Saying Thank You

     As I finish my almost last semester of my Master of Social Work study’s (MSW), I thanked a professor who in his class had been immensely helpful personally and professionally He being who he is, was very flattered and thanked me for the response. The class about solutions, something I think we all need more of less problems more solutions. But more on that latter. I learned after and subconsciously in my M. Div. work, that it is advisable to say, thank you as soon as you can when you feel completed to do so.

One of my most helpful M.Div. professors and helpful people in my life thus far, last Fall  met at the reunion and I profusely thanked her for her support in believing in me when I could not believe in myself and willing to take a chance and lead me and my classmates on a journey a Pilgrimage to all of us really, a lot of miles away and across an ocean. At least that’s how I perceived it I’m not really sure how she saw it but regardless my perception was that she saw nothing wrong with the depression experience I was undergoing that had landed me in some unfortunate circumstances.

         

   I three years later told her, thank you because it was the first time I was really able to process what she and others had done then I had several others my academic advisor, my fantastic roommate, and my texting buddies who were willing to listen to me and fight. As I told my academic advisor “You being sic on the X really worked! It was the next day and she made a decision within 12 hours!”

            
 I started to tear as I explained where I was in the past year and why I was zonked out at the prior year reunion and she told me so gently ‘I know’ and I told her again and again what that trip meant to me then and what it continues to mean to me.

        

    She hugged me as I started to bawl and snot on her shoulder (thankfully she is always gracefull) and she whispered in my ear “Betty (and my full name) I love you and you are doing wonderful things, don’t forget it’. It was a true moment of the Holy Spirit truly being present for me, and, the first for a good long time.

            Telling this semesters professor “well I’ve learned you had better say thank you when you can and as often as warranted because you never know.” One never knows what impact it might have on the other person you thank, the good Karma of the universe. Thank you at endings comes to my mind as I terminated my internship at a homeless shelter and well I did not say thank you verbally to my clients. I am thankful that they trusted me with their stories, their struggles, the realities they face. Creating that holding space to be as they are. As I enter into the world with almost an M.Div and a big bad MSW,  this is sacred work. My clients thanked me for what I did, and I guess like my professor I believed in them when they could not yet believe in themselves. Reminding them of their own awesomeness, or how I explained my job as a social work intern to them.

The Mess of Ashes

      I am well known for my idea as ministry as mud and mess, its part of my pastoral identity and I think this becomes most realized on Ash Wednesday. The person putting ashes on the other gets the ashes in their skin, under there nails, and no one told me ashes itch growing up. The few times I’ve imposited it has taken me a while to get the ashes out of my finger. It’s a little yucky. 

            But this year I noticed on social media the comments about the style of ashes that people received one person typed ‘I got a good one this year’ along with a photo. I was tempted to comment back and say ‘it does not matter what matters is that you are prepping to wear the ashes, and grow closer to God for the next 40 days!’ I refrained but it made me think of how often the rituals we observe and celebrate as Jesus followers/The Way have become fashion accessories, or the popular culture.  Cross jewelry is no longer about remembering your faith exclusively; it’s a fashion statement far to often. Ashes apparently for some have become a reason to gloat a bit I’m a little fed up. 

            But what really gets me is that we never follow the basic rituals that Jesus TOLD us to do and God for century’s before Jesus on the screen. Feed the poor, care for the widows, tend the blind and lame, look out for the venerable, love one another. But going to get ashes on your head is 20 minuets, the above take a long time to enact and the results take just as long to show in a big way.  Thinking about the volunteer work I have done, I know that one sandwege to a homeless person in NYC is not going to save him long term. But perhaps for today it will not only physically keep him going, but remind him that someone here on earth is routing for him to survive and to eventually thrive. Same with my work at the Psych Hospital, I often went home going ‘I did not do enough I need to do more!’

But I learned that an act of wearing my ashes in siting with an office of women who watched a terrible code blue that ended in death, after the guy being worked on for almost an hour, prepared them to face the reality. At the time I wanted to be in the action, preparing the man for burial and comforting patients what a chaplain at the hospital does.  But in a difficult act of humility, patience, and hope I sat with the women for hours thinking I did nothing more then sit there and listen (not to discount this).

            I had to take some time off from volunteering for a while and when I came back the women I spent the most time with told me how much she valued the time I spent with her. This was almost two years latter and I was amazed that I had done enough for the situation that day. I had provided a bridge between God and earth. Wearing my ashes to say ‘we are messed up people and messed up things happen’.

            Ashes are messy, dirt is messy, and following Jesus is messy. Being in ministry means going into trenches filled with mud, human fluids, rats and other things like that. It means getting the mud and ashes under your nails that you can’t ever get out. It means opening yourself to the possibility’s of seeing that we are reluctant to get in the mud in the first place prefer our sanitized, disinfected ways.