I have not made a post in over two months because I have been in Seminary summer school completing Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) serving as a Counselor and Chaplain at two sites: Rockingham Memorial Hospital and Gemeinschaft Home which is a transition home for convicted felons rehabilitating them for re-entry back into society. This has been an intense schedule with 40 hours per week clinical work, classroom time, homework, verbatims, working my professional job which is my livelihood while maintaining my personal schedule and obligations for my daughter and I. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences for me though in my Seminary studies. It has been a time of affirmation of my calling and direction where God is leading me. I had a neat experience today at the hospital that I wanted to share.
As I was at the hospital today making visits, I was on the 3rd floor meeting with a patient. As I was looking outside the window occasionally as I listened to the patient, I kept seeing a glimpse of something. At first I thought it was a reflection of something in the window, and I kept looking behind me to see if there was anything or someone there causing the reflection. There was nothing there. Then I realized that it was a white feather. At first I was in disbelief and doubted the fact, but as I looked closer, it was in fact a feather that was falling. Then I guess the wind would catch it and it would ascend and descend again like a romantic, graceful dance before my eyes. I wanted to keep staring at it, but I also did not want the patient to think that I was not listening, so I glanced away from the feather looking at the patient. However, my curiosity and fascination was too great that I would continue to go back and forth from the feather to the patient. The last time that I glanced away and looked back to the window, it was now gone. I was sad, but also grateful that God had revealed Himself to me even in that most unlikely moment of seeing a feather. 
You see, for probably over a year now, God reveals Himself to me in profound ways and always the perfect time through bird feathers that are placed on my path in the most unlikely places. On my journey, I have documented these unlikely encounters and I am always amazed when God shows up revealing Himself to me when I need affirmation. Prior to leaving my shift at the hospital, I always spend my last ten minutes in the hospital prayer room praying for my patients, doctors, nurses, staff and myself. I was praising and thanking God for the way He revealed Himself to me in an ironic way through a feather outside of a patient's hospital room on the third floor.
I instantly felt God's presence upon me with a warmth and tingling bodily sensation that radiated through my entire being. I became emotional (and as I write this reflecting on my experience, I am now too emotional overcome with tears). At this moment, God and I encountered each other in an intimate and intentional manner of mutual gratitude and love. There is no greater feeling or experience than when God and I meet in divine union spontaneously in the most unlikely way. Oh the mystery of His love and romance keeps wooing me in for more.
Coming soon, I will have more personal reflections of my experience during these past ten weeks of how my CPE experience has allowed me to feel so alive with a new meaning of God being the Alpha and the Omega. He is the beginning and the end as I have sat with others staring at the birth of new life and sitting with those gasping their last breathe. It is in the middle of these two tensions where deep appreciation, purpose and meaning of life awakens the soul to feel connected to all and in union with the movement and the groaning of the universe. I can't wait to share this with you! Shalom.
