As I wade into my CPE experience I am glad I stayed in the program, anyhow that’s how I feel at the moment.  I like the mentor I have been stuck with (a very nice Catholic Deacon) and I think it’s a good match.  I am on the Telemetry unit and ICU and I also participate in the in-patient Addiction Recovery spirituality group. I don’t know how much I can write here since there are confidentiality issues but some visits are hard, some are easy but everyone is as unique as every interaction between two human beings so even though I saw some hard things it was all good stuff. 

Food continues to either be an issue or a non-issue it’s hard to decide which. I always wished to have less of an appetite but this is not exactly what I had in mind I think.  I find myself able to only tolerate eating certain things and even then it’s hard to think about food itself and the act of eating. This is the exact opposite of my normal food issue with is compulsive eating….  If I was psycho analyzing myself I would say this is about control, things I can control and things I can’t, I have lost 16lbs since my dad died. No cause for alarm yet though I think I am at what my “goal” weight would be if I was on a real diet.  If I lose much more I’ll start to worry.

I also feel like I am not going to do well in my coursework this term, I am having such a hard time writing which is odd for me, normally I am a paper writing machine I can really churn out pages. The worst part is this is a reflective paper I am struggling with not an academic one, which seems so pathetic to me.

Sam is in his first Karate competition on Nov 2nd he is so excited he started Karate when he was four and he is really doing well with it (he can break wood which is a bit scary to be honest), he told me his goal was to come in 1,2, or 3 I told him that was a reasonable goal becuase its enough to make him work really hard but be flexable with outcomes, thats an important thing. 

We had Sam’s “NY” Birthday on October 4^th with Ali, Carol, Twan, Paul, Sam and I --- the presence of my father was like a hole in the day, but it was nice – Sam had fun and Paul of course picked out the perfect gift a mix and match light saber.... BIG BIG hit with Sam.

I was listening to Wah Wah by James on my way to Drew today (a highly underrated experimental cd produced by Brian eno) anyway the point is that I used to Jog to this CD every day for like months and months and the image I had of myself as I was listening to it was that I was jogging I could even remember what I used to wear when I jogged to this music, envision my old running shoes... and which songs I would slow my pace to and which ones would rev me up.  It was odd because I was driving but in my head I was jogging...

I have started CPE and my CPE supervisor has made me dye my hair or leave the program, it seemed too soon to abandon the program, even though my first instinct was to tell them “thanks but no thanks” I have a lot riding on it academically, and spiritually.  I just wish I had known that the whole thing had such a corporate atmosphere because clearly that would not have been for me. But I have already started bonding with my peer group and the add/drop period at Drew is over and I feel like what the F--- I’ll just dye my hair its only 29 weeks it won’t kill me.  I still hope it will be a great experience....  But really I feel as if I have been stripped of an important part of my identity.... a hard thing to have happen right after losing my Dad. 

Ross has been quiet LOL that’s like not an odd thing but he has been too quiet for “let’s keep in touch” He’s back on my worry radar and I am worried about him.. Like I needed another thing to add to that list.

But maybe it’s just projection and I am really worried about myself – I am hardly able to eat, I have been having panic attacks again and I am not exactly 100% whole right now.  God can heal these things, I know I have been put back together more times than perhaps I deserved in one lifetime....  The good and the bad always mix... my mom coming home was not as comforting as I thought it might be but  today I received a thank you card from the couple I married seven days after my dad died (I thought I might have sounded and looked like a zombie at this wedding) BUT they were more than pleased with the ceremony and they had a great day.  That card made me smile and made me feel good about ministry and who I am ..... God's Grace found me..... even as shut down as I am Feeling right now.

I run my hands along the hard surface

Knowing that there was a crack

I PANIC ----  no  No NO there must be one!

I remember it clearly…..

I search for the crack that bears my name

So I can tear it wide open….

I want to break it open; I NEED TO BREAK IT OPEN

I desperately try to find it but…. my fingers find no edge

Everything is closed so tightly

I forgot how hard this surface is?

Or it got harder while I was not paying attention?

it seems like it

I just don’t know – I am confused, baffled… hurt

I cannot feel the crack I know is there

The one with my name on it

I wonder if it has knit together so completely

That even with all of my strength I will never be able

To open it again

So I look at the tough nut and wonder

Was it always this hard?

Yes Yes I remember that it was

Yes it always was

It’s the same as it always was

I wonder how I ever managed to open it before; I can’t seem to remember how

but it’s the same as it always was 

yes it was always like this...... 

My Dad's ashes are buried between his mother and his father, I drove him to the graveside in a 1989 corvette, it was such a beautiful day I had the windows open and the top down --- our last little adventure together for now,  I know that’s the way Dad would have wanted to arrive. It was a nice ceremony ecumenical Methodist/ Catholic with a priest from Fordham University name Father Joe. He Melissa and I did the talking mostly - My sister did a reading of a prayer from my Dad's mothers prayer book and my brother did the 23rd Psalm. ...when I asked them along with the priest and Step-Mom to lay hands on my father’s urn my son ran up and placed his hand on the urn as well..... We did this as we thanked God for the gift of my father's life and our returning of that gift to God.  We had the normal scriptures and prayers for the graveside  and Amazing Grace on the Bagpipes to end the service ... Anyhow it was really nice and it was the last "public ritual" of mourning for my Dad, in some sense I feel like I can now (without forgetting) refocus myself on my tasks at hand which has been really hard for the two weeks between the Mass and the burial I have felt like I have been in some limbo.   The last two days with the Tattoo and the internment have moved me pretty far along in my healing process – I ate better today than I have in weeks.

Yea there be no closure - there is ritual and spirituality and remembrance.  Getting the tattoo in memory of my Dad today has got to be up there with one of the most spiritual and special moments of my life.  I thought I would sit there and cry about my dad and that would be cathartic - instead the hum of the (needle whatever they call it) and my ability to completely relax myself for the first time in weeks made for more of a trance like peaceful state.... where I could be at one with Spirit and in some sense my dad.  I don't know that my dad would have approved of the tattoo but I had his picture right beside me and I kept smiling down at him like we were having a good joke. Sometimes I felt like I was actually falling asleep.  When I looked at the tattoo when it was done - it seemed perfect to me. A perfect memorial that will always be with me.  A reminder of this Ritual of healing that took place for me today...... for I felt God was in that place with me (along with Tai and Sarah who I can not thank enough for their sincere friendship)  - now having done this personal symbolic ritual I feel ready to face the more public ritual of burying my dad’s ashes tomorrow.

I became aware today as I was talking to Dr. Maduro this morning at the cyber café of the great fallacy of the idea of closure.  I was telling him that my dad’s ashes are being buried on Saturday, “but” I said “its not really like closure because there is no such thing as closure”  so we talked a few minutes about this because he happened to agree that the idea or concept of closure is a false one….  to want closure seems like wanting to forget, to move one with your life without that person and in some respect (to me) that feels like you would start to try to forget about the person and maybe even  stop loving the person…… why are we so much a people of forgetting?  Why do we find it so hard to live and thrive with our wounds? Isn’t that exactly what The Christ does?   I hope never to have closure over the loss of my father.

Tomorrow I am getting my Tattoo in memory of my father so let it be for me, a symbol of my faith in the resurrection,  a way of memorializing my dad and a personal  symbol of  “non-closure”

It seemed so Odd walking around the upper west side yesterday…. Like I expected to see my dad, Like he was going to come out of Barnes and Noble or I was going to run into him at Docks or maybe at the food emporium…. 

Then the thought kept occurring to me, I can search this whole neighborhood, and yes I will remember many places many things about my dad, but I am not going to find him hiding in zabars, or the Gin Mill......... he is not in the beautiful and peaceful sanctuary of Holy Trinity Church… no he is none of these places.......

No more discussions to be had, kisses to exchanges… only one more official goodbye to be said. 

  I cooked in his kitchen making a meatloaf for my Brother and Step-mom, my dad loved to cook, and somehow cooking made me feel better ----  when the BIG kitchen was first put in meatloaf was one of the mainstays – My dad  found cooking relaxing, it was part of his natural unwinding for the day  – I remember how he would talk and sip wine and just hang out while he was cooking....

it was nice just to touch the stove, the utensils …. To see my dad’s reading glasses like he just took them off and put them down. … His shirts and ties and jeans in the bedroom like they always are by his side of the bed, like he just took them off …. The only things out of place the plastic bags from the hospital with the contents of what my dad actually had on him, even these I notice my step mother has put out of view.  The whole time I was there I felt like he could just walk through the door. 

But of course he didn’t walk through the door and when the cooking was done I walked down Broadway with a caring friend with my heart full of the complexities of life and death and love and loss….   

Dear Dad,

It’s hard to put into words the complexities of our relationship. Especially to try and say it concisely… I think it was somewhat beyond words…  it was at the same time one of the most difficult and wonderful relationships I have ever know.

  Often when people ask me about my dad I say things like, “I think he would have made a better brother than a father.”    But perhaps that’s what made me love you all the more…. You were so human and flawed and yet ……smart, accomplished and really really funny  capable of such love and compassion,  you laughed easily  and you were  always ready to try some new thing. Don’t get me wrong I remember the “Bad times” But I also remember all the really good times when I was  young - Boating on the river, Horseback riding, taking tae Kwan do together (remember dad the family that kicks together sticks together!) in fact even now we were know to just start sparring around the apartment for no apparent reason other than the sheer joy of throwing kicks and punches at each other- I remember working for your company in the summers-  going to Shea to root for the Mets -  and I remember all the good times  later on too- a new brother to love and to torture -  Jogging together in  riverside park –  going to The ballet - trips we took together (and you know how I hate to fly) -  coming to worship together in this very sanctuary - or just getting together for lunch or dinner together -  or just hanging out with you in your apartment  or at teachers or someplace else on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon watching the ballgame  -- After I had moved back to Westchester I was always happy when you would come to sit on my boat with me, go motorcycle riding with my husband Anthony – or out into the woods with Anthony and Paul to play paintball – life has a way of coming full circle  Dosn't it Dad?  I was so happy to see that you were still  the kid at heart I remembered.

Whenever I or Ali would come to visit you in the city we always got the same question  “what do you want me to make for dinner?”   I’ll miss hearing your voice asking me that question that I have probably heard to many times to count.   

 You were often my co-conspirator when it came to getting up to something…. I could have a lot of examples but just to remind you of a couple of quick ones:   If you came out of the house when I was a teenager  and said very nochantlly, to no one in particular  “who wants to go for a ride?” my answer was always Yes because getting in the corvette to go for a cruise with you could only mean something good, like a trip to carvel or a stop by one of your friends houses to hang for a couple of hours.. Or various other diversions…. Or of course that one time you took me down a side road and put me behind the wheel,  I was probably about 14 -  I totally freaked out!!  Which is probably why I didn’t get my drivers licence until I was 25.  

There was that  time I ran off the the city to go to a science fiction convention, defying you and mom and leaving in the middle of the night without telling anyone, you knew exactly where to find me… I remember my reaction when I saw you walk into the convention center – I nearly died. But you actually let me stay at the convention for a while more and did not  drag  me out and drive me straight home…

 Years  later you told me that it was exactly the fact that I did things like that that made you love and respect me so much.  

 – I guess that goes both ways dad,  we both kinda do things in our own unique way. And sometimes I think we both did things other people thought were a little weird…. Like hang gliding for example (in your case) or choosing Theology over Business (in my case)   

Maybe watching us together was annoying for the people around us or maybe they didn’t quite always get it …..  But I know we understood each other very well.   And I know that even when you did not agree with my decisions, like going back to grad school – you still had pride in my accomplishments and I know you thought I could do anything,….when at your 60^th birthday brunch you said you liked the sound of “The Reverend Doctor Nunno”, I knew even though you were teasing and jabbing me a bit that you were very proud.  That was your way with me.  And I know you took my return fire without any malice.

It was always hard for me to be mad at you for too long dad…  your manipulative smoothness, your twinkling blue eyes... always made me feel like our arguments were more like fun verbal sparring events. I often considered myself to be your conscious, your personal Jiminy Cricket-  a job I took most seriously…  I am sorry we didn’t get to finish up our last debates  and discussions since they were serious and important.  I am sorry you won’t be with me in the flesh..  When I finish that PHD someday and become  Reverend Dr. Nunno. 

I am sorry you won’t have more time to get to know your wonderful grandson Samuel….  Who has those same twinkling blue eyes….  You know the ones… the ones  that are going to get him both  into and out of a lot of  trouble  

But most of all … more than everything and …even though I am 39 I will miss my daddy, - Life gets busy for adults (as I have found out  -especially with a child of your own to care for )…  you often ask me when I am next coming to visit. In typical fashion I would - tell you pointedly that the Saw Mill runs in two directions… 

But now  Dad I don’t know when I’ll be coming to visit, but whenever it is whether its very soon or many many years from now….  I’ll look forward to having a good argument with you and a good laugh and a big hug and maybe a roundhouse kick or two….

Finally, Dad I have always thought that you lived like you had something you had to prove to this world –  but I want you to know you had nothing to prove – and especially not to me-  I  love you dad... flaws and all... all of your broken and fragile humanity I loved … and I hope that you have Now found out  that our God loves us that same way-  we have nothing to prove to God .   As Saint Paul writes in the letter to the Romans:  neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You know I believe it, and now I know you have experienced it and I hope it has brought you to a deep and abiding  peace.  

So Dad! Until we meet again love and kisses – My love to Nan Pop and Buddy- And Daddy Please  keep an eye on me.. Because you know how I am!!!    

You’re loving Daughter,

Jennie Lee

So I am off to Appalachia with a mission team…. From 8/8 to 8/16 to repair houses and to learn what it is like to be hours away from anything I might consider civilization… I am most worried about being without any way to check on Sam anytime I feel like I want to… but I am sure he will be fine since he will be in VBS at Crosslands for the week I am away.... I am hoping when I get back I will have some energy to work on my Job paper... 

On 7/28 I started back into food recovery, I was really finding myself eating my feelings more and more... and I know my capacity is limitless - I have no off switch no feeling of being full and a lot to be stressed out about... my weight can spike via my compulsive eating in a matter of a couple of months, obviously I need to be in program for my issues with Food in general and sugar and flour (refined carbs) specifically.. the good thing is I have been off of caffeine for many months already so that’s not an issue for my abstinence... but I am a little concerned about staying abstinent on my trip but I know I can do it.

I am actually taking a camera on my trip a rarity for me!  So I’ll be posting my pics on my facebook page when I get back… keep our mission team in your prayers... 

Ah the summer… what a freaking waste…   I (like Hermione Granger ) cannot stand time away from school. I just finished my last class until the fall Job… Job was painful for a variety of reasons mostly having to do with the large proportion of DMIN students to MDIV and MTS students in the class.. Let me say that supersessionism is alive and well in the church and leave it there.. If I hear one more comment about how Jesus is to be found in Job I am going to murder someone… I actually had one of these guys ask me if my God is the God of the OT or the God of Jesus… are you kidding me?  On the last day of class he asked me if I had changed my mind, if I still worshiped the “Jewish” God   I said YUP! I STILL WORSHIP THE JEWISH GOD …  I think I will need therapy…

  Now I look forward with dread to a road trip with my five year old son and my psychologically 5 year old husband.. (Insert large sigh here)  So pray for me friends… as you imagine me zooming down 95 towards myrtle beach… smiling at the “south of the boarder”  signs and recalling road trips made with my parents…. trying to concentrate on playing final fantasy on my game boy but totally unable to drown out SpongeBob from the backseat and my husband’s 70’s rock. 

I wonder if anything good can come out of summer break?

Andrew Tiernan-Murphy "Andy"  1996-2008

My Chihuahua  Andy was put to sleep yesterday, he could no longer breath due to congestive heart failure.  He loved food a lot and suffered from being overweight…That little Dog logged a lot of miles with me…  Survived one Fiancée various odd relationships and one husband…and my disappearing for days to go on benders ….Even though he got on fine with his step-dad  and regular feeding improved  a Lot when I got clean and sober ---- He finally met the love of his life, our tenant Mary, and subsequently took  up residence with her… which was fine by me I was kind of an unstable dog Mom to him and he had every right to shack up with a better human…. I am grateful to Mary for doting on Andy completely in his golden years.  When I get his ashes back I will be burying him next to his friend Savannah in the back yard of the “Sixth Street House”   

Rest in Peace my little friend You were always a little clown, always had a smile for me, you were by my side for some of the hardest years... thank you for being  A part of my life.  

Well my Finals and Papers are done which leaves me with entirely too much time on my hands… I really need to work out or something too much excess energy has always been the catalyst for compulsive over eating or other even more destructive things…. So anyway I feel like I have nothing to do… it’s not entirely true.. I am preaching a sermon on May 25^th – On second thought let’s NOT consider the lilies – its needing a lot more work…  And I will be starting my job in the Theological Admissions office in the next week or so… And I have my CPE interview at Greenwich hospital which should be odd since the last time I was in that hospital was when my Ex-mother-in-law died… As I wrote in my last blog I am feeling haunted by my past a bit of late…. I wonder if this is natural as we get older (closer to the end of life?) that suddenly we start to get  urges to tie up the loose ends of our life to begin to CLOSE the circle hummm

  So I am busy and as always.. Thinking way too much… but I figure I would take a minute to tell you about a dream that I had that has pretty well haunted me….  

I had a dream recently that I think was sent by God (or born of my horror at stories of people feeding children dirt): In the dream  as an act of  solidarity with the poor  of the world…I decided that I  would serve a communion of Dirt at church rather than the normal bread..  

So I went out into a field  with one of my  classmates and we made these wafers of dirt.. no they were more like mini dirt cakes… they weren’t wet they were dry like ashes or dust… and my classmate helped me serve this communion of Dirt… my dreams are usually very vivid and I am not sure I can convey this properly but I can still see the look of surprise on people’s faces as I served them this Dirt… the look of the dirt in their mouths…The change in expression as they realized that instead of the bread they had been given dirt… and in the dream it was the white suburban church that we were serving  the communion in.. So the looks were perhaps ones of disgust or surprise or “How dare you!?”

 Then I took the communion of dirt last and I can recall that it was gritty and hard to swallow…

Some people like to hear themselves talk, but I like to hear myself silent

                                                                                --- Odd Thomas

I used to like to hear myself talk A LOT… I guess you might think I am still that way but truly I talk a lot less than I used to.. If that can be believed…

When I was younger I was not only talkative and empathetic (as I still am) but I also felt a great deal of love for the people around me….  I think I was too much that way, and too intense and serious a lot of the time.. Well I am still intense and serious but I no longer feel compulsion to reach out in love toward the other…

What happened to me? Well here is my Theory….

Out of emotional need ( or just good sense)  I began to build myself some boundaries.. Boundaries make you feel like an adult…  boundaries ( we are made to believe) are good and healthy things …I guess so…. But I notice that over the years these boundaries have grown thicker and thicker… they have become cold , thorn and ivy covered…  and I no longer indulge in the shamanistic substances  that allowed me to walk through the walls and the location of the regular doors and windows have been lost…

And so while I still feel that empathy that inspired love in the first place as I peer over my fortress walls I never engage the other…

The writing and reading I am doing this term in almost all my course work.., on suffering and atonement and hospitality make me aware  of this… and awareness has brought a feeling of  isolation and loneliness   

Ghosts that seem to be both everyone I ever knew and nobody I recognize seem to haunt me.

I wonder in my writing and occasionally out loud which came first.. My love of contemplative practices or my isolation…

Has the function and form of my spiritual practice taken me where I want to go...... or is it simply the result of where I am?

I wonder…. When  was it that I started to feel alone…. When was it that I stopped allowing myself to love… I can’t put my finger on it…

When, oh Lord,  did I begin to LIKE to hear myself silent!?

Remember that show with Leonard Nemoy.. In Search of?  It was the father of the majority of shows on Discovery and History having to do with the paranormal and the spooky…. Well that show has nothing to do with this blog post really but I thought of it when I typed the words “in search of”

 I’ll be doing my Clinical Pastoral Education requirement next year rather than working in the local Church.. Which is kind of a relief to be totally honest… I am trying to find the best program for me.. There is one at Westchester Medical Center which is close to home.. And comes highly recommended.. But close to home should not be my only criteria as I found out this year… SO I am trying to find programs that have a special focus like hospice or working with the disabled etc…. These might be in NJ or CT..   We’ll see I look forward to this change,  the meeting with Dean Samuel about the issues at SOUMC was really revealing.. I was hardly aware myself how hurt  I am over the whole situation… anyhow… there are good and bad Pastors in the world, I already knew that…..

To work in a more “on the edge” setting ministering to people truly in need of God’s presence… will remind me why I wanted to be a minister in the first place I think… well I hope so anyway.. Cause some days lately I’m not so sure…  
I was praying before the service this morning and I just started crying… but everything was fine, ….  We sang  it is well with my soul this morning…... and it is

I do most of my shadow work for the year over Lent… I really go in deep and struggle with all my demons... I put all my ugly stuff out on the table and take a good long look at it…… in my contemplative practices I take time to work on mortality and suffering and the depravity of what humanity can do to humanity etc…. So usually by the time Good Friday rolls around I am feeling close to a spiritual nervous breakdown.  I allow this to happen, I let myself break down completely on Good Friday in terms of “how could it be this way?”  I can really participate in the suffering and stupidity of the crucifixion….  In a tangible way that feels real to me.  Because I do my darkest spiritual work over lent I try to give myself a break for the rest of the year… not that I don’t think about these things but I don’t make them the focus of my spiritual disciplines for the rest of the year.  This year they seem to have spilled over into Easter a bit... I don’t know if it’s because of all the difficult things going on in my life… or just because I am not ready to pack them away yet…  I want to be ready to pack them away… maybe move a couple of more to the curb… but the ugly things are still sitting on the table and they are at present still holding my gaze……..

And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your 
feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.....


I thought this was going to be a friendly meeting - I prepared a devotion based on respecting leaders and one another in Christ LOL stupid stupid stupid stupid...... 

But in some regards this was what I was expecting so I was afraid when I was driving to the church... 


so I prayed to God that the spirit come to put the words in my mouth because I didn't know what   I was going to say to these people who so clearly wanted to oppose my ministry in the church. 

As I prayed the peace came over me that to me signifies that the sprit had indeed come.... I felt calmed.  

When I got there I was not invited into the first part of the meeting I was going to be brought in later... clearly this wasn't going to be friendly!  And I started to get upset again.  Then a member of the Church arrived who supports me strongly!!!  She just arrived like an angel to sit by my side and advocate for me..... I thank God for supporting me through this rotten rotten experience, and bringing me peace and comfort.  And really tangible comfort by having my sister in Christ right beside me.  

How I fear for the church when enthusiasm for ministry is met with stonewalling and fear.... isn't this the issue of the mainline church that we are showing the holy spirit the door instead of welcoming it in?  I guess it’s good  that I will not be in this stagnant church next year.... I think another year in this place would have probably finished off my marriage among other things…… so now I just tick off the days and shed a few tears for those who might have accepted Christ but never got offered the Good News... 

I expect to shake the dust off my feet shortly.......