June 26, 2009

• my life…redux

  Two years have past since my last post.

  No, I’m not dead but I’ve felt like it quite a few times. The summer of 2007 was perhaps the most difficult summer of my life — too much growth, too much work… I served as a chaplain intern at an Episcopal hospital in Far Rockaway. I worked in the ER department, the various clinics, ICU, CCU, and OB/GYN/Maternity. I met people, all kinds of people, talked to many of them, some for a long time, some just in passing. I learned an awful lot about myself, and I’m not sure which was harder to face, the situations of those in hospital or the things I learned about myself. The commute was 1-1/2 hours each way, the hours were 8 hours per day/5 days per week, there was theory as well as practical application, and 1 day out of the 5 was spent at a nursing home in Bensonhurst. I still worked on Sundays at St. Luke’s in the Fields, so the only time I saw DJ was on Saturday, and not every week at that…

  Then my final year at seminary began. I took a course, Being a Christian Minority in an Islamic Majority, taught by the Bishop of the Diocese of Peshwar (Pakistan), and found myself immersed in Islam, Islamic law, and Islamic culture. I even wrote my master’s thesis on the plight of women living under shari’a law as practiced in the world today. I was supposed to spend January in Peshwar, but the assassination of Benazir Buhhto changed that. I graduated, with honors, in May 2008 and now have my MDiv.

  DJ and I moved completely across the country and are now on the Left Coast. I was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood six months ago.

  What a long strange trip it’s been…
  

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