Deer tick? Salt lick? Catholic!

Today was just like any other day as I strolled through the halls of St. Gertrude's Hospital. I was on my way to a patient’s room because she had requested chaplain visits. This is a common activity for me, nothing out of the ordinary yet. As I enter the room and start to speak to the women, all changes. I introduced myself, stating that I am chaplain and that I understood that she has requested visits, which she did. Her first words are, “Are you Catholic?” I respond by stating that I was raised Catholic and that I am a part of the staff here at the hospital that is available for patient needs. She then informs me that she is Catholic, in a tone that ushers forth the following phrase of “and if you ain’t a priest then you ain’t a visitin’ me sonny”. Looking back, I could have actually answered differently.

#1 I was tempted to say that yes I was Catholic. After all, I was raised, baptized, and confirmed in the Catholic faith. I feel that, while there are some areas I don’t fully comply with Catholicism I am far from hostile towards it.

#2 I could have said that I was catholic, meaning in my own understanding that which is universal or ecumenical. But this is not what the women meant by the term and that would have been dishonest and I shied away from that option.

It is fun to note my process in that brief moment. As I was speaking I was wondering if I should just go ahead and say yes to her inquisition. What did it matter if she thought one thing about me? I would be able to speak with her and perhaps even offer counsel. This would run the risk of me being trapped in some sort of theological quandary as I would most likely answer some questions without the foreknowledge of where the Roman Catholic Church stood.

In all I didn’t answer these other ways because I needed to be honest, with her and myself. While I still feel a connection with my Catholic roots, this one set of religious convictions do not fully represent me. I am glad that I was honest, but also hurt that I wasn’t deemed good enough because I wasn’t Catholic. On one level I get it. There is some type of divide between Catholics and Protestants, they are bitter rivals, animosity, blah, blah, blah. I think it can also be seen that I don’t really get it either.

In the end, I did what I could. Well, it is better said that I am happy with what I did. I feel sad that the women felt that I was unfit because I was not Catholic, but what can I do really? I guess if I ain’t a priest then I ain’t a visitin her.

Promised pictures.

At long last, success! The stars are aligned and the blogging gods must be on my side. Fabulous! And now, in no particular order, some pictures from our summer so far.

We headed up to Duluth with our friends, Tim and Heidi (and baby Justin) for the 4th of July weekend. It has a lovely boardwalk/path along the shore of Lake Superior so we took a walk.

And at the Rose Garden, there is nothing like stopping to smell them!

Beautiful flowers, beautiful picture. This is in Duluth as well.

And Gooseberry Falls (farther up along the North Shore). I believe these are the middle falls but I'm not entirely sure.

Here we are, at the upper falls.

My little sister graduated from high school this year and we were able to make it back to Wausau for her party. While there, an unxepected thing happened. We discovered that a Cornish Pixie had made himself at home in her cake...

Minnehaha Falls.

This is Tim and Heidi's baby, Justin. He and I hung out a bit while in Duluth.

Finally, my sister Sharon and my grandma. Aren't they cute?

And that, my friends, is some of what we've been doing. There are more pictures in existance but I am unable to locate the cord I need in order to move them from the camera to the computer so they will have to wait.

"the time has come," the walrus said...

So after multiple false starts, the time has finally come to post something new. This summer seems like it is going extremely fast (it's already half way through july!) but very slowly at the same time. We are indeed in Minnesota and overall, it has been an interesting experience. I JUST found some kind of steady work after numerous disappointments and learning about myself and how I (anne) tend to sabotage myself sometimes. We're glad this opportunity came up because it allows me to stay here for the rest of the summer. The other thing we had been discussing was sending me back to Chicago to just look for full time work there. Which I still need for the fall so if anyone has any leads on anything, please let me know. Dan has been learning a lot through CPE, which is great. It has been tough with several calls during his "on-call" times, but overall a learning experience. It still leaves much uncertainty about our future but we're really hoping things come together more this coming semester.

Our time here hasn't been all worry and learning though...we have managed to get out and explore a little.

Okay...I'll try pictures again another day. I don't know why it's not working for me but I just can't get any of them to be posted. *sigh* Coming soon...I promise.

What we've been up to

Well, it has been more than a month since we last posted and many things have happened since then. The seminary school year is finished so Dan finally has time to relax before CPE starts in a week and a half. I only have 3 days left so it's almost time for me to have my own break before summer work starts. The next major thing to do is packing for the summer...yes, that's right, we're packing up and leaving town for the summer. We will be in sunny Minneapolis, MN while does his CPE. We're looking forward to a change of scenery, time with friends, and the chance to see if chaplaincy is right for Dan. Oh, and I'll be working wherever will hire me. I have an interview with Dunwoody College of Technology right after we get to the Cities for a summer camp program...we're really hoping that it works out. The search for employment in the fall for Anne continues...there have been a few steps in the right direction but nothing definite. Otherwise, life has been pretty good. It's nice to finally be in a pace of life that is a little slower than it was all semester. It makes things a little easier and we like it.

when the hypothetical becomes your friend

so i (dan) have been reading a bit of fun on the side as this semester comes to a close. i am now on book 3 of fun stuff reading, although i havent completely finished one of the three. i'm still counting it, i mean it has allowed my brain to divert from demanded reading. anyways, in one of these books the author posits a list of 23 questions he asks of people he meets in order to determine if he really loves them. i will share #19

your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: this friend is going to die unless you kick the (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. if you don't kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. however, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. so you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can't tell them why. since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

i think i would go with sudden earthworm infestation. everyone knows that there is only one way to kill a hoard of those filthy buggers.

the pandas are coming

life continues to keep us busy. I successfully completed the Shamrock Shuffle on March 30th in 51:59. (Better than any of my training times!). Pictures will be posted soon. I am in the second week of a new job as a building substitute up in Gurnee. This means that I work set hours (8-4), show up each morning not knowing exactly what I will be doing for the day, and often find myself with extra time during the day. (and by extra time, I mostly mean time when we might be working on data entry with no particular time we need to be finished by or on a project where we can watch a movie or something while we work on it). There are 4 other people who do the same job as me and we share a tiny little office. It's not a bad job...just very different from what I was doing before. Dan is still in school and now we are spending more of our [limited] time together talking about what our future will look like post-seminary. It's actually pretty exciting to have so many possibilities in front of us. Our summer in Minnesota is also coming up. We are looking forward to the time we will have around friends we don't see very often and the chance for Dan to learn more about what the future holds through the CPE program. And finally, we're heading up to Carthage on Saturday to see Counting Crows. Woohoo! It should be a good time. :)

Update

Well, Dan is out of town this week which means that I have an abundance of "me time." I think it will be okay...probably even good for me. He is the trip advisor for a university ministries trip to Appalachia so he is off having fun in the mountains. ah yes, my very own mountain man. :) life has been a bit crazy for us lately. Dan is so busy with classes and u-min and I struggle with the fact that work just drains me every day. I'm not sure if that's just part of teaching or if it is my particular situation (not teaching history and in chicago public schools) that makes every day so difficult. I really am looking forward to my official spring break (next week). I'm also glad that I can use this week to work through some of what I've been learning before Dan comes back. That means more of my energy can be used to focus on us. I'm excited for that.

In other news, we're going to be in Minnesota this summer while Dan does his CPE rotation in Shakopee so if anyone knows of a place we can stay or has a job for me while I'm there, we would love to get all that in place as soon as we can. But, I should probably get back to doing lesson plans for next week. *fist pump* yes!