Alumni
CPE started at Cherokee Mental Health Insititute (CMHI) in 1967 with the first class graduating in 1968. Since then over 400 students have been trained. For the first 32 years, students visited residents at CMHI as part of their practicum. In recent years, the Ecumenical Institute has become a community based program such that the students do their practicum work in the community. There have been increasingly more lay people training along with the pastors. Students come from many walks of life including social work, nursing, hospice, pastoral care in the church and many occupations where people want to combine their faith with their work. There is a wide variety of ages and denominational backgrounds. Diversity is welcomed and provides a rich learning environment.
If you are an alumni and would like contact information for other students, please contact Karen Borchers at karen@ecumenicalinstitute.org.
PRAYING OUR WAITING
This article is written by Cary Brown, CPE Class of 2004. She is Director of Faith Formation at St. Mary's Church, Storm Lake, IA. As she wrote this, she was waiting for medical results. An ex-cerpt was in the Spring 2009 newsletter article.
The reality of waiting is huge in our lives!
There are the small everyday waitings, such as waiting in the Doctor's office, waiting in line in the store, waiting at a traffic light or stop sign or in congested traffic. We wait for the computer to function. When we leave a phone message or send an e-mail or a text message, we wait for a response. There is nothing like the excited waiting for a concert or a movie or children's program to begin. We wait for the news at night or for our favorite tv program. We wait for a meeting to start.
And then there is the waiting within the family - we wait to use the bathroom. We wait for a meal to be served. How often do we have to wait to use whatever because someone else in the family is using it - the phone, the computer, the remote.... Especially on a Saturday morning we may have to wait for someone to wake up or wait for someone to finish doing what they are doing before they can help us or join us.
Some of our waiting are so wrapped up in our relationships. Waiting for an anticipated visit from a family member or a good friend is full of preparation and excitement! We wait for all kinds of homecomings. When there has been a break or weakening of a relationship, we wait for reconciliation and healing of those wounds. We wait eagerly for time to talk with a loved one.
Excited waitings for special events are fun waitings! Most of us love the anticipation and ex-cited waiting for the Holidays and other seasonal celebrations. A lot of the fun of a trip is the getting ready - the waiting - the preparation - the anticipation! A child waits for their birthday to celebrate. Couples celebrate the anniversary of the public declaration of their love for each other.
And then there are the BIG waitings - the waiting impatiently for your wedding day, the waiting of pregnancy for the baby to be born, waiting for test results that could turn your world upside down, waiting for death - that of a loved one or your own.... Those are the waitings that con-sume us and can change our lives dramatically.
We spend a lot of time waiting spiritually also... We wait for the answer to prayers. Sometimes that waiting is hard and long. It means waiting for God's timing - especially when it's some-thing we want right now! A friend told me that God answers our prayers in one of 3 ways: "Yes", "No", or "I have something better for you."
The real grace is in recognizing his answer! It's like the story of the man who was warned of a flood coming. He prayed and prayed for God to take care of him. The police came to his door telling him to evacuate. He told them he was fine, God was taking care of him. The water came up and was at his doorstep. A boat came by and offered to take him to higher ground. He told them he was fine, God was taking care of him. Water came in the house and he soon found himself on the roof. A helicopter came by and lowered a basket for him. He told them he was fine, God was taking care of him. The water swept the house away and the man drowned. At his death he met God face to face and was so angry!! "I prayed and prayed for you to take care of me! Why didn't you?" God answered, "I sent you a warning through the police, I sent a boat to take you to higher ground. I sent a helicopter to rescue you. What more do you want?" We can't get so set in our expectations that we miss it when he does answer our prayers in unanticipated ways!
Spiritually we wait for forgiveness. When we have hurt another - a spouse, a family member, a good friend - and we have told them we are sorry and asked for their forgiveness, it's hard to wait for them to get to the point where they can forgive us, especially if it is a deep wound. It's a slippery slope to getting angry at them for not forgiving us. Waiting for forgiveness is hard. Loving the other through that waiting is praying the waiting.
Waiting to forgive ourselves is another rough one. We can be very masochistic and hang on to the guilt and anger at ourselves and beat ourselves up with our list of things we've done wrong. That is NOT what God wants for us! Waiting for ourselves to let go of those things can be so very hard.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a spiritual desert where there is no spiritual consolation, no felt connection in prayer. Sometimes even no peace in our hearts and God seems so very far away. Waiting through that desert time can be so lonely.
Or maybe we are waiting like the Father of the Prodigal Son. A child, a spouse, a friend has hurt us deeply and now we wait for them to return to the relationship. How do we pray that waiting? Can I wait patiently and yet eagerly - letting them come to us in their own time and yet be willing to run down the road to meet them? Can I pray the waiting so there is no question of forgiveness on my part when they do appear on the horizon? Can I pray the waiting so all I can think about is throwing a party instead of punishing them?
How do we wait?
Waiting can be a near occasion of sin or a near occasion of grace.
We can fill our time of waiting, however long or short, for whatever great or small event, with frustration and impatience. We can snap and snarl at those around us, those causing the delay, or those who just happen to be 'in the way' and have nothing to do with your waiting. We can let our waiting fill us with negative feelings, all stemming from "I want what I want, when I want it, as I want it." We leave no room for compassion or understanding for the people who are in the 'chain of waiting' ahead of us.
When we don't get called back to see our doctor at our appointment time and we snap and snarl about it, we've left no room for compassion or understanding for the person ahead of us who has just been told they have a life-threatening disease or for the doctor who took a few extra minutes to sit with them.
When the check-out person chats for a couple of seconds with a customer ahead of us and we feel that tension rise inside us, we've left no room for compassion or understanding for that person who just recently lost their spouse and is so hungry for conversation, anything to take their mind off the pain that fills them. Just a few sentences with the check-out person, even if they are a stranger, helps so much....
When the person who called the meeting isn't there when it's time to start and we grumble and complain, we've left no room for compassion or understanding for that person who just had to lay off several employees because of the economy and it didn't go well.
We snap and snarl when our spouse and children don't come to the table immediately when called. We've left no room for compassion or understanding for the interaction and 'family' that is happening between them as they finish the game that they are so involved in.
We get really irritated when a friend is late to lunch with us. We've left no room for compas-sion or understanding for the phone call that came right before they left the office or the emer-gency call from school saying their child forgot something important or for those hurt in the accident that happened right in front of your friend....
What is more important? - the giving of compassion and understanding in the midst of not knowing the circumstances - or MY schedule, MY time, MY plan, MY wants?
Look at the energy we waste! Look at what we do to our own bodies by getting so worked up! Look at the invitation from God that we ignore!
What invitation?
How do we turn that waiting into a near occasion of grace?
Waiting gives us an invitation to notice, to see, to appreciate what is sharing our immediate world with us. Waiting in an office or standing in a line - notice the people around you.
If you are in a doctor's office, what is wrong that has brought them here? What fear sits in their hearts? What burdens are they facing? What news awaits them beyond those doors in the doctor's office?
If you are standing in line at the grocery store, what kind of a day is the checker experiencing? How many customers have been rude to him/her? What has been happening at home, what burdens are they carrying? What excitement fills them? What about the other people standing in line with you? Are they late for something, making other people wait for them? What is waiting for them when they get home? Is there a family who loves them or a family full of ten-sion or do they live all alone? Do they have a job or have they lost it in this economy? What is God doing inside of them - or are they fighting the God who loves them?
If you are waiting at a traffic light, is the sun shining or is it cloudy? Is it raining, washing all the winter grime away - or snowing and covering all the dirt with new? Are the trees bare, lifting their bare arms in praise of God or budding out in the spring with new life or full of the green-ness and vitality of summer or vibrant with the colors of fall? Someone took a lot of trouble to plant that flowerbed that you are looking right past as you wait frustrated and impatient. Those flowers were planted to make your life a little more beautiful - have you missed it? What sounds do you hear? The wind, the birds, children laughing, music, silence - such wonderful gifts from the God who loves us!
What a wonderful time to take a deep breath and just relax a little. You hate that your days are so busy that you don't get time to slow down. God's helping you with that desire! Here is a perfect opportunity/invitation to slow down, to breathe, to relax a little. Things are out of your control for this immediate moment - no sense in ranting and raving or snarling and snapping. Take a deep breath and quiet your insides. Find God there instead of burying him with your an-ger and frustration.
We wait for so many things - but seldom take the time to enjoy the anticipation. When I am going to visit a good friend, I can get frustrated and impatient with the traffic ahead of me or I can sit back and enjoy the excitement of getting to spend time with him/her and thanking God for their presence in my life and the gifts they are to me.
Faith Hill has a song "Breathe" that can be very holy when thought of in terms of a relationship with God. "I can feel you breathe, just breathe." When we take those few moments of waiting and just breathe, it becomes prayer. We breathe in God - all of his love for us, his patience, his understanding and compassion, his peace. At first we breathe out all the tension, the frustra-tion, the anger, the impatience. Eventually we get to breathing in God and breathing out God, sharing this air He gifts to us with all those around us.... And we become God's people, no mat-ter who we are, how we are, what we are.... sharing God's breath. We see those around us with God's eyes.
Praying the Waiting
When I can become one of God's people with those around me, then praying naturally follows. I asked a friend of mine to pray for me and her response was: "Of course I will - You are now my 'stop light person'." When I asked what that meant, she responded that every time she gets stopped at a stop light or stop sign from now on she will pray for me. Wow! She heard the in-vitation from God to pray the waiting.
When you are aware of those waiting with you, God gives you the invitation to pray for them. Maybe the person next to me has a foul odor- maybe their life is so hard right now there is no energy or will or time to take care of themselves - or maybe they have just come from their job. Maybe the person ahead of me shuffles along so slowly - maybe they are so in pain that's as fast as they can move and it is costing them all their energy to do that much. We don't know the burdens others carry - or what our short praying the waiting can do for them. Who prays for them if we don't?
Praying your waiting physically
How you physically pray your waiting depends on where you are. In the short term, everyday waiting, it's relatively short and internal.
When you have a longer waiting to pray, your body can help you. Praying with open hands as a symbol or enactment of internal attitude can really help. Whether you sit with your hands open in your lap or raise them slightly with palms up, that gesture speaks to each of us. Open hands means you are giving - giving of the circumstance and what it entails to God - or of letting go of trying to control it and letting God take over.
Open hands is also a gesture of receiving - a way of saying to God that you are ready to receive the gifts He wants to give you. You are ready for His presence in the midst of the waiting. You are ready to receive whatever it is He wants to do within you.
Open hands is a gesture of openness. Being open to God and his presence in the midst of eve-rything is praying the waiting.... Being invited to pray the waiting is such a gift. Don't miss it.
We don't pray alone - especially in the long waitings - God waits with us, through us and within us.
Jesus waited
Waited to be born in Mary's womb
Waited to grow up
Waited to begin public life
Waited in the desert for 40 days
Waited for his ministry to unfold
Waited for his trial
Waited for death
Waited for resurrection
Waited for ascension
Waits for each of us/me
He understands waiting....
Going deeper....
The longer the waiting, the harder it is to keep our eyes on God, the harder it is to pray the waiting. Like Peter when Jesus invited him to walk on water (Matthew 14:28-33), we have a tendency to sink when we notice the wind of fears and frustration - when we take our eyes off God and see only ourselves.
Praying the waiting then becomes a prayer of the presence of God - deeply intense, deeply personal, deeply intimate. It goes beyond noticing God to sitting with God.
Scriptures
JB - from the Jerusalem Bible NRSV - from the New Revised Standard Version
Gen 8:6-16 At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it and brought it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him any more. (NRSV)
Ps 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! (NRSV)
Ps 37:7 Stay quiet before Yahweh, wait longingly for him. (JB)
Ps 40:1 I waited, waited for the Lord, then he stooped to me and heard my cry for help. (JB)
Is 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord will regain their strength, they will sprout wings like eagles, though they run they will not grow weary, though they walk they will never tire. (JB)
Is 30:18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mer-cy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (NRSV)
Acts 1:4 While at table with them, (Jesus) had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. (JB)
Romans 8:25 But having this hope for what we cannot yet see, we are able to wait for it with persevering confidence. (JB)
2 Peter 3:14 So then, my dear friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live blameless and unsullied lives so that he will find you at peace. (JB)
Luke 8:40 On his return Jesus was welcomed by the crowd, for they were all there waiting for him. (JB)
Luke 12:36 Be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks. (JB)
Luke 15:20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. (The father was waiting for the son to return) (NRSV)