They Kill Prophets

Her words have played over and over in my head in the week or so since I sat across from her.

"It seems that in this area, like so many others in your life, you are called to be 'other', to speak, to be a prophet calling out from the outside."

I cringe every time the words come back to me; each time they sink a bit more deeply into my reality.

There's a truth there, but one I'd rather avoid.

She is a trusted advisor that I've come to know over the last year and a bit.  She listened as I shared, as I thought out loud, and then she gently called me to task.

"I don't want to hear those words," I told her.

Tears sprang to life, unbidden, and it takes me a few moments to collect myself, to continue.

"I don't want to be other.  It's alienating.  It's deeply lonely, this living on the outside.  It hurts."

We talk about this for a while, and she tasks me with the job of remembering those who surround me even in this place.

And yet, as the week has played out, it is the truth, spoken again of being separate that has stuck with me.

It's that truth that makes me ache as I ponder various facets of my life - as I consider the places where my spirit is being challenged to expand, to grow.

And it leads again to the conversation Jesus and I have been having for many years.  The one where I stop and look at him, disgruntled, hurting, annoyed.  The one where I ask "This too?  I have to be different, to be other, to call from the outside in this facet too? I couldn't exist from within the boundaries on just this one?  It wasn't enough that I was already separate in all those other ways? You're asking this as well?  Sure, being a prophet is a noble gig, but you remember, they kill prophets!  It was you who pointed this out to the pharisees.  I don't want this."

And it is quiet.  And then I remember, I remember this Jesus who was isolated, whose dearest friends fell asleep in his moment of anguish.  I remember this Jesus who begged his Father for a different path, not in a resigned, "I guess I'll do it, but I'm just checking" sort of way, but with a fervor that caused blood vessels to burst, that caused droplets of blood where sweat should have been.

And my separation, my wrestle, my questions, they're still not sated.  But I am comforted by the reminder that this road is one I don't walk alone.

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 34

Today's Daily 5:

1. the chance to attend worship on campus this morning
2. a generous friend in the nursing field sharing a very helpful resource with me
3. sharing a mug of tea with a long-time friend/advisor, and having a chance to process just a bit out loud
4. a cat nap in the sun on the bus commute home
5. curling up with my books, in a warm corner, managing to accomplish some much procrastinated homework

Daily 5 - Year 4, Days 31, 32, & 33

Friday's Daily 5:

1. a helpful appointment with my doctor
2. watching the smile of my work client as we visited her former neighborhood
3. the kind stranger who covered our dinner bill at the local Chinese restaurant
4. a long hot shower at the end of a very full and busy day
5. sinking into my own bed, and knowing I didn't have an alarm to set

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. the first sleep-in morning all week
2. a quiet day spent puttering
3. the smell of freshly washed laundry
4. finding a good deal on an air purifier for my room, to hopefully pull the dust and cigarette smoke that are giving me such allergy trouble out of the air
5. a walk and coffee date with a friend who has already survived nursing school

Today's Daily 5:

1. a final morning training shift
2. celebrating my brother's birthday with family
3. texting back and forth with some school friends
4. crawling into my pajamas super early, and curling up in my comfy bed to do homework
5. late night scones, with melty butter

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 30

Today's Daily 5:

1. that Thursday is my last day of classes for the week
2. getting through an incredibly long day relatively intact
3. being greeted with a big smile from baby J.
4. starting to work through The Jesus Story Book Bible with our house church
5. a "dinosaur hug" goodnight from M.

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 29

Today's Daily 5:

1. quiet space to reflect on the train to the hospital this morning
2. an awesome nurse pairing again
3. getting to watch a minor surgical procedure that was done at the bedside
4. having some space on my own this afternoon to rest
5. having J. join me at my house (in my space!) for dinner and to hang out and do a bit of homework... so good to have a friend to sympathize about the nursing program with!

Daily 5 - Year 4, Days 27 & 28

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. my favorite seat on the bus to class
2. hanging out with a good friend at lunch
3. J. promising by text to hate life from afar with me, since we were both having crabby days, and we're not in the same classes to commiserate this semester
4. the unexpected chance to crash dinner at my parents and be served lasagna, garlic bread, salad, green beans, and peach crisp
5. managing to get to bed at a decent hour, since I had to get up super early the following morning

Today's Daily 5:

1. the stars that were still out at 5am
2. driving to mom and dad's in their car borrowed overnight, instead of walking half an hour to the train
3. smooth early morning train connections
4. a first "real" day on the unit that will probably stick in my mind and heart for quite a while
5. a therapy appointment that touched on some deep heart places

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 26

Today's Daily 5:

1. That my watch didn't die in the middle of the night, but waited until after the alarm woke me to finally kick the bucket
2. getting home safely from work after a crazy incident in which the bus I was taking was hit in a hit and run accident
3. doing all the necessary food prep and chopping to make healthy meals easy to prepare this week
4. a nice long walk outside as a study break
5. curling up into the softness of my new mattress to sleep for the night

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 25

Today's Daily 5:

1. Breakfast at Diner Deluxe with some wonderful out of town friends that I don't get to see nearly enough
2. a quiet afternoon at home, spent curled up on my soft new bed, tackling a stack of homework
3. finishing up the last of my errands for the week, so that other than work, tomorrow can be devoted to home stuff, and homework, and rest
4. laughing with a random stranger in line behind me, and the cashier at the grocery store (a highlight since it was at the soul-sucking megastore that I only shop at because it has the cheapest prices)
5. texting back and forth with several dear friends, all of whom live entirely too far away for me to be happy about it!

Daily 5 - Year 4, Days 23 & 24

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. discovering that for the first time in this program, the lecturers are really great (mostly anyway) this semester
2. an early morning moon
3. waking with a worship song playing in my mind
4. tropical green tea and a scone from Good Earth Cafe
5. Vietnamese take out for lunch
6. plug-ins for my laptop in all the lecture halls this semester
7. a lunch break yoga class
8. drunken pork chops for dinner (so thankful for the friend who made these)
9. little boy smiles, cuddles and hugs goodbye (even when they're dinosaur hugs!)
10. bread and cheese for house church snacks.  is there anything in the world quite so good?

Today's Daily 5:

1. skype date with H
2. getting a new mattress delivered
3. mom loaning me the car so I could accomplish a marathon length errand list more quickly
4. new phone!  iPhone 4S! super excited for a phone that runs much more quickly
5. crawling in between freshly washed sheets, wearing freshly washed pajamas, and enjoying the beauty of my new mattress and pillows!

Daily 5 - Year 4, Days 21 & 22

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. A quiet morning to prepare for the beginning of clinical
2. a smooth commute and attempt at finding the unit I'm assigned to this semester
3. surviving my first ever shift in a hospital
4. a long hot shower at mom and dad's before coming home at the end of the night
5. raspberry and white chocolate scones, baked in my toaster oven

Today's Daily 5:

1. the tasty, simple and healthy lunch I prepared before I headed off to the hospital
2. first hospital shift paired with a nurse (this nursing thing finally feels kind of real)
3. a really great nurse to work with for my shift
4. mom and dad loaning me a car to get home easily at the end of a long day
5. that I don't have to make the transit commute through sketchy neighborhoods alone - hurrah for other students who get to the hospital on the train!

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 20

Today's Daily 5:

1. flocks of starlings overhead, readying for migration
2. My TOMS for comfort
3. a pretty scarf
4. that it was at least daylight when I left for school
5. settling back into my commuting routine with one of Christianne's Sunday Cup of Quiet lectios
6. being greeted with a hug by a school friend
7. a welcome back pancake breakfast put on for free by the nursing faculty
8. surviving the first day of classes
9. the chance to attend a worship gathering hosted by a friend of mine on campus at lunch on Mondays
10. heading out for Ethiopian food for dinner with a friend and catching up on the month since our classes ended and we saw each other last.

Semester Re-entry

It's been lovely to take some time away from this space.  To focus simply on resting, and accomplishing the myriad of things that don't get tackled when school is in session.

To be honest, though, I'm not sure what coming back to this space is going to look like.  I'm still thinking and praying about what structure will work best for this space in the coming months, and about what sort of structure will work with my school schedule.

You see, this semester is the one in this program that has the reputation of being the most intensely challenging.  This is the moment where, after eight months of telling us we essentially aren't allowed to get near patients, they suddenly throw us in head first, and expect us to, well, know things!

My placement this semester is in the hospital that is the furthest away from where I live in the city, and I'll be rotating, two days a week, every other week, between day and evening shifts.

In the meantime, I also have two full days (8am-5pm) of on campus class time, and several hundred pages of assigned reading per week.  Plus assignments.  I piled my textbooks up the other day and took the picture that you can see here.  That is 9 inches of dense reading. (Actually, there are two other books, not shown, for a total of an extra couple inches).  Topics like pharmacology, physical assessment, and pathophysiology don't make for light reading.  It's going to be a school heavy kind of semester.

In the midst of that, I'll be continuing my part time job as a care aide, continuing to lead a small house church, and juggling all the stuff of day to day life.

And somewhere in there, this space, still so important to me, fits in.  I just haven't quite figured out how yet.  Other than the Daily 5, which will continue, I hope to be here between 2 and 3 times a week.  I know that I want to continue with Whimsical Wednesday, and that I'd like to continue writing posts 1 or 2 times a week, and that I want it to have some sort of regular schedule and rhythm to it, but I haven't figured out what that will look like yet.

A lot is riding on how this first week of school goes.  On how the kinks of placements and transportation and reading and life pan out.  On answers that will be gained in the coming days.

So, in the meantime, just know that I'm planning to be back here more often, and that if you're reading this on Monday, when it goes live, and it's between the hours of 8 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon (mountain time), I'm probably in class, getting some of the answers that will let me establish a rhythm to my life, and that once I have those answers, and have sorted out that rhythm, I'll let you know, and be back here on some sort of more consistent basis.

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 19

Today's Daily 5:

1. An early morning walk by the river, before my training shift
2. a smooth training shift for mornings (have I mentioned that I really appreciate the girl who trains me?)
3. a long hot shower
4. a day that was really very productive as I prepare for the return to school tomorrow
5. a super awesome supper, made in my own space (roasted zucchini and peppers, with a chicken apple sausage)

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 18

Today's Daily 5:

1. sleeping relatively restfully
2. coffee date and bookstore browsing hangout with J, a friend from school
3. a lazy afternoon in the sun, in my favorite chair at mom and dad's, reading
4. really good pasta for dinner
5. accomplishing grocery shopping and meal planning for the next week and a bit

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 17

Today's Daily 5:

1. a really productive day
2. a longish walk in the sunshine
3. finding reasons to laugh even amidst a relatively challenging work shift
4. brownie
5. the fun of marking several much procrastinated items off of my to do lists

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 16

Today's Daily 5:

1. a big mug of mango diablo green tea
2. safe places in which to process
3. a phone date with K that was filled with the kind of conversation that made me wish all over again that we lived closer
4. the comfort of a three year old body curled into mine, as he falls asleep on the couch
5. a conversation that went well, that left me in a place that feels doable going forward

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 15

Today's Daily 5:

1. a very low key kind of day
2. cuddles with my two favorite little boys
3. the hug and prayers of a friend at a meeting I attended tonight
4. finding reasons to laugh over certain moments of awkwardness
5. chocolate.  today was definitely a day where chocolate was both necessary and a reason to smile.

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 14

Today's Daily 5:

1. Coffee with E.
2. texting and facebook laughter with K.
3. imagining what the people in Starbucks who might have overheard the VERY varied odd topics of conversation that E and I covered might have been thinking!
4. using my toaster oven to prepare REAL food in my own space
5. shopping for (and ordering) a new mattress - hello and welcome, my soft and comfortable new friend, I'm very much looking forward to your arrival
6. a big mug of tea mid-afternoon when I was cold
7. getting the news that I'll get the chance to have breakfast with another good friend when they're in town next week
8. quiet time spent reading this morning
9. an unexpected phone call from L. and the chance to catch up
10. a successful day on the eating healthy and caring for my body front

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 13

Today's Daily 5:

1. blueberry muffin
2. feeling comfortable setting a boundary
3. walking by the river with my audiobook playing
4. cookie dough dip as a treat at the end of the night
5. sinking into bed with a book, to end the day by reading

Daily 5 - Year 4, Day 12

Today's Daily 5:

1. sleeping late
2. a day with lots of space for quiet reflection, aided by reading and some videos a dear friend linked to
3. celebrating my sister-in-law and my birthdays (belatedly) with our family
4. much laughter
5. answering queries about how it's possible that blogging can have lead to deep and important friendships

Daily 5 - Year 4, Days 10 & 11

Yesterday's Daily 5:

1. spotting a funny little car, bright yellow, putt putting down the road in such a manner that I burst out laughing
2. a successful quest
3. my mom generously sharing her car with me
4. a hot shower, scrubbing the skin that was flaking as my sunburn peels a little
5. the satisfaction of accomplishing a great deal of cleaning and organizing that's been ignored for months

Today's Daily 5:

1. slow and lazy morning
2. finishing up a few last cleaning, organizing and purging tasks
3. a long walk at dusk, listening to an audio book
4. making a new recipe
5. fresh nectarines