Here is another post-birthday blog entry, as I never got around to logging on yesterday, the actual anniversary of my birth.
Just shy of my eighth birthday, I was the new kid in school (for the first, but definitely not the last, time). I met a girl in my third grade class named Lisa, and while we did not immediately hit it off—mostly because we were competing for the attention of another classmate, Michelle—we did find common ground almost right away.
We were born on the same day: September 27, 1966.
In that same spirit of competition and third grade curiosity, we compared times of birth and established that Lisa was five hours and 40 minutes my senior (a fact with which we were obsessed during our younger years, when we were constantly—and ironically—measuring which of us was the "more mature" of the two).
Thirty-one years later, neither Lisa nor I have the foggiest idea what has become of Michelle. We have, however, maintained the long-ago "best friend" status that we achieved after we got over our initial reticence with one another. In spite of my many moves and several mutual life changes, we stayed connected—except for the five-year hiatus of the late high school and early college years, during which we lost touch. Today, though, we are very much a part of each other's lives.
For me, yesterday marked our 39th birthday. For Lisa, yesterday signified the dawning of our 40th year of life. Semantics, mostly, because it all adds up to the same thing, right? While I'm not really dreading the Big 4-0, I'm happy to bask in this last year of my 30s, for whatever that's worth. Lisa has a more fleshed-out philosophy of aging, though, which you can read about here.
Happy (belated) birthday to us!
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The aim and the way
Yesterday was my birthday. To commemorate the occasion, my friend Jenn treated me to dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant. (Thanks, Jenn!) The bill arrived with the requisite fortune cookies, and mine read as follows:
The aim is useless without the way.
Deep.
I think.
(Seriously, my first response upon reading this was, "Huh?")
Meanwhile, here are a few inspirational quotations I stumbled across recently which seem appropriate to cite on the occasion of having completed almost four full decades on earth:
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. —Walter Bagehot
One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. —Eleanor Roosevelt
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. —Michael Landon
And then there's this one:
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." —John 14:5-7
Hm.
The aim is useless without the way.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
On Ships, Harbors and Sailing into Uncharted Territory
New blog entries from me have been few and far between lately, so it seems prudent to pull another article out of the archives. This one was originally published two years ago this month, when I found myself reflecting on my first job out of college. Enjoy! —alm
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I've been a little bit emotional lately. Between returning to Allegheny for homecoming and missing that place and those people — especially missing the feelings of being known, recognized and loved, and being totally familiar with my environment — and the uncertainties about my position here, things have been a bit rocky inside.
I recently read this passage in one of my old journals. It documents the spring I graduated from college, the summer I participated in CCO Summer Training, and the autumn I arrived at Geneva College as a full-fledged "campus minister." It reads like a coming-of-age novel…well, a poorly-edited coming-of-age memoir, maybe. The above reflection was recorded on October 11, 1988, a little over a month into my time at Geneva.
A few months earlier, on June 8th, just before graduating from Allegheny College, I had made this notation:
A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
These words were printed on a poster which hung on a friend's bedroom wall. I'd seen it several times before, but reading these words just days before my college graduation added a fresh poignancy.
The transition from college student to working woman was predictably uncomfortable. Even my relative familiarity of the CCO couldn't cushion the very real fact that my carefree undergraduate days were now a thing of the past. Even if your first job out of college is to work closely with college students, the fact remains: you're not in college anymore.
Going into Summer Training, I believed that I was well-prepared to minister to college students. After all, I had been an active participant in the CCO-advised Allegheny Christian Outreach all four of my college years, attending large-group fellowship meetings and leading Bible studies and discipleship groups. The summer before my senior year, I immersed myself in the Ocean City Beach Project, and it was at OCBP that I discovered that I just might have what it takes to do campus ministry. A year later, I found myself with 17 other new CCO recruits at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, preparing to fulfill a four-year commitment to this ministry which had changed my life.
And then I arrived at Geneva College.
I was an intern at Geneva, which, at that time in CCO history, meant that I would move on to spend three years working at a different campus after completing my first year on staff. It also meant that I had a very fluid and flexible job description to allow for extra meetings and the study to which I had committed through the intern program. Ultimately, it meant that many Geneva students never quite figured out who I was or why I was there.
Was I a resident director? Not exactly — although I did end up filling an abruptly-vacated RA position shortly into my first semester at Geneva. I also supervised a group of upperclass students who served as mentors to the entire freshman class via small groups. (The irony here was that I was piloting a brand new freshman orientation program while basically feeling like a freshman myself.) When the mentoring program wrapped up at the end of the fall semester, I transitioned into my new duties — assisting the Assistant Chaplain (CCO associate staff member, Brad Frey) in administrating Geneva's arts and lecture series.
And through all of this, I was learning how much I had to learn about doing campus ministry.
Beaver Falls may only be 75 miles from Meadville, Pennsylvania, but as far as I was concerned, Geneva and Allegheny Colleges may as well have been different planets. At Allegheny, I freely visited friends of both genders in their residence hall rooms at any hour of the day or night. At Geneva, I was expected to patrol the halls, making sure dorm room doors were propped open during the occasional (two or three per semester) open house, when men were allowed to visit women in their rooms. Drinking and dancing were regular practices among Allegheny students, and strictly forbidden at Geneva. And then there was the whole Geneva College Sabbath-observance thing — no sports, no studying, no doing laundry on Sundays. (Is it even necessary to suggest that this would not compute at Allegheny?)
The external differences between my alma mater and my first-year ministry setting were merely symptoms of the biggest challenge of all. My experience as a college student had taught me that being an evangelical Christian meant being in a distinct minority, a member of "the remnant," part of a fellowship which was merely tolerated as a recognized student activity, not encouraged. At Geneva, RAs were trained to lead Bible studies, close to 300 students showed up for the first Sunday Night Fellowship meeting, and we took turns leading devotionals at student development staff meetings.
At Geneva, even if a student did not necessarily embrace the Gospel message, she knew enough to "talk the talk" — whether or not she chose to "walk the walk" as one of Jesus' disciples. How to minister to her?
And that illustrates one of biggest lessons I learned as I left the harbor of my undergraduate experience for the uncharted waters of campus ministry.
I learned that ministry is not about formulas or programs or doing-it-the-way-I've-always-seen-it-done. Ministry is about real people — individuals created in God's image. Ministry is about God's power working through my inadequacy.
Ministry is about leaving the harbor and taking the risk of sailing into choppy waters…and trusting that the One who can walk on water will be right there, keeping me safe and doing the real work of ministry — softening hearts and changing lives.
This article was originally published in September 2003. Copyright Coalition for Christian Outreach, 2003.
--------------------------------------
I've been a little bit emotional lately. Between returning to Allegheny for homecoming and missing that place and those people — especially missing the feelings of being known, recognized and loved, and being totally familiar with my environment — and the uncertainties about my position here, things have been a bit rocky inside.
I recently read this passage in one of my old journals. It documents the spring I graduated from college, the summer I participated in CCO Summer Training, and the autumn I arrived at Geneva College as a full-fledged "campus minister." It reads like a coming-of-age novel…well, a poorly-edited coming-of-age memoir, maybe. The above reflection was recorded on October 11, 1988, a little over a month into my time at Geneva.
A few months earlier, on June 8th, just before graduating from Allegheny College, I had made this notation:
A ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
These words were printed on a poster which hung on a friend's bedroom wall. I'd seen it several times before, but reading these words just days before my college graduation added a fresh poignancy.
The transition from college student to working woman was predictably uncomfortable. Even my relative familiarity of the CCO couldn't cushion the very real fact that my carefree undergraduate days were now a thing of the past. Even if your first job out of college is to work closely with college students, the fact remains: you're not in college anymore.
Going into Summer Training, I believed that I was well-prepared to minister to college students. After all, I had been an active participant in the CCO-advised Allegheny Christian Outreach all four of my college years, attending large-group fellowship meetings and leading Bible studies and discipleship groups. The summer before my senior year, I immersed myself in the Ocean City Beach Project, and it was at OCBP that I discovered that I just might have what it takes to do campus ministry. A year later, I found myself with 17 other new CCO recruits at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, preparing to fulfill a four-year commitment to this ministry which had changed my life.
And then I arrived at Geneva College.
I was an intern at Geneva, which, at that time in CCO history, meant that I would move on to spend three years working at a different campus after completing my first year on staff. It also meant that I had a very fluid and flexible job description to allow for extra meetings and the study to which I had committed through the intern program. Ultimately, it meant that many Geneva students never quite figured out who I was or why I was there.
Was I a resident director? Not exactly — although I did end up filling an abruptly-vacated RA position shortly into my first semester at Geneva. I also supervised a group of upperclass students who served as mentors to the entire freshman class via small groups. (The irony here was that I was piloting a brand new freshman orientation program while basically feeling like a freshman myself.) When the mentoring program wrapped up at the end of the fall semester, I transitioned into my new duties — assisting the Assistant Chaplain (CCO associate staff member, Brad Frey) in administrating Geneva's arts and lecture series.
And through all of this, I was learning how much I had to learn about doing campus ministry.
Beaver Falls may only be 75 miles from Meadville, Pennsylvania, but as far as I was concerned, Geneva and Allegheny Colleges may as well have been different planets. At Allegheny, I freely visited friends of both genders in their residence hall rooms at any hour of the day or night. At Geneva, I was expected to patrol the halls, making sure dorm room doors were propped open during the occasional (two or three per semester) open house, when men were allowed to visit women in their rooms. Drinking and dancing were regular practices among Allegheny students, and strictly forbidden at Geneva. And then there was the whole Geneva College Sabbath-observance thing — no sports, no studying, no doing laundry on Sundays. (Is it even necessary to suggest that this would not compute at Allegheny?)
The external differences between my alma mater and my first-year ministry setting were merely symptoms of the biggest challenge of all. My experience as a college student had taught me that being an evangelical Christian meant being in a distinct minority, a member of "the remnant," part of a fellowship which was merely tolerated as a recognized student activity, not encouraged. At Geneva, RAs were trained to lead Bible studies, close to 300 students showed up for the first Sunday Night Fellowship meeting, and we took turns leading devotionals at student development staff meetings.
At Geneva, even if a student did not necessarily embrace the Gospel message, she knew enough to "talk the talk" — whether or not she chose to "walk the walk" as one of Jesus' disciples. How to minister to her?
And that illustrates one of biggest lessons I learned as I left the harbor of my undergraduate experience for the uncharted waters of campus ministry.
I learned that ministry is not about formulas or programs or doing-it-the-way-I've-always-seen-it-done. Ministry is about real people — individuals created in God's image. Ministry is about God's power working through my inadequacy.
Ministry is about leaving the harbor and taking the risk of sailing into choppy waters…and trusting that the One who can walk on water will be right there, keeping me safe and doing the real work of ministry — softening hearts and changing lives.
This article was originally published in September 2003. Copyright Coalition for Christian Outreach, 2003.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Breaking News
A couple of years ago, I signed up to receive CNN.com's Breaking News E-mail Alerts. These one-liner news bulletins appear in my email box even before the actual stories have been composed and uploaded to the website. If you were to click over to CNN.com upon receiving such an alert, what you would see is a red banner with a bold headline at the top of the web page, reading something like this: "Developing story: Hurricane Katrina Devastates Gulf Coast."
Weeks and months can go by without ever receiving any alerts at all. Of course, these things are cyclical.
But who at CNN makes the call as to what is newsworthy enough for such an alert? There are certainly plenty of life-changing events happening on a daily basis throughout the world. Terrorist threats and hurricane warnings notwithstanding.
Is it just me, or is there a weird disconnect between "Thousands feared to be lost in hurricane aftermath" and "Bob Denver, Gilligan, dies at age 70"?
Thursday, September 1, 2005
Lost
Before going to bed last night, I found myself (again) glued to television images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I was watching whatever ABC news special they produced at the last minute, and at one point, I hit a button on my remote control. The description for the program that was originally scheduled to air at that hour flashed on the screen: "Lost."
The irony was almost too much to digest.
I talked to Sheryl on the phone yesterday. She was back at work, where power has been restored. She still has no electricity in her apartment, and no idea of when she will. But she still has an apartment, and for that she is grateful. She has also resumed adding entries to her blog. It must be surreal, to say the very least, to live in a city that has become one of the headquarters for post-disaster relief efforts. It's heartbreaking to think of all who have lost their lives, their homes and jobs in the blink of an eye.
Lord have mercy.
The irony was almost too much to digest.
I talked to Sheryl on the phone yesterday. She was back at work, where power has been restored. She still has no electricity in her apartment, and no idea of when she will. But she still has an apartment, and for that she is grateful. She has also resumed adding entries to her blog. It must be surreal, to say the very least, to live in a city that has become one of the headquarters for post-disaster relief efforts. It's heartbreaking to think of all who have lost their lives, their homes and jobs in the blink of an eye.
Lord have mercy.
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