Public Safety Ministries Inc.

The following is the invocation I offered at this months Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association 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 ask for the ability to graciously receive this season’s gifts of celebration and new beginnings. For those of the Christian faith, the celebration of the birth of Christ. We will also celebrate the coming of new light as the days of growing darkness end and become days of growing light. We will also celebrate the beginnings of a new year.

As we receive these gifts help us to respond graciously with a most simple gift, the gift of kindness. Help us to see the value of kindness in all that we do as we carry out our difficult and challenging responsibilities.

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

Yes, today marks several of the above. 25 years ago today, Camilla and I got married on a snowy Sunday night at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church in Excelsior Minnesota. We spent most of today together, morning coffee at Dunn Brothers in Excelsior, some Christmas prep chores, a movie at EP Center, then the highlight of the day; dinner with all three kids at the EP Outback. They even threw in a free dessert for the anniversary. Pete flew in from Fairbanks last night so we all shared the “Bloomin’ Onion”.

A lot has happenend in the past 25 years (bear with me here, a person tends to reminice on days like this), and many milestones were reached this past year. 25 years of marriage, Pete turned 21, Amy turned 18, retirement from 25 years at EPPD, and if you stretch the year 12 days into 2008 we hit my 50th birthday. Whoa! This is starting to sound a lot like a “typical” Christmas letter. and I don’t write typical Christmas letters…….I write “unique” Christmas letters!

Anyway, today was our silver wedding anniversary. And we spent it in the the most spiritual way we know, simply together, sharing it with our kids. It’s been a great run, complete with all of the love, fear, joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, happiness, and so on that comes along with committed relationships. The time hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been good.

So here’s to you Cam, my wife, my love and most of all my best friend! Let’s say we go for another 25!

Take Care

Just in case any of our new readers out there were curious, I thought I’d link to a re-run of the post I wrote about the banner photo on the top of this page. Click Here to read it.

Take Care, and enjoy the SNOW! (those of you who live around here anyway)

Public Safety Ministries Inc. (PSMInc) is dedicated to “Promoting Spiritual Fitness in the Public Safety Professions”. Now granted, the vast majority of my focus has been with law enforcement since that is where I come from and that is where I serve as Chaplain. For those who don’t know the story, I originally intended to call the ministry Peace Officer or Law Enforcement Ministries, or something along those lines. But when I was bestowing my wisdom of future ventures on my EP peer in the fire service, Chief George, (you remember him don’t you? The agnostic Jew raised in Catholic school?), he enlightened me to the fact that fire service personnel are in just as much need for spiritual fitness as “you cops”. Hence, Public Safety Ministries was born.

Well I got a message the other day from Brad Bloom, publisher of Faith and Fitness Magazine. This issue contains an article called A FIREFIGHTER’S STRENGTH FOR SERVICE. He thought some of my readers may enjoy it, and I agree. I especially enjoyed the introduction story and thought I’d share it here.

By Bob Markowski and Ralph Haynes, Introduction by Phil Black
Southern California, October 2007 - Houses were burning all around us. Split-second decisions dictated whose homes would be saved and whose would be lost. It was the type of triage none of us enjoyed. In a strange way, firefighters are often at their very best during these times of oppressive heat, devastation, and danger. We are trained to remain level-headed and situationally aware even in times of extreme emergency.
As we attempted to suppress the fires burning in any one particular house, there came a time when we knew that the house could not be saved. At that moment, we would give each other the sign. The sign meant that we would make one last run through the burning house to collect whatever we thought would be most important to the family that lived there. We would pull family photos off the wall, pick up jewelry boxes, grab important-looking file cabinets, snatch video cameras, photo albums and computers – anything that we thought would be of sentimental value to the residents. We pulled antique cars out of people’s garages and parked them on the front lawn. This all had to be done in a matter of 30 – 45 seconds – seconds before the house went up in a ball of fire.

Those are some of the most worthwhile minutes we spend as firefighters – helping to save something — anything of value to the residents. We witnessed families return to their homes after the fire to find nothing more than a concrete slab. Yet next to the slab on the burned front lawn, they saw a pile of framed photographs, old home movies, mementos, jewelry boxes, or file cabinets – all untouched by fire and smoke. The families would look around and wonder how such a thing happened? How did their most prized and important possessions end up saved from the wreckage? They would look left, and right? Still, they had no idea how it happened. Then they looked up into the sky – and all their questions were answered – for they knew God had a role in this salvation.

Our fire crew would look at each other and not say a word. We just went about our business of cleaning up with a little more appreciation for a job that allows us to serve others in such unique and unconventional ways.– Phil Black, San Diego Fire Department

Oh yeah, and there’s another reason I’ve got some interest in the fire service. My dad spent 30 years with the Minneapolis Fire Department and my son Pete is a firefighter and going to school in Fairbanks Alaska.

Time sure flies. When I last wrote the world (at least the one I live in) was brown, green, blue….. but today it is all white! Snow everywhere and it’s not even technically winter yet! If you like snow you can thank me. After about 7-8 years of pretty intense sled-dog training and preparation, this year I haven’t got around to hooking up the dogs even once. Snow has been so scarce these past few years, the kids have moved on to other ventures, I just kind of let it pass. The result - SNOW. The best early snow we’ve had in years. Thank me because I’m not prepared for it.

Which brings me to my point. I’ve done a lot of reflecting lately on my first year of my next career. And things happen so fast I seem to miss some of them. My Thanksgiving post addressed the “now”, the “Sacrament of the Present Moment” . Well, I was listening to my favorite philosopher the other day and found some simple words that can help focus on “now”:

I bought a cheap watch from the crazy man
Floating down Canal
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands
It always just says “now”

Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And if I had trouble the warranty said:
Breathe in, breathe out, move on

James Bu’ffett
(aka Jimmy Buffett on “Take the Weather With You”)

Everyone finds their spiritual inspiration in different places. I often get mine from music. So your spiritual exercise for today: take a minute, wherever you are right “now” and look for some simple spiritual inspiration. Something present, simple, available. The song on the radio, the view out the window, the view from your desk, the sound of your family, the silence of the snow. Take a minute, take now, “breath in, breath out, move on”

Take Care.

PS. Thanks to:http://songsinthekeyofwest.wordpress.com/2006/10/ The first googled site that I clicked on that gave me the words to the song.