the question of death

When you go to a recruitment weekend for a seminary you sit through some fake classes. By far the most amusing, entertaining, and thought provoking of these was a class in St. Louis, taught by a woman who was born in India, grew up in England, and now teaches in the states. She opened the class by saying she was going to talk about Jesus. She said 'you're coming to a Christian seminary, we're going to talk about Jesus. Get over it'. So we talked for 45 minutes about the question of death, specifically the death of Jesus. We make such a big deal about his death and resurrection, but really isn't the important part what he taught us while he was here? If the point was death, then why not kill him as an infant, get it over with. Well, then you'd miss his life and all of the lessons he taught us about how to live and treat each other. Ok so then why die and be resurrected? Why die young? Why not live to be old and teach us more about how to love each other? These are the kinds of things I'll be wrestling with when I go off to seminary.
I find the question of death, in the bigger sense to be something I struggle with almost daily. I work in a job where the reality of life and death is always looming in the background. Where people I meet today might not be around tomorrow. For three years I've almost been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for one of my clients to be murdered. It's obviously not something I want to happen, the first year I worked here I told my boss that if any of my clients were killed that I would immediately have to quit. That I couldn't keep doing this if it happened. Luckily it hasn't happened. That doesn't mean it hasn't almost happened, or that I haven't been terrified that it was going to happen, just that I've lucked out. I have just under 6 weeks of work left. It's getting harder and harder to come here on a daily basis and face the grim reality that my clients are dealing with. I was in therapy yesterday, talking to a sub therapist for a few weeks, and telling her how long I'd been at my job, and the types of stress I had and the effects on me and my life. And she told me that my job is just a perfect storm for burnout. I'm in crisis work 9-5 Monday- Friday, and even if I'm not with a client, each phone call or door ring is the chance that it will be a crisis, and that it will be messy. I'm right in the window of burnout, she said it's about 3-4 years. I've been working here 3 years this summer so combining that with all the family stuff I've had going on, plus my propensity to stay insanely busy to cope with it all, and she told me she was surprised I lasted this long. So I'll count down the days, and say a prayer of thanks each one that passes without a fatality. I suppose that's really all I can do. Sorry this post derailed into depressing job talk. I had another direction for it in mind, but I guess that's just not where my thoughts are sitting today. Have a lovely Tuesday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERRIE!!!!!

love and hugs
r