Sullivan UMC—J. Michael Smith

IMPORTANT:  This coming Sunday, May 17, we will have both the 9 a.m. worship and the 10:30 worship.  Graduates will be honored and recognized at the 9 a.m. worship.

CANCELATIONS THIS WEEK

• No Church Council Meeting tonight
• No Bible studies on Revelation this week

Joys and Concerns from May 10 Worship Services

• Prayers for the family of Glen Righter, who has passed away
• Joy for the rain
• From Theresa Shaw:  prayers for her brother, Larry Preston, and his wife Debbie.  Debbie is getting ready to have surgery
• Prayers for Mike Fender—he was not able to have scheduled surgery on his spine this past week due to a very rough flu—and the surgery has been postponed until later this month
• Prayers for Brad Rau—very serious health problems
• From Dennis and Judy Ozier:  joy for the surprise visit of both daughters in worship today in celebration of Mother’s Day
• Prayer for safe travel for me for a four day trip to Washington D.C.

The mens’ group will be serving burgers and brats at the church on this coming Saturday.  Call Dennis Ozier if you can assist in some of the set up, serving, or clean-up.  All funds go to children in Sullvan whose families could use a little help.  Food will be served until supplies run out.  

Kat Pound, our Executive Administrator, if posting daily on the church’s FB page.  If you have any pictures or announcements, contact her at:  sandshells67@gmail.com   or her cell at 224-245-3620.

Personal Note

I am in Washington D.C. today, staying with my old seminary roommate, Dave Smith, and his wife Karen.  Dave is a retired Army Chaplain, who spent almost his entire ministry serving soldiers, warriors, and their families—including multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was wounded several times in combat himself, along with the physical and spiritual after-effects. 

Like many of us who have spent a lifetime in ministry, he has wrestled with how God wants him to serve during this season of his life.  A call to pastoral ministry is a lifelong call.  Ministry itself does not end upon retirement.  In fact, retirement from the “job” can free one to do even more.  In retirement one can explore one’s curiosity, do research, conduct experiments, and find ways to encourage and nurture those still “working.” 

Dave decided to use his GI Bill to study “Moral Injury,” experiment with healing approaches, and share his experiences and findings in a Doctoral Dissertation.  For the past three years he has been studying and writing on the subject.

Moral injury is the spiritual after-effect—the repressed residue inside one’s soul when one has done something immoral or had something immoral done to them.  It haunts and interferes with life—with physical health, relationships, and mental health.  It is as serious as PTSD.  Moral Injury is almost always an insurmountable barrier between the individual and God.  

Warriors—those who have been sent into combat—are uniquely affected by Moral Injury.  But very little has been studied about Moral Injury, and very few experiments have been performed to understand how the malady can be healed.  While PTSD tends to respond to psychological therapies, Moral Injury requires a spiritual approach. Dave is among the first to design experiments to understand better how to be in ministry to people who are carrying around this invisible and debilitating affliction.  

After two years of classes and reading, he began writing his dissertation a year ago—and invited me to join him on that part of his quest.  For much of the past year, I’ve spent hours talking with him on the phone, reading his manuscripts, learning from him, arguing with him, ruthlessly critiquing his writing, then wrestling with his re-writing, then a third and fourth time.  We’ve played with the gifts theology might bring to those with Moral Injury, biblical scholarship, liturgical experimentation, pastoral psychology and care—and ways congregations can serve returning warriors as they seek to integrate back into their families and communities.  

Dave and I have been friends for 50 years now.  In this dissertation process, he has shared his personal testimony with me—how God has blessed him in places and times and turmoils when his family and friends were of another universe.  Even with his testimony, I can still barely sense what he and other warriors have experienced.  But his sharing and reflecting brought us to what are the deepest experiences of our friendship yet.  He let me wear my writer’s hat, my theologian’s hat, my pastoral care hat, and my friend hat.  He let me argue with him (as he always has) and ruthlessly body-slam his manuscript.  Dave and I have always been a comedic team—and it has been deeply rewarding to be his court jester for this sober and essential work.  

Dave invited me to come to Washington and join him and his family for the graduation ceremony.

And so, he, along with 60 other doctoral graduates, and 30 newly minted pastors with their fresh master’s degrees, and 25 others who were awarded master’s degrees in theology and the arts and general theological studies—had their ceremony in the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.  They ranged in age from 24 to 76.  They hailed from 16 countries and 25 states—and serve 15 different denominations.  As expected, the ceremony was too long, too boring, and too crude (as catcalls punctuated the reading of the names.)  Some speakers were too full of themselves.  Dave himself fell asleep at one point, even his hearing aids failed to help him make out what many of the speakers were saying—due to the Cathedral’s poor sound system.  But flaws and all—the ceremony was a glorious experience.  The sights and sounds and people and colorful robes and silly hats and grandeur and ordinary people and pride—yet another way the church of Christ marches on.

Tonight we’re going to Baltimore to see the Yankees play the Orioles.  Just like we so often did—almost 50 years ago.  A quartet or quintet of us would calculate whose car was the most roadworthy at the moment—a loose definition back then—pile in, and hit the road between Washington D.C. (where we were all students at Wesley Theological Seminary) and Baltimore. We’d head to old Memorial Stadium—mostly empty—and catch whoever the Orioles were playing that night.  So—tonight’s a nod to the past.  Tomorrow I head back to Illinois—fortified for the future—once again.  For all that has changed over these many years—there is still eagerness in the air for the work ahead—morning by morning new mercies we see—even when we aren’t spring chickens anymore.