Opportunities and Growth

Fear is good—sometimes.   I continually face new challenges at work and in life.  I have learned to engage the challenge and to move boldly forward into the experience.  Perfection is never the goal.  The greatest MLB baseball batting average is around .360 (Ty Cobb).  That’s a hit once every three at bats.  The goal is to do one’s best with the gifts and knowledge that one has to bring to a challenge.   Making a difference by showing true care, lovingkindness, and even courage will usually be enough.  Perfection may come or it may not happen. The goal is to step up to the plate and do one’s best.    The only thing to fear is fear itself as one wise person said many years ago.   Good luck and blessings to you and to me as life gives us great opportunities to live, to love, to challenge, and to show courage in the midst of adversity.  Amen.   

Parenting 101: Giving Freedom to Discover Self

Looking for a relevant topic for my blog I have come back to "parenting."  As a father of four grown adults it has become continuing clear to me that kids need lots of freedom to explore their talents.  They need ways to try out new options:  some may want to play sports, some want to play a musical instrument, and others want to become computer geeks.  All of these options become ways for kids to discover who they are as God created beings.   Kids need freedom and assurance to discover their passions in life and what they can do and be as a contributing member of society. 

Parenting is a marathon and and not a 100 yard dash.  So, it's not uncommon for kids to weave right and then left and then make a 180 turn.  It's part of growing up.  Here is my best wisdom.  Talk with them about what they like, what they want to explore, what they find rewarding and then work to set up opportunities for them to become a more fully developed and integrated young person and eventual adult.  Maybe most important, resist the opportunity to create "mini-me's" and let them become themselves.  This approach will empower them with the freedom to explore life and to own their choices and eventually become fully responsible for themselves.  It's a good way to help kids to become autonomous and accountable and it's a win-win for kids and parents and even larger society.  This approach can be helpful for kids to be happy and well-adjusted as they discover their true selves. 

The Miracle of Language

English and intermediate Spanish, with some basic Koine Greek and basic Hebrew: that's the extent of my language knowledge. More importantly, language is the way to understand another person and without coherent communication, the world is bland and people are just names. With language I get to hear the story of another. WIthout language, maybe taken by disease or by stroke or an unfortunate accident, a person faces possible alienation and loneliness that is hard to overcome. 

I recently stopped in my tracks and contemplated the miracle of words and the importance of hearing another person's story as they were forced to overcome an acute event that was impeding their ability to communicate. I marveled, once at again at God's work and human evolution in the power of human connection via the spoken word. Sometimes the meaning of communication is not the exact words but the message between the words. The whole is greater than sum of the parts. Just listen: the cooing of the morning dove, Lucy gently barking in a sweet upward pitch saying hello to a bystander, the radio show host with the perfect voice, Crosby/Stills/Nash/Young harmonies on their epic album Deja' Vu, hearing the spoken words of grown children and eagerly waiting to hear how the granddaughter's voice will sound as she ages, and the list goes on. Finally, and most mysteriously, hearing the voice of God and the Spirit, via scripture, personal encounter, and the experiences of others. Today I am grateful for the miracle of "language" as its value never loses its currency in my world.

Let's Have a Conversation

I am convinced that one of the most undervalued available relationship tools is deep, thoughtful and engaging conversation with another person.   The topic can be anything like politics, religion, sports, weather, philosophy, fishing, golf, parenting, cars, computers, so forth and so on.  I hope that I can discuss just about anything within reason with another person who is committed to maintaining mutual respect around ideas, culture, and values. 

Today I had the blessing of having a lengthy discussion around some deep political issues that have surfaced in our country and the conversation was with a person with whom I have a fair amount of difference of opinion in some cases.  In other cases there was some real common ground with the person.  Either way working at a back and forth, civil and thoughtful conversation around important topics is an easy way to increase quality of life.  I find that I become a better person as I understand another’s views while also trying to articulate my own ideas in a clear way that the other appreciates. 

Conversation takes time.  It takes grace.  It takes a commitment to understand another person.  It is giving dignity and respect.  It makes my world richer.  Hopefully it enriches the life of the other person too.  For me, deep conversation offers so much to gain in the areas of ideas, spirituality, and relationships with others.   

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—Mary Oliver

Friendship

About three weeks ago my church’s senior pastor presented a sermon on friendship.  One of his statements from the sermon is still staying with me.  He said, “Sometimes we treat friendships like a paper plate at a picnic…tossed away when it is no longer needed.” It was a strong statement but one that spoke to me.   He challenged the church in attendance to avoid treating friends as disposable commodities.    His words were even more challenging as he discussed the in vogue topic of “loneliness” and it’s pervasiveness in many people’s lives in the midst of our high-tech world.

Since that sermon I have been contemplating my own approach to friendship.  I have only so much time and energy to share and that is true for most people.  We can’t befriend the world but becoming a better friend is a high and holy goal for many, including me.    

So, first, I want to be God’s friend. That’s where I start.  If nothing else, there is a commitment from God that is unchanging and not humanly fickle.  Yes, God and me.  That’s a win-win and I need that more than anything.

Second, my pets have always been my unconditional friend.  Lucy, our black 12 year old Pug is faithful to the core.  She loves me and loves people and loves my family.  What more can a dog owner ask? 

Third, I want to be a better friend and I can only hope to receive the same care from others.  Friendship takes time, money, caring, and patience to name a few underlying parts of the friendship, give and take, equation.  Most of the time the friendship is in a fluid state and subject to life’s challenges that each friendship experiences.   There is an ebb and flow of the caring, giving, and receiving. 

To conclude I am thankful for my friends.  I want to be a faithful, good friend to others as I am able.   It’s a lifelong pursuit but it is certainly not easy.  Blessings to you and to me as we work on being a friend and having friends.   

The Heart of a Great Chaplain and Manager: Honoring a Colleague

I have had the blessing of working for and with Rev. Dr. Terry Wilson at my current place of employment for almost 17 years. He was instrumental in the movement to my current hospital and I will be forever grateful that he invited me to join the chaplain staff in the sacred and human work of hospital chaplaincy. I have told him, on numerous occasions that he is one of the most “patient” and “longsuffering” chaplains/minsters that I have ever known; probably the most if I had to decide definitively. I wanted to acknowledge Terry’s patience towards patients and families, hospital staff, the chaplain staff, and me. I have asked him how he is able to be so very patient and almost always he has never answered me. I get it. It’s part of his soul and his being. It’s obviously from his own gifts and God’s gifts.

Let me share a brief portion of scripture (Colossians 1:9-14) which captures it all:
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Verse 11 is the key and heart of Terry: “…so that you may have great endurance and patience.” God provides the power to ensure ‘great endurance and patience.’” Thank you, Terry, for your steadfastness towards patients in need and families in distress during your 23 years at MUSC. God’s power at work in you has given patients, families, staff, and me, the time and space to grow into what God would want. We are on God’s clock for sure and most of us need all the patience we can find! May your days in retirement continue to empower you to help people and give you joy everlasting.

"Please Sit With Me"

A reflection and poem in honor of my colleague and good friend Chaplain Rev. Melvin Williams

who is retiring at the end of March.

Please sit with me chaplain.

Thank you.

Your non-judgemental attitude makes me feel at ease.

Your pastoral presence reminds me of God’s light in the midst of my darkness.

Our paths crossed—thank God.

You know of The Cross:  pain, injustice, and marginalization.

Your silence is speaking love and mercy, like living water.

God has sat with you and with me.

God came near me in you.

Thank you.

Please sit with me chaplain.

"Quiet, Peaceful, Serene" - Rev. George M. Rossi

A warm Winter's day.

Windows open.

Red camilias blooming.

Sermons have been preached.

Souls stirred for a new week.

Peacefulness descends on full stomachs. 

Rest has arrived. 

Gentle breezes.

Cars traveling in the distance. 

The dog resting.

Soul-stirring silence.

Ah yes.

The Drive

by

Rev. George M. Rossi

The drive to do something; deep pushes from the collective unconscious.

The drive to succeed; trying to be someone and do something special.  Standing out in the family.

The drive to not be like mom or dad, or grandmom or grandpop.  There has to be a better way.

The drive to know myself, deeply.  There is no greater mystery.  Can I truly know?

The drive to know God, and to follow God, and to be even a little like God.  Ultimate mystery drives.

What drives you?  What drives me?  I am not sure that we really know for sure.  Mixture of drives.

The drive to be unique.  The drive to love myself and the drive to love others. 

Love drives us on. 

The drive.