| September 2, 2003 Tuesday I started my first day at Mayo today! (not counting two days of "Orientation to Mayo" last week). I spent the entire day with my 5 CPE colleagues and Mary Ann Weigel who serves as our Supervisor during Fall Quarter. I happened to show up an hour early--accidentally. This was the one day all year we could sleep in an extra hour but.... I forgot! Nerves! The 7 of us spent the morning introducing ourselves. I am impressed with the level of maturity, committment, faith, and experience amongst my colleagues. I feel we got off to a good start sharing the joys and struggles of our lives. This will be my basic working group and primary resource as the year goes on. In the afternoon, we met with the chair of the Chaplaincy Dept. who presented to us on the topic of assessing our own spiritual life and values and learning how to do that with patients that we meet for the first time. In the afternoon, I realized that my plans for having a convienient place to stay in Rochester had fallen through. The rent for the house that a church offered to me was much higher than originally stated and the place was a total disaster. So....instead of unloading the van and car, Marion, Becky, Owen, and I went out to Famous Dave's for dinner and then we drove back to Decorah. Looks like I'll be doing a daily commute at least for awhile. September 3, Wednesday I woke up this morning having a dream. In the dream, Marion and I were in Maywood (where we lived 1990-95) and we were looking in the window of our garage. In the garage we could see Owen and Becky's bikes, toys, etc. It was a sad scene. I said to Marion, "I really had no idea that they'd grow up so quickly". Then I awoke. This dream was symbolic of my feelings these days. Today, at age 16 Becky leaves our house and begins her studies as a Creative Writing major at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Next week, her brother Owen leaves for his freshman year at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. Thus, our lives are changing. Becky woke up early today to see me off. There were tears and hugs and kisses. This was a hard day for me. But it was also hard for Marion who drove the van loaded with Becky's stuff today all the way to Interlochen (12 hours). Orientation at Mayo continues. In the morning we had speakers address "Ministering with Catholic patients" and "Ministering with Jewish patients". The entire Chaplaincy department (20 fulltime chaplains) hosted a reception to welcome us in the afternoon. I rode the free Mayo commuter bus today to and from Preston--which is about half-way to Rochester from Decorah. This beats driving both ways and trying to find parking in Rochester. I enjoyed the 35 minutes this morning on the bus that I used for meditation and prayer. On the trip home I chatted with a Mayo employee who is a mom for 4 kids, lives on a farm, and is active in her catholic church. I was issued a beeper. You can beep me! Just call: 507-286-9040. At the tone enter 04758 and at the next tone enter your phone number including area code. I'll call you back! |