for another’s emotions. I like to create thoughts and explore those thoughts. But I struggle with meeting people at their moment of feeling. That’s basically my current major learning goal for the rest of the summer (including all the other ones that I’ve mentioned!). Let’s see if I can crack this teapot during the next seven weeks.

Get your Pray On

I like to think I’m a praying kind of individual. Before I go to bed each night, I say a set. I’ve been known to take a few moments and say prayer in the middle of the day. When I need to calm down, I repeat the Lord’s Prayer over and over. When I hear of a friend struggling or suffering, I’ll shoot off a prayer. Now that I’m a seminarian, when I enter a room, I’ve become a designated prayer. At first, it was difficult but it’s been getting easier. I’ve even made a learning goal this summer to become more comfortable with extemporaneous prayer. I’m going to start reading prayer books regularly. Before you know it, I’m going be the quickest prayer drawer in the West.

But one thing I’ve struggled with during the last three weeks of CPE has been praying with patients. I don’t offer prayers often and I usually wait for a patient to request them. I’ve prayed with Jewish folks, Muslims, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals, and Seventh Day Adventists. If I was playing prayer bingo, I’d be nearing a complete blackout. For non-Christians, I leave out the Jesus and tend to borrow their words. For “liturgical” traditions, repeating the Our Father or taking something from a Lutheran Prayer Book works fine. But for other traditions, I’ve struggled. I’ve had my prayers critiqued. I’ve had folks point out how my theology is “wrong” in my prayer. When it comes to traditions where the individual is an active participant in grace, my prayers seem to run into problems. My cries for God to do godly things runs into a dead end. They fail to bring comfort in the way that these patients ask for. Or, worse, these patients just assume I’m “catholic” and am a lost soul anyways so there’s no need to even ask me to pray with them. It’s frustrating.

When I run into this prayer confrontation, I tend to shut down. I’m not looking for pats on the back nor am I asking for a high five. I don’t want to be thanked (though that happens a lot). But I am a stickler when it comes to prayer. The theology might be off, the request might seem strange, and the whole thing might feel different and unfamiliar, but it’s a prayer. It’s a cry in the midst of human suffering. It’s a request for release, for mercy, for love, and for hope. It’s a hope for comfort, for release, for things to work out in the end. It doesn’t mean that it will work out that way – God’s will be done and all that – but, from my point of view, a prayer is the most human response possible to the presence of suffering. Before reaction, before restraint, before gasps, before retaliation, before resistance, there is a cry. And that cry is a human cry, even if it’s done poorly, feels silly, or isn’t in an understandable language. It’s a place where people not in the midst of your suffering can reach out to you and hold on. It’s what people just do.

I never expected to spend this summer working on my theology of prayer but it looks like that I’ll be struggling with that (and a million other things) during the next eight weeks. But thats okay – it’s why I’m here. And it helps that, on this Sunday, while packing up my apartment, my wife stumbled onto an old bottle of bad tequila. I’ve never met a bad tequila I didn’t like.

STICK A FORK IN ME

I AM DONE.

Actually, I was done last Thursday. I just needed a few days to convince my fingers to not be afraid of the keyboard. They had their work cut out for them this month.

My finals week at LTSP was fairly straight forward. I stayed in NYC an extra night (no Monday morning class) so I arrived Monday around noon. My workload for this final week was one take home final (3 short essays for Old Testament 2), one five page review of the book American Jesus (for Readings in Christology), one set of reading reflections on half a dozen books in the Old Testament, and a 3 hour final on Thursday for Lutheran Confessions. My Liturgy course and Pastoral Care finished before finals week even began. The book review went fine and the take home final went well even though I was little worried about it. Most of the final exam consisted of looking at the Wisdom literature in the OT and we never really covered, in class, how Wisdom was defined. Or maybe we did and I had zoned out in that lecture or I just failed to do the supplemental reading that week (it happens). Either way, my professor was very nice and made sure to grade the exam quickly and get it back to me before I left campus. I’m grateful for that.

My final for Lutheran Confessions went swimmingly except for a little incident where, right before the exam began, a student was escorted out of the classroom by security. I still have yet to figure out why that happened though I have my guesses (the student was either an auditor who wasn’t suppose to be taking the final or the student had discovered the secret Luther Rose signal that Gotham uses to summon the League of Lutheran Avengers) but that was a bit unnerving. None of us had a chance before hand to really break it down or decompress. The head of security had asked me if I knew the student earlier in the morning (I barely did) and I noticed, on my way to the classroom, the entire security squad was hanging around our classroom. The professor was obviously flustered, apologized to all of us for what happened, and then gave us the test. So we all plowed ahead. The exam consisted of two sections – the first section required us to identify 20 or so documents, terms, ideas, or reformers, and say a little about them. The other section was 3 essay questions out of the 10 that I had received before hand. I tabbed the crap out of my Book of Concord so I had all my quotes and ideas ready for the test. I focused each question on one of the legs of the three legged (with a four leg resting on top) stool: Justification by Grace through Faith, Law and Gospel, Theology of the Cross, and the Two Kingdoms. I barely discussed the two kingdoms in my essays so, right at the end, I wrote a quick paragraph on what it was about (I like to show that I paid attention to at least one lecture this year). Each question was “from the headlines” or were questions the professor received from former students dealing with situations that developed in their parishes or internships. I think I did okay but since I vacated the premise, I won’t know my final grade until June 15 (and there is a good chance my final exam will be lost into the Abyss of Exams that Time Forgot since I’m not there to pick it up). Thus, I have plenty of time to stew and think about how I could have done better. And it also doesn’t help that I threw in a few jokes on the objective part of the test for the TA to read (since he’s a buddy of mine) but I found out afterwards that the TA wasn’t aware that he was grading any parts of it. I hope the professor appreciated my use of emoticons.

I left LTSP campus later that Thursday. I spent two hours throwing things out, scrubbed the bathroom, borrowed a friend’s vacuum, and wondered how someone who never really lived on campus could have acquired so much junk. I said my goodbyes to a few folks on campus (folks that I am gonna miss terribly) and, as it began to rain, a friend kindly offered to drive me to the SEPTA train stop. And so I left – my first year at seminary finished. Goodbye Philadelphia, hello ten days till CPE.

Liturgy Retreat in Trappe

Cue trapped in Trappe jokes.

For my Introduction to Liturgy course, our final examine consisted of a retreat. On a Saturday, those who were able gathered at Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe, PA. There, in the historic Lutheran church building built in 1743, we performed the three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil. All three, in a row, and on one day.

Okay, we didn’t do all there services exactly in a row. The class didn’t plow from one bulletin to the next. We had breaks. We ate lunch and dinner together. There were moments of downtime between the services. Dr. Lathrop wished for the entire day to be a retreat from the stress induced final moments of the spring semester. The idea was to do the three days on an Easter Saturday with every student having some part to play in the event.

We arrived at Augustus Lutheran Church a little after 11 o’clock. On the way through town, pass the odd UCC church sign, I kept making comments about Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and his being a patron of local fast food restaurants (specifically Dairy Queen). It only seemed right that since Muhlenberg’s house had a historical marker dedicated to it, his favorite ice cream dessert should too. The entire class gathered in one of the community halls attached to the newer church building. A lunch was prepared for a small army. I believe there is still salad from that day sitting in the communal fridge on the 3rd floor of LTSP’s dorm.

Prepping for Maundy Thursday

After feeding myself to the point of bursting, I wandered with several other students into the Old Church. Built in 1743 and with its only electricity being fed into it via huge extension chords, I watched as Dr. Lathrop, Dr. Krentz, and my classmates began to run through how the Maundy Thursday service would work. From the monster pulpit, the tiny box pews (that were too small for even me), and the bleacher balcony, it was a beautiful building to shoot.

It also helped that there was a lovely graveyard outside.

The graveyard had it all – the graves of the first European settlers in Trappe, a gravestone from 1736, the tomb of 15 unknown Continental soldiers, and ridiculously gaudy tombstones. It was a dream. Peaceful, buggy, yet serene. It makes sense why graveyards were the first city parks.

The Maundy Thursday service went very well. We sung our hymns, had our feet washed, washed our neighbors feet, and celebrated the Eucharist. It didn’t dawn on me at the time but I actually had my feet washed by an actual diaconal candidate (that doesn’t happen every day). Dr. Lathrop preached. A good time was had by all.

With that service ended, we had a few moments before our next service. I once again headed into the graveyard where I visited the man himself, Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg.

Gravestone in Latin? Wife barely a footnote? Ballsy.

Quite a bit of Muhlenberg’s family is buried in the church. His son the Major General is there as well as his daughter who married a future General. There is a smattering of American Revolutionary war accolades throughout the cemetery. I was bummed to see no mention of Henry’s favorite Dairy Queen.

With the graves visited, I then strolled deeper into the graveyard with my ELW. Then, while out of earshot, I began practicing Psalm 22. I am not a singer and singing in public makes me nervous. But there, amongst the graves, I belted it out. I will admit that, at some points, I was hoping that I was not accidentally chanting an incantation that would raise everyone from the dead. I’ve seen movies and TV shows that started that way. It would have made the retreat quite a different kind of event.

The Good Friday service began promptly at 3 pm. I took my seat in the very first box pew. The readings were read. I chanted and the assembly chanted responsively. A friend of mine presided. Dr. Lathrop preached. But rather than preach from the floor (like at the Maundy Thursday service), he wandered up to the pulpit; the pulpit marked restricted area. Dr. Lathrop’s view looked something like this:

As you can see, those individuals sitting in the very first pew, were going to develop neck strain if they tried to look up during the sermon. And we did. My neck hurts just thinking about it.

3 young men sung the passion. The cross was carried in and laid on the altar. The service ended with everyone leaving in silence. Everyone was very moved by it.

A storm moved into the area and rained while we were having dinner. Luckily, it blew out before the start of the Easter Vigil. I, again, overate at dinner and I had to be rolled down to where we all gathered to light a bonfire. Earlier in the day, a car accident right in front of the church had damaged a transformer and caused power outages in the neighborhood. Firemen and police officers were around all day. One wandered onto the church campus and one of our students asked if he was there because we were going to light a fire in the graveyard. This was the first he heard about it and he had a few questions. But everything was fine and we all gathered and waited for Dr. Lathrop, Dr. Krentz, Laura, and Jay to process from the church to where we had gathered.

With the fire lit, we moved into the boy scout room of the community center at the church. There, all 14 readings were done (and their responses). I never before had participated in an Easter Vigil where all the readings were done and I must say that I quite enjoyed it. The lectors were great and the prayers/song responses were perfect. They were not too short nor were they too long. They added distance between readings but were not boring. During some of the readings, laughter was shared. The group got into it. It probably helps that we’re all mostly pastors-to-be but I think we all had a good time. And, through it all, everything was in candle light. In the words of Dr. Lathrop, it was gorgeous.

With the readings done, we returned through the darkness to the old church building. Covering our candle sticks, we did our best to keep them lit during the thanksgiving for baptism. In the church, the sermon was preached and eucharist was shared. With that, the evening was done and we all piled into our respective vehicles and returned to where we had come.

Liturgy Retreat Preview

Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe, PA

I will post more later but I wanted to share one of my favorite pictures from the set.