How it's going...

So I'm a few weeks into my fall routine and I guess it's time for an update. To give you an idea of what my days look like, here's what I was up to last week:

Monday: Work for campus maintenance and meeting with directee for GPC*

Tuesday: Morning prayers and weekly meeting with Pathways Retreat directors; counselling at hospital in the afternoon

Wednesday: Pathways Retreat deep cleaning and grounds keeping day; meeting with directee for GPC

Thursday: Work for campus maintenance

Friday: Counselling at hospital

Saturday: Work for campus maintenance; Meeting with fellow GPC trainee

Sunday: Church

*GPC = Gestalt Pastoral Care

Thus far my days feel busy but not overwhelming. I am loving what I am doing! Parts of what I am doing are challenging, but I guess that's where the learning component of my fall comes in. Counselling in the hospital and becoming more familiar with the oncology world is probably my growing edge. I'm really enjoying not being in class or pouring over textbooks until all hours of the night. I still attend a class that meets for group supervision approximately every two weeks to meet the requirements of my practicum, but it doesn't feel as much like going to class when there aren't any textbooks or lectures. The highlights of my week are the work I'm doing at the retreat centre and meeting with people for GPC.

Last week I was in Pennsylvania for my final session of Gestalt Pastoral Care Foundational Training. I was honoured to write and lead the closing liturgy for our group in which we together built an altar with stones gathered from across the land, named our altar because it was here that we met the Holy, and then "scattered" our stones across the land again as we dispersed. One of the treasures I received from that group this year was the affirmation and naming of me as a minister. So phase 1 of that training is now complete and phase 2, my practicum, is underway. I am so excited about this venture. I remember at the end of my second year of seminary - after having completed my pastoral counselling practicum, my chaplaincy practicum, and my spiritual guidance practicum - talking with a professor and saying that even after doing these three practica I still didn't have a sense of which area of pastoral caregiving I was called to. He said to me, "The spiritual care field is wide open to you." It was just a few weeks later that I enrolled in the GPC training and realized that this is where it all comes together for me.