Some Reflections

Some reflections from the past two days...

First, I have gotten close to nothing that I wanted to get done accomplished in the past two days. Really, I should say I got a few things done but yesterday was supposed to be a big work day for me and some how slipped away from me. Oh well...

Yesterday evening I made three different trips to the airport to pick up the bishops. Well, really one is the presiding bishop (Mark Hanson) and the others are not bishops anymore, but are the previous presiding bishops (Herb Chilstrom and H. George Anderson). All three are awesome guys and are very easy going. All three arrived without too much difficulty and I safely deposited them where they needed to be for the evening.

For those of you who missed my earlier post or simply forgot, the bishops were here for the Hein Fry Lectures. They spent all of today talking about the church and being the church in the 21st century. Let me say, it was awesome! We started the morning with Eucharist and Bishop Hanson presided and preached. He is such an amazing preacher. Plus, the worship was good too... but I almost always enjoy worship here.

We then spent the rest of the day with each of the three lecturing. Some of the insights were great and I valued being able to hear each of them talk about their visions of the church and what prevents us from being there (or what helps us along too). But I think what was really cool for me today was in the midst of discussing even the harsh realities (Anderson talked a lot about conflict in the church), I some how got more and more excited to be in a parish. I got increasingly excited for internship. I think I’ve been stuck in this academic mode so much (and don’t get me wrong, I love it) that I have been focusing on how much or how little I know (more often the latter of the two). I guess the more I learn, the more I come to find how much I simply do not know. Thus, for a little while now, I’ve been walking around with this sinking feeling of can I do it? Yes, I’m excited about internship, but can I really hack it? Do I have what it takes? I keep getting all this positive affirmation from people around here, but in many ways I feel like I’ve fooled everyone here. I’m not really as good as they say I am. I’ve been walking around with these doubts for a while now and they will probably return. But today, for some reason, helped me to say, yeah, I can do that. And, even if I can’t, I’m willing to at least go out there and try it. I’m willing to listen to the needs of others, I’m willing to serve, and I’m willing to empower others to serve. I may not know it all (and never will), but I don’t need to. I don’t know what it was, but today was empowering for me.

After the lectures were over, I then took all three bishops to the airport in one fell swoop. Let me tell you, those three are great apart and they’re even better together. They are very funny and very down to earth. Sorry Kevin, I did not have a chance to ask your questions. Something tells me they wouldn’t have an answer for you anyway. =)

So that’s been my day... well, I did try to get some work done, but I was just fried. It’s been a very long day and with that said, I do believe it is bed time (at 10:45 amazingly enough!!). I’m sure I’ll write more about other stuff later... but maybe not until the term is over (give me another 2 weeks). =)

Kate