Keokuk Internship: Stifling Creativity

I should have known this from my college atmosphere, but there are some hours of the day where my creativity and work pace just lag behind. My mornings are great. Before I take lunches I’m usually on fire. Nighttime is usually also great. At campus it was because I’d work out in the Rec Center and then do another couple of hours of homework. Here in Keokuk, however, nighttime is usually when I get reading done and when I also prepare for the coming day’s work. One of the problems is that the YMCA isn’t open as late as the Rec Center at TCU.

So when is my stifled period of work?: 2:00pm-3:30pm. That hour and a half can rarely get many of my mental juices flowing as fast as I want or need them to. What a frustration! Those are usually the clearest hours of the day that I spend in the church and the ones when I need to work the most.

I’m also afraid that I’m reaching a burnout point. To some extent it’s a burnout feeling because of the hours that I’m working, but more than that, it’s really an absence of what I like to call ‘recreative’ moments. At college I had a set of rituals I could do and locations I could go to which would spawn a ton of creativity. Sometimes it was taking two hours to do some computer programming. Sometimes it was taking an hour and doing the Stairmaster. Sometimes it was going to the depths of the library to mentally concentrate on something else to let the subconscious start moving faster.

One of the hard things I’m having trouble with in Keokuk is finding not only places but also things to do which can bring on the synergy. Rodger and Lucille’s house is great for reading, sleeping and fellowship, but it’s hard to stay in touch with some of my normal relaxation outlets. The church is great for when I need to help or get help from Cathie, Matt, Sharon, Lea or Bill, but it’s not great for individual work. Part of it is the space limitations which will be solved by the new building (which they’ll move into after I leave). One of the issues is that I’m used to a lot of desk space (space for computers and printers). I’ve lucked out so far since Bill was gone for my first week, last week was the mission trip, this week Matt is taking some time off and next week I’ll be really tied up with Vacation Bible School; desk space has shown up. When everyone is working, though, I’m basing out of a chair in Cathie’s office with a laptop actually on my lap (yeah, I know, completely ironic concept nowadays).

For the past summers I’ve been able to stay connected with the rest of the world at a pretty intense level with the internet and instant messaging. I never realized how great of an extent a town like Keokuk, however, was still based on slow internet. The church is using a dial-up connection that usually gets only about half of the speed of a normal 56K connection.

While I have to adopt for this summer, it’s really affecting what I’m thinking about for my future in ministry. I know that I’m wanting to do ministry, but the limitations of a small, isolated town are making me even more conscious of having to choose what type. For most of last fall and spring I admired priests because they could have do so many types of ministry: some serve not only as parish priests, but also as school teachers, missionaries, authors, chaplains and business managers in their lifetime. Ministry is a chance for them to serve God while not limiting their job possibilities for the future but expanding them more than they could otherwise.

This internship is really geared at preparing me for pastoral ministry. I’m already having fun and learning a lot. I keep asking myself as I’m going through it why I can’t do more. I know in many situations it’s a time factor; my energy has to be focused in order to do things well. Why is it that this is wearing me out faster than expected and I’m not getting my usual recharge? Part of it is due to my introverted nature and my setting’s lack of time that I take for myself. If I lived alone in my own apartment I wouldn’t be tied up at nights (don’t get me wrong though, Rodger and Lucille and their kids and grandkids are the people I’d most like to be with in this situation; they’re great). The internship isn’t really set up with introverts in mind. Hopefully at the end of the summer I can offer some advice from experience on how the church can at least offer some options for future interns.

So what’s my game plan for surviving burnout for the rest of the summer? I’m starting to do some of my forward visioning. At school this forward visioning is usually focused around papers due in the next month and seminary options for the distant future. Now that I’m in the internship, I’m needing to concentrate on something for the future so the rest of me can work at the job-at-hand. My senior year of high school I was scoping out Flash technology (namely 2Advanced Studios – http://www.2advanced.com). Now in my senior year of college I’m starting to read about digital photography labs and techniques online (hard to do without high-speed internet) and also stay up to date with my online magazine subscriptions (America – http://www.americamagazine.org and Interpretation (a journal on biblical studies)).

I’m going to have to post again in a month to see how I’ve adapted and whether or not the internship will still be draining my creativity as much as it is.