I am currently (finally!) officially on holidays, and how sweet it is! With most of the hangover of 2007 now taken care of, I am able to turn my attention to the coming year, with excitement, anticipation, and a lot more energy than I have been able to muster for some time.
Family stuff
As I reported earlier, Mum and I had a good time together when she came to Melbourne for Christmas and New Year, and of course, our excursion to the Boxing Day Test remains the highlight of her time here.
Mum returned to Sydney in early January, and has been going well since then, gradually continuing the job of sorting through things and the huge task of getting rid of all the junk in the garage (Dad was a real bower bird, and had a ridiculously massive collection of all manner of tools, gadgets, timber and various bits and pieces, that “might come in handy one day” - no points for guessing which genes I inherited here! :-). So, with the help of the neighbours and hiring a HUGE rubbish skip, Mum managed to get rid of most of the debris from the garage and workshop, and has been working on other little projects since then, like repainting and decorating the front bedroom and moving back in there, after she and Dad moved into the middle bedroom a few years ago, so the tube from his oxygen concentrator could reach out to the back deck.
Australia Day was Mum & Dad’s wedding anniversary, and after celebrating their 50th anniversary together last year, I expected that this year would be pretty hard for Mum to be on her own. The lovely Kay and John from next door made sure that she was not left alone at all (even for a minute, it seems) as they planned an action-packed day full of special adventures (starting at 6:00am with a trip to Parramatta Park for some hot air balloon watching). I managed to catch up with Mum by phone between the breakfast at McDonalds (after the balloon watching), and the BBQ lunch next door, and as usual, we had a good cry together over the phone.
It’s very comforting for me to know that Mum is being so well cared for by her great next-door neighbours on both sides, as well as other friends and family in Sydney and beyond. I’m looking forward to seeing her again in April (Dad's birthday is April 4), as I think that will be a hard time for us both, but it will be good to have the deliberate ritual of the scattering of Dad’s ashes to help with the ongoing activity of processing our grief and moving forward.
Summer CPE
I know I have already waxed lyrical about how much I loved the experience of the CPE placement at Peter Mac Cancer Centre. Rather than going over ground I’ve already covered, or telling more stories about my adventures, I thought I would share in a few points some of the things I loved about CPE, and some of the things I learned during the unit.
Things I LOVED:
* The Pastoral Care Dept at Peter Mac is the most affirming workplace I have ever experienced. There is a very strong culture of mutual care and support for each other, so that the pastoral care that is provided by the department to the patients and other staff around the hospital is like an outflowing of that care and relationship within the department.
* The CPE group can make or break the whole CPE experience, and I was fortunate to have worked with an amazing group of people. We were all so different from each other, but rather than detracting from the experience, this diversity was a great gift and really enhanced my experience of CPE.
* Supervision- every week I had a whole hour of my supervisor’s undivided attention, where I got to talk about things that were important to me. What a luxury! (It was a bit like my own personal therapy session J ) David was a very insightful supervisor, who didn’t let me avoid facing any of the hard things that I needed to face, but did so in a gentle way that made me feel like I always had a safety net, even when I was taking great risks. I learned a lot about pastoral ministry from his advice and example.
Things I LEARNED:
* I have come to realise that being a pastoral carer is more about who I am than what I do. This has been a great revelation, and has encouraged me to look more closely at who I am, and where my faith inhabits my humanity, and how my faith and spirituality are expressed in the everyday, unconscious parts of me being me, without trying to be a ‘super ministry worker’, and that this is more than enough.
* As a pastoral carer, I bring a gift to those I minister to. The shape, size, colour, wrapping of that gift may be different, depending on the needs and situation of the individual I am ministering to, but the one thing that never changes is the value of that gift. I have learnt that the gift I offer is something of great value. The value of the gift I offer (and also my own value as a pastoral carer) is inherent, and is not dependent on whether or not the recipient takes up the gift or values it themselves. The realisation of this made me much bolder (and I think, effective) when I approached patients to offer them pastoral care.
* Many of the pastoral encounters I had at Peter Mac helped me to recognise that although God is already present in all places and situations, there is a sense in which I, as a pastoral carer (and minister of Christ), bring Christ with me into the pastoral encounter. So even in situations where I might feel that I haven’t done very much, by seeing that God is present in the room, in my consistent presence and empathy, God is there and that’s enough.
* I also learnt that I am a damn good pastoral carer; and I need to be bold in claiming my strengths in this area. My own recent and raw experience of grief seemed to give me an edge, that enabled me to express empathy and give of myself to those I was ministering to, providing a safe environment for them to open up and explore their own experiences of pain and grief too.
OK, so I lied. I will share some adventures:
Over the course of the 11 weeks, there were 7 patients I had pastoral contact with who died. Two of these were in the context of emergency codes being called, and the patients died suddenly and unexpectedly in the presence of family members, and I was present to provide pastoral support at the time. Some of the other members of my CPE group commented that I seemed to have had more than my fair share of patients dying, especially in the emergency situation, and my response was to say that perhaps this was the case because it was necessary. The reality of facing the death of patients and the grief of their loved ones was my greatest fear in undertaking CPE so soon after the death of my own father. In a strange way, I think God allowed me to experience the death and grief of so many patients because I needed to face that fear, and prove to myself that I could overcome it, and still perform the role of a compassionate pastoral carer in those situations without letting my own personal stuff get in the way. My ability to rise to this challenge and do some of my best pastoral work under such circumstances felt like a bit of a triumph for which I was grateful to God and those around me who supported me as I learned this lesson.
I am also glad to have been offered some extra paid shifts working at Peter Mac during the fortnight between the end of my CPE course and the commencement of the next course. In working my first paid shift, it felt kind of funny to not have other things to do in addition to seeing patients (like writing up case studies, preparing a report or presentation for the group etc). About an hour before handover on that afternoon, I was in the position where I had seen all the patients on the wards I was allocated who needed or wanted to be visited, and thought, “What can I do?” there were no reports to write, and entering my stats wouldn’t take that long. I ended up wandering into the hospital chapel, and spend a half hour or so in silence, gently recalling to my mind all the patients and staff I had interacted with during the day, and lifting them all up to God’s care. The chapel at Peter Mac (soon to be renamed “Place of Peace”) is a surprisingly busy place, and as I sat for a half hour or so, a few people came and went, some in silence, and some having quiet conversations in the welcoming space.
It was quite refreshing to be able to round off a day of pastoral ministry in this way, before heading back to the department for handover. (and even more refreshing that when I told the acting Head of Dept that I had spent the past half hour sitting in the chapel, her response was, “Good”). I’m really going to miss that place when I do finally finish up there.
Study Stuff
It soon became clear that, even with the very generous extensions offered by the Dean of the UFT, I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of completing all the assignments that were left hanging over my head from unfinished subjects in second semester last year. So, I eventually came to the conclusion that this was the case, and more importantly, it didn’t matter. The worst case scenario would be that I would either fail or withdraw from these units, and have to do an extra semester to catch up on the subjects needed to complete my degree and ordination requirements… and let’s face it, an extra semester at Theological College would hardly be the end of the world.
In fact, I was prompted to remind myself to “be careful what you wish for”, as in first year, I had said to the acting Dean that I was enjoying my experience of College so much, that perhaps in second year, I needed to orchestrate some kind of existential crisis so that I would have to stay in College for an extra semester or so.
However, that won’t turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I managed to work out a solution, involving the juggling of units, changing a planned major in Systematic Theology into a sub-major, and claiming another sub-major in another field (so ending up with one major and two sub-majors instead of my original goal of two majors, both of which are acceptable options in the rules of the B.Theol degree). This also enabled me to take advantage of some credit points I was awarded by the UFT due to previous degree study in an earlier incarnation as a student… so the bottom line is that, I will be able to finish all the requirements of my degree, and ordination requirements at the end of this year, and I only had to hand in one essay to complete one unit from last year, instead of the daunting pile of something like 7 essays which were looming over my head. (I was able to completely withdraw from one unit, and re-enrol in the remaining two as supervised reading units in first semester this year). I am very grateful to various Deans, Principals, Lecturers and other Powers that Be for being so flexible and compassionate in helping me to reach this end solution that works for all of us.
So, at 4:30pm on Monday of this week, I submitted that one essay to the UFT office, and that night celebrated my new “I’m on HOLIDAYS!!!!” status by having a very enjoyable and relaxing dinner with a friend (which also involved a significant amount of red wine, Tasmanian cheese and gourmet chocolate ice cream). The next day I ventured out to see Sweeney Todd at the Nova in Carlton, and got to do the mandatory swoon over Johnny Depp (is there nothing that man cannot do?!), although I would issue a warning to anyone who might be a bit squeamish about blood that this film might not be for you, because even I flinched a couple of times when the ‘demon barber’ did his thing.
I also rewarded myself by buying the DVD of the last two Vicar of Dibley episodes, which I didn’t manage to catch when they aired on TV, so that provided another afternoon of relaxing holiday entertainment.
I’m also enjoying a gradual return to the ‘normal world’, as I start to pick up some of the regular responsibilities that I put on hold during CPE. This week I had a church worship committee meeting and a volunteer shift at the Olive Way (a drop in kind of outreach run by our congregation in Brunswick)… next week is a church council meeting… and it will all gradually pick up steam as we get closer to the start of classes for the year .
