Dear St. Paul’s Family,
It’s time for an update from your Sewanee seminarian! First, I’d like to thank you for keeping me in your prayers and for your support of all that I am doing and learning. Much has gone on since I last saw you in December and wrote to you in the spring. First, I received two grants (Seminary Consultation on Mission and Episcopal Church Global Missions) to travel to the Philippines. With faculty support, I scheduled my exams early to make the trip. I am in the process of writing about my journey and the work I did there so stay tuned to this blog (you can sign up via email on the right-hand side of the screen). I spent three weeks there and was able to visit and work with small remote villages, attend the national synod and write an ENS article about it, and learn about The Episcopal Church in The Philippines.
It’s time for an update from your Sewanee seminarian! First, I’d like to thank you for keeping me in your prayers and for your support of all that I am doing and learning. Much has gone on since I last saw you in December and wrote to you in the spring. First, I received two grants (Seminary Consultation on Mission and Episcopal Church Global Missions) to travel to the Philippines. With faculty support, I scheduled my exams early to make the trip. I am in the process of writing about my journey and the work I did there so stay tuned to this blog (you can sign up via email on the right-hand side of the screen). I spent three weeks there and was able to visit and work with small remote villages, attend the national synod and write an ENS article about it, and learn about The Episcopal Church in The Philippines.
Two weeks before I left though, my mother had a stroke in Charleston, SC. She was in and out of the ER for four days and it was an extremely stressful time. My brother and I worked hard to make sure she was receiving the care she needed for progressive dementia and stroke recovery. After a month of waiting on certain documents, we finally received paperwork that was necessary to establish power of attorney and were able to get things rolling with placing her in an assisted living facility. I flew down from New York to clean out the house and move Mom’s things into storage while my brother dealt with selling the house on Mom’s behalf. In July, he was able to do that and Mom is now in a facility in Durham, NC, near my brother. She is doing extremely well in her new place and seems happy. I am happy and grateful that she is receiving the care that she needs!!!!
I discerned much about whether or not I should go to the Philippines, but I had some help and advice and in the end, I decided to go. After I returned, I immediately began my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) program in New York on May 22. All seminarians must complete a unit of CPE and it’s usually done the summer after the first year in the MDiv program. My CPE placement has been in New York at NYU Langone-Brooklyn Medical Center and I have been living in a room in East Williamsburg in Brooklyn. NYUL is a Level I trauma center and is widely known and respected for its stroke response and medical teams. Working here, I have been able to be part of rapid response and witness the efficient, caring, and holistic care the hospital provides. My CPE program consisted of 300 hours of volunteer chaplaincy work and 100 hours of class – not to mention the books, presentations, and papers! I was placed in the stroke/neurological wing and that was very interesting, but tough. The summer has been challenging, emotional, intense, filled with holy moments, and I have learned so so sooooo much. Many say that CPE is transformative and indeed it has been.
Some of the things I have loved about living in New York are:
I discerned much about whether or not I should go to the Philippines, but I had some help and advice and in the end, I decided to go. After I returned, I immediately began my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) program in New York on May 22. All seminarians must complete a unit of CPE and it’s usually done the summer after the first year in the MDiv program. My CPE placement has been in New York at NYU Langone-Brooklyn Medical Center and I have been living in a room in East Williamsburg in Brooklyn. NYUL is a Level I trauma center and is widely known and respected for its stroke response and medical teams. Working here, I have been able to be part of rapid response and witness the efficient, caring, and holistic care the hospital provides. My CPE program consisted of 300 hours of volunteer chaplaincy work and 100 hours of class – not to mention the books, presentations, and papers! I was placed in the stroke/neurological wing and that was very interesting, but tough. The summer has been challenging, emotional, intense, filled with holy moments, and I have learned so so sooooo much. Many say that CPE is transformative and indeed it has been.
I finished both the class and volunteer hours this past week and was asked to stay on as an NYUL chaplain until I leave New York in ten days. I love the work and I love living up here so I was excited to stay on! Our CPE unit graduation is this coming Tuesday, May 8th - please keep all chaplain residents and interns in your prayers.
Some of the things I have loved while working at NYUL are:
- Meeting patients from around the world and being a chaplain to them
- Feeling more affirmed in my pastoral identity
- Learning tools for interacting with people when they are in distress and/or grieving
- Establishing personal learning goals for working with people in ministry
- Learning more about interreligious chaplaincy as it pertains to healing
- Developing better self-awareness on many, MANY levels
- Being part of the RRT - the rapid response team and what helps make NYUL known for a center that provides holistic healing
- Learning from my CPE colleagues, my supervisors, patients, and hospital staff
- Being on-call...I found that I liked this very much.
- Iced coffee. I always disliked iced coffee until, quite suddenly, this summer, I began to love it and have become rather used to having it often!
Some of the things I have loved about living in New York are:
- Not having a car
- Student tickets to museums and some Broadway shows
- Cafes and shops on every corner
- Many parks and quiet spots can be found,one simply has to look
- Seeing friends I know from New Orleans and New York
- The pizza (of course!)
- Having work here and feeling like I'm part of things
- The diversity and hearing different languages all around me
- The many flowers I've found on my walks
- People don't look down upon you for using social media here
- People DO NOT care what you look like
- Free lunches for volunteers at the hospital. These have enabled me to save money all summer long and see shows and go to museums!
- There are beaches here!
Some things I don't like:
- It's ridiculously expensive.
- Summer is HOT and I say that having lived in NOLA, Columbia, SC, and Atlanta, GA. It's MISERABLE though, b/c few places have adequate air conditioning and while most subway trains are cool inside, the standing platforms where you wait are like OVENS. I am not exaggerating one bit.
- Crazy people on the subway who ruin perfectly good rides.
- Those times when well-meaning people have lists of things they think you should do in NYC, but you either can't or have differing tastes and motives.
- Climbing all the steps....there are so many....tooooooo many.
I am very grateful to my host, an experienced staff NYUL chaplain. She let me afford living in her place this summer AND she let me bring my dear sweet Bluebell kitty up with me! She has two sweet kitties and everyone gets along :-)
When I return to Sewanee, I will do some much-needed apartment cleaning, finish getting books for the semester, have a couple of meetings, hopefully view the solar eclipse, and more. One thing I am especially grateful for is that friends of mine will let me use their mountain cabin for a few days during the week before classes begin so I’ll get to have an actual peaceful much-needed retreat break. We have a Quiet Day on Monday, August 28 and classes begin on Tuesday, August 29.
I'm taking the following classes:
- Pastoral Theology I
- Systematic Theology I
- A course on C.S. Lewis
- A ministry course called Transforming Congregations
- Foundations in Preaching and the preaching lab that goes with it
I'm very excited and have happy butterflies about returning and this second year!
I will be visiting New Orleans and St. Paul’s over Labor Day weekend and attending that Sunday’s 10:15 AM service so I hope to see you all in person!
No comments:
Post a Comment