Hey everybody! CPE has a way of devouring one’s gray stuff. As such, there has been no updating for some time, and for that I’m sorry, or at least would be if thinking were possible right now!!

I have a passel of lovely photograms that I’ll put up soon, taken from the Philly Art museum and my recent (and necessarily reviviatory) trip to the NYC.

I love you all, and hope to write something more soon!

Peace.

Ille epistula est divisa in partes tres. Ten points to everyone who gets the reference. Ten points of sad, sad Latin-knowing geekery. Excessive education or no, the post is indeed tripartite, and it is divided thusly:

1. Reflections on CPE
2. A few thoughts on Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, and
3. A magical third part, made up of delightful photograms scattered throughout the posting, taken from my excursion with my goddaughter Miss Ketturah Sloan to the Philaselphia Zoo.

And so, I submit for your consideration, a web log empostation.

I.

As you may or may not have guessed, CPE continues to be a part of my life. Like a bad cold, I can’t seem to shake it, and I have a sinking feeling that I will be metaphorically coughing (that goes out to you, Dr. K) for another four weeks, minus one day. As I write this e-ssay (see how clever that is?), I am on call at the hospital, one Thomas Jefferson Univerity Hospital, and I even just got back from a page. Did you miss me? So, now that I’m seven weeks into CPE, and am starting (ha) to run out of steam, I heard something today that has reframed what it is that I’m doing here. In a discussion on grief and the presence (or non-presence) of God, one of my colleagues in the program made the observation that for many of our patients, we the chaplains are the only concrete symbol of God’s presence in their suffering. This is not to suggest that we all have giant messiah complexes or that we each believe that we are Christ come again, but rather that if we are to take the Christian message seriously, and actually think about what baptism means, then we have to realize that God is acting through us to be with these people. For my own part, I have always experienced God most closely through other people. A lot of the time, they probably never knew that’s what was going on for me, but that doesn’t matter: God knows what God’s doing.

So, thinking about my work in such a way, that I am privileged to relate to these patients strictly and explicitly on those terms, as a potential instrument of God’s love in their lives (that, indeed, is the whole work of the chaplain), I am somewhat renewed in my energy for the next four weeks (minus one day). Does this mean I’m magically un-exhausted, or I suddenly love the idea of being a hospital chaplain? No, of course not; don’t be silly. But it does mean that I have a new appreciation for the work here, and it’s something I’m happy to be doing, even if I don’t exactly enjoy it.

II.

One of the best things about this summer has been the Septa train that obligingly carries me from Swarthmore Station to Market East Station and back again each day. I am obliged to the Septa train for providing me with approximately eighty minutes every day during which time I can do little but read. And read I have. My pile of read books grows apace, and lo, it is glorious to behold.

The latest addition to said pile is C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. It’s not one of his better-known books, but by connoisseurs of his work it is considered amoing the best. Indeed, my English teacher in high school valued it as one of the finest works of twentieth century fiction. My own opinion is, how shall I say, more moderate.

The novel is a retelling, indeed somewhat of a “this is how it really happened” version, of the Greco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, form the perspective of the oldest sister. Ever a man of his age, Lewis’ often brilliant insights into human nature are often sadly obscured by an often unnecessary gender-essentialist language. (That is, talk of “women are this way, and men are this way”). If those comments can be excised from the manuscript (and they usually can without any real damage to either the content or quality of the book), then the insights he has into some of the primary forces of human nature are remarkable. Thankfully, I think that, at least in this book, Lewis’ spiritual and philosophical insight may serve to soften somewhat the impact of his paternalism, by rendering them in the context of a greater divine reality. [Man, Lewis would be so very, very upset by what I’m writing right now.]

As Lewis composes it, the story becomes a multi-layered fable describing the struggle of the mind over the passions, and the troubled relationship between rationalism and mystericism. Neither rationality nor mystery is categorically repudiated or unquestioningly praised, but a dogmatic adherence to either (the -isms) is justly criticized. At its strongest, Till We Have Faces provides a subtle and nuanced examination of the (post)modern western tug o’ war between the process of rational analysis and the potent and mysterious symbolic language of religion. The title line, which comes near the end of the book, and which can really only be understood after the preceding 280 pages, encapsulates a theology and philosophy of profoundly humane and insightful dimensions.

I heartily recommend the book, especially the last thirty pages. Whatever you do, though, don’w skip to the end. Read the whole book, which itself is a shining exapmle of Lewis’ spare, beautiful style, looking forward to the final theological / philosophical climax.

Having set aside Till We Have Faces, I have picked up A Letter of Mary, the third installment of the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes novels. If you haven’t read these, and you’re reading this web log, you really should. I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy them. The first is called The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and they are all (unsurprisingly) written by Laurie R. King (an alumna of GTU+CDSP, by the bye).

III.

The photograms above presented repesent the following animals: The Hippo, the Giant Elephant Shrew (whose nose and legs are of prodigious, even absurd length), the More Reasonably Sized (though markedly tank-like) Elephant Shrew, the Elephant, the Coati, the Meercat, and the Harvest Mouse (who would kill you as soon as look at you).

I should also mention before I finish that I very much appreciate your comments. I am unclear as to why they are not showing up on the “Comments” link for each post, but they are collected in the “Comments Feed” found at the bottom of the sidebar. We have all our experts looking into the problem, and we hope to have regular service back very soon.

Peace and Love.

First off, I just want to thank everybody for their well-wishing and prayers, that goes for folks who have done CPE and for those who haven’t. It is a rough program at times.

As I’ve told lots of you, part of the program is doing overnight on-call shifts at the hospital. This means I get to stay at the hospital all night, making myself available for pages and traumas in the ER. A lot of the time, the night is quiet (n.b., we never say the q-word; it’s bad luck!), but other nights it’s not. Last night was a hard one.

Ordinarily, baptizing babies is an event of intense and deep spiritual joy. As a chaplain, though, it’s often very much not such an event. The only baptisms we really get to do is for babies who aren’t going to make it. Last night, I was paged twice to the world of babies and new mothers to do a baptism. I won’t get into the details here in this ever-so-public forum, but you can rest assured that intense and spiritual joy was not the primary emotion in operation. If you want to know more, let me know; I’d love to work through it some more…

On the hospital shows, like Scubs and House, eventually there’s an episode about how everpresent death is in a hospital. This week was apaprently my episode. It’s not that I ever really thought anything like “what’s the point?” or “why would God do this?” but there’s definitely a lot to deal with… We learn different ways to deal with it. The night after I stood with a man while his wife died, I came home and listened to Sufjan Stevens’ version of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Today, I went to the museum, then saw Wall•E. That was good therapy. Everyone shoul dgo see that movie. It is absolutely amazing. One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.

Thanks again to everyone who takes a gander at this little w’blog! Don’t be shy, if you feel moved, leave me a comment or twelve! I’d love to hear from you!

The fourth of july was rainy in Philadelphia, but the fireworks were amazing. Loud, but amazing. Largely hidden behind smoke, but still amazing. That says a lot, I think! It only make ssense that Philly would have a good show on the 4th, it being the Place of the Signing and all... I’d love to hear if anybody did anything exciting for the holiday weekend. Anybody? Anybody? Beuller?

Ahem. Sorry ‘bout that. Right. Onward!!

So, I realize that I haen’t said a whole lot in my recent posts about how CPE itself is going, as opposed to my various adventures. That changes... now!

CPE is hard, it’s tiring, I’m learning a lot, and I’m almost halfway done! Whoo.. four things about cpe in one sentence... I’m whupped.

No, really, it’s going well. It is totally exhausting. As most of you know, I’m an introvert-type, and so having intense interaction with el publico day in and day out for eight hours per day (in or out, it makes no matter) is enough to leave me good for little more than last night’s Daily Show and some snoozing. Piled on top of that is the fact that most of that interaction falls into one of two categories: talking with patients (often about less than happy things) and intense self-examination with the group.

This is a part of the CPE process that I’ve spoken very little about. A good deal of our “classtime” is spent in what really amounts to group therapy + professional development, as we analyze interactions we’ve had, and all of the psychology that went into our decisions. I’m learning a lot in these “clinicals” about what makes me tick, and how I react to stressful situations. And in this sense, CPE is proving invaluable. In learning how I respond to a variety of intense interpersonal situations, I am learning how best to deal with them when they do crop up. There’s nothing like on-the-job training…

A lot of the patient interactions are very rewarding, and there’s a lot to learn simply from them. It’s always nice to hear that they or their family have appreciated my being with them, and it’s even better to see them go home healthy.

Even while they’re still in the hospital, they can provide some entertainment value at times. One paitent who had been at Thomas Jefferson for some weeks had had frequent visits from his lady friend, and his nurses could tell just exactly how much fun they were having of a night by the readings on the remote heartrate monitors. Telemetry porn. Only in a hospital…

Dear readers, please let me offer my sincerest apologies for depriving you of my words of comfort and succor from El Ciudad del Amor de Hermanos. Comfor. Succor. There. I hope you’re happy. With luck, I will be writing twice a week starting next week: Mondays and Thursdays I hope. With that: Happy In-Dependence Day. This’ll blow your mind: what if we called it Inter-Dependence Day? Wouldn’t that totally change the world? No? Fine. Be that way.

Last weekend, I took the exciting and reportedly dangerous Chinatown Bus from Philadelphia to New York. For those of you who don’t know, the Chinese crminal syndicates use the cover of a cheap busline to traffick heroin, tiny shoes, and the latest prophecies fresh in from China, authorized by Beijing’s Ministry for Lying to Americans, for use in fortune cookies. For the mere price of twenty dollars roundtrip, and the sure knowledge that you are participating in a criminal endeavor, you can get almost anywhere on the eastern seabord in approximately two hours. Word on the street is that J. K. Rowling researched the Chinatwon buses for her transparent ripoff, the Knightbus.

My stay in New York was too short, but a lot of good times were packed into those few days. Friday afternoon Harry Huberty and I tromped merrily around the Metripolitan Museum of Art. We refrained from holding hands and skipping merrily, but it was a close thing. In order to prove to all you skeptics out there that I did indeed visit the museum which is called Met, I present Photo-Magical Imagery!

This is some kind of pagan idol from the Eurpoean Dark ages. No one is quite sure of its significance, or what kind of practices it inspired, but it sure is lovely.

This is another pagan idol, though it dates much later, to the Rennaisance. It is a representation of the dark Goddess Kaphé, imported from the New World. See how her twin tails stand ready to dispense scalding black nectar and delicately foamed milk? Other theories suggest it is a depiction of a siren from Greco-Roman mythology, but this has yet to be proven by science.

This is a picture of Mary Magdalene, recovered from the chapterhouse of a Christian worker’s guild from the middle ages. These societies helped thier dead members by paying for services to be said for them after their deaths. In this case, the society’s patron saint was Mary of Magdala, and so their prayers are addressed through her. No, this is true. Really. Why are you lookign at me like that?

In typical fashion, European colonial powers not only enslaved the inhabitants of this island paradise, but they crystalized its panoramic views and took them back to their dreary and icy homes in the European Wastlands. This is an example of such a stolen vista.

After our sojourn amongst the beautiful art, Harry and I made our way to meet Master Dan Chamberlin of the New York Chamberlins, and then made haste to the Tambasco household, where we played an excellent roleplaying game called Dogs in the Vineyard. We learned how dangerous wine can be. (It apparently can lead people to try to summon demons. Who knew?)

The next day, after settling the island of Catan, The native New Yorkers helped Harry and me find our way to a rain-soaked barbecue in Brooklyn.

Finally, I went to church at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (which is HUGE), then spent a couple of hours in the surprisingly disappointing Strand bookstore in Union Square, then jumped my bus back to Philadelphia. All-in-all, an excellent long weekend. You should try it sometime.

For those of you keeping up with my reading, know that I am slowly making my way through Pillars of the Earth. It’s good, but getting a little bit predictable/repetitive. I must know what happens to Tom Builder, though! Damn you Ken Folleeeeeeet!!!!

Salutations, friends! There is not much news to report from the CPE front, except to say that CPE is engaging, rewarding, important, and amazingly exhausting. For those of you who know me well, you know also that I am of the introverted persuasion. This means that prolonged social interaction has a way of leaving me drained. CPE is nothing if not socially interactive. And so, at the end of the day, I am nothing if not drained. I’m learning a lot, and am very glad to be here, but nevertheless, I’m looking forward to being able to rest for real when it’s all over!

That said, here are some more magical photo-graphs. These are from a stained glass window in the Museum of Art. It’s in one of the aforementioned “reconstructed rooms,” and is a very nice, and peaceful place to sit. I think it’s made up of pieces of broken windows, put together into a new one.

Without further wei:

I like the way that the face looks like it is just leaving the picture, as if it has somewhere to be.

See how the way the glass on the left is cut so it looks like an angel wing for the figure on the right? I’m not sure if it was done on purpose, but it sure looks excellent.

I’m sure this is for St Mark the Evangleist. Medieval pictures of African animals are so funny. You can tell the guy who painted it had never actually seen a lion. I love the human ears.

The brick walls in the pieces on the right and left look strangely modern; they almost remind me of World War II imagery, like concentration camps or something. Kind of dark next to the bright yellow shield.

A nice abstract piece.

Ooooh… something interesting is going on over there! What’s going on over there?

I like how the little plant sprout is glowing…

So, there it is: more delicious photo-graphery! The horizontal pictures also make very nice desktop wallpaper, if I do say so meself.

Dear and faithful readers, it falls to me to thank you for you patience during the past week or howeversolong it’s been since my last update. Poor Samwise, my faithful and long-suffering lappy-top precipitously gave up the gost one quiet afternoon. For those of you wondering about such, no, it did not in the end have anything to do with a previous encounter the poor laptop had with a reckless young bottle of St Peter’s English Ale. (Which good Cephas has wisely seen fit to remove from the marketplace.) Unprovoked and without the least malice on the part of dear Samwise, the ruffian beverage laid itself out on the poor computer, fouling the keyboard and screen. Amazingly enough, the prolem at hand had nothing to do with said assault. Instead, it was your typical day-to-day “Oh, God, I can’t take it anymore” hard drive failure. So, while fixing the hard drive issue, the good people at Apple made so bold as to fix everyting else (for a not-small donation to their cause on my part). So, here we are, fresh of screen, newborn of hard drive, and almost entirely lacking in any sense of how properly to behave as a laptop. I mean really. The amount of instruction you have to give computers these days in how to look and what to do is shameful. Hence the lag-time in w’blog entries. I’ve had to entirely retrain the pitiful creature in what software to run. So sad…

In any case, here we are. Refreshed, renewed, and ready for adventures.

Since we last spoke, a fair bit has gone on in the life of this sojourner in the land of Beer Distiribution Centers and the Amish.

Last saturday I had my first overnight in the hospital. The shift starts at 4:45pm and goes til 7:45 the next morning. With any luck, a good bit of that time is spent sleeping in the on-call room. In my case, “a good bit” has a rough value of “four and a half hours.” Nothing else of not having happened until then, at 2:30 in the morning I got a page to the Emergency Department (so much more than an ER). It turns out that a poor man had been mugged, and so I spent hte rest of the morning with his wife while we waited to find out how he was doing. All things considered, it was a good night. It was good to be able to be there for someone in such a hard time.

Other than that, CPE has been remarkably without incident. I’m still getting to be more comfortable with walking into strangers’ rooms to say “hi.” It’s not that complicated a procedure, and generally speaking they’re ahppy to see us, but nonetheless, all the intorverts out there can probably agree with me on the existential terror involved in such a project. It’s been nice to establish relationships with a few of my patients. For the most part my people seem to come and go, but there are a few who are sticking around. Likewise, I’m getting to know the nursing staff on my floors, which is good, since even if the patients come and go, the nurses remain. The other day I gave my opinion on a birdesmaid’s dress one of them was looking at on the interwebs that she was going to have to wear at a wedding (of all places!). It was actually decent, not one of these “make the bridesmaids look ugly so that the bride looks better” deals. In any event, it’s good to remember that nurses are just people, too, right?

For those keeping track at home, I’ve finished A Monstrous Regiment of Women and moved on to Ursula K. Le Guin’s new book Lavinia, which is about the wife of Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid. The jury is still out on this one, but I’m afraid my dedication to Le Guin will probably win out over my actual thoughts on the book. We’ll see…

Good gravy. Note to self: adjusting to time zone changes takes several days. The last few, since arriving here on thursday, I have allowed myself the luxury of late nights and mornings, which effectively kept me on California time. Now, nothing against you, California time, it’s just that right now I would rather not see you around. You know how it is. It’s a professional thing. Soo... this morning, I woke up at 6:00, which to my jet-plane-travel-addled body felt much more like 3:00, and so embarked on my first day of CPE with not precisely all cylinders firing…

That said, it was a remarkably good first day. I’m glad that they have done away with the “old style” CPE programs that, as Joe (our supervisor) put it, pushed you over the edge and then tried to catch you. I get the idea that there was little in the way of support, and a lot in the way of tough situations with patients, families, etc. White males beating up on white males as Joe continued. Now, in the sensitive and much more excellent 21st century, we have a more supportive and encouraging atmosphere in which to deal with probably more of the previously mentioned patients and families.

We spent the day mostly just getting to know one another, the hospital, and the program. The group of seven CPEers includes mostly Christians (one Jew), including one other Episcopalian. The others come from a variety of backgrounds, and it will be fun to see what all each of us brings to the table. I don’t really want to say much more about them, though, since they’re not here to defend themselves!

My initial nerves about the whole business seem largely to have quieted now that I’m actually in it. I’m not even really that nervous about my first overnight this coming Saturday. Generally, the program goes from 8:30am to 4:30pm, but 10 nights out of the summer we have to stay over, from 4:45pm to 7:45am. There’s an on-call room that we can use to try to catch some of the ever-ephemeral and coquettish Z’s that taunt us with their promises of rest, but, by all accounts, flee (and justly so) when the Duty Pager goes off. During the on-call overnights, the duty chaplain is the sole pastoral presence for the whole hostpital, especially for the ER (or ED [emergency department] as they prefer to be called). It’s no coincidence that they on-call room is right next to the ED. That, of course, is a story for sunday.

Other than working out our rota for on-call days and the rest, the first day went pretty quietly. I look forward to what tomorrow brings!

Meanwhile, I am so close to finishing Jane Eyre. Then, The Brief Wondrous Lofe of Oscar Wao. I had forgotten how nice it is to have plenty of time for pleasure reading. Summer for the win!

So last night I got to follow a fellow-shaplain around the hospital to see what he does of an evening. So far, it seems like what we do is walk! Walk walk walk! The hospital is spread out over several buildings, and so there is a great distance to be covered if one is called to the Neurology building from the CPE office.

As it turns out, last night the two most important things going on were happening in the same room. Two hispanic males with very large families were being taken off life support, and it wasn't until they were moved from the one room into separate rooms that anyone outside the families could keep them all straight.

This was my first look into hospital life, inasmuch as one sees great sadness. The families were very, very distraught, and to see such pain is to know that there is nothing anyone can do. As the chaplains, there was even less we could do, since the families were really large enough to take care of themselves. So, we just stayed around, being available.

So, there's nothing for it but to head on in. I'll probably have my first on-call this week, which means staying at the hospital from 4:45pm to 7:45am. More details on that when it happens.

Today, however, I'm going into town to do some sightseeing. I think I'll hit up the Philadelphia Museum of Art since it's supposed to rain.

It would appear that the time has come to keep one of the much-fabled and well-beloved w'blogs, or whatever the young people call them.

After nine hours of air travel (that would be a "direct" flight from San Diego, by way of Austin and Orlando), I arrived safe at the Philadelphia airport. Amazingly, all three landings were early by 20 minutes or more, which allowed we small faithful band of thru-fliers to stretch our legs and go off in hunter-gatherer bands to find sustenance beyond the meager provisionings of the Southwest Airlines flight crew. Man does not live on peanuts alone.

And so, after filling Carol and Randy (my wonderful godmother and the priest who baptized me) in on my general doings and thinkings, and catching a brief glimpse of the Stewart and the Colbert, I slept.

And now, on this last friday before the CPE begins, I'm getting ready to roll into Philly for my shadowing orientation. Having not spent much time in the world of hospitals (I've spent way more time in the hospitals of television than of the real world, thank you Dr. House), I'm a little apprehensive about what I'm getting myself into. I have some reassurance in that many others have gone before me in the world of CPE, but I nevertheless am a bit nervous. Hopefully some of that will be resolved after tonight, when I actually get to see what this whole business looks like.

Meanwhile, I chill here on Michigan Road, and play with Inky the cat.