Back to Work
01/09/12 05:24
Getting back to work after a vacation involves going through stacks of mail and notices, catching up on paperwork and the usual things that occur in an office. Actually, there is less mail to deal with than was the case in the past simply because we deal with e-mail while we are traveling, and much of our communications have shifted from regular mail to e-mail. We also have more sophisticated voice mail systems for our telephone messages, so they don’t stack up as they once did. I generated a pretty big “to do” list from e-mails that came during our vacation, and I will get to those things in due time.
The first day back on the job involved spending quite a bit of time in front of the computer. There was liturgy to write for this week and a bulletin to prepare. The paper newsletter that was prepared in our absence needed to be formatted for electronic distribution and sent on its way. The church web site needed attention and updating. There were a few upgrades that had to be made to software and there was some routine maintenance of the computer network that demanded my attention. I don’t think that there was any way for me to anticipate, when I began my career, how much time would be spent keeping an office running. I wasn’t trained to be a network administrator. In fact, there were virtually no computers used in the ministry when I was in seminary. There were no courses in website development or network management in my curriculum.
These days, however, I do spend quite a bit of time keeping the computer system at the church working. And it is becoming more complex, with the migration of our database to cloud computing and other changes in how we manage our information. Churches, unlike some businesses, tend to work with less than state-of-the-art equipment. This generally means that we need to spend more time with maintenance and working around problems that some businesses solve quickly and simply by replacing equipment. I’ve had to learn to take apart computers, replace hard drives, upgrade memory and even replace other components from time to time.
I am also aware that because I do most of this work for the church, the congregation has become dependent upon me to make things work. Returning from my trip I see small bits of evidence that the technology didn’t work perfectly during my absence. The electronic sign in the entryway wasn’t updated to display the messages we planned for the rummage sale and other events. The big screen and projector weren’t used for a funeral that would have employed those pieces of technology had I been present. The regular security update to the cloud computing system involved a default-assigned password that is impossible to remember instead of having one from our rotation. These are small things, but they show that there is too much technology in the congregation that is dependent upon my presence as an operator. I need to keep training other staff members, but we also need to seek other ways of using our technology that makes whatever machines we have more accessible to the congregation.
Like this blog, it took a while to sift through the technology to the real important parts of my job upon my return. Yesterday, however, I got back to the business of being a pastor. I enjoy designing liturgy and planning worship and my day began with putting the final touches on the worship bulletin for Sunday. Soon, however, I was focused on what I was trained to do. I was out and about visiting people.
Three weeks can be a long time and produce dramatic changes in the lives of those living with chronic illnesses or facing life-altering events. Part of my visits with people involved hearing the stories of what had occurred during my absence. There are others, however, whose lives move at a slower pace. One nursing home that I regularly visit felt dramatically different because of the deaths of two residents during my absence. Another resident, however, seemed very much the same as before I left. A less than sharp memory for recent events resulted in very little awareness that I had been gone at all. We simply went back to the way things had been.
There were two visits on my list yesterday to people who are nearing the end of their life’s journeys. One was admitted to the hospital yesterday. The other was at Hospice House. In both cases I was struck by how tiny the individual seemed lying in a hospital bed. Their bodies took up just a small portion of the space and made the bed seem almost comically large for its job. It was as if they had spent the three weeks of my absence becoming smaller and smaller. Both had trouble waking to visit and I spent most of my time visiting with their spouses. What is occurring with them will occur with us all. We may not go through the same kind of lingering towards the end of our lives. We may not lose as much weight or become as small. But we will all one day fade away.
To some it may seem like such visits are difficult, but in reality they are one of the blessings of my job. Unlike many of my peers, I get regular practice with grief and loss. I see people that I have known for years go through the transition from vibrant, healthy and engaged leaders to gentle spirits on the edge of death. I walk through loss and grief with families on a regular basis.
I don’t know if this makes the loss and grief of my own life any easier, but it does make it a bit more familiar. I recognize what is going on in myself more easily than I did at the beginning of my career. I understood grief better when my mother died than I did three decades earlier when my father died.
It all reminds me of what is most important in my job. I am minister to people, not to the institution. I am minister to families, not the technology. Our computers may be considered to be obsolete. Our caring is completely up to date.
The first day back on the job involved spending quite a bit of time in front of the computer. There was liturgy to write for this week and a bulletin to prepare. The paper newsletter that was prepared in our absence needed to be formatted for electronic distribution and sent on its way. The church web site needed attention and updating. There were a few upgrades that had to be made to software and there was some routine maintenance of the computer network that demanded my attention. I don’t think that there was any way for me to anticipate, when I began my career, how much time would be spent keeping an office running. I wasn’t trained to be a network administrator. In fact, there were virtually no computers used in the ministry when I was in seminary. There were no courses in website development or network management in my curriculum.
I am also aware that because I do most of this work for the church, the congregation has become dependent upon me to make things work. Returning from my trip I see small bits of evidence that the technology didn’t work perfectly during my absence. The electronic sign in the entryway wasn’t updated to display the messages we planned for the rummage sale and other events. The big screen and projector weren’t used for a funeral that would have employed those pieces of technology had I been present. The regular security update to the cloud computing system involved a default-assigned password that is impossible to remember instead of having one from our rotation. These are small things, but they show that there is too much technology in the congregation that is dependent upon my presence as an operator. I need to keep training other staff members, but we also need to seek other ways of using our technology that makes whatever machines we have more accessible to the congregation.
Like this blog, it took a while to sift through the technology to the real important parts of my job upon my return. Yesterday, however, I got back to the business of being a pastor. I enjoy designing liturgy and planning worship and my day began with putting the final touches on the worship bulletin for Sunday. Soon, however, I was focused on what I was trained to do. I was out and about visiting people.
Three weeks can be a long time and produce dramatic changes in the lives of those living with chronic illnesses or facing life-altering events. Part of my visits with people involved hearing the stories of what had occurred during my absence. There are others, however, whose lives move at a slower pace. One nursing home that I regularly visit felt dramatically different because of the deaths of two residents during my absence. Another resident, however, seemed very much the same as before I left. A less than sharp memory for recent events resulted in very little awareness that I had been gone at all. We simply went back to the way things had been.
There were two visits on my list yesterday to people who are nearing the end of their life’s journeys. One was admitted to the hospital yesterday. The other was at Hospice House. In both cases I was struck by how tiny the individual seemed lying in a hospital bed. Their bodies took up just a small portion of the space and made the bed seem almost comically large for its job. It was as if they had spent the three weeks of my absence becoming smaller and smaller. Both had trouble waking to visit and I spent most of my time visiting with their spouses. What is occurring with them will occur with us all. We may not go through the same kind of lingering towards the end of our lives. We may not lose as much weight or become as small. But we will all one day fade away.
I don’t know if this makes the loss and grief of my own life any easier, but it does make it a bit more familiar. I recognize what is going on in myself more easily than I did at the beginning of my career. I understood grief better when my mother died than I did three decades earlier when my father died.
It all reminds me of what is most important in my job. I am minister to people, not to the institution. I am minister to families, not the technology. Our computers may be considered to be obsolete. Our caring is completely up to date.