Public Safety Ministries Inc.

I know I’ve been reserving Thursdays for a spiritual fitness exercise, but today I want to share something I’ve learned this past week. I had heard of CaringBridge but never utilized it before this past week.

Free, personalized websites that support and connect loved ones during critical illness, treatment and recovery.

Through my seminary studies and pastoral assistant duties at Faith Lutheran in Waconia, pastoral care is an aspect of ministry that I am now experiencing. As the website says, CaringBridge is a great way to share and learn information about friends, family and loved ones “during critical illness, treatment and recovery“. It is a very valuable and efficient site to find out information that is beneficial for prayer requests, family needs, visit planning etc. It also enables those who cannot be present a way to connect with the patients and their families. The website is located at www.caringbridge.org or you can click here

It is a website where you can limit access to certain people or you can give it open access. I thought I’d share a message written by a dad (on a open access site and with names removed) that is wonderful expression of a parent’s love. This is an example of the potential blessings that can result from this technology.

As I sit by his side in the wee hours, early in his sixth day of recovery, I understand that the key to his healing is to ‘find the balance.’

The balance of blood pressure and the temperature of the body, the fragile balance of pressure to the brain, the required rhythm of respiration and the harmony of medication.

Yes, my drummer boy knows the balance of sound, the rhythm of cadence and the harmony of a fine melody. But today, the nurses and doctors are playing their part to help his body learn that balance, that flowing rhythm, that synchronized harmony.

I pray for the day when everything is in concert and we can march him from the caring and able hands of the hospital, to the waiting arms of his family and friends who care so deeply for him.

He has always been energized and touched by people. One day soon he will realize that we have all been energized and touched by him!

Your caring has been overwhelming. Blessings to you all.

Take Care

Yup, I’m hooked, hooked on the Discovery Channel’s game show “CASH CAB”.

This guy is the show’s host, Ben Bailey. The premise of the show is simple, you get in the cab, Ben asks general knowledge questions for the duration of the ride and you get cash for correct answers. The only catch is that yuo get the boot from the cab if you get three strikes, wrong answers, before reaching your destination.

My favorite part of the show is the “shout-out”. You have the option of using two “shout-outs”, a “mobile shout-out” where you can call a friend or a “street shout-out” where you ask for help on a question from someone on the street. I’m always disappointed if there isn’t a “street shout-out”. I love seeing how people are willing to jump in and help perfect strangers win money with nothing in it for them except maybe getting on TV.

So here is your exercise: How are you answering the spiritual questions in your life? Are you asking spiritual questions? Do you have all the answers? How many strikes do you have against you for making spiritual decisions that are wrong for you and your spiritual fitness? And here is the big one, Where do you go for help, where do you send your “spiritual shout-outs”? Family? Friends? Clergy? God?

Check out the show sometime, it’s a show that always makes me smile!

Bonus Exercise Question (of no spiritual value): Back when I was a patrol officer I used to watch a similar game show after middle shift, a show that few watched, but we were faithful. The Show was “Remote Control” Name the channel and host. (Not so hard with Google, but fun anyway)

Take Care

I may be dating myself here, but today’s Thursday Spiritual Fitness Exercise is “Spinning Plates”. My memory of spinning plates, a sort of juggling act, came as a kid watching the Ed Sullivan Show. A man would come on stage and proceed to place spinning plates on the end of a long pole standing upright on the ground. He would add more and more plates to poles and excitedly run from pole to pole, re-spinning the plates to keep them aloft on the poles. If the plate slowed too much it would wobble and eventually fall to the ground and break into many pieces.

Much of what we do and how we spend our time is like this guy running from pole to pole trying to keep all the plates from crashing. We have family, job, self, community, home, health, financial responsibilities, all seeming to need attention at the same time. Where are our priorities? Which plates need the most attention? Which plates are we willing to let fall?

So, here is your exercise, take an inventory of the plates you are spinning. Are there plates that you can let fall? Are there some plates you should take the time to carefully set down until you have more time? Are there plates you can ask someone else to spin for awhile? But most of all, where is your “spiritual fitness” plate. Is it spinning? Has it crashed or did you never start it spinning? It is important that we take the time to take stock in how we spend our time. Our nature has us spinning plates, lots of them. Make sure they are the plates you want and need to spin.

Take Care!

Welcome to our Thursday afternoon “spiritual fitness exercise gathering”. I made a commitment at the annual MCPA Executive Training Institute prayer breakfast to make an exercise post every Thursday afternoon. The goal being to create a regular and consistent spiritual fitness gathering for public safety professionals, even if it is in a cyber spiritual world.

This week I was drawn to the topic of “Honesty” by an article in the IACP Police Chief Magazine “Should Police Officers Who Lie Be Terminated as a Matter of Public Policy?” (click here to link to the story)

The article appears in the “Chief’s Counsel” column and contains a lot of information on the impact of employee lying. Case law is cited as well as how different situations of dishonesty create different consequences. It is an article well worth reading. I spoke with a chief just last week who was struggling with a situation where an employee had lied. Without going into detail, the chief felt compelled to fire the employee even though the cop was a good officer, a conscientious employee and (except for the lying) an asset to the organization. He knew what he was going to do, he knew his department policy was and that his decision would be supported. But that didn’t make the situation any easier to deal with. As public safety leaders I am sure you have all been faced with similar situations.

So here is your exercise. How important is honesty in your organization, your family, your life? What impact does honesty or dishonesty have on your spiritual life and the spiritual health of your organization? Even if you have a solid grasp on how to deal with dishonesty, as did the chief described above, how does your involvement in a situation like his impact your spiritual health?

And finally, how do you define honesty? Is it ALWAYS the best policy? And for extra credit, how about honesty with yourself? What are the spiritual health consequences, of being dishonest with yourself?

Take Care

As many of you are aware, I am pursuing ordination as an ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) pastor. As part of that process I am currently taking three seminary classes: Preaching II, Old Testament Prophets, and Pastoral Care. Yesterday I was doing some work for my Pastoral Care class and came upon a term I’ve never heard before. Interestingly, I am reading two text books and both make reference to the same term. As I pursue ordination and seminary studies it always amazes me how much I don’t know (yeah George, have fun with that confession) and how much of those “unknowns” are common knowledge in the world of theology. Both texts made early reference to Anton Boisen and his concept of “living, human documents”

Boisen describes “living, human documents” as concrete experiences of pastoral care of living persons, that are sources of theological insight of equal importance to those of the historic texts of the Judeo-Christian tradition. (from An Introduction to Pastoral Care by Charles Gerkin)

I never intended these spiritual fitness exercises to become academic theological discussions, however I do like to share the context of my current learning. I am a long way from understanding the depth of the above statement, but it did catch my attention. Maybe it is because our profession is so focused on the value of street smarts rather than book smarts and values real life experience over academic learning. Regardless, I was drawn to the idea of “living, human documents”.

So here is your exercise for this week. We all have favorite books, authors, written texts that we go to for comfort and spiritual guidance, how about non written documents? Think back to a time when you provided or received spiritual care. Who were you interacting with? Was it a positive or negative experience? Would you spend time with that person in a future time of need? Why or why not? And lastly, are these living, human documents worth retaining, worth actually taking the time to document them? Or are they better just being put out with the trash and recycling?

Take Care