One of my favorite actors/people in the world is Sir Patrick Stewart. I know him best for his portrayal of Jean Luc Picard, from Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, throughout his career as an accomplished actor, Sir Patrick Stewart has become a champion of women’s rights in domestic violence and soldiers struggling with PTSD, in part because of his childhood with an alcoholic, abusive father struggling with PTSD and his mother who suffered abuse at his hand. Because of his tremendous acting ability, as well as his social activism, Patrick Stewart was knighted and became Sir Patrick Stewart.

I find ‘honorifics’, or titles signifying high standing or status, really kind of cool. Part of it is because they serve as a mini introduction. When you introduce yourself as “Dr. So and so”, I know that you have spent a lot of time studying. When I introduce myself as “Chaplain” or “Reverend” Feltz, it tells the person I’m meeting a little bit about me, and hopefully my character.  Continue reading →

I once had a supervisor in the Army who had an interesting thing happen to him. When he found out that I worked in the operating rooms, he told me about the fact that he recently had a three-vessel bypass surgery, more commonly called a ‘triple bypass’. He said had the surgery done because his cardiologist noticed, during his annual check up, that his heart’s rhythm was off. In fact, his EKG revealed that he had actually had a heart attack, which he had been largely unaware of.

It turns out, that a few months prior to the surgery, my supervisor thought he had a bout with the flu that laid him up for a while. While the symptoms are gone away, he never really felt like he recovered 100%, because in fact he hadn’t. He had thought that what he was going through was a run of the mill flu, when it turns out his body was recovering from a minor heart attack.

Lent is beginning tomorrow night (I suppose that depends on when you actually read this though). It is a period of time largely associated with giving up chocolate, Netflix, or Facebook (or whatever you’re giving up). My time as a pastor has shown me that Lent has become season where most of us (myself including) have just a vague notion of what we’re really doing. I mean, we know what we’re doing (giving something up) but we can struggle to remember or stay focused on what we’re actually doing (attempting to draw nearer to Christ through self denial and reflection).

Continue reading →

Small confession: I have trust issues. I know I’m not the only one, and I’m not really sure why I do, but I know that they’re there. That’s why one of the things I appreciate most from the story about Jesus’ birth is the role of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. He’s put in a really tricky situation where he needs to trust both his fiancee and God in some big ways.

Here’s a quick recap of the story: Continue reading →