Worship Leaders Conference

It's been a long time since I've been to a conference geared to ministers.

It was a complete blast to go to the worship leaders conference and really decide to be there, like in the morning, before the workshops and basically be there all day.

A privilege. Everyone kept saying I was a great volunteer, but the bits of service I gave seemed paltry in comparison to what I received.

Sign me up for next year. Of course, this will also be the hottest weather week in Kansas City. There's grass in between the buildings that is done for the year....

Oh, and I found a pair of drum sticks. They are in the car. The steering wheel makes a nice thump when you hit it with a drum stick.

Still Procrastinating

Still haven't email back--might not happen tonight either as the key board driver is really acting up in the heat.

You dont know ow many h's you use until tey stop workin...

E Mail From Mom

So mom sends an email:

What's new? Have not heard from you in months. Want to visit? Got a job? What are you up to? How are the cats? Do you hear from Kathie? Mom

Most would find this pretty innocent stuff, friendly inquiry, how ya doing.

I just hear the echo of my own inadequacy and failure--I hear having to justify myself to her, I hear her judgment, I hear her condemning me as incompetent.

I feel absolutely nuts about this. She is not a soft place to land and I know that, but am I just reading way too much in this?

But I know that I fall short of her expectations. (Hell, I fall short of my own expectations!) I am scared of her judgment--I don't feel supported but condemned when she asks about jobs etc.

I don't know how to respond to the email. Help.

Simplicity, Part 1 at least

I was wandering around the blogosphere, just clicking links from Observer and from TKC and clicking more links and you know, wasting time on the internet. (Some play games, I read stuff and look at pictures. Shrug.)

All this is to say I came across some links talking about taking up living simply and without such a dependence on material goods coming in. I have been confronting exactly how much stuff I have and how much is duplicated and I could live with less. I mean really, if you have water to wash with, you only need one of everything appropriate to the climate and occasion. When it gets dirty, you wash it. Two would be nice, because then you could know for sure you will always have one ready, and it would reduce wear and tear to rotate. OK, two of everything.

If we all did this, the economy would be toast. Our economy is built on consuming stuff. We support each other by buying and selling stuff. Our whole economy would have to shift.

Now some believe (and it must be noted that I am "live blogging" here and this is not a forensic argument) that this inevitable as resources dwindle. We will all end up with a greatly lowered standard of living.

What is standard of living? Each has something that they feel is important to standard of living. In most cultures, a single person living in a free standing house alone would be unheard of, riches beyond most people's reach. Yet, just on my street there are two of us.

Standard of living that is essential: Sanitary sewer, clean water, available housing, safe food, adequate personal cover.

Not finished, but finished for now. So what does this have to do with Spiritual Formation you ask? We'll get there I hope!

Flash Back: Whiteheart

I've been listening to some of the old Christian music--found some mix tapes while cleaning. Some things are just as fresh and good as anything today, and some feel dated--musically or to my maturity level. You Tube has many of the tunes in a video setting. I'd forgot about this one until I saw it today.

There are times I feel very unworthy of the flame that has been passed to me by the likes of John Wesley, Phineas Bresee and Fred K. This is when it is good to remember that we are not saved by the works we do but by that in which we put our faith...God and His Son Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross for us.

Comment: On Changing Churches

I wrote a long comment in response to Andrew Conard at the Rez on line blog when he wrote about changing churches. Not that I haven't written about that before, but his entry and the other comments gave me some new vocabulary to use that I liked and ran with:

How can I answer this and keep it short? I think I wrote at least 2 blog/journal entries on this while considering changing my membership to CoR! I agree with Amy above that church membership is more than gym membership. I did stick it out with my former church even when things were not comfortable. However, if the relationship is not nourishing, in the end it will die, as my relationship with that institutional church (though not with the people of that church) eventually did. Now that death was both our faults (to use divorce language) but dead was dead. When the Holy Spirit convicted me of my lack of attendance in a Christian community, I did not look to returning to that church (even though there had been a pastoral change in the interim) as one of my realistic options. Further proof of how seriously I take church membership is the fact that I attended CoR for 16 months before moving my membership from my former church. (You all stuck with me now, hehe.) One bit of counsel I would offer those considering changing churches--don't make your decisions in high emotional states, either good or bad. When I started at CoR, it was a spiritual high for me to just be back in Christian community. It was good for me to wait a little before actually moving my "paper" to CoR. I would not make a decision to leave a fellowship while angry, miffed or whatever either. Just a few cents worth from an (over)educated layperson.

Errors and Failure, Again

I've thought a lot about failure lately, since I am very good(bad) at it. This article about a nurse in Seattle committing suicide after she made a med error got my attention. Not just that she's 50, or had been in trouble with the powers that be at her institution (who sacked her after the mistake, which she self reported) but just the whole idea that she was at a loss as to what to do, that so much of her identity had been tied up in being a nurse.

Most health care professionals will take themselves apart after making a mistake--they'll go over it over and over, and change the way they do things. Institutions rarely have to punish one mistake--it's only patterns attached to one person that they have to pay attention to--but they often do.

Intimidating Dr. R. helped me with mistakes. I gave one of his patients one of the older oral antidiabetics at 2100 one evening--I just misread the MAR--my eyes skipped over a line. I called him with much fear and trepidation--OMG he is going to rip me--but he was relaxed--just asked that I be sure to write out an incident report and do an extra blood sugar check during the night. The patient didn't turn a hair during my shift and I never heard another thing about it. Meantime, I changed the way I read and handled the MAR and never made a similar mistake again. In fact the only other med error that comes to my mind is one time I gave a one time dose on the wrong day--thus causing me to make a new routine of writing the date on my "notes/brain" for both the evening and night of a 12 hour shift (19-07 or 20-08). Because of my earlier experience I had no trouble reporting the error--thankfully, it was a fairly benign drug--and there were no further problems.

Some drugs just require more vigilance. Ca++ and K+ because you can kill someone with them straight up. Heparin--because of bleeding going out of control. Insulin--because you can kill someone with it. This mistake was a decimal error--a power of 10. Pediatrics is full of this stuff. As time consuming as it is, you must double check your work. If an answer makes no sense, stop and do it again. That goes for letting a machine do your math. Rough out the equation for the x/kg/hour drugs--make sure the machine makes sense. Tables help with this--just recently I ran across my tables for NTG and such from HMW. Keepin' em. They are useful even if they are old as long as the concentrations match. And even if they don't completely, they help with that "sense" thing.

I feel this lady's sense of displacement--what are you when you are a health care professional in disgrace? You have all this good stuff in your head, and all the caring, and all the wanting the challenges, etc. etc. but no place to put it.

(Had to stop there...that's close to the bone.)

The Seattle nurse's mom, also a nurse (retired): "She ran out of coping skills."

Heartbreaking...and preciously close to the bone. Not being perfect should not run an otherwise competent person out of their chosen profession...