The commotion in my universe and campus ministry ate up a huge part of my life - wow, it's been over two years since I wrote. That's scary weird! To catch up on a bit of what's been going on, you could check my blog that I write for The Lutheran online magazine. The full text of the Invocation is posted there.
So, we had this LCM Quadrennial Review on October 30-31 and then I had to go to a Lutheran Campus Ministry of MN (LCM-MN) Board meeting in Duluth, MN. I barely had time to catch my breath, sleep and re-group before heading up to the Iron Range on Friday, November, 2nd.
"It’s official. My life is surreal." I can totally relate to my United Methodist campus pastor friend, Roger Wolsey. The night before I was to leave for Duluth, Roger says: "before I knew it, a 'voice of God' announcement rang out through the P.A. system saying, 'And now, to give the prayer of invocation, Pastor Roger Wolsey'… I took a deep breath, walked onto a red-carpeted stage, and prayed before a crowd of 10,000 people (easily 8-9,000 more than I’ve ever spoken in front of before)." With that he ascended the stage and offered the Invocation before President Obama gave a speech before a fired up crowd in Boulder, CO.
The day after Roger had his amazing moment of invocation-grace, I was sitting in an executive committee meeting of the LCM-MN Board. My phone, set on silent, lit up. It was a call from an unknown number. "Let it go to voicemail," I thought, "I can check the message later."
I was sort of zoning. Paying attention in the meeting, chiming in when need be. But, honestly - I was tired. It's no secret that these are not my favorite meetings. No offense to my colleagues and the great people who serve as LCM-MN Board members from across Minnesota, but it's just not that much fun hearing about how we don't really have enough money to support all the LCM sites to the fullest of our abilities. But, I digress.
So, after taking a little break, I headed to our next meeting when all the campus pastors and other folks would be there for the full board meeting. My friend, Lynn Rae Olson, who is the University Lutheran Church of the Epiphany Council's Co-chair as well as the LCM-SCSU Campus Ministry Team Chair, was also present as a member of the LCM-MN Board. She went off for a bit of a break. I checked my messages in a random hallway. I often think that messages from unknown numbers might be emergencies. I listened patiently. It was no emergency, that's good.
"Hi, this is Scott Cooper calling for Jayne Thompson, I got your number from Tarryl Clark. I'm with the Obama campaign and we're doing a special event in Sunday, on Sunday, ah, with President Bill Clinton in the evening..."
"Event Sunday. Bill Clinton..." What?
Wait. What? My mind went to - jumping up and down, middle-school teenager flip-flops -
Grown up me is calm-ish. I listen.
"We haven't announced it publicly yet, which is why you haven't heard about it but, um...we were looking for someone to do the Invocation for the event and she suggested you would be a great person to do that for a variety of reasons, um so I would love to talk to you about that."
He continued on about giving me his number....which I just totally didn't hear because I was giddy with excitement (understatement...what does one do and how does one respond in times like these!?).
I knew that my phone would remember the number, so I hit "call" and I was calling Scott, the nice man who was inviting me to pray when President Clinton was at Saint Cloud State University!
"This is Pastor Jayne, calling for Scott..." Then Scott explained that they wanted me to pray and that if I was willing to do this, I would need to submit information to the Obama for America folks so that they could do their proper vetting. "I would be delighted and honored," I heard my calm voice say. Inside I was turning hand-springs, though it was my sister who could do those on the gymnastic mat. I could do only do flips the on the trampoline. My friend, Roger, said: "After nearly shooting chocolate milk out my nose in my booth at IHOP, and regaining at least some degree of composure, I said, “I would be absolutely honored! How long would you like it to be?" Scott told me I could have about three minutes and he would give me more details as they were available.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh --- ah! The amazed-by-wonder, who-would-believe-it, exuberant young person is yelling inside of me! Barely able to contain myself, I try to find Lynn Rae. Seeing her in the hallway I restrained a shriek and said, LYNN RAE - COME HERE!" She thought someone was dead or that we had an emergency in our congregation. Wide-eyed, she rushed forward, "What is it?"
I splurted out the news, trying to contain myself - she went bonkers...trying to contain herself. Then, we had to go to worship. Try focusing on wonderful worship when you have just received an unimaginable invitation. No sitting or former United States President has ever spoken at Saint Cloud State University, I later discovered. This was a big deal! Pastor Doug was preaching a great homily about the All Saints' Day prayer, "Loving God, you have knit your people together in one communion…" It was wonderful. I will use some of his images, I decided.
In the meeting as we went around the circle telling who we were, where we are from and such, I was just - stunned. I didn't have any chocolate milk to snort out my nose, I just had boring coffee in the midst of needing to be professional and subdued...Minnesota Lutheran. I'm still not sure that those around our circle at the meeting comprehended the gravity or the weight of what I was saying. There were no gasps, no shouts of glee, no quips of "omigosh," just Minnesota smiles.
The meeting goes on, I submit my information to Scott and start thinking about the Invocation. I called Jack, my spouse, somewhere in the midst of the commotion. He is happy and stunned as well.
The rest is a flurry. I returned to Saint Cloud. Jack and I checked in with the Atwood staff. The event was to be held in the Ballroom which will hold 1,100. They were told to expect about 500. I am skeptical that will be sufficient to hold the crowd, but I can't tell them that.
I have this inspiration that I will knit President Clinton a scarf. Jack doesn't know this. "Please, take me to JoAnn's, I need some yarn." Who the heck thinks like this? I haven't yet written the Invocation, yet I am already planning to knit a huge scarf! We go home and I write the draft of my Invocation and send it to Scott. They need to review it in order to make sure that the prayer-person doesn't pray something that is just ridiculous. It's mid-evening on November 3 and I still can't tell folks publicly that I am doing the Invocation. Knit, knit, knit...I knit furiously and wait for the word.
Saturday evening, 9:54 pm - Done! Scott shares the word that I am good to go and wonders if I know anyone who can sing the National Anthem? Wow - another opportunity! I share information with him. The next day they will have vetted Heaven Leonard, a LCM student friend of mine! She is excited! I am still stunned. We all prepare. I keep knitting until Jack tells me to stop after trying the scarf on while still on the needles. It hangs almost to his shins. Jack exclaims, "My God, Jayne, he's not a giant!"
We have to leave for Atwood.
Arriving at the Atwood Student Center, I am ready. I am calm and confident. This is my turf and where Lutheran Campus Ministry has worship every Sunday at 6:00 pm in the Alumni Room. We kept our reservation for the room and I have planned to be in there to pray and prepare for the event. There are huge lines already snaking around the outside of the building when we arrive 5:00. I have made sure that my family is on the list to enter and am hoping that others connected to our campus ministry congregation might be able to get in as well. There were no guarantees.
As I was instructed, I went to check in at table "A" to finally meet Scott Cooper and get instructions of where to be and when. He smiled warmly as we met, introduced me to another nice man who said, "Please be back here at 6:35. Then we'll take you back and your family will go to a designated spot in the ballroom." Alrighty then! And with that my group made its way to the Alumni Room weaving our way through the throngs of students, townspeople and folks of every nationality, race, creed and religion. They were sitting on the floor in the long line that doubled back and forth in the hallway outside the Alumni Room. Students sat with laptops and homework. Others got to know one another chatting as they waited for hours.
In the sanctuary of the Alumni Room, I prepared, read the Invocation to myself over and over.
Family and friends took candid and sometimes funny photos of me as I rehearsed.
There is the scarf that I knit so ferociously. I am ready to go, though at this point I don't realize that there is a pattern to that scarf! At 6:30 we leave the Alumni Room to converge at table "A." Upon checking it a table "A" again, in an organized yet friendly manner, each one of us who had a special role in the evening's event were escorted back to a holding room complete with a wall draped with a black curtain and the US flag and the MN flag. This is where selected folks would come for a photo-op with President Clinton before he took to the stage. While in this area I chatted with SCSU's President Potter and his wife, young adult campaign organizers, other state legislators and their families and nice guests who must have done amazing things and somehow knew President Clinton. Heaven Leonard, my student who was singing the National Anthem, was a smidgen nervous (well, who wouldn't be if at age 20 you were asked to sing at this cool event?!). She was wondering if she was going to be able to warm up.
"Heaven, come with me," I said softly as we walked to the back corner of the black-curtained flag room. With my back to the wall so that it would buffer the sound and Heaven facing me I said, "Sing it to me." She sang the entire anthem beautifully, a bit trembly, but she sang her jitters out. When she finished we realized that everyone in the room was silent.
"That was wonderful," whispered President Potter's wife smiling, "We just got a preview."
I hugged her and told her she was going to be fine. She was beaming.
Meanwhile, Jack, Katrina and other members of my campus ministry group were ushered into the ballroom. Jack and Katrina had VIP clearance and seating as my family members. I had no idea where they were sitting until I joined them in the audience after the Invocation. Heaven, Tom Codet, who was leading the Pledge of Allegiance, and I were guided to this darkened, black curtained room to the side of the stage. There we chatted, asked the Mr. Efficient organizer-man, Adam, questions when he wasn't talking to others on his earbud headphone. We walked in and out of our dark room, wandered the hall - but not too far because we didn't want them to flip out thinking we were lost. There were Secret Service and law enforcement folks everywhere we turned.
The ballroom was rocking with videos and shouts from the crowd. Jack snapped this photo of my chair next to President Potter's. I never did sit in it, but it was fun to see it.
Tom snapped this photo of Heaven and I in the dark room as we waited.
Unbeknownst to us, President Clinton was talking to the people outside.
"Eleven minutes," Adam announced as he directed some random tech person to cue up another video. We all start pacing. Heaven is singing to herself. Tom recites the Pledge. Holding that huge scarf and my notes, I pray. The activity picks up in our dark-curtained room. Adam instructs the young man who will be doing the Voice of God announcing, gives him his script. He practices to himself as well. Senator Al Franken and entourage arrive, we hear tell that Jim Graves, who will introduce the President is on his way. There is a delay, we hear, because the crowd still standing in lines outside is too big to put into Ritsche Auditorium, the overflow site. The Atwood staff was told to prepare for around 500. When it was all said and done, my guess is that there were over 5,000 who came to see Bill Clinton. Many weren't counted at the end since they turned away earlier to return home when it was clear that they wouldn't be able to get inside and didn't want to keep standing in the darkness.
It's showtime! Voice of God announces the Pledge. We all stand in the dark, hands over our hearts and face the direction of a flag we cannot see. Heaven sings, the crowd sings with her and she sounds stronger and stronger as they sing along. We sing along, too. Adam instructs Voice of God guy to hold off announcing me because he has to lower the podium mic for me. I am amused. This is always the challenge of speaking at events with a standard podium and no way for me to step up so that I don't vanish behind it. As he lowers the mic, I smile. The folks out in the crowd will know that I'm up next. My daughter, who was directly in front of the podium on the black-curtained fence told me later that someone behind her said, "Oh, there must be a child coming out to speak." The Voice of God rang out.
"And here tonight to give the prayer of Invocation is Pastor Jayne Thompson!"
And off I went up the stairs.
Here's the video, with some photos, that my daughter took of the Invocation.
Katrina snapped this great photo of President Clinton, she had the best spot in the house!
This is President Clinton's full speech.
After I was done, we waited to be escorted to our places in the audience to watch Emily, the DFL field office worker, Al Franken, Jim Graves and President Bill Clinton. Before the President was finished, though, the event folks came to fetch me, Heaven and Tom. As promised, we were going to get to meet President Clinton and have our photos taken with him. We waited somewhat patiently. Heaven was startled and her heart jumped every time the door opened behind her. I got the very serious Secret Service guy, who was the most stern looking one up front to the left when the President took the stage, to almost smile and he talked to me briefly. My hands were getting sweaty because I had been holding the gi-normous "neck blanket" scarf in hopes of actually giving it to the President. Then, he appeared!
Scott Cooper is on the far left of the photo. President Clinton begins to thank all the Obama campaign field organizers from Saint Cloud.
Then he stood for a photo with them, my group is next!
Tom looks bashful, but really he was just looking down at the wrong moment.
Not to worry, there's another photo of Tom smiling!
So, after knitting this scarf frantically beginning on Saturday evening after I wrote the draft of my Invocation and sent it in for vetting, carrying it with me for hours, when President Clinton came to me to shake my hand, I finally got to say, "Mr. President, it's wonderful to meet you. On behalf of the Saint Cloud State community, I knit you this scarf for the rest of your travels." He grins broadly and immediately takes it and puts it over his neck (yes, it is kind of long, even on him). Then he said, "If I were a minister I would wear it like this" (with the ends hanging down evenly) "but I think I'll wear it like this" (tossing one end over his shoulder). We laughed at him and I said, "I know that you have many more of these speeches to go and in the past, I know your voice can get hoarse, so I wanted you to have this to warm your throat for the rest of your travels and know that our prayers are with you."
He smiled, nodded and graciously said, "Thank you."
And with that he moved to the Atwood staff group assembled for their photo-op.
Note the small tag I sewed onto the scarf.
It says: "Created with care and with prayer by PJ - Pastor Jayne"
Later on while I was with my family and some friends getting a bite to eat and reflecting on this amazing night, I received an email from Scott Cooper.
"FYI, when he [President Clinton] left the building tonight he had the scarf draped around his neck!"
That made me very happy and it was a perfect ending to a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Yesterday I met with a young man who is a Lutheran student studying theology at Saint John's University. He wanted to meet up and to talk about campus ministry. In the course of our visit, he said that one of his friends took a photo of Bill and that he was wearing that red and black scarf! Hopefully, I'll be able to add that photo to this blog post soon.
To bring this all home to Lutheran Campus Ministry in a round about sort of way, I'll circle back to our Quad Review. In the midst of the review conversations, my friend and former MN Senator, Tarryl Clark, was among those who gladly came to share her support and enthusiasm for LCM. During one of the breaks, Pastor Herb Palmer who was leading the team was walking and chatting with me. He asked kindly and perhaps with a bit of puzzlement in his voice, "And just how is it that Senator Clark is connected with your campus ministry?" I smiled and quipped, "She just loves us! She loves college students. She's a member of Saint John's Episcopal Church here in town, the group that owned our building before the Lutherans bought it. She was so glad when I came to town and saw us actually reaching out to the students."
Tarryl and I have shared leadership at events on our campus during Coming Out Week in support of the LGBT students. We have a friendship that has grown over the years as she adores Jack's artwork and we see each other at events around town. When she was asked who could give the Invocation, she recommended me because she knows me and our work with SCSU. It was no accident or haphazard thing. It was born out of a lasting friendship and shared love for college ministry.
It was a great honor for me, to be sure. But it was more than that. It was a witness to the the long, enduring commitment of Lutherans to journey alongside of our public colleges and universities. On that November 4th, All Saints' Sunday, it was a tribute to those saints who decided to plant the seeds for LCM in Saint Cloud long ago in 1956, the year before I was born. It's important that we keep doing this - I say this a lot - feeling like the proverbial but archaically outdated broken record. Campus ministry is essential, not so that people like me can have jobs, though this truly is my gift and my calling. It's so that we are present, that we show up and add our blessings and esteem to those who are in that place of public higher education. As trusted campus ministry companions and partners with our university friends, we may be invited to pray in times of great sorrow, when a student suddenly dies by suicide or tragic accident or when there's a huge, public event that seems like it needs a prayer-person.
And maybe, just maybe when a former President of the United States of America comes to your campus for the first-time ever, you just might be the one invited to bring the prayers for all of the people gathered. You might be able to bring a word of grace and peace and announce the love of God for all those gathered. You might be the one to offer a prayer with those who have never prayed in their lives.
It came to pass that I had that opportunity and for that, I am so deeply grateful for my faith, my ministry and my calling to be a Lutheran Campus Pastor.
President Clinton and "the scarf" with Dan Wolgamott,
Field Organizer at the MN House of Representatives DFL Caucus
