The Perfect Time for Reflective Practice

As I started to write my first paper for Reflective Practice I realized that I should be posting this. I hope you enjoy it!

Having Reflective Practice this semester has been beneficial to a recent loss in my life. It was as if God knew there would be a loss in my life so close to the beginning of the fall semester that he guided me in the spring to sign up for this course. I have felt this way a couple of times that God is choosing my courses for seminary, not me.

My recent loss is the loss of a dog that meant the world to me. What made it worse was how it came about. Buster has been with me since he was probably 6-8 weeks old until he was about 6 years old. He went everywhere with me and he was my baby. He was a big dog, a Mastiff and weighed in at over 100 pounds. After my partner and I decided to adopt a couple of boys and the kids moved in, Buster became jealous and despite our best efforts to keep him separated from the kids, one of them got bitten. The way the law in Maine is Buster was taken away from me and quarantined. The thing that made it painful for me was I had no idea or right to know what would happen to him. I did however call the place where he was quarantined and asked what would happen to him and after they told me that he would be put to sleep after the ten days, I was devastated yet I was beginning to feel the whole in my heart filling up and the closure I needed was there. While it was not the way I would have wanted the situation to pan out, it had to suffice.

To add to this loss, I had no grief process to follow because I now had children that had to be put first. I was rushed out of the grieving process and had to be a strong parent. I am still grieving but by myself and try to relive memories. Like C.S. Lewis I have found the art of writing my thoughts and feelings. I post them on a blog (https://jturano.blogspot.com/) so that others can read about my experiences. I do not do this to be selfish and whine about my life, I do it because the Internet is a powerful place. It serves as a type of therapy for me and it allows others to use search engines to explore resources on life experiences. I do not always have solutions but what I do have is shared experience. What I mean by shared experience is that most everyone has lost a pet or had God call them to a ministry. By telling my experiences I prove to them that I am not the only one that has felt this way, and most importantly, they are not the only ones that feel a certain way. Blogging in a sense is a ministry of mine, and it was not part of my original intent.

Reading and watching the video of C.S. Lewis’ Grief Observed made me realize I was not the only one that dealt with loss of a loved one in the manner described in his book. He was basically doing what I did by writing journals about the process and finally publishing his experience. Sure, I probably could have done the same, but I chose to blog and he didn’t have computers or the Internet. Regardless of the type of loss, mine a dog, he his wife, the grief process is the same. You can believe me that I yelled at God and questioned his authority, how could he do that to me? I was angry at my partner, and I was angry at the kids but not directly. During this time I had to stay strong and put on a happy caring face while I was torn inside dealing with the loss. Alone I was going through a brief period of depression and the root cause was selfishness. I returned to the love of God and knowing that in my garden Buster will be there waiting for me.

Once I took the first step of returning to my faith which grounds me I was able to move forward. I no longer made all the accusations of why it happened and passing blame on everyone. It was an unfortunate accident that ended painfully but made me realize what I had learned. Buster taught me about life in the short time he was with me. By far the most important thing he taught me was unconditional love. What I have learned from reading Martin Luther King’s sermons is that love trumps hate. Not exactly his words but a more modern day translation.

As I go through my classes at BTS, I go on a roller coaster ride on where I think I should be in ministry. There are times I think I would like to have a church of my own or serve as a youth minister, and then there are times I return to my original call of serving an outdoor ministry. I am on the down hill part of the ride right now where I am returning to the original call. I am not the type of person that can counsel someone on their grief directly but rather share my witness so others can learn. What I see happening is a serious of books coming out of me to help others in all types of situations, while I am serving as a Director of an outdoor ministry camp. I am sure there will be situations when people will need it and I feel by talking about my experiences it will help them understand that they are not the only ones that have experienced something and how I came through it may be beneficial to them. Reflective practice is giving me the foundation to become more open and is helping me to fine tune my ministry of blogging life to the world.