Notes on the Halfway Point of Summer

I am at the end of week 4 of chaplaincy training.  July has begun.  We are at the halfway point of summer camp at Lutheridge.  Let me make a few notes.

--My cold has a long tail.  I can go through much of my day only coughing occasionally.  I'm no longer blowing my nose each hour.  But I still have a slightly scratchy throat.  If I talk for too long, I need a drink of water, and I don't feel like I can count on my voice.

--I have been wearing Saucony running shoes to work every day.  I am channeling that 80's woman commuting to work on public transportation--but I'm not changing into heels when I get to the office.  It's a new level of frumpiness for me.  But I am able to spend much of the day on my feet without excruciating back pain at night, so I'll stick with frumpy comfort.

--Music Week at Lutheridge starts on Sunday.  It will be a different experience for me this year--but I'm hoping I still get some quality time with friends and family who are coming through for Music Week.

--We are at so many halfway points:  summer is halfway over, Lutheridge summer camp is halfway over, the year is halfway over.  I wonder where we will be at the halfway point of next summer.  Hopefully I will be meeting with my candidacy committee to proceed to endorsement, which is usually a halfway point to ordination, but in my case, I'm doing things a bit out of order.  At Lutheran seminaries, students would do CPE much earlier, often in the summer after the first year, and then they'd get to endorsement sometime in the following year, before internship (year 3 of seminary) and the last year of seminary. 

--This week, my sketching was lifted up as one of my gifts that I should use in ministry.  I never really thought about my sketching as one of my gifts. I still think of myself as not good at visual art at all.

--As I've been training in various office spaces, I've discovered art supplies stashed away--a delight!  I found a tin box of Crayola markers, but much better quality markers than the Crayola label would imply.  The red marker is missing, which makes me wonder what happened to it.  Did someone love it and take it?  Did it run out of ink?

--I arrived early to rounds and discovered a guitar in the corner of the small conference room.  I strummed it, and to my untrained ears, it sounded like it was in tune.  I assumed that it belonged to someone who might not appreciate me playing it.  But no one is sure who owns it or how it came to be there.  Was it a person who once did music therapy?  That seems most likely, but why would that person leave the guitar behind?

--I looked up the chords to "This Land Is Your Land."  I reminded myself that I am not a guitar player.  I thought about getting my ukulele and bringing it on rounds--but I need a year or two of practice before I might be able to count the ukulele as one of my spiritual gifts