2010: A Summary

What a year... Whew... I'm happily exhausted just thinking about it. Let's review, shall we?

January 
Daryl flies back to Nashville to resume coursework. This marks our 5th month of living apart since September.  Boo.

I fly back to New Jersey to start my final semester of classes at Princeton Seminary.

I start rehearsals for "A Caucasian Chalk Circle," the spring seminary play where I am cast as (yay!) Grusha, the resourceful peasant mother. One of my best friends is cast as Natella, the evil villainess, and we enjoy verbal sparring on our rides to and from practice.

February
I watch my friend Jinelle skate to Olympic silver with the U.S. Women's Hockey Team. Since the seminary doesn't get the channel, we watch from a nearby Mexican restaurant...

Daryl and I celebrate Valentine's Day apart by cooking the same meal and having a Skype dinner date. Not the real in-person thing, but still pretty good.

After noticing that there are few church jobs in the Nashville area, I apply to the Nashville CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) partnership as a chaplain. I anxiously await word back.

March
We welcomed our new niece, Sophia Joy, into the family! She was, and still remains, the cutest baby EVER. (Besides our other niece, Aleah, of course!)

I have my final review at the Presbytery of Chicago where they officially certify me as ready for ordination in the PC(USA)!

Daryl and I travel (together!) to California for spring break where we visit his family and lots of friends. We also eat at In n' Out Burger about nine times. In one week. Yum.

I hear back that the Nashville CPE partnership would like to interview me. I interview, and a couple of weeks later in...

April
...I hear back that I've been accepted as a chaplain resident at Alive Hospice in Nashville. Daryl and I both breathe a sigh of vocational and financial relief.

I performed in "A Caucasian Chalk Circle" at the seminary. After performance #1 I lost my voice for several anxious hours. Lots of tea with lemon (prescribed by the director), lots of prayer (my addition), and it came back by showtime the following night. Phew.

May
Daryl and I slogged through finals and were rewarded at the end... with one another. The long-distance marriage was over! Hooray!

My parents treated us to a cruise to Mexico. All the gluten free food I could eat, delicious sun, and lots of napping. It was A-MAZ-ING.

We returned to Princeton for my graduation! All done, seminary!

We packed up all of our belongings, and with the help of my parents, loaded them into a storage POD that was sent to await our arrival in Nashville.

June
We headed north to Wisconsin to spend much of the summer with my family resting, reading, and relaxing. A wonderful  reward after nine months living apart from one another, three years of seminary, three part-time jobs, and a whole lot else...

July
We trekked to Nashville to pick out a new home and found the townhouse of our dreams. Less than two miles from Vanderbilt for Daryl, less than two miles from the hospital where I'd be working, and within our price range. We signed the lease the very next day.

August
We travel to Michigan for a week-long family reunion with my dad's side of the family. There are games. There is food. It is awesome.

We move in  to our new home in Nashville, after waving goodbye to our wonderful family in Wisconsin. After hauling in box after box in 105 degree heat, we both agree: this is the LAST move we are ever doing ourselves. Next time (which we think will be years and years down the road), we're hiring movers.

I begin work at Alive Hospice on my birthday, August 30th. Lots of orientation, lots of preparation, lots of great people.

September
Daryl begins his second and final year of coursework at Vanderbilt.

We travel to Asheville, NC with some dear friends to visit Posana's Cafe, an all-gluten free restaurant. It is worth every mile.

We head back to Wisconsin to watch two other dear friends tie the knot in an outdoor ceremony on a beautiful lake. Then we dance all night.

Daryl travels to Oxford to deliver a paper at a conference. He visits all of our old haunts, even eating one of "Ben's Cookies" for me at the covered market.

I receive a semi-cryptic email from a church in Wisconsin asking me if I'd be willing to move to Wisconsin... I respond in the affirmative... They interview me over Skype and we immediately hit it off.

October
The church flies me up for a weekend interview. It goes wonderfully, and at the end of the weekend they extend the call to me! Daryl and I take a week to pray about it and feel nothing but confirmation. I call them back with the news - it's official (though not yet Facebook-public, as I still need to be examined by the Presbytery)!

Daryl's dad and step-mom visit, and we hit up the Frist Museum and the best Predator's game of the year.

My mom and dad visit and we visit an outdoor Chihuly exhibit and explore Nashville and Dad teaches me to make the best gluten free cookies ever.

November
I meet with the PC(USA)'s Company of New Pastors at their conference in Nashville. We spend hours talking and learning about prayer and how to incorporate Scripture into worship in different ways.

We eat the world's best Thanksgiving dinner with some dear (and gluten free!) friends in Nashville. I can still taste that cornbread stuffing.

Friends from Michigan come to visit us and we play board games for hours and hours.

I finish my final day of CPE and say goodbye to some wonderful patients, staff, and fellow chaplains.

Daryl surprises me with tickets to a Ben Folds concert after my last day of work. I sit, enraptured, listening to one of my favorites perform.

I fly up to the Wisconsin for the congregational vote and Presbytery examination. Both go well and now it is officially official - in January I will start my tenure as pastor of 1st Presbyterian!

December
Daryl finishes his coursework after a grueling two weeks of final exams. Cough drops, coffee, and meals I cook and set in front of him get him through.

Back to Eagle River, Wisconsin for a white Christmas at home with my family. Restful, fun, and full of delicious food.

Down to Nashville to pack up a few suitcases and await the arrival of movers who will take all of our worldly goods north to Wisconsin where we will move into the church's historic and very beautiful manse (parsonage).

Which brings us to New Year's Eve, where we'll say goodbye to Nashville and ring in the new year with some dear friends and a pile of gluten free goodies.

Whew... What a 2010! What will 2011 bring? I can hardly wait to find out... New Year's plans coming soon!

My Sister, the Photographer

My little sister is ridiculously talented. She makes wedding cakes that look like they're straight out of TLC's Cake Boss (see an example here). She gave us a framed abstract block print for Christmas that is so gorgeous I cannot wait to hang it in my office ("Is that Mondrian?" "No, it's an authentic Caroline!"). And the girl takes amazing photos.

As part of our Christmas present she gave Daryl and I a photo shoot and then touched up the pictures, adding color, changing the effects, and just generally making us look way better than we do in real life. Knowing that we'll be apart (again! baahhh....) for the next several months, she wanted each of us to have a picture to put on our desks.

The really crazy thing? This photo shoot took maybe twenty minutes. We bundled up, drove half a mile from my parents' house to a frozen lake, and she shot away. The result? Awesomeness. I wish I had one iota of her artistic skill, but I'm happy to just have her in the family. What a Christmas present!

 

She's one January-term course away from being a college grad, so if you need some photos, you know who to call... I'm sure I can get you a discount. ;)

Update

It has been too long.

I'm sorry, friends. This past month has been an absolute whirlwind, and there were things I couldn't post about on here until they were sure things, which now they are.

I'll write more in depth later, and post some great photos, but for now, the summary is this:

I've accepted a call as a Presbyterian minister at a church in southern Wisconsin! I start January 9th, and my ordination service will be January 30th.

Daryl and I will be moving our belongings from Nashville next week, and he will return here to finish his coursework for the final semester of his PhD. He'll join me up north in May.

Wonderful blessings. I'm moving back to Wisconsin, my home state, to a beautiful, vibrant church. I'll be close to family once again. I'll live in a landscape that feeds my soul, full of trees and prairies and snow and summer grasses. I'll have the chance to pursue the vocation I've been training for over the past several years, and the one I've felt called to since college. I'll be close to dozens of friends and family in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

All changes come with a tinge of sadness too, of course. This means more time away from Daryl. It meant I had to end my CPE program early. It means leaving Nashville--a city I love--and my Nashville friends who have become like family.

More to come about the job, Christmas, the death-flu that my whole family came down with over the holidays (eeesh...), our favorite new holiday board game, the best book I've read in quite awhile, and just general Christmas joy.

I'm back. Updates to come.

The Impressionists

My mom loves the impressionists. We grew up with prints of Degas and Monet on our walls. She is partial to ballerinas and haystacks.

I've never really liked the impressionists. I have a pretty eclectic taste in art, but the impressionists have never been high on my list. They're too sunny. Too full of flowers and haystacks (sorry, Mom). Too blurry and pastel. I like photographs, bright colors, abstract art, modern art, and sculpture. I love paintings with a Christian story, provided they're not Thomas Kinkade. I will drive miles out of my way to see a Rembrandt, Chagall, El Greco, or Mondrian.

Anyway, this weekend Daryl's dad and step-mom were in town, and they treated us to a variety of wonderful activities. On our Saturdays alone in town (all three of them since August...) we tend to do exactly nothing. We're exhausted. Daryl watches a little college football. I bake some bread for the week ahead. We putter around the house, do some laundry, harass the cats.

When people are in town we do things. This is a good thing for us. We get out and about, we explore Nashville, we find new things and are inspired by old ones. This Saturday Tad and Deborah took us to see the impressionist exhibit at the Frist Museum.

I was excited to go. I like museums, even if I don't love impressionist art. At least, I didn't love it. This exhibit taught me to fall in love, and I wanted to share some of the awesomeness with you.

Edgar Degas:

It was that ballerina in the bottom-right corner that I really fell in love with. She is exhausted. But she isn't giving up. The shoes are still on.

Gustave Dore:

The riddle of war - the woman of France questioning the Sphinx about the French Revolution with an epic landscape in the background. Independence Day has nothing on this disaster. Daryl loved this one, too, though we both agreed it's a little bit dark and death-y to put on the wall...

Edouard Manet:

 

Paul Cezanne:

Photos borrowed from: www2.bc.edu, http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/26/8926-004-CA37FB0D.jpg, http://christophervolpe.blogspot.com/, http://www.rebeccanemser.com/wp-content/uploads/1991/07/BERTHE-MORISTON-1872-BY-Manet.jpg, http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/fifre/manet.fifre-2.jpg, http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cezanne1.jpg. Also, if you're in Nashville, you should really go see these in person. The Internet hardly does them any justice. Fo' real.

Sunday Poems - W.H. Auden

No, it's not Sunday. Yes, life is a little bit crazy right now with on-call shifts, final CPE evaluations to write, and a whole bunch of other good but busy-making stuff. So here's a poem. Because it is dear to my heart, and so are you.

"As I Walked Out One Evening"

As I walked out one evening,
    Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
    Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
    I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
    "Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
    Till China and Afica meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
    And the salmon sing in the street.

"I'll love you till the ocean
    Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
    Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
    For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
    And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
    Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you
    You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
    Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
    And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
    Vaguely life leaks away,
And time will have his fancy
    To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
    Drifts the appalling snow
Time breaks the threaded dances
    And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water
    Plunge them up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
    And wonder what you've missed."

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
    The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
    A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
    And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
    And Jill goes down on her back."

"O look, look in the mirror,
    O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
    Although you cannot bless."

"O stand, stand at the window
    As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
    With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening
    The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
    And the deep river ran on.

--W.H. Auden

Ten on Tuesday: Hospice Edition

Changes are afoot in my life, but for the next few weeks, I'm still working as a hospice chaplain. It's important work, work I both believe in and enjoy. It's also exhausting work. It's sad watching people's bodies shut down, their families grieve. Death isn't a pretty thing.

I've had to learn what helps me pick myself back up after a difficult day. This isn't just a list of happy things, it's a list of ten things that help me process, grieve, and let go of patients I've lost, families I've cried with, and pain I've witnessed. It all has to go somewhere, and it's best if that somewhere isn't permanently on my shoulders.

I think knowing these things about myself will bode well for a life of ministry, and using them for a "Ten on Tuesday" gives me the opportunity to ask: what picks you up after a difficult day? Share!

10. Phone calls with friends.
My good friend Katie called me during my lunch break a couple of weeks ago. "Courtney!" she chirped in that exceedingly extroverted way she has. "I need to talk to you!" What freedom to be able to call a friend mid-day, after work, on the weekend, to say, "Gosh, this was hard for me. What should I do? Will you pray for me?"

9. Puzzles.
I process while doing puzzles. It gives me a way to decompress that isn't just plopping myself in front of House. Though, admittedly, sometimes I do puzzles while plopped in front of House. Doing a puzzle gives me that think-but-not-think state of mind where I can say goodbye to a difficult day while beginning to transition to the rest of life.

(This is the one I'm working on now. I am loving it.)


8. Good, good music.
I have the most utterly absurd CD in my car right now. It contains songs by the most random assortment of artists known to humanity. Journey, James Blunt, Black Eyed Peas, Jeff Buckley, Dar Williams... it's pretty ridiculous. But somehow, after I've witnessed a patient's death or cried with a patient's loved one, there always seems to be the perfect song for the moment. Sometimes it's "Hallelujah." Sometimes it's "Don't Stop Believin'." Sometimes it's "It's Gonna Be a Good Night." Some days I'm singing along at the top of my lungs with the windows down in traffic to "Viva Las Vegas." I don't know why, but it really helps.

7. Baking.
When the world seems crazy, it gives me incredible comfort to mix up some eggs, sugar, flour (gluten-free, of course!), butter, and cinnamon, roll it out, and come up with cinnamon rolls. It's like, "Glory be, at least something in this world has gone right today."

6. Surprises.
I had a hard weekend. I finally had enough time and space to process through the past couple of weeks which have been crazy. Just plain crazy. Chaplaincy has easy weeks and hard ones, and these past have been really tough. Daryl and I sat in a parking lot on our way to a date and I just cried. I cried because of patients I've loved who have died. I cried for the grief of their families who now have to go on living without them. I cried over the dysfunction of families who try to love each other and just can't sometimes. I cried because it's just plain hard to listen to people's stories all day every day when those stories involve cancer and Alzheimer's and strokes and heart attacks and suffering of every shape and kind.

Daryl listened patiently, as he is incredibly amazing at doing. He prayed with me. He held my hand. Then, after I'd dried my tears and said, "Okay, I think I'm good now," he asked if he could tell me a secret.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Well..." he said quietly. "You mentioned that you wanted to go see Ben Folds with the Nashville Symphony..." (I had mentioned this once, briefly, and completely forgotten to follow up and look for tickets. When I thought to look, they were already sold out.)

I was shocked. I wasn't even sure he was listening when I mentioned it weeks earlier. I definitely wasn't sure we had the money to spend.

What a sweet surprise.

5. Organizing.
This is like baking. When the world seems like it's in shambles (read: lots of people are dying of lots of terrible things), I come home and organize a cabinet. I fold laundry. I rearrange some furniture. Then I stand back and say, "Ah. That's better." It helps.

4. Prayer.
Anne Lamott says that her two most often-used prayers are "Help me help me help me" and Thank you thank you thank you." I find myself praying these more often than I imagined before hospice. Pulling up to a patient's house: "Help me." Leaving after a visit: "Thank you." Sitting with a dying patient: "Help me." Witnessing the power of God in the life of a family: "Thank you."

There are many other prayers, but often this one rings in my mind.


3. More prayer.
Then there are days where "Help me" and "Thank you" don't seem to cut it. A friend of mine said recently that he finds himself praying certain lines from the Lord's prayer over and over again. Worried about money? "Give us today our daily bread." Struck by the tragedies of this world? "Deliver us from evil." Jesus gave us this prayer for a reason: it really does cover just about anything we might encounter in this crazy world. Forgive us. Thy kingdom come.

In the face of death and disaster within families' lives, often I can only reach for these words from Jesus. My own words fail me, and I am so grateful for his on my behalf.


2. Daryl.
Daryl is a source of deep and abiding joy for me. No matter what the day holds, at the end of the day, there he is.

1. Jesus.
Would this be a good list if it didn't end this way? Well, yes, but not very truthful to what really helps me (or better yet: who).

In hospice, sometimes the only thing I know is true is that Jesus is with me. We serve a God who suffered and died on our behalf, a God who is no stranger to suffering, brokenness, disease, and even death. When I sit with a suffering patient and feel like I can't do it a moment longer because their pain is too much, too hard, too excruciating, I remember that I am not alone in that room, in that house, in that hospital. I go with Jesus. Jesus goes with me. And Jesus loves that patient more than I ever could.

This is what helps me this Tuesday.

What helps you?

Surprises

I love surprises.

No, that's not right.

I love, love, love, love, LOVE surprises. Yup. That about covers it.

I had a hard day at hospice last week. I came home exhausted and discouraged. Then I checked the mailbox. Not one, but TWO unexpected surprises!

A note from my dear, dear, dear friend Inga, along with a CD. On that CD were three songs from one of my favorite artists--Jake Armerding--who has a new album out that I hadn't even heard about. It was like musical manna from heaven.

A small package from my grandmother who lives in Michigan, containing two really good make-up brushes! The kind I would never, ever splurge on for myself! She had read my previous blog post and put them in the mail as a gesture of love.

After such a crummy, difficult day, I found myself sitting at the dining room table with these two beautiful gifts from two people I love so much, tearing up a little. "You knew I needed this today, didn't you, God?" I asked.

While I love surprises, I hate them, too. I love gifts, letters, concert tickets (thank you, Daryl!!!), unexpected trips. But I hate the unexpected turns life sometimes takes. As a child I once threw a screaming fit outside my preschool when Miss Cindy, my teacher, was absent. There was a substitute teacher in there and I was bound and determined not to have any part of that. Dad used to say that I'm not "good at hitting the curve ball." He's a sports metaphor kind of guy.

My life has been full of surprises lately, both the kind I love and the kind I hate.

I am leaving Nashville. I have moved nine times in ten years, and this will be my tenth move.

I am moving somewhere closer to home, and to do something new and exciting and joyful and challenging.

That's all I can say for now, but more news will be forthcoming.

I love the new possibilities of what is to come, but I hate that I'm leaving Nashville. I hate that this new turn of events means I'll be living apart from Daryl for a few months (again... I know...). I hate that I have to move again.

But I love the excitement of a life spent following Jesus. I love that I'll soon be doing what I feel called and gifted to do. I love that my life will soon be marked by some real stability and that Daryl and I will have the chance to put down some roots.

I'm headed north.

More soon...