Public Safety Ministries Inc.

As I build this site, my focus is primarily on content rather than style or aesthetics (much like my life if you’ve ever seen my wardrobe). However, I am trying to give this page a nice look and I have some control over “decorating” the site. So I thought I’d dress up the site with a photo in the banner above. For those new to the site, previously there was just text and a blank background.

This photo is one of my favorites. It has style and content. I took it a couple of years ago when Pete (my son) and I traveled the Alaska Highway to Dawson City, Yukon, Canada . Pete competed in the World Skijoring Championships and I got to be the dog handler on the trip. This is a photo of Pete on a training run on the Yukon River just north of Dawson City. For me, family is spiritual, travel is spiritual and adventure is spiritual. Therefore this photo is spiritual and has earned a spot in the headline.

The trip was a great adventure, I’ll reference it more in the future, in the meantime here’s a few other photos (for you Jean!)

Like most people, I’ve got several books I’m reading or intending to read. Both of these were recommended to me by friends, and from just skimming them they look like they have some good “spiritual fitness” stuff in them. If you’ve read them and have an opinion I’d love to hear it. I’d like to use this site as a resource center and I’d like to pass on your reviews also.

I’ll give you my review when I finish reading them.

Spiritual Survival for Law Enforcement

Claiming Your Place At the Fire: Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose

One of the purposes of this website is to collect and disseminate stories. I’ve done some work as a police chief promoting practices and systems of information / intelligence collection and dissemination. These fusion centers focus on receiving information, analyzing it and disseminating it as intelligence that can be applied in our public safety operations. So maybe what I’ve got going here is a “spiritual exercise fusion center”. I can collect stories, analyze them and put them out to the troops as a “spiritual fitness exercise”.

This morning I received an e-mail from my son who recently joined the Steese Area Fire Department, located just outside of Fairbanks Alaska. He was passing along an e-mail post (http://firefighterclosecalls.com/) he had received and thought it fit into what I’m now doing. As I read it, and thought about it (I don’t really think I’d call it analysis, but it is a start) I found a couple of ideas that could give readers something to think about. So take a few minutes and read this story about the passing of a man of faith who spent a big part of his life caring for those who spend their lives protecting others.

It’s with sadness that we pass on to the members of The Secret List that our friend and very well known California Fire Service Chaplain, Monsignor John Sammon, passed away at about 4:30 Friday morning of natural causes in his residence. Monsignor Sammon had spent Thanksgiving with his family on Thursday. The California Fire Service, the Orange County Fire Service as well as the nation’s fire service lost a dear friend, spiritual advisor, cheerleader and clearly…a fire service icon. The “fire service” legacy of “Monsignor” began in Compton in 1942 - when his responsibilities split. His work as a priest often led him to nearby hospitals, where he met several firefighters. He started visiting the fire station down the street from his parish, friendships grew, and he was appointed chaplain. They told him he couldn’t promote the Catholic religion or talk politics, he recalled. He still held to those guidelines 60+ years later. “I’ve never once asked any firefighter about their faith or if they went to church,” he said. “I just wanted them to know that while they were taking care of people, someone was taking care of them.”

From his earliest days as a chaplain, Sammon learned to honor the fire service tradition of eating ice cream to celebrate awards, promotions or a firefighter getting their picture in the newspaper. He’s concerned that these days, firefighters’ health consciousness is causing the ice cream tradition to melt away.

In 1944, Catholic leaders moved Sammon to an L.A. parish and let him continue moonlighting as a chaplain for the fire service as well as for police. He also served as the Los Angeles Rams’ chaplain. “I kept telling them, ‘If I pray and you play, we’ll win,’” he said. “Well, I did my part. ”

In 1960, Sammon was transferred to Tustin to serve as pastor for St. Cecilia Catholic Church. He had already befriended several Orange County chiefs at fire service events, so it was natural for him to continue his work as a fire chaplain.

Anyone who ever met Monsignor Sammon knew that a high priority of his was to care for all firefighters and to unify the fire service “family”. He didn’t want departments to be isolated islands. “I’ve always preached that we’re a family…because we are one,” Sammon said.

I have been fortunate to know and befriend many wonderful Fire Chaplains of all faiths in my career. That group of “behind the scene heroes”..the Fire Chaplains, have never failed to make a positive and calming difference. They are a stabilizing force during some rough times as well as an important part of the good times….and they matter. Take a moment to check out this site: http://www.firechaplains.org/ for more on the fine work done by Fire Chaplains.

 

I was considering making a Thanksgiving post today, just a general holiday greeting. As I checked my e-mails this morning I was greeted with the following letter. So instead, I say thank you for this wonderful Thanksgiving Day gift. And a very special thanks to all who protect and serve and spend their days (even holidays when the rest of us are home with our families) carrying out their duties professionally, compassionately and with kindness.

Last week, an Eden Prairie Officer came to our family’s rescue. In the early afternoon, my son-in-law, was observed by one of your Officers staggering along the road, crying. He has battled severe depression for years and we have been to countless doctors and placed him in many facilities. He had had a reaction to his medication over the weekend and couldn’t stand the depression any longer. He managed to make it on foot to the liquor store. He thought he could just drown the depression with booze. Your Officer took the time to call his wife, and they made arrangements to transport him to the hospital. I work in the Emergency Room and I was here when the Officer came in with him. This Officer could have made our day a nightmare but instead, he was my hero. He stayed just long enough to ask if he could help in any other way. I thanked him for bringing our son-in-law to the hospital and he left. I know good people join the Police department to help people and try and make a difference. Very seldom do they get the thanks they deserve. There aren’t any words to convey the thanks I have for this Officer. I don’t even know his name. Could you please find him and let him know that we appreciate what he did for us and that our son-in-law is OK. We were able to get him into another hospital today. He will miss Thanksgiving with his wife and children but at least he is safe. So, whoever this thank you belongs to, God Bless you Sir and keep safe.

Our Thanks.

(Note: The above letter was slightly edited removing names and other identifiers)

Well my time with the EPPD is nearing its end. Another few weeks of work, a bit of time off around the holidays, then back to the office for a week or so to clean out the place. Then my 25 years with the department ends.

I pulled an old book off my shelf the other day called “Transitions”. It was assigned reading from when I was in the MBA program at the University of St. Thomas (never completed by the way, but lots of knowledge gained as I completed about half the course work). The book is by William Bridges (click here to visit his website) and its basic message has stuck with me for the past 15 years since I first read it.

The book describes the three phases of a transition: Endings, The Neutral Zone and New Beginnings. As much as you might try (and I have) you can’t skip a phase, hurry it or multitask all three at the same time. There are some variations, but by and large, that’s the drill. Right now I’m finishing my Ending. I was hoping to overlap my New Beginning and skip the Neutral Zone, but it looks like that’s not going to happen. And you know what? This ending is more enjoyable as I spend some time with it and savor it a bit. I’m really going to miss coming to the PD every day, but I’m also very excited to start my next adventure in the ministry.

A friend of mine gave me another perspective on the neutral zone. He referred to it as space. Take some time he said and enjoy your space before starting off on the next career. That’s what he is doing right now, and he’s a pretty smart guy so I think I’ll take his advice.

I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

As I posted a couple of days ago, I just attended a mens two day retreat through my church. The thing I like most about the retreat is the stories, and how these stories inspire me. Before I share some of these stories, I though I should explain how important the idea of storytelling is going to be to this website.

You will find as you visit this site, many of the stories I tell will be about me, about my family, about my friends and about those whose stories I hear and want to retell. There is a great quote (which I don’t have with me right now) in a book (that I can’t recall the exact title right now) by Frederich Buechner on the subject of telling our own stories. (I’ll post the specifics in a future post when I locate the book). But basically he writes about why he tells his story. It is not because his story is so important to the reader, but that it stimulates the reader to reflect on what their own personal story would be in the given situation.

So look to this site for stories, some may fit you, some may not. But most have had an impact on me and I hope you’ll fine something that can help you on your journey to spiritual fitness. Look for several good ones that I picked up this past weekend at the retreat.

Today I write from the Dunn Brothers in Hudson Wisconsin. I am attending an annual mens retreat with my home church Mt. Calvary Lutheran. I snuck away for a bit to connect to the internet and make this post. For the past seven years we have traveled to the YMCA Camp St. Croix for a couple of days of rest, music and a whole lotta nothin if you want. But we also spend time consciously stopping and focusing on stopping. As I’ve written before, it is often critical to a healthy spirit to stop the chaos of our spirits and defibrillate our spirits enabling them to regain their healthy natural rhythm. I’m probably not stopping as I should since I’m sneaking of to make this post, but writing and sharing is one of the ways I personally defibrillate.

It is a ritual that I enjoy, often with old friends and often with new friends. As I often say in my invocations, “Fellowship is nourishment for our souls”. Here’s to a weekend of healthy spiritual diet and exercise!

Where we sit and listen and (some people) sing

Where we eat

The Boys

PS, Pastor Scott is blogging also, check it out here

The following is the invocation I shared at yesterday’s Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association Executive Board Meeting.

Dear God,

We thank you today for this opportunity to gather in the spirit of law enforcement leadership. We ask for guidance as we carry out our leadership roles in this association.

Specifically today we pray for safety and protection. As we enter this holiday season we ask that our members and their families enjoy a safe season as they travel and enjoy the holidays. We also ask that you protect our public safety professionals on the streets as they protect our communities during this season of celebrations and hazardous weather.

Bless the food we receive today as nourishment for our bodies, the information presented as nourishment for our minds and the fellowship we share as nourishment for our souls.

Amen

One of the things that has always intrigued me is where we spend our time. As police chief I spend a lot of time at my desk at the EPPD. As I write this post I’m sitting at my desk at home. I also have a desk at my new PSMInc office in downtown Excelsior MN.

A few years ago I bought a book called The Writers Desk by Jill Krementz. The locations where we exercise spiritually are just as important as where we exercise physically. They need to be safe, comfortable and most of all compatible with our personal exercise practices. I like to write, it is a major spiritual exercise for me. So I thought, as in the Krementz book, I’d share some of the spaces I exercise in, some of my desks.

My desk at home

The view out the patio window to my left

Take some time today and look around to where you spend your time. Is it conducive to spiritual exercise? If not, where would you go if you could? Awareness, assessment and application. Three parts of spiritual fitness. Take the time to assess your spiritual gym.

*PS Note: Remember, if you click on the posted pictures you can get a larger view.

A few days ago I posted a story “A House With Four Rooms”. When I posted it I had read it but not really reflected on it. I consciously visit all four rooms as often as I can, and am pretty good at getting to each one daily, if only to “air it out”. But what I have found upon reflection is that I don’t really get stuck in a particular room very often, but I seem to spend more and more time in the hallway trying to decide where to go next. I am aware of all four rooms, they are all very inviting, but my default location is the hallway.

You know the hallway isn’t such a bad place once you acknowledge you are there. We spend a lot of time in life trying to get somewhere else, wishing our circumstances were different, if only I was….. Well, I think I’ll put a chair in the hallway, maybe a good book, a cup of coffee too. I can see each of the rooms from there, even enjoy them looking through the open doors. I don’t want to live in the hallway, but it’s not a bad place to stop and pause once in awhile. A place to gain some perspective, a place to rest.

Some one else has said it before (as most of the things I say have been said before) Be where you are. But my little addition, Then try going someplace else

Dan Carlson is currently serving as Police Chief for the City of Eden Prairie Minnesota. He has announced his retirement from police service, effective January 2007, to pursue a second career in the ministry. His 25 year career in law enforcement and his passion for the concept of spiritual fitness training have led him to found Public Safety Ministries Inc. PSMInc is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is “Promoting Spiritual Fitness in the Public Safety Professions”.

Yes, at some point I’ll need to spend some time raising money for the ministry, but this morning I had a great opportunity and a great experience raising something more important, awareness.  The mission of Public Safety Ministries is To Promote Spiritual Fitness in the Public Safety Professions.  There are three basic components to promoting spiritual fitness: awareness, assessment and application.  I’ve done a little of all three within the professions but one of the things I enjoy most about this ministry is sharing the story with those outside of the professions.  I had the opportunity to do that this morning with the men of Faith Lutheran Church in Waconia MN.

I’m guessing there were about 30 of us gathered at Nancy’s Landing in a beautiful location on Lake Waconia.  We shared coffee, breakfast and several stories.  I went to high school with Pastor Dale Peterson who invited me to the event.  I had the opportunity to share my story, the story of Public Safety Ministries and most importantly, the story of the importance of spiritual fitness in the public safety professions.  Thanks for the opportunity guys and I hope I can come back and enjoy tour company again in the future.

This website is an outreach project of Public Safety Ministries. Is is intended to be an active and ever changing site that is updated on a daily basis. It utilizes a weblog format that encourages response to postings and other information shared.

Just like with physical fitness, the pursuit of spiritual fitness requires regular participation in a personalized exercise program .  The objective of this site is to create a virtual  spiritual fitness center or a gym for the soul. We’re hoping that you visit the gym regularly and can find some exercises that fit your personal spiritual fitness needs.

Yesterday Father Tim, a friend and adviser, gave me the following story adapted from “A House with Four Rooms” by Rumer Godden.

A house with four rooms

Imagine a house with four rooms:

One room is a fully equipped kitchen, stocked with every kind of delicious food and wine.

Another room is a quiet library, furnished with comfortable chairs and lined with shelves of the best books written.

A third room is a work room or studio. It houses a work shop for carpentry, a garage for automotive maintenance, or a studio for painting, pottery or sculpting.

The forth room is a high tech media room, with the latest in audio-video hardware and a state of the art computer set-up.

You become so interested in one of the rooms that it becomes the room you live in: you become so immersed in cooking that you never avail yourself of the treasures of the library; or you become so engrossed with all the toys in the media room that you never sit down and enjoy dinner with you family; or you become so immersed in projects and gadgetry that you forget how to connect with other human beings. Our lives are houses with many rooms. Yet we tend to live in only one room: whatever room we find most comfortable and safe, whatever room is most fun and satisfying, whatever room is least stressful and demanding.

There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone of us is a house with four rooms - a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual room. And most of us tend to live most of the time in one of those rooms. Unless less we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired out, we are incomplete.

There are lots of stories out there that hit on the mission of Public Safety Ministries. As I spread the message, people see the Spiritual Fitness idea and share it with me. One of my goals with this website is pass those sightings along to others. So enjoy and feel free to contact me with your Spiritual Fitness sightings and I’d be happy to pass them on

Click here to see todays post on my EPPD Chiefs weblog