Odds and ends

Three thoughts on this the day before I receive my Master's degree

Identity (yes, identity again)

Identity hasn't simply been the theme of this past semester (see last entry), it has been the theme of my entire time here at North Park. Four years ago my very first class of my Master's program was New Testament I, taught by Klyne Snodgrass. Anyone who has taken this course knows that the central theme of the course is identity. The class asks who we are, who Christ is, and who we are in light of who Christ is.

My very short answer to the last question is that I am a pastor. As such, I am called to bring Jesus to others, to extend to them the grace that has been extended to me.

Last Monday, my very last class of my Master's program was a worship service. During the service Communion was served. Each student received the elements, and then in turn gave the elements to another student.

My time at North Park began by asking the question of who I am. My time at North Park ended by answering that question with serving the bread and extending to another the grace that had been extended to me.

Holding On
Doesn't it feel good to be done?
This question has been asked of me several times in the last week.

The simple answer is yes. Yes it feels good to be done. It feels good to have all the papers and tests and books and academic requirements of this season put to rest.

The less simple answer is no. It is scary to know that it is time to move from the place where I have lived and worked over the last four years. It is scary to know that it is time to leave behind the people with whom I have laughed and cried over the last four years. It is scary to know that it is time to move beyond what I know.

In the comic book Fables (which I cannot recomend enough) there is a character called the Magic Mirror (yep, that Magic Mirror). The Mirror was once human, but has been trapped for uncounted millennia. In the comic there is an event called the Unbinding. The short version is that what was magically bound together has now come apart. The mirror himself almost came free of his glass prison.

Fables #87

He goes onto explain that at the last minute he found himself holding to place he had come to know. So now he remains in the mirror. Like the Mirror, I find myself wishing to hold onto the place I know.

I am so grateful that the Great Unbinding known as Graduation is upon me. I am so grateful for all who stood by me. I am grateful for the moments filled with laughter and those filled with tears. I am grateful for the preparation I have received. I am grateful for having been given the perspective and tools to better extend to others the grace extended to me.

Am I happy to be done? Yes.

And no.

And Yet...

Shelves

This morning as I set my Bible on the coffee table, I looked up at my bookshelf. My bookshelf contains my DVDs and comic books (mostly Fables). They are the stories I can go to after a long day.

They are the stories that help me escape. My shelf is filled with the things make me feel safe. Soon they will be packed away and possibly stored away for some time as I look for what is next for me.

This thought made me sad. I grieve the fact that my comfort and security will radically change in the coming months. However, as I thought about packing, moving, changing, I was reminded that as much as it is a comfort to have my things around me, I would rather have God beside me.
 
--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

Identity

This is my last semester of seminary. During my second semester I posted the following blog: click here This May I graduate with an MDiv. As a part of my requirements for graduation I have been doing an internship at a retirement home for the past seven months. That is all in the way of background and context.

This morning I sat with one of the residents. This woman, whom we will call Olive, is so very frail. She is always bundled in blankets and never without her beanie pulled nearly all the way down over eyes. She is half deaf and three quarters blind. She struggles with memory. What she doesn't struggle with his her faith. She asked me what I did. I told her I was in school to be a pastor.

"Catholic?" Olive asks filled with anticipation.
"No, Protestant," I reply.
"You study the Catholic faith. You will find it is the best." Olive's whole face, her whole body breaks out in a smile.

Olive sits in her wheelchair, I sit on a bench facing her. She takes my hand and pulls me in closer. "For every question you have, the Catholic faith has an answer. And if they don't, you don't need one." Olive is completely present in this moment.

She may not remember my name or what she can see of my face. She may not remember that in the short time we have spent together she has asked about lunch every ten minutes. She may not remember these things, but she knows her God.

I am pulled into a place of wonder. I wonder how a faith becomes so strong. I wonder if mine will ever be this strong. I wonder how I am considered worthy to be called into this sacred space.

Olive reaches down as she holds my hand. She feels the group of strings tied around my wrist. Unable to clearly see what they are, she asks, “Identity?”

Olive is referencing the ID bracelets that each resident wears. In reality they are part of a Thai ceremony. (Same teacher, different class.) Olive is more right than she knows. I simply answer, “Yes.”

Our conversation moves to the difficulties of age and problems with young people today. Then it is time to go in for lunch.

I am left with what it means that these strings are symbols of my identity.

I still struggle with my worth. I know that I am a beloved child of God, but I don’t always remember that.

Like Olive, I also have moments where the only thing on my mind is the question of when lunch is. Like Olive, I have moments of clarity. Moments where I know fully who I am and whose I am.
 
--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

Imperfect.

It began on Valentine’s Day. I was playing board games with two of the best people I know. I thought, “I have always wanted to take a photo a day for a year, who says it has to start on Jan 1.” So, I snapped a picture, and made a commitment to take one a day for the next year.

I have not taken a picture a day since that day. However, what I have done is taken a picture a day-imperfectly. Normally, when I start something that doesn’t work like I wanted it to, I just stop. There might be excuses and rationalizations, there may be second chances and renewed attempts, but the old “failed” attempt is put away.

This time I tried something new. I missed a day and kept going. I have missed several days. But the project continues. I don’t know what the final count of pictures will be, but no longer is the goal 365 pictures. The goal is to look around my world, to look into my life and find the things that give me courage. To find and record those things which keep me from wanting to pack it up and go home.

My life is imperfect. My photo album is imperfect. But both are filled with extraordinary things.  

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away

--Jesse Letourneau

2-14-15

Full album

Clouds

I was once asked what time in my life did I most feel the presence of God. When did I feel like I was most fully in the will of God.  My answer was the time I spent in South Africa in 2010. That answer is still true today.

If you have paid any attention to my facebook photos, you would know that I have a fascination with clouds. This preoccupation began that November when I visited South Africa.  Our time was spent near the southern coast.  It seemed no matter where we went we had an ever present view of Table Mountain. More often than not the mountain was adorned with clouds. Table Mountain with its ever present halo became for me a symbol of the presence of God. It called to mind the presence of God hovering over Mt. Sinai while the Israelites waited to receive the Law. To this day when I see a sky filled clouds I am reminded that is God is present.

However, remembering and feeling are two different things. I can know the goodness of God and not open myself to allow that reality to touch and shape me. Largely (though not solely) this is what I have done this summer. I have seen God at work, but not allowed that reality to penetrate my stubborn and fearful heart.

In the late afternoon of June 15 I looked out my window and noted that the sky was blue and the clouds were out. Grabbing my camera, I went for a walk to capture the beauty of God. The exercise began a a simple indulging of my blossoming hobby of photography. However, it ended in a lesson of the presence of God.

The image of the clouds in South Africa spoke to me of the presence of God not simply in the way they reflect his beauty and majesty.  It was the image of the clouds descending upon and hanging over Table Mountain that called to my mind the presence of God.

I began to point my camera skyward, initially the clouds were the sole subject of my shot. Not satisfied with the result, I lowered my lens and framed a building to give the clouds contrast and scope. As I did so, I realized that God was present here in Menominee, MI just as he was in South Africa. Of course I knew that before checking the result of the picture in the camera’s display, but the image brought knowledge not just to my thoughts but to my spirit as well. 

The album that is linked to and the inspiration for this blog contains shots of clouds over schools, churches, government buildings, and businesses. It is comprised of the presence of God over Menominee, and it serves as a reminder of the presence of God in me.

Menominee, MI 6-15-14

 

 

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau

My healing...

“One may be cured and healed, or cured and not healed. It is also possible that one may not experience a cure to their disease, but be healed in the midst of it. … Cure is temporary, since all die; but healing is forever (Health Human Life, Bruckner pp. 212-213).” These two sentences encapsulate my personal journey of healing this semester.

I wrote during the first blog of this semester that I had not yet experienced my healing moment. At the time I understood healing in light of cure rather than in light of the wholeness is discussed throughout Bruckner's book. I expected my struggle to go away, to be taken care of, to be cured. However, at least for now, I join Paul in stating that “my thorn” has yet to be removed. I stand “un-cured.”

Yet, my healing moment has begun. I am learning that healing (wholeness) in the presence of, even in spite of malady and imperfection is possible. I have found wholeness even without “perfection”. (Perfection being the idea that a whole, complete and optimally functioning physical body is necessary to be “healthy”.) I found peace with my God (e.g. right relationship). I am trusting his healing work in my life.

As noted above my “thorn” remains. There are days when it causes more pain and days when it causes less. There are days where I am ever mindful of its impact upon my life, and days when freedom reigns in my heart and mind. I am not cured, but I am living into my healing. Paraphrasing the words of Paul I can now proclaim, “Thanks be to God who makes me whole through Jesus Christ.”

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau



















Coming Next week, a review of my semester, via my review of the films I have viewed this year.

No one thing

This last month as been filled with many thoughts and many gifts. My soul is lighter as I learn more fully how to carry my worth for myself. My soul is lighter as I am gifted to carry the burdens of others.

The gift of constant affirmation of my calling has come like the ocean breaking upon shores of stubborn rock. These affirmations have worn away the hardness of my heat, as I accepti the truth of my value before Almighty God.

I walk each day in health.  Some days better than others. I am learning to let go of the imperfection of yesterday's journey and embrace what I can do today to live a life of health. I am learning to surrender to God that which I can not do myself.

My life is very much about the present. Even as I learn to untangle the past; even as glimpses of the future unfold before me, I am learning to be present.

There is no one story or study that caused these thoughts. There is no one perfect illustration from my life that sums up how the Spirit has been moving in and through me. Simply know dear friend, that I am living well.

That is not to say that pain is absent or that hurt has gone away. That is not to say that anything is perfect.  But that is the point. Perfection is no longer my goal or my standard. Perfection is no longer my noose or the cause of my defeating thoughts.

Perfection is my Father, my God, my Redeemer. I run toward Him. I press into Him.  Some days I walk. Other days I sit, knowing that He is already where I am. Many days He reaches toward me, when I forget to reach toward Him.

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau

Imagining Mud

This semester my goal is to post four monthly blog entries arriving on the first Wednesday of each month. My guess is that they will revolve around my class “Christian Perspectives in Health and Healing” and the main text book “Healthy Human Life: A Biblical Witness” info here.

Health and its relationship to spirituality has been an underlying focus of my time here in seminary. This class has given me language to express what the Lord has been teaching me during my time in Chicago. I enrolled in the class to gain a fuller understanding of Shalom. The idea of Shalom carries a sense of wholeness to it.

This is something I wish to explore more deeply. My faith has long been one of segregation. My mind, body, soul, and spirit were all viewed as separate things. My faith was tied to my mind. If I thought correctly, I would act correctly; and my spirit would be at peace. Care for my body was relegated to right actions. These actions focused on the negative, what I didn’t do (smoke, cuss, or chew as the old adage goes). During high school, I didn’t drink alcohol. This wasn’t because I was young and it could harm me, but because it wasn’t what “good Christians did.” Again, my actions were driven by right and wrong. My care for myself was based on avoiding sin.

Since I have come to North Park, words like, holistic, self-care, and Shalom have begun to become a part of my vocabulary, and are finding their way into my practices. Yet, I still struggle with right and wrong. I still wonder if I am doing the things that please God. I too often fall back on a false theology that states God is only pleased with me in relationship to the number of right things I do. I fall back on the false perception that right thinking leads to right action, and wrong/sinful thinking leads to wrong/sinful actions.

God is good, and God heals, however, I often feel like I am still waiting for my healing experience. I have some issues that pride and fear, as well as prudence keep me from describing in detail here on-line. What I have come to understand is that I do believe that I am loved by God. My theology states that I was created by God, but I do not think of myself as created by God.

My imagination does not see the hand of God reaching down to craft my form from mud. It does not sense the breath of God filling my lungs. I do not recognize myself to be one who reflects the image of God. Instead, I see myself as less than.

But this is okay. Because it simply is. What is cannot be changed. What can change is what will be. I currently live in community where my worth is held for me. Others know what I know (that I am made in the imago Dei) but more importantly, they see that I am made in the image of God. They see my worth, and they speak truth into my life. They give light to my soul. They hold for me what I cannot hold for myself.

Someday it will be that I see my own worth. On that day I will hold my own story, and the light in my soul will come from my imagination now freed to view myself as a worthy child of God.

 --Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau