Old Soul, Young Heart

Yesterday I was in Joliet for the first ILACADA (Illinois Academic Advising Association) conference. I have to be honest when I say that I am usually unimpressed with conferences. I think they are important for networking and kind of "recharging one's batteries," but generally the sessions sound good to me but then don't deliver what I was expecting and wanting. This conference was different, though! The first session was about passion, something that I feel is lacking for me sometimes in my job. We were asked to grab someone nearby to us and talk about our three biggest personal passions and our three biggest professional passions. I dislike these sorts of activities because I'm horrible at coming up with things right off the top of my head. After 30 seconds of contemplation, the personal passions I came up with were my family, traveling, and animals. (I honestly don't have much that I am passionate about, which is kinda sad. I like a lot of things, but don...

"'Good enough' is a divine concept." My former supervisor at Advocate BroMenn, Bill, left this comment on a facebook status update of a former chaplain colleague. I had heard other former colleagues say this phrase before about being a "good enough" chaplain and I was always intrigued by the idea. I'm not sure how "good enough" translates into other types of work. I would venture to say that being "good enough" is looked down upon in every other profession. We always have to be above and beyond the norm or the expected. I cannot be "good enough" in my interview. I cannot be just "good enough" at my job. I have to outshine all the others... at least for now. I think we are all raised to think that "good enough" is not good enough. That makes no sense, but at the same time, it does. "Good enough" is not actually enough unless it is better than others. I guess in chaplain-world, there is no com...

I don't know... I just wanted to post this song. It's called "I Am" by the band Further Seems Forever. It reminds me of the summer before I met Philip. In fact, I talked about this album  and song in one of my speeches during COM101--about how it could be about a significant other or about God/Jesus. Everything about it reminds me of how God might feel in relation to us. It could go so many ways. Like, people blame God for a lot of things in their lives. God can be good and God can be bad, depending upon where you're at in your life, your opinion at the time, or what you've decided about God. God could be a source of freedom or a source of restriction. God could be a source of life or a source of death or somewhere in between, perhaps a source of endurance. Maybe it's saying that God is all of these things at once, or none of these things. Despite all of this, God just wants a relationship with you--regardless of what you think or believe. I also think t...

Today I was orienting Joseph to different things on the computer and phone system when he stopped and said he was having deja-vu. He said that he thinks deja-vu is when you experience something that God has in his plan for you and that he knew he was where he was supposed to be. I thought that was such a great way of thinking of deja-vu. I just really like it. Today I for just a moment in time I experienced what I think was a motherly instinct. I was coming up from the cafetaria and decided to take the route that includes walking past the window of the Mother/Baby Unit where the babies are sometimes laying. There were these two adorable Indian babies who looked like they might have been twins. One in particular was gaggling around and opening her eyes (I felt like she was a girl for some reason) and I was just so happy for a minute and felt like I wanted one. Even as I was walking away I was struck in such an interesting way. Hmm...