Public Safety Ministries Inc.

Well I’m back from a week-long work mission trip in Roswell NM with 36 kids and 9 adults from Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church. Not a lot of sleep, lots of physical labor, some new wonderful relationships with adults and kids from all over the country, and the fulfillment of accomplishing something for someone in need. This is a day to let the pictures speak:

Before…..

During…..

More during….


And After….

And some flowers for the finish! (Bobby’s idea)

Tomorrow I leave (at 5 am!) on a youth mission trip with Mt.Calvary Lutheran Church. It is an annual event for my daughter Amy and me that we’ve gone on for the past six years. It has been a great father daughter experience.

We go to a different work site every year through “Group Work Camps”, an organization that facilitates and organizes these trips for churches. So far we have been to Thunder Bay,  South Dakota, Memphis Tenn, Muskegon Mich, Ethete Wyoming and now New Mexico.

I won’t be making any posts for the next week or so unless I find an internet connection down there and post something about the trip. We’ll see, right now I’m just thinking about getting everything in order for the trip. I’ll check in when I get back if you don’t hear from me before (as long as the aliens are friendly!)

See Ya!

Facet #2 - Learning (from the series)

Definition:

learn·ing n
1. the acquisition of knowledge or skill
2. knowledge or skill gained through education
3. a relatively permanent change in, or acquisition of, knowledge, understanding, or behavior

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

I have always enjoyed “having learned” (for some reason that doesn’t sound quite right, maybe I need to spend some time on grammar). But I haven’t always enjoyed the “learning process”. There are many books I’ve read, classes I’ve taken and situations I’ve experienced that have taught me things. Some valuable and some not. Some were enjoyable, some were not. But I know that “having learned” requires that you go through “learning”.

Time for a short re-cap: This ministry and this website is dedicated to “Promoting Spiritual Fitness”, one leg of the three legged stool that makes up the health/fitness of your life. “Physical Fitness” is another leg and “Intellectual Fitness” is the third. Body, Mind and Soul. We physically exercise and train our bodies, we intellectually exercise and train our minds and we spiritually exercise and train our souls to keep healthy and fit.

So, where does learning fit in? It applies at some level to all three, body, mind and soul. But it most directly applies to the mind and intellectual exercise. For simplicities sake I’ve broken learning down into three basic categories: Formal Education and Training, Reading and Experiencing. I’m not going to go into detail on how I approach each of these, but I do actively pursue all three. Something to remember is that each of them may not always be learning situations. For instance sometimes I read purely for recreational or distraction reasons. Sometimes a training or classroom experience may have greater social benefits.

Learning is a huge topic, but here is the one point I want you to take with you today. There is one critical component to learning in any of the three categories listed above. There is one “must do” element of learning. It is critical that you “Pay Attention”! There is a great line in the movie Michael that stars John Travolta, Andie McDowell and William Hurt.

Travolta plays the Arch Angale Michael. At a quiet point in the movie Travolta shares something about one of his traveling companions that was a secret he should not of known. The companion wondered if he used some angelic power to learn the secret and asked him how he knew. His simple reply was “I pay attention”.

So here is your exercise assignment. Name three situations of learning you have had recently in each of the categories; Formal, Reading, Experiencing.

Then, spend some time paying attention to how “paying attention” enhanced or detracted from the experience.

And for extra credit, today when you are just living life, consciously stop, deliberately pay attention to whatever you are doing or experiencing, and ask yourself what you just learned.

I met with a police chief from the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association the other day and had a really nice conversation about my Police Chaplaincy Ministry. He shared some words that he looks at every day to start his day.  I thought they might be inspirational to you also.  Enjoy.

This is the beginning of a new day God has blessed me with to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good; for what I do today is important. I am exchanging a day of my life for it. I want it to be good in order that I will never regret the price I paid for it.

Checklist:

1. Give a compliment in person

2. Do something for someone they didn’t expect

3. Take a positive step toward solving a problem or issue

4. Record a success in writing and review it tomorrow.

Facet #1 - Work (from the series)

Here are a couple of definitions:

work - noun
1. paid employment at a job
2. the duties or activities that are part of a job or occupation
3. the place where somebody is employed
4. the time that a person spends carrying out his or her job
5. the physical or mental effort directed at doing or making something
6. that which has been made or done as part of a job or as a result of effort or activity requiring skill (often used in combination)
7. an artistic or intellectual composition, for example, a book, treatise, painting, sculpture, film, or piece of music (often used in the plural)
8. the transfer of energy, measured as the product of the force applied to a body and the distance moved by that body in the direction of the force. Symbol W
9. that which has been or is in the process of being worked on or manufactured

verb
1. vi to have a paid job
2. vti to exert or make somebody exert physical or mental effort in order to do, make, or accomplish something
3. vti to function or operate or cause something to function or operate
4. vi to be effective or achieve a desired result

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Work means a lot of different things to different people. But when we hear the word we all have a personal definition that immediately comes to mind. Up until a few months ago my immediate response to “what is your work?” would be “I’m a cop with the EPPD”. For the past few months it has been ” I just retired from 25 years as a cop with the EPPD”. Most recently my reply has been ” I just retired from 25 years as a cop with the EPPD, now I’m going into the ministry to pursue police chaplaincy work.” Next week my reply will be……., well, you get the picture.

For the purpose of this exercise, work is: what we do and how we spend our time that gives us purpose, gives us identity, it is our contribution to the life around us. So often we limit our idea of work to the definition of our job, the place that we work. I’d say my work for the past 25 years has been to serve, to serve through protecting, and for much of my career to serve by leading those who protect. Leading was my way of serving those who protect. Now that I am retired form the EPPD my work really hasn’t changed that much. My mission, my purpose, my contribution continues to be serving those who protect. I just serve in a different way, I promote spiritual fitness and health to those who protect.

I have always been very lucky, I’ve always loved and continue to love my work; past, present and hopefully future. But don’t confuse that with my jobs. I have had lots of jobs and duties and situations at work that I didn’t love, in fact at times I hated them.  But again, I’m talking about your work, not your job.

I know, that isn’t necessarily the clearest example, and often my new work is as clear as mud to me. But I see my past work clearly and actually I have a clear picture of my future work. It is the transition from one to the other, the “now” that is often tough to see.

So, now for your exercise assignment:

- What was your work” in the past?

- What is your work now?

- What do you see your work as in the future?

- How does your “job” fit into your idea of your work, past, present and future?

- What would be your “dream work” or “dream job”? And do you already have it? What would it take to get it?

So there is Facet #1 - work. Next week Facet #2 - Learning.

Please feel to share any comments you might have, see if telling your story my inspire others to hear their own!

This past winter, when I teamed up with the Eden Prairie Police Department, Dr. Steve Geiger and several others to put on the first SMPSTF (South Metro Public Safety Training Facility) Retirement Academy, I had my first exposure to the “Eight Facets of Life”. Doc Geiger used the idea to form his presentation on dealing with balance in retirement. Our lives are multifaceted and the “Eight Facets” is as good a tool as any to take a look at the different parts of our lives and reflect on the quality of each. Doc was first exposed to the “Eight Facets” somewhere in his extensive academic background. We were unable to locate a reference for the idea, seems that it is pretty much in the public domain now, much like the “Body, Mind, Soul” idea I reference so often. If anyone is aware of who originally packaged the idea please let me know so that I can make appropriate reference.

The “Eight Facets of Life” consist of:

- Work
- Learning
- Leisure
- Financial
- Health/Fitness
- Relationships
- Home/Location
- Emotional/Spiritual

One of the most important aspects of Spiritual Fitness is self awareness. Over the next Eight Weeks I will present one of the Eight Facets, share my story of the facet (remember, the value of telling my story is that it helps you listen to your own story), then give you a couple of questions (some used by Doc Geiger in his presentation) to help you build more self awareness.

Stand by for #1 coming in the next couple of days.