not even tonsillitis can stop the weekly report

Church of the Resurrection, Intern’s Weekly Report

Week 6

June 05 – June 11 2005

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18

I have come to the realization that my “internship” (read ministry) will not actually end on August 1^st. How can it?

Can I stop visiting Lee Jones, or Edna Knight, or the G......'s or the S..... – O’D.......'s on August first with the simple explanation that “my internship has ended”? Of course not. What I have begun here has no end, and that is the biggest learning I have come to this week as I realize that I am over half way through this challenge.

The second biggest learning of this week is in the political minefield that being in a position of leadership in a church can be. Dana met up with Christine and I during the fellowship hour and began to tell us of her intention of switching her family over to an all raw-food diet. While I personally think that it might be an extreme course of action, Dana is well within her rights to raise her children as she sees fit, and I applauded her intention of at least trying to steer her family away from the rampant and toxic excesses that is the modern, first-world diet.

Still, I could see Christine's expression, thought she said nothing. She too thought it was fringe. But I found myself supporting Dana's decision to take intense measures to combat the serious malaises of allergies that sadly afflict her family. So what if it was an extreme step? Dana is an extreme personality; that is not a crime. Besides, I reminded myself, she was planning to feed her family nothing but uncooked, unprocessed food – not cyanide.

Still, I got a phone call that afternoon from her that afternoon thanking me for openly supporting her in front of members of the congregation. I was a bit surprised – I had not seen my actions as supporting her position, merely expressing interest and acknowledging her right to raise her family as she and her husband saw fit. However, she told me that she had mentioned this plan to several members of the congregation and it was greeted with scorn, suspicion and even a touch of derision.

Apparently, Susanne had (in Dana's words) ‘gone off on her’ telling her that it was a mother’s job to feed and nurture her family with comforting food, to get up early and make them bacon and eggs and that depriving Dana's children of the comfort of a good home cooked meal was tantamount to abdicating your position as a good mother.

This situation, I am pleased to say, raised only one question in me: how would Duke handle this?