I think that I have been complaining far too much about my chaplaincy this summer. I have much to be thankful for in it.



Picking up photos that by now are quite old, I realize looking through them that I am especially thankful for my wife. She is wonderful: witty (see above photo), thoughtful, industrious. She is a good writer and a great cook. I am no philistine in the kitchen, but my wife has culinary experience & imagination much richer than my own. She is attentive to detail where I am too lost to pay much attention; she is the science-minded foil to my theo-poetic abstraction. She has good taste and a critical eye. Plus, I think that she is absolutely gorgeous.

These past weeks have been a nice respite to a terrible last semester, when we hardly ever saw each other. Without that busyness, I have laughed & relaxed more with her. It feels like someone long absent has returned.

Looking at pictures from our trips to the Blue Ridge, I am excited about what this next year holds. We will be much closer to our beloved camping & hiking trips. I will be doing full-time work as a vicar, the next step towards actually becoming a pastor. I hope that time away from the academic overload and the scattered focus that's attendant with that life will be good. I will have one job, not five classes to contend with, plus extra part-time work. We will both be able to walk to work!

All this to say, I can't wait for internship and the opportunity to spend more time with my beloved wife.

Every Day is the Last Day


This is my last on-call day at the hospital. Whew. I have responded to the victims & families of those involved in shootings, heart attacks, car crashes and every imaginable malady that's known here in South Carolina. I have never imagined before how pervasively death & violence surround us. What (sinful) relish we take in our collective refusal to believe that none of this really touches us.

While the work here is sometimes quite overwhelming, I think that I have learned a great deal about the importance of critical reflection on my own bearing in the midst of these crises-- and about pastoral skills, and theological reflection.

My classroom experience with CPE has mostly been disappointing, but I appreciate the space to reflect and the supervision under which to do so in a disciplined manner. I remain deeply suspicious as to the assumptions guiding this supervision, but the tools I've gained and (for the most part) the guidance I've internalized have been useful to me in my ministry.

The Lutheran magazine recently highlighted a resolution of my home synod (Southeastern) along with some others (Southeastern Iowa & Southwestern Washington), "to correct 'the departure from the rich historical tradition of Lutheran leadership in the field of chaplaincy, pastoral counseling and clinical pastoral education,' and reverse a dramatic decline from 1988, when 1,000 restored ministers served such calls to 2005, when only 690 did so."

I don't know why pastors, chaplains, counselors and pastoral educators are leaving these fields for sure. However, I have to wonder whether there are fewer Lutheran CPE supervisors because of the bankrupt theology that is guiding the institution. Whatever the case may be, I support my synod's resolution. There does need to be more Lutheran leadership here and more people bearing witness to the one holy catholic & apostolic Church and its traditions.

Thinking as I have been about secularism & the social sciences and their relationship to theology (particularly ecclesiology), I was lucky to come across an address given by Rowan Williams. He is a fascinating thinker, in my opinion, and I can never quite make up my mind whether I love his thought or not. Whatever the case may be-- and I will try to digest this material some more over time-- I am captivated by what he has to say. I appreciate his postmodern sensibility and the depth & breadth of his reading.

Perhaps Archbishop Williams & Pr. Schneckloth-- who has a very interesting recent post on the connection between Christ as maximus peccator & the presence of sin in the Church-- will help me digest my thoughts more.

Clint, of Lutheran Confessions, correctly pointed out to me that sometimes the most doctrinaire critiques of CPE are registered by those who at heart want to avoid the sometimes painful knowledge that it can impart. He wrote: "I think a lot of theologically minded folks use that criticism as a defense against actually being engaged by (transformed by?) the CPE experience, and in that sense, the very law/gospel distinction they are trying to uphold actually becomes a second order discourse for them that doesn't apply to their own lives. As in, as long as I prove that this isn't theologically correct, it can't address me or name my sin, weaknesses, etc."

I think that he is right, and that those of us in CPE should take the wheat even as we leave behind the chaff. And there is much wheat to be taken. Whatever its theological shortcomings, much of CPE is useful for schooling future pastors in how to do ministry critically. It can expose them to their weak spots, introduce them to the difficult work of crisis ministry, and give many opportunities for collegial advice on handling tough situations. I appreciate all of these things in my own CPE experience.

This conversation has reminded me of an essay I read by Carl Braaten, in his book Justification, on pastoral theology & CPE. He makes a point very similar to the one Clint made; that is, that CPE and the psychological disciplines generally, can shape the form of the questions that the Law asks of us.

He cites three directions that Christian theologians have generally taken in response to recent (20th century) psychology. First is the Barthian response, which is to attack any non-theological discourse as insufficient. We see this approach taken up in Eduard Thurneysen's book on pastoral care. The more recent response (and much more pernicious, I might add) is the "process" response. Process theology, to put it crudely, equates secular insights with revelation (i.e. there is no such thing as "special" revelation). Braaten faults both of these positions for their extremity-- Barth seems to rule out a truly incarnational God at work among us. Process thought jettisons what is truly theological by making it irrelevant in the face of more "factual" concerns. God is subject to those (and not the other way around) in this paradigm.

The third, and preferrable response, Braaten says, is exemplified by Paul Tillich. I had a hard time swallowing that with all the negative press my teachers have given Tillich. Yet Tillich wisely saw that secular wisdom can shape the questions that the law asks of us and that the gospel answers. Braaten critiques Tillich's deficient Christology (thankfully), but uses Tillich's thought in a way that I had not considered before. In any case, Braaten's essay is well worth checking out.

The text I used for introduction to theology cites Johann Gerhard's definition of theology, which I was impressed by. I can't remember the precise wording, but it's something to the effect of this: "theology is not about knowing as much as it is about being formed into the person God wants you to be." For those of you who don't know, Gerhard is the seventeenth century king of Lutheran orthodoxy. This guy probably knew all there was to know about the Church fathers, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and all the Catholic & Evangelical theology that preceeded him. Obviously, he was not haughty, but saw keen intellect & humble piety as unified in the Christian life.

Perhaps we moderns have defaulted on this wholistic model of theological formation, making theology into an arcane discipline instead of a living & life-changing study. Our lack of character has allowed others to step in and do the work that the Church should be doing. How can we reclaim catechesis?

Maybe some of my associates are correct in asking me to take a deep breath and chill out. I hope that my recent rants are not taken to be characteristic of my temperament. (I can assure you, they're not!) Well, just to let you know that I'm letting off a little steam, let me relate a bit about my vacation this weekend.

I accompanied the youth from the parish I've been doing my field education at (worship assistance, teaching, etc.) on their trip to the beach near Charleston. Asked to prepare a couple of Bible studies, I chose the Noah narrative from Genesis 6-8, and the story of the shipwreck from the latter portion of Acts (ch. 27, I think). The ark narrative has captivated me for as long as I can remember. Of course, as I child I was very interested in the physical, historical details of the story (how did all those animals fit? what did they all eat? Noah: 600!?).

But now this story takes on a much more allusive gradeur for me, especially as I try to read it typologically. The earliest Christians saw in this story a prefiguration of the Church-- this boat rescues us from the deadly waters of sin & death. We are preserved from the dangers of the world here.

I see much the same motif in the story of Paul's shipwreck. This narrative, though, is focused on mission. Paul knows that God's providence will preserve him, and his companions. They simply need to stay aboard ship; tempted as some are to abandon ship in the lifeboats, Paul asks them to stay. What's more, Paul reminds his associates of the Lord's presence among them, breaking bread in their midst, and urging them to join him in giving thanks to God. I think that we could hardly ask for a better model of ecclesial life. We, too, should stay aboard ship. We should break the Eucharistic bread together that makes us one. We should give thanks and trust that our deliverance is in the hand of God.

At times, I feel as though my denomination is doing a great disservice to those who seek to be formed into servants of the Church. I fail to see great value in Clinical Pastoral Education as it is. Of course, much of the model (the "process" as they call it) is useful to challenge future pastors to be critical of themselves and of their ministerial practices. But this institution seems so commited to being a non-ecclesial body. All theology, all practice, all "identities" are purely personal. There is no (unqualified) reference made to apostolic or Biblical authority.

I am convinced, after seeing (and participating in) many other ways of doing theology-- as a rebellious undergraduate student of Christian ethics, as a long-time attendee of a Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, as an aspiring practitioner of Zen-- that theology must happen within the Church. We must be accountable to scriptural authority, and to the communion of the saints, most of whom have been orthodox.

This is not to succumb to some "prison of doctrine," as my supervisors may very well accuse me of. On the fact that orthodoxy is neither a prison nor a repressive political apparatus (as so many revisionists peg it), see Robert Louis Wilken's essay "The Durability of Orthodoxy." To be accountable to catholicity, to be orthodox, is to listen to the wisdom of my forbears, and to the tradition going back to the men & women who knew Jesus and walked with Him, and witnessed the resurrection. This ancient Wisdom is alive in the Church today. To trust it is to trust that God speaks through concrete means-- Word & sacrament. I am convinced that God has disclosed himself fully and unambiguously within the Church, and within its means of grace.

It is telling to me that most of the supervisors or administrators of the CPE movement are not sacramental. This isn't to say that we don't agree in principle on very many other things. However, perhaps CPE is a special temptation to modern "spiritualists"

It frequently seems evident to me that CPE is a lifeboat that has attempted to cut loose from the ship of the Church, to go it on its own over the world's rough waters. I think that the Church could use the gifts of these men and women who are part of CPE. Yet the framework of CPE still seems largely to exist outside the parameters of Christian theology's givenness. My teacher David Yeago says of those who are "orthodox," that they "care enough about the apostolic legacy to pay attention to it and [strive] to follow its inner logic as closely as possible, however odd and unsettling the places which we are led" (Apostolic Faith 49). I don't sense that love of the apostolic tradition from the representatives of CPE whom I've met. Now, perhaps that's not warrant enough to condemn the whole enterprise, but it's sufficient to cause ire.

So. Should I dive into the straying lifeboat to salvage what I can these last three weeks, and try to drag them back to the ship?

Should I grit my teeth and bear it, hoping to learn more on internship-- and bring my scars with me as memento mori to think on for a while?

Certainly, my ranting is probably not going to produce much of value. I say "probably" because a friend of mine responded to my previous post with hope that we can "someday replace it with something better." I'm very much in favor of that.

What a comfort to know that we stand, in our trials, in communion with the saints. Any suffering I'm enduring pales next to St. Polycarp, martyr for his faith (on the far right above). As of late, hemmed in as I am by seeming-enemies, I've been finding encouragement from the words of St. John Chrysostom (third from right above): "I will not speak of thy mystery to thine enemies." There is, after all, comfort for my silence in the face of anti-orthodox barrages. God bless you, St. John, for your words of solace.

Speaking of saints: God bless Will Willimon. He has succinctly levelled the errors that Clinical Pastoral Education is built on-- the complex of ideas that assert pastoral effectiveness comes from being true to oneself & one's own feelings. Hogwash.

I am completely sick of the theological vacuity I encounter every day in my classroom instruction. I have to spend at least an hour in reading a good dense book in order to fill what's been lost of my brain in the doctrine-vacuum of a classroom.

Lest I become subject to a psycho-therapeutic attack on the causes of my theological anxiety, I must keep my lips tightly sealed on any offense I bear. Every belief, one must accept here, is the product of some unexamined feeling, some childhood experience, or some "relational stress." Perhaps I have too much education for my own good, but I'd like to think that I reject many ideas simply because they are false or misguided.

When speaking about the family of a recently deceased patient who kept asking "why didn't God let him live?" my supervisors rejected my assumption that they actually cared about God's role in the death of their loved one. Rather, my supervisors asserted that they were simply anxious about the caring presence of another. Well, I tend to belive that it's not only condescendingly arrogant, but also antithetical to Christian ministry to claim that this family-- and many others like them-- aren't really serious in their questions about and graspings toward God. It is offensive to me to claim that what they really need is therapy. What they need is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

CPE pushes up against the boundaries of orthodoxy (or, perhaps, as some of my more strident colleagues assert, this organization left them a long time ago). A study in gnosticism would be instructive for any prospective or past student in CPE, a requirement by my own (and most mainline or Roman Catholic) ecclesial bodies. Gnosticism-- the loosely associated set of ideas that what is really needed for salvation is not Jesus the Jew from Nazareth, the public person who was crucified, raised again, and now publicly proclaimed and accessible in the Church. What is needed is secret knowledge about the self, outside of sight, deep within...wherever that is.

CPE , in its demands for self-exploration, construction of "pastoral identity"(as if that were not something received), its encouragement for students to "construct their own theology," to question the constraints of their tradition, quickly becomes not something merely intellectually tired & outmoded-- though it certainly is that-- but also downright heretical and dangerous for the lives of people who are being formed to serve the Church.

Certainly, CPE is so nebulous in its statement of the above goals that it can escape any debate unscathed by shifting its chameleon-colors to please whoever attacks it. And officials retort to any accusation of heresy with a charge that we doctrinally orthodox simply want to retreat to our ivory towers and leave the suffering behind, abandon any truly contextual education, any practical theology. This charge, while always a danger, is largely overstated. There are plenty of ways to get pastoral experience and to make reflective demands on candidates for ministry without asking them to abandon faithfulness to the Christian tradition (and yes, there is one of those, that we largely share across denominational bodies).

These are not well-constructed thoughts, I know. But those of you who have endured the mess that is CPE surely know what I speak of. Seminarians of a prior age, those who were actually trained in Biblical languages, theology & doctrine, and preaching, were much better prepared for the demands of the pastoral life than any of those who are products of this pseudo-therapeutic mess.

I've found great comfort in the daily offices as of late, saying them in the morning and evening, and singing hymns whenever I find a chance at the hospital. Some of the elderly or mentally challenged might have difficulty with conversation, but they're ready for a hymn. I'm not musically gifted, but I simply try to remember that in any praise of Christ, I'm singing with the saints of old & saints to come, the one hymn of glory we'll sing eternally. This stanza in particular has meant a lot lately:

Though with a scornful wonder,
The World sees her [i.e.--the Church] oppressed,
By schisms rent assunder, by heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up "How Long?"
And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.

Finally. An actual day of rest. One of my favorite pleasures in life is sitting down with some coffee to read a good newspaper. So today, on the way home from church, I bought a NY Times and lounged around with my wife all day, reading. Nice.

I've been reading a new book of poems by Jane Hirshfield, and it is just great. I admire the way in which she is able to pinpoint human urgencies with a calm probing; her sure lines and solid images make these poems resonate in my mind. This is part of one of my favorite poems so far:

"What is usual is not what is always.
As sometimes, in old age, hearing comes back.

Footsteps resume their clipped edges,
birds quiet for decades migrate back to the ear.

Where were they? By what route did they return?"


Cynthia Nielsen has an interesting post on reading that she is doing on Luther (a book, evidently, by Heiko Oberman (sounds like one of the Finns currently doing much Luther research these past few years). I am attempting to fit her report into my own thinking about Luther (from assigned reading & lectures here in seminary). I will formulate something more substantial soon.

9/9, Thinking of My Brothers East of the Mountains

Each year on this auspicious day, alone and foreign
here in a foreign place, my thoughts of you sharpen:

far away, I can almost see you reaching the summit,
dogwood berries woven into sashes, short one person.

--Wang Wei, translated by David Hinton. From The Selected Poems of Wang Wei.

Five weeks of CPE down. Five to go. Hallelujah.

Today, I led worship in the hospital chapel and did a Bible study at the mental health center just across the street. Both went very well. I was nervous that no one would show up to the service other than the pianist who graciously volunteered her time and my colleague who was on call last night.

A few ladies came, though, and they were not even put off by the fact that I chose to do a liturgical service (remember, I am deep in South Carolina, where despite a fair number of Lutherans and Episcopalians, non-liturgical evangelicals are the norm among Christians). I think that they themselves might have been of liturgical backgrounds. In any case, no glitches.

I so enjoy leading worship, and I look forward to the opportunity to lead it more frequently while on internship. I feel like I lack a little bit of the poise and certitude that will come naturally with practice. Gestures, placement of the body, movement-- all of these things are very important for liturgical worship and I am still learning how to lead it more effectively.

I should probably say a few words about my continuing frustration with the reflective component of CPE, but I just am not in the mood to go into all the details, having hashed out things many times with friends & family. Suffice to say that it continues to be non-theological and to draw more on a blandly pluralist, and adamantly secular popular psychology than on anything theological. I certainly don't want to discount the knowledge that contemporary psychology has advanced, but some of its assumptions really need to be integrated more carefully (& Christologically!) by those of us in the Church.

I must say, though, that I am thoroughly enjoying my on-call days & nights. I suppose "enjoy" is not the proper word. I mean that I feel fulfilled, challenged and educated by my experiences with comforting grieving families, praying with the sick and the dying, supporting those who are in the midst of traumatic storms. Those who know my character know that, as my pal Jared says, "whatever the opposite of tense and high-strung is, it's Nate." While this can certainly cause me problems in some areas of my life (initiative is sometimes not something that comes quickly), it is a real gift for ministering to those in severe crises.

My buddy Joe's wedding was just over two weeks ago, and was beautiful. They used the liturgy for marriage written by Thomas Cranmer, had violin music by Joe's sister, a classically trained musician (jaw-droppingly beautiful), and had a grand Southern pork barbeque smoked by the groom himself. Our mutual friend Greg presided, and it was a wonderful time to see old friends, dance, and give speeches. By the time I gave mine at the reception, it was far too late in the evening to do anything elaborate, so I kept it brief. But I would like to post a "less abriged" version of it soon. Marriage has been much on my mind as Lindsay and I go through the ups and downs of our now-second year of marriage.

I just can't stop laughing about the ironic Catholic website. The best post by far, recently, anyway, has been about Oprah questioning Augustine about the authenticity of his Confessions. I wouldn't put it beyond Ms. Winfrey...

In my first post, I quoted the poet Charles Wright's line "Sunday, it's always Sunday." I have in mind as I look over the lectionary for this year a satire of it that begins "Pentecost, it's always Pentecost." As the time dubbed "ordinary" streches out before us, may we all experience Christ's healing power in the midst of the rhythmic repetition of our days & nights. May Jesus call us out of our attempts to sneak away from boldly encountering him, as he did the bleeding woman in our gospel lesson today. May he restore us to peace & wholeness, as well, so that our days can be filled with the joy that can only come from sharing life with the Triune God.