Old Year, New Year - Memories and Possibilities

 On top of everyone's list of significant events for this past year would be, without doubt, the pandemic.  Seldom does one event impact everyone on the planet.  Mid-March stands as the marker for most of us, the date when our state (and others in similar fashion) essentially shut down in a "Safer at Home" order from our governor.  This came months before the real impact which arrived later in the fall.  Little can prepare you for such a significant upheaval in your personal and professional life.  Fortunately, as of this day, the first day of the new year, our family is still COVID-free.  However, the devastation of the virus did leave its mark, as among the 13 I buried this past year, two of my members died of complications from COVID.  "Comorbidity" is now the word.  They were both in their 80s, so were 'high risk' and I'm sure that the official cause of death may have listed something else. But others around me would also experience deaths of friends and family, so we knew the virus had deadly possibilities and should not be taken lightly.  As a diabetic I am considered 'high risk' as well, but due to my work, both as a pastor, and also as a first responder, I did not have the luxury of cutting myself off from the world in even a modified quarantine.  Amazingly, even after brushes with infected people, numerous times inside people's homes (including one who died of COVID), and repeated fire calls where we worked 'unmasked,' I was mercifully spared.  It may still come, of that I have no illusions.  As a first responder I am hopeful that my time to receive the vaccine is coming soon in this new year, and I will finally be able to have an additional wall of security as I continue my work. 

Yet the pandemic did not come as the only event worth mentioning in my past year.  In a desire to branch out in my online teaching I took on a position with Concordia University - St. Paul teaching a mid-level theology course for 20 students last winter.  For this I had to become familiar with yet another learning platform - Blackboard.  The course was on vocations, but I wish, considering the students who signed up for the course, that it would have been more catechetical in nature considering the lack of biblical and theological knowledge of those attending.  Nevertheless, it was intense as I needed to log multiple grades weekly, amounting, as of my counting, to hundreds by the course's end, which came in a mere 7 weeks.  I was offered the opportunity to teach again in the fall, but realizing my other responsibilities, I declined for the time.  I may do it again, but teaching for a university is different than the course I teach for the seminary, both in terms of content and in terms of students.  Speaking of which, I had my largest class yet for "Preaching the Faith," an online course in homiletics I teach for Concordia Theological Seminary - Ft. Wayne - 10 students. My course is part of the Specific Ministry Pastor Program (SMP), but also occasionally includes alternate route and colloquy students as well.  I have taught this course now for four summers, having begun in 2017.  I am already slotted to teach again this coming summer.  The seminary allowed me to write the course myself, and I have enjoyed building on it each year.  Although my post-graduate studies were not in homiletics, I came to this course with a strong foundation in biblical/exegetical studies (which is integral to homiletics), and decades of experience in the pulpit.  

As the year closed I not only turned 60, but completed 33 years of active service in the pastoral ministry.  I am nearing the end, this year, of my first term as District Secretary, where I have had the privilege of serving on the District's Board of Directors as well as the presidium with the president and vice-presidents.  This, also, continues to be a learning experience, and I am glad to serve the Synod and its churches in this way.  

This month will mark 18 years since I attended my first meeting at the Town of Antigo Vol. Fire Department.  In that year, 2003, I came on board as the first chaplain of the department.  Five years later I would further train as a firefighter, and have remained active in all areas of fire service over this tenure.  In 2019 I came on board the City of Antigo Fire Department as well, serving as one of their first two chaplains.  For a couple of months or so during the height of the pandemic I did not frequent the department as I normally did on a weekly basis.  I limited my exposure even as TOA, knowing that if I became ill my sickness would impact not only my parish, but also my primary department.  Overall, I continue to grow and learn as a chaplain, and it is the fulfillment of a long-held goal. 

So, what about the new year?  Well, that remains open, and if the pandemic taught us anything it was that the greatest plans can come to a screeching halt without warning.  For example, my wife and I had planned this past spring to take our first ever cruise to the Caribbean and Mexico.  That was predictably cancelled as one boat after another became infected.  And as I begin a new year I am painfully aware that I have taken very little time off, which for this past year amounted to only one weekend, the weekend in October when my son was married (which, by the way, is also a huge highlight for the past year!!!).  One goal I set for myself was to write more, and more specifically to begin a book-length project.  I did begin a manuscript entitled Pastoring in a Pandemic, and my goal is still to work on this while my memories are fresh.  Another goal was a book-length project initially entitled Preaching the Apocalypse of St. John, a spin-off of my STM post graduate students a few years back.  I had the opportunity to talk at length with the professor at the seminary who teaches Revelation, and I would still like to see if this can be done.  I have debated, off and on, about returning yet again to school, this time to complete my doctorate degree.  I said that one condition for this would be if it was required for what I was doing, especially teaching.  However, I do not need to complete another degree to continue teaching at the seminary or the university.  And given my age, I'm not sure what it would accomplish with my goals for this next decade.  Doctorate, even professional ones, take years to complete.  I don't know if I want to sacrifice this time when I could apply it to other projects of more immediate value to me and the church-at-large.  So, although tempted, it does not appear that I will go down that route this year.  

Turning 60 has also caused me to look more closely at retirement, which for me could come as early as the next 5 years after I turn 65.  Retirement, however, does not mean simply going on cruises and living the easy life.  It means a shift in work.  I would leave full time pastoral ministry, but I would still preach and lead worship. I would also continue to teach, as opportunities are given.  Likewise with work for the district and in chaplaincy.  But the focus of those years, at this point, seems to be aiming more and more toward writing.  We'll see how this next year goes, and maybe that will set the stage for additional work throughout the next decade.  

Well, that's a lot to put into writing for a New Year's Day, but I like to start the new year looking back and then looking ahead.  It helps to focus where I am going. All is in God's hands, and who knows what additional surprises this new year may yet bring!  God's blessings to all of you in the coming year!