Halloween...

Sara and I had a tandem costume...
Peace and Quiet

Hmm...?

So, I had heard that ER would be getting a chaplain this season.
We, the seminary crowd, have frequently said "a doctor shouldn't be doing that!" and "augh! where's the chaplain?" when watching ER or Grey's.
Well, it's a weird thing to add a new staff position in such an established series, but I was excited about the possibility. I mean, for a while there was a social worker who was a regular character, so...

Anyway, I've been watching this season out of curiousity. (I used to watch ER every week, but stopped watching last year when that guy was trying to kill Luka.)
So weeks went by... no chaplain.
But tonight, she appeared. She looks normal. She came in, talked softly to the patient to soothe her during a procedure.
And then she says, "do you want to pray?"
The patient nods.
Chaplain says, "we can do it together."
Silence.
Then they look up again, and the dr. says that the procedure went well.
Chaplain says, "that must have been one hell of a prayer."
Seriously? Seriously.
She didn't actually pray, but she did actually cuss.

However, later she tried to explain to John Stamos that she "has a spiritual life, and a spiritual job, but [she] live[s] in the real world."
So that's helpful.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad there's a chaplain, but one of the things I read online said she'd be a "sexy chaplain." I definitely appreciate the attempt at balance between the holy and the human. I do hope that ER tries to, as we'd say in the seminary, live in that tension. And I hope they don't make chaplains look trashy. That's not helpful.
We'll see how it goes.

We're all pretty much the same

just older and fatter.


I went to high school with these people. And Saturday, we got together and ate tacos.
It's odd how little we have changed in a decade or so, yet we are also completely different.
We laughed. We looked at pictures and mocked each other's high school style. We reminisced. We tried to understand what Brian was saying.
And everyone left by 10pm. Because we're old.

Rock on.

I really do

have a pretty strange life.

It's mostly good strange.
But it certainly is crazy.

Rock on.

I've had some pretty cool experiences, but I'm glad I didn't miss frisbee today.

In 4th grade, I went to my first Major League Baseball game at the Metrodome (Twins v. Orioles).

At 16, I worked on a roof for the first time.

When I was 21, I stood in the grass and daisies in the sanctuary ruins of an 8th century monastery.

At 23, I swam with (and kissed) stingrays.

At 26, I held my best friend's 4 day old baby.

At Emory, I have heard Jesse Jackson, Margaret Atwood, and Elaine Pagels speak in the auditorium (i.e. sanctuary) at Glenn Memorial UMC.
I also heard Jimmy Carter (thrice) answer questions from Emory students ranging from the inane (he actually still is a peanut farmer, which is why he doesn't miss it) to the silly (his favorite movie is Casablanca) to the seriously political (he really is not thrilled with this administration, and he has helped broker peace in countries I haven't heard of).

And I've played a lot of ultimate frisbee on the Quad (as evidenced somewhat in the picture below of us all soaked after the really rainy day a few weeks ago). We've had loads of passersby join in the game, whether intentionally or incidentally. Once a year or two ago, a Tibetan monk caught (or picked up) the frisbee and tossed it back to us. That was pretty cool.

But today, the Tibetan monks (there's a Tibetan program at Emory) were walking by -- several of them. One of us asked if they wanted to play. They looked at each other, grinned, secured their deep red robes, and took the field.

We played frisbee with three Tibetan monks.

It was surreal. It was serene. It was crazy.
It was pretty amazing.

We didn't worry about who was on what team. We just tossed the frisbee to a monk and followed his lead. Early on, I had said to one of the monks that I was going to guard him if that was okay. I looked around and none of the other monks were being "guarded," but I had committed. So I stayed near this one monk. And he asked me questions about the game (because obviously I am an expert).

They seemed so glad to be included in our funny little Friday tradition.
And we were all so glad they were willing to run (maybe shuffle) around the warm messy quad in full monk garb.

It was good. Maybe (okay, certainly) not quite as good as cuddling that 4 day old baby whom I love dearly. But really good.

I went to Tallahassee

and it went pretty well.
I saw some old friends.
I ate at some familiar old restaurants.
I reconnected with my church.
I hung out with my cousins.
In fact, these pictures are from my one cousin's new coffeeshop in south Georgia, just north of Tally.






In other news, it's rainy in Atlanta, and my hands are stiff.