Thoughts from an alum

Given the news coming out of Luther Seminary today, I thought I'd offer my reflections.  A couple of things I write here are suggestions of actions I believe would be helpful; some are simply my thoughts, feelings, and reactions.  Other people may disagree with my suggestions, or feel, think, and react differently.  That is fine.  Also, please note: I am a very recent alum.  I am not an HR guru, a finance person, or a higher ed administrator.  I am not a current student, nor a an old-timer with a degree from LNTS.  I'm a first-call pastor at a smallish congregation in a small Midwestern town.  So, here goes.

• I like Rick Bliese.  From his rosy Santa Claus cheeks to his "dad jeans", by all accounts, he is a good, caring person who loves Jesus and the students, faculty, and staff at Luther.  He has personally been very supportive to me during my time at seminary and in candidacy, and I feel bad that this is what eventually "had" to happen.
• We need to be in prayer for him and his family - obviously this is a huge, and hugely negative, transition for them, down to the fact that they live in seminary housing and so will need to find a new place to live.
• The seminary is going to have to find a way to start handling pastoral care for students.  I'm aware Luther just hired a new campus pastor - I know nothing about her except that she's supposedly good.  I hope she is, although she has no institutional memory at this point, and in times of major upheaval such as this, that can be somewhat limiting.  Others are going to have to step up.  Students on campus are literally (yes) dying for someone to care for them.  Administration is generally available to meet one-on-one, or hold a "forum" in the chapel for people to (sort of) air their concerns.  But very few individuals offer one-on-one prayers, or hugs-and-tears.  Students feel trampled-upon at frequent intervals, and the sense, I believe, is that even when policies, decisions, transitions, whatever are "good" or "right", they are handled in a way that communicates that students aren't all that important.  Just like churches that want to grow need to start asking, "If I were a visitor, how would I react to this?", Luther staff/administration needs to start asking, "If I were a student, how would I react to this?"  
• I feel lied to.  For years, we have heard from President Bliese and others that, "Look, the economy [and the 2009 decisions] have been rough on everybody.  We're struggling, but we're making good decisions, and we're going to be okay.  We're certainly in better shape than the others."  I'm not sure whether Luther is "struggling, and not going to be okay", or whether the other 7 are already 6-feet-under, as it were.
• This raises huge vocational questions.  What are any of us doing as pastors in the ELCA, receiving graduate education from her seminaries, when they are all barely - barely - keeping their heads above water? What is the long-term survivability of the ELCA?  And if the answer is "not much", then why are we all dragging ourselves through the torture that is candidacy?  
• It also raises huge vocational reminders: I don't believe (or at least, I haven't heard anything that would make me think) Rick Bliese is guilty of true illegalities: fraud or embezzlement or such.  Apparently he asked forgiveness today for "poor fiscal leadership".  Mismanagement and poor leadership are not illegal, but they are sinful.  As pastors/youth leaders/professors/etc, we need to be aware that our own mismanagement and poor stewardship of what we've been given (not necessarily, or only, money) is just as sinful in the eyes of Our Lord as embezzlement. 
• I love Luther, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.  (Well, most days...)  I love the faculty and staff, the administration, my fellow students.  I learned a lot of really awesome facts and ideas there, and I grew tremendously.  But I have a ton of educational debt, as do most of my fellow students.  The cafeteria is barely open anymore.  Contracts prevent students from purchasing books...at the bookstore. And yet, certain individuals and departments spend ridiculous amounts of seminary funds on high-end coffee and cookies every day of the week.  There are flat-screen TVs in every corner of Northwestern and the OCC.  NW and OCC have both recently undergone major asthetic remodels, while the dorms and apartments battle bedbugs and mold year-round.  I understand that fundraising is not as simple as "write us a check, please, and make it out to 'cash'".  I understand that donors want to earmark their money for things that they might not realize aren't totally the top priority.  But the administration needs to realize that students notice these things, and fair or not, find statements about "concern for rising student debt" to sound rather platitudinous against the backdrop of a flatscreen TV  hanging on the wall in the lunchline. 
• "Where there is no vision, the people perish."  Look, this isn't about Rick Bliese.  It's not really even about the economy, or about 2009 decisions that torqued off rich old ladies, or spending money on frivolities instead of necessities.  It's about the fact that much of the ELCA and many of her associated enterprises - Luther Seminary among them - has taken its eye off the ball.  We are told that we are to be missional - but missional about what?  A vast cohort of students, faculty, and staff (and therefore pastors, bishops, and synod staff) get more worked up about personal pronouns for God than personal relationships with God.  We are taught that to "want people to come to church on Sunday morning" indicates a lack of understanding that God works outside the church.  We are taught that the Church, and Word & Sacrament, are nice, you know, but so are justice and advocacy.  I spent more time in seminary learning about "family systems" than I did sacramental theology.  No, for realz.  I was assigned more papers about why we shouldn't evangelize, than about how and why we should.  I recognize that this is a huge indictment of the entire system, and I want to be clear that I do not, by any means, include anyone and everyone who is part of the system in this.  There remain many, many good and faithful students, faculty, staff, pastors, bishops, and synod staff.  But donors (and your average layperson trying to decide whether to venture out into the cold to go to church on Sunday, for that matter) don't get excited about advocacy for advocacy's sake, or "training students to reflect a baptismal approach to missionality blah blah blah", or even "buy your own hymnal!"  You know what's exciting?  Jesus.  Jesus is exciting because He forgives sins - our own, and everybody else's.  He is exciting because by the power of the resurrection, he transforms lives in the here and now.  He is exciting because he is constantly creating us anew, he promises us eternal life, he has already begun to set this upside-down world right-side-up again and one day he's going to finish the job, there's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth, where everything is going to be fixed, and how awesome is that going to be? Tell little old ladies that we're training pastors to reach out to the world around us and share the everlasting love of Jesus Christ.  Tell them that with passion, and conviction, like it's the best thing you've ever heard about (because it is - even better than sliced bread) and they'll start writing checks.  Tell them you've got students who are slogging through the economy just like the rest of us, but who are so in love with Jesus that they'd be here no matter what, come hell or high water, bedbugs or mold, learning how to spread the Good News in the 21st century just like Paul did in the 1st, and people will be fired up.   

So there you've got it - just some honest first impressions from the recent grad. Feel free to chime in with your own, or tell me I'm totally wrong.  But something's gotta be done, that's all I know.  And remember to pray for Rick Bliese.  

On Boys and Men

Which, apparently I'm obsessed with, since I seem to blog about them so much...

Anywho, along with this shiny new vocation I've got (or so it seems), I've also got some new thoughts on the single life and the men that are (clearly not) in my life. 

I think what women want in a man changes over the course of their lives (one would hope, really, that "captain of the football team" is not the number one priority for a 30-year-old woman).  At least, I've noticed this in myself, and I'm pretty sure others have as well.  What I wanted when I was 15 or 20 or 25 and even 29 isn't, at least necessarily, what I want - and need - now.  And that means changes in the individuals I know that I'm attracted to.  Which is interesting to watch take place, as well. 

I realized all of this just a couple months ago, when a man I know started bragging on his pastor-wife.  Now, I've known plenty of women pastors in my day, a number of whom are married.  And I know some of the husbands.  But I have never heard anyone talk about his pastor-wife in this way.  "She is SO good at what she does.  She's a great preacher.  And an amazing writer.  The congregation is so blessed to have her." And on and on and on.  It didn't really hit me at the moment, but it's sort of come to me slowly - for all the talk of "women pastors scare men away", it seems like there's maybe a few out there who aren't afraid. 

And I want someone who, when I preach a rockstar sermon, or do something really cool at VBS, or lead some administrative awesomeness, will say, "Yeah, that's my wife."  And I want someone who, when I majorly screw something up, will say, "Yep.  So, how are you going to fix it?  And remember that grace is bigger than everything."  Yes, I want someone who will make me laugh, and force my introverted self to get out of the house and go be social, and is a good cuddler, and knows how to make coffee, and is just nerdy enough to "get" me, but not so nerdy that he can't tell me to stop using sermons as a tool for teaching Hebrew/Greek/Latin.  I want someone who will send me text messages just to tell me he's thinking about me, and someone who wants to spend time with me - even if it's just sitting on the couch together reading books.  But mostly I want someone who wants me to be and do what God wants me to be and do.  That's what I want.

And I don't have that person right now.  And that's okay.  Perhaps not permanently okay, but it's okay at this moment.  Because I have some newfound clarity on who I am, and what I'm looking for, and realizing that so much of my "list" from the past no longer applies. 

When I was home for my sister's wedding, she and my mom and I were all discussing...something.  I forget what, now.  Maybe something to do with the centerpieces at the reception?  Anyway, in the course of the conversation, I said something akin to, "Well, at my wedding, blah blah blah..."  To which my mom replied, "Yeah, so, hurry up and find someone so we can do all this for you."  I couldn't answer at the time - I think it would have hurt too much - but what I really wanted to say was, "No.  No.  I'm tired of trying to 'find someone.'  It's about damn time somebody tried to find me." 

And so that's where I'll leave it for now.  I know who I am, and what God has created me to be and do, at least in this moment, and I know what I'm looking for.  I'm looking for someone who's looking for me.

"Vocational Discernment"

So, if you know me at all, you know that I've done a lot of work on so-called "vocational discernment" in the last couple of years.  Very few of you know the extent of it - the nights of tears shed and fears faced, days of believing the white devil and trusting my own reason over God's grace, listening to the lies in my head and rejecting the truth that anyone else told me.  Praying and worshiping and reading and writing and very seriously trying to wrap my head around "what God wants me to do" vs. (?) "what I want to do" vs. (?) "what the world wants me to do".  I worked so hard at "giving it all to God" and discerning Truth and almost literally "taking up my cross and following him".  And I think I would say that it's been good for me, on the whole, even if it hasn't always been particularly healthy. 

Nevertheless...

By the time I came back from internship - and even probably half-way through first semester - my prayers were just begging God for clarity.  I was really messed-up inside and not even really seeing through the glass dimly, more like staring at a ceramic coffee mug.  On the other hand, I was almost afraid to pray for that clarity, because of what I thought He was going to say.  (See?  I told you I was screwed up...still am, a little bit...)

And so I came back for my senior year prepared to apply for PhD programs - I honestly thought that's what God wanted me to do.  Ok, that's a lie.  If I had had the ability to be honest with myself at the time, I probably would have noticed that the PhD thing felt forced.  I mean, sure, I'd love to teach at the undergrad level - it was so important to my own faith formation, and I'd like to do that for other kids.  And maybe that's in my future at some point.  But in my most honest moments, I can recognize that it was this: I'm the smart one, that's what I have going for me, and I'm a good person who always works as hard as possible - I must get this doctoral degree to prove that I'm not a slacker and living up to who I'm supposed to be.  Yeah.  Screwed. Up.  

Lois Malcolm's Holy Spirit class was fantastic for this - the Holy Spirit - through her teaching - has done such a good job of freeing me from this identity that has been imposed on me - it's the narrative that has always been told to me about me, and I haven't known how to step out of it, or away from it, or...just not make it my primary identity.  So I'm working on that.  And it's getting better.  Slowly.

And then I preached in chapel a couple weeks ago.  As I mentioned, it felt so, so good.  It was fun and joyful, I felt alive.  I felt like, "there is something to be said here, and apparently I'm the one who's going to say it, so, here we go".  I had a lot of good feedback from students and faculty afterwards, and it felt really good - although it's so not about me, it was totally a God thing.  I know that a couple people watched it online, and that was nice - to feel like people were interested enough to watch. 

But on Monday I got a package from a friend who had clearly watched the online broadcast - but who didn't tell me she had done so.  She wrote me a lovely card, and then she made me art that draws out the main themes of my sermon, cites a myriad of excellent Scripture passages, and has my name and date on the back.  I opened it in the presence of several friends, and in the midst of a lot of stress, so I didn't have time to really absorb it.  But when I went back to it that night, it brought me to tears.  I really put my heart into that sermon, and I hope that God was able to speak through it.  It felt so right, and so me.  And this beautiful art says, "That was authentically you, Katie.  This gift for you is for you.  The person who you are." 

Thank you for seeing that, Mary.  Thank you for seeing me.