Over at the RevGal site, Jan challenges us with this Friday Five:
Since it is almost my birthday and because my spiritual direction peer group is reading Living Fully, Dying Well by Edward W. Bastian and Tina L. Staley, I am thinking of my life in stages. For the latter group, we filled out a form dividing our life into 7-year increments, documenting "significant moments," then "people who guided and influenced me," and ending with the question, "What did this phase contribute to the continuum of my life?" This was a life Review Exercise devised by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
For today's Friday Five, I am suggesting that we each divide our age into 5 sections. You don't have to say your age or ages for the different parts, unless you want to. In each of the 5 points, please describe a memorable and/or significant event, either good or unpleasant.
Ok Jan, here goes:
Birth to Highschool. I really had an idyllic childhood. We lived in a Baby Boom neighbourhood with LOTS of young children, so there was never a lack of people for a game of baseball, hide and seek, whatever. I remember spending a lot of time outdoors on my bike when the weather was good, and on my skis through the winters. Back in the day, a 15 minute drive could get you to any one of 5 ski hills, so that was where I spent a lot of time. I remember my Mom used to make the best soup ever and have it ready at the end of a ski day. Mom was also a voracious reader, and taught me early about the world that opens up to us when we turn the pages of a book.
On the not so great side, I was painfully shy and found school to be a difficult, anxiety-inducing place to be. I was very small for my age, extremely inept athletically and therefore always picked last for any given team. I also put up with a fair bit of teasing over the years.
Highschool to Work. About halfway through highschool, I realized that my dream of being invisible was not going to come true, despite my deepest yearnings. I was blessed to meet P at a church youth group night (he was the minister's son. I had actually met his Dad - now my father-in-law - months earlier). How I ended up at that church is a whole other post! God does indeed work in mysterious ways....
I remained extremely shy, so when I started thinking about what to do after highschool I found myself in a dilemma. My greatest passion was literature, specifically Elizabethan poetry. My 17 year old brain could only trace that career path to an impossible outcome. To study literature in university would ultimately lead to one thing: Teaching. The thought of speaking to a classroom full of students was enough to make me nauseous (kind of funny, when I think of it now. I've since spoken to groups of 1200+ without any difficulty at all).
So, I saw my sister's work in the hospital lab as the ideal work. It was interesting, important, helpful to a patient's health and well-being - everything that was meaningful for me. AND the lab was in the basement of the hospital where I did my training. Seriously - we were as far away from the rest of the hospital as one could get without standing out on the street. Perfect.
3. Work! Babies! Friends! I was so fortunate to secure a job at the same hospital where I trained in medical laboratory technology. I worked in the Blood Bank department, where we ensured that the blood being transfused into patients was compatible with their own. I really loved that job. I worked with wonderful people and I was good at what I did. The on-call time and the bizzaro shift changes weren't the best, but hey, I was young. I doubt I could manage it now, but at the time it was just life.
We had our two wonderful boyz during the time I worked at the lab. I had the best of both worlds as I worked half time. I found that just when I had grown tired of Sesame Street's letter of the day, I had a few days at work to recall what adult conversation was all about. It wasn't always easy. P had the same wacky schedule in his work as a funeral director. We had on-call time, odd shifts, and complicated child care pretty much all of the time. Thankfully, we had family and two dear friends who were especially helpful on those nights when I would meet up with P at 3:00 a.m. in the hospital corridor and ask him "Where are the boys?" Inevitably, they were at home with one of our friends who so kindly slept on the couch while P and I did our thing.
We were, and continue to be, really blessed.
4. From Volunteer to Student to Ordinand. In 1988, both of the boyz were in school all day, I was still working half time, and I thought I might use some of that time to volunteer - somewhere. I had nothing specific in mind, it was really just the seed of a thought. Then I happened to be walking in my favourite local business area one afternoon and happened upon an Open House at what was then called The AIDS Committee of Our City. I went into the closet-sized office space, met some amazing people, learned a whole lot in a few hours, and that was it - I stuck with this remarkable non-profit until I began my university studies in 1992.
At some point in those years, someone put a camera in my face and asked me some questions (I think it was about the AIDS Quilt project). To my surprise, I did not die. Rather, I discovered a whole new aspect of being me. I had the capacity to speak to more than two people at a time - provided the subject matter was drawn from my own passion and compassion.
Go figure.
I grew up feeling a bit like a fool. All three of my sisters had skipped a grade. I had not. I think that was all due to a lack of understanding at the time of Multiple Intelligences and how they apply to learning, but that's another post as well. In 1992, the same year that my beloved Mother died with multiple myeloma, and P was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (after ten years of symptoms) - I decided to sign up for a course in philosophy at our local university. Mostly I thought I would just prove to myself that I really wasn't very smart so I could put all of the "what-ifs" to bed.
I got an A+ in Philosophy 101.
The rest is history. I finished my BA in 1995, quit my job, and headed to "Canada's Ivy League" university to work on my MDiv. In 1998, I graduated, gave the valedictory address and a few weeks later was ordained to a ministry of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care. None of it would have been possible without the support and care of my family - P and the boys, and most especially P's parents - so, ya.....I am so very blessed.
* I should note that the jump from the BA to the MDiv is also an entire post for another day.
5. Now! This has turned into a long post, so I will just say that this stage of my life, especially my recent years at Little Church on the Corner, have been filled with ups and downs. There is no question that P's health is not what it was ten years ago. He is no longer able to work, and yet, we are so fortunate to live in a condo where his independence is maintained and he can live and enjoy life with as little difficulty as possible.
My right temple has had a metaphorical hot knife in it - all of the time, to at least some degree - since Sept 2005.
On the other hand, we have two amazing sons. These are young men that I would be proud to know even if I hadn't given birth to them. Both seem to have survived our "trial-and-error" parenting method quite well!
And, in the midst of all that, I have a great church family. Our Little Church on the Corner really epitomizes for me the best of what contemporary church needs to be. We are welcoming but not smothering, open and Affirming, a community that is consistently seeking out new ways to experience the Holy in every corner of life. God is good.
Whew! I don't think Jan intended for such lengthy stages, but there you have it.
Now - back to sermon writing. It's almost done, just needs some touch-ups at this point. Happy weekend everyone!
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