The Camp Fire Girl Returns to Work...

Three weeks of Continuing Education after five years of ministry at University Lutheran Church of the Epiphany/Lutheran Campus Ministry...wow! I had taken five days in May 2008 at the Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis - I loved that! But the time was long overdue...I could feel it in my bones. Pastors are granted two weeks and two Sundays each year for their Continuing Education. A pastor can roll the weeks into other years as the weeks accumulate. It was wonderful to be a student again. I love that, too.

I haven't even been back for a week. Upon my return last on June 22, I learned that there were kerfuffles at my work...interpersonal upsets. So, I set to work on trying to resolve some of the mix ups. This made me weary right away. Sigh. Too much drama is just too much, even for a Drama Therapist!

Speaking of Drama Therapists, did I mention that I was informed by my advisor and friend, Sally Bailey, that upon completion of the Creative Arts Therapies class and the Sociodrama class, I will have all the necessary requirements completed to make my application as a Registered Drama Therapist! This is amazing to me and I was thrilled to learn of this great news!

In answer to the question, What is Drama Therapy?, The FAQ page says: Drama therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to achieve therapeutic goals. Drama therapy is active and experiential. This approach can provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis. Through drama, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced. Participants can expand their repertoire of dramatic roles to find that their own life roles have been strengthened.

If you're wondering what does a Drama Therapist do?, A drama therapist first assesses a client's needs and then considers approaches that might best meet those needs. Drama therapy can take many forms depending on individual and group needs, skill and ability levels, interests, and therapeutic goals. Processes and techniques may include improvisation, theater games, storytelling, and enactment. Many drama therapists make use of text, performance, or ritual to enrich the therapeutic and creative process. The theoretical foundation of drama therapy lies in drama, theater, psychology, psychotherapy, anthropology, play, and interactive and creative processes.

So, there you have it. Drama Therapy was recognized in 1979, the year I graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa with degrees in Religion and Psychology. I had been doing the things that I later learned that Drama Therapists have been doing all throughout my ministry. I was inspired to do this by my Religion professor, R. Simon Hanson. He taught Introduction to the Old Testament and he sang, danced and acted out the stories of scripture in class! I had never seen anyone do that before and I loved it! To my creative mind, it seemed to make the stories easier to remember. I've used drama and creative arts in my ministry with children, youth, young adults, older adults and many other groups of people.

When I got to K-State and heard there was this professor who was teaching something called, Drama Therapy. I was intrigued. I had come to experience and create for others, healing moments and encouters in the aforementioned activities and also in worship. So, after much cajoling by my friend and professor, "Doc" Norman Fedder, I registered for the graduate program in Theater with an emphasis in Drama Therapy. I took one class a semester, as per the Lutheran Campus Ministry guidelines for staff in degree programs while working full time.

I took me five years to complete the degree and I graduated in December of 2002 with a Masters in Theatre. At the end of my program I presented my Master's project: I wrote, co-directed and performed in my one-woman show, a comedic auto-drama, called FROCKED! It was one of the hardest things I've ever done! I had to rehearse by myself in the haunted Purple Masque Theatre at K-State, reciting my lines over and over to empty chairs. I felt silly and wondered why I ever thought that this would be fun. I memorized over an hour and a half of monologue complete with movement, blocking, actions, power-point projections, music and singing.

Now, as I'm at the end of my certification for Drama Therapy and on the threshold of new adventures, I started thinking about more ways to use my gifts, skills and commitment to the healing power of drama. One of my classes requires us to write a "fictitious" grant request. I thought about the Lilly Endowment foundation that provides grants for various religious purposes so I check the site out to learn if one of their programs might work. I was amazed again.

The Lilly Endowment for Religion sponsors a National Clergy Renewal Program. This program recognizes the importance and necessity for busy pastors to have an opportunity to take an extended break for renewal and refreshment. Usually we call this a Sabbatical Time. Their description of the life and work of a pastor gave me pause for reflection:

At the center of the congregation is the pastor. Spiritual guide, scholar, counselor, preacher, administrator, confidant, teacher, pastoral visitor and friend, a pastor has a privileged position and performs many roles. In season and out, a pastor is called upon to lead communities to the life-giving waters of God.

The job is demanding, and pastors perform their duties among a dizzying array of requests and expectations. Congregations are not always easy places, and the responsibilities can sometimes wear down the best pastors. It is not a job for the faint-hearted, but requires a balance of intelligence, love, humility, compassion and endurance. Most importantly, it demands that pastors remain in touch with the source of their life and strength. Like all people of faith, good pastors need moments to renew and refresh their energies and enthusiasm to determine again "what makes their hearts sing."

As I read and reread these words, I was grateful. I was grateful that there is a group of people who named, understand and recognize the complex, demanding, dizzying array of requests and expectations that pastors live with. In my case, I serve both as a congregation pastor and as a campus pastor. This amplifies and intensifies the complexities in ways that few individuals comprehend or understand.

I'm saddened when some well-meaning (and some not-so-well-meaning) folks think that all I do is deal with a few congregation members and that the campus ministry should be kind of like dealing with a youth group. Sigh. It's frustrating when some refuse to understand that the nature of campus ministry and my work with college students is very intense, highly relational, fast-paced, full of late nights, at times grueling in its academic rhythm and sometimes walking through the deep spiritual valleys and mountains with young adults as they discern their way of faith. Because the nature of campus ministry is this way, the ELCA (and other thoughtful, wise denominations) has set apart certain pastors and ministers to do only this: campus ministry.

One of the former LCMers at SCSU from long ago returned to ULCE a few years back. She is an amazing person. Our backgrounds are nothing alike, but we share this love and esteem for LCM. She says LCM saved her life. I believe this and know that it's most certainly true. I've seen the ministry of LCM save other lives, I've been blessed to have been part of that life-saving enterprise and have celebrated with others when, once they were lost and then they were found and found themselves embraced by the abiding, enduring love of God in Christ Jesus.

This friend of mine wrote some reflections after the 15th Anniversary of ULCE in November of 2009. I thought that her words were profound since she has the broad and long ranging perspective from one who was a college student in LCM at Saint Cloud State University as well as being a "grown-up" member of what had become the LCM and ULCE community.

I had not heard the thoughts expressed by anyone else in the congregation:

But what I don't understand is the way "we" don't show respect to our pastor(s) that I see in other churches. Is it because we are small? Or is it the same in bigger churches where you just don't notice it as much because it's not so glaring? Or is it the kind of church we are or is it the town? The town people have never liked the students in general. So, when you put the two together you get dislike. ULCE appears on the outside to be a church that is accepting of everyone. But at times I see our church stuck and not knowing whether it wants to move forward or stay stuck; to move on and grow into the life force we could be...I believe in us as a church body. We, all of us, just need to figure out what direction we want our church to go. What needs to be remembered is that it is the students that have brought us together in the first place.

I have thought about this a lot since my friend wrote this and since she read it aloud at a meeting of our congregational members and students. There was this pause; this silence after she read her reflections - as if no one could think of a thing to say. People just sat there. And then the leaders of the event and process, sensing the moment and not knowing what to say either, moved the process on and that was that. But something happened that day. There was a naming and an acknowledgement in what she said. Still, since that day it doesn't seem as though folks have gotten to the place - exactly - to figure out what direction we want our church to go.

I have been in prayer about this ministry before I arrived here and ever since that time. The treatment of pastor(s) is a mystery and my guess is that it's been this way for a long time before I arrived. Why? I have no clue. All I know is that I need to stay true to my calling, what I know, what is good, right and blessed in the sight of God.

So, I am going to center on my calling and that which gives life, hope, joy, peace, healing and faith. I have no time for that which drags on my soul or the soul of others. Life is too precious. Life is too short. Life is too grand to do otherwise. So, join with me and if this is not your calling -- let go.

Blessed be!