Sure, the “Chipmunk of Consternation” is not on MY head, but rather the dog’s.  It is far better looking on his, and even kid of cute, but is as close tonight as I can come for an apropos picture of having a lot on my mind.  Of course a stuffed rodent on MY head while sitting in my truck might indicate I need another CT scan, but not to worry, the picture is actually “staged” and meant for “illustration purposes only.”

But in truth I do have a lot on my mind.  I have made some major transitions for myself over the past few months that effect both me and my family.   I am also in deep discernment about whether I should be continuing in the ministry in my current jurisdictions, meaning my current diocese AND my current denominational ties are among these as well.  These are all deep and meaningful struggles, which I do not feel indicate conflict as much as they help lead to clarity, yet they are struggles nonetheless, and no one likes struggles.  That is partially why I stepped aside in leadership of the Churches I had been over since their inception.  It allows them to move ahead and frees me to deal with these issues, which are deeply personal, and to do so independently.

To give a little background, at the end of 2006 I transferred out of the Episcopal Church after knowing nothing else in my life as I felt it had left me.  I was conservative, the Episcopal Church was not. And although I left (by myself) and went into another jurisdiction, the Episcopal Church charged me with a “Church Crime” saying I had abandoned my faith and held a trail without me in which they “defrocked” me or stopped saying I was a priest……all the while while I still worked for the Anglican Church and have never EVER to this day stopped being a priest.  It affirmed I made the right decisions.

Currently for me I am still a priest in in ACNA, or the Anglican Church in North America which provides a setting for me that is more congruent to my theology, to my beliefs.  But quite disappointingly I am finding that the DNA looks quite the same, and the more and more I walk with it, the more and more it looks and feels as if it is becoming just what I faithfully left, it just exists with better (more conservative) theology.  I know, I know, churches are always quite political (internally), institutional, structured, that does not bother me.  What bothers me is that it seems to lack a lot of the Grace and faith that I had prayed I would see.  And to be honest, I am both disappointed and disturbed by that.  Father PT, who took my place as head of our parishes probably said it best, and I am paraphrasing here, “Tommy, I just want to celebrate on Sundays and take care of my people.”

You see, that’s really it, and why I am the Superior of an Order that focuses on relationships and people.  Jesus didn’t die and rise for an institution, he died and rose for people, for you and me.  The two must live together, but the latter must always win out lest we lose our mission.

And THAT is what is on my mind…..and as you might guess, I would just rather it be the Chipmunk of Consternation.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

It has been a busy, but difficult day for me.  I have plenty of energy, but there are just times I get emotionally drained and today has been one of them. And just like anyone else in that state, people around you can either help or make it worse, so when Amanda suggested we head to Panera (as she had a gift card) for dinner, I worried in my condition which way things would head.

But we Tirmans are creatures of routine at places like this.  As I generally have a set in stone, never changing menu order anywhere we go (yes, I just like what I like and stay with it) Ben and I go to get a table (tonight a booth) and wait for Amanda to order and come to where we are sitting. When we are in a booth, she must make a choice as to WHO she sits with, and oddly enough it took me until tonight to realize that she has not ever chosen to sit with me, but instead with our little snake, I mean son.

But as we sat down to wait for her I felt for my phone and as Ben saw me do it he asked if he could use it to play some games. He has his own iPad for a reason, because he is good at goofing up my phone, so I did what any other experienced dad would do, I said “no, because I want to take your picture instead.”  He was not too thrilled by my answer, but “seemed” to comply by not posing as you can see above.  But tonight has been a night of revelation for me as I not only discovered my wife always sits by him, but that we are actually the parents of the real life Derek Zoolander.  And oddly enough, in that one moment, my life made a lot of sense.

You know hard days come, but they also go.  I often wish I was 6 again and could wash everything I deal with away with an iPad game or my imagination…..at 52 I can’t.  But what I can do is marvel at the world God has me walking in and laugh at it and myself.  I can recover from difficult days like today and focus on the real important work of life.

Like the reality that there is some poor girl with Ben “Zoolander” Tirman’s name upon her soul as her husband one day…..and for that young lady I need to pray.  She is gonna need it.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

As I often do on these MAJOR Holy Days, I am posting mid-day, or as they say where I come from “early.”  It, in other words, is a “time sensitive” message.

But on behalf of myself and our family, I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  And may the blessings of the Jesus, born this day, be upon you and remain with you always!

Thanks for walking on this journey with me.

God Bless!

Tommy+


PS. – This picture was taken this morning by professional iPhone photographer Stephanie Tirman of her littlest brother pretending to be Rudolph.

This year is different……yes, we are ready to celebrate the joy of Christmas, but for the first year in close to 25 I will not be the Celebrant at a Mass within a Church.  I will be the Celebrant for our family’s Mass tomorrow, but for tonight we will just wait in anticipation.

I confess, it feels pretty weird.  Yet oddly enough it will solve an issue for me.  When I was a young man you could go to “Midnight Mass” with the idea that you would receive Communion on Christmas. But as my ministry progressed, more and more we saw the services moving earlier on the 24th.  And in fact in many of the Churches I served I could be home well before midnight.  And for years I even kept up Christmas Day Mass at the Church, but it was often just me and one or two others.  Tonight however, I will not do a thing and tomorrow I can finally conquer that theological issue I have fought deep within myself.

And this is not meant to be critical, as the celebration of Christmas is as deeply personal and varied as every human heart the Son of God was born to enter.  We each need to find our own way in this as God calls each one of us by name.  I just felt conflicted about it for myself.

But in a very real way, this has been healthy for me.  I am not gone from my family traveling and doing services, I am present and helping out.  And I will not be that exhausted “guest who lives here” tomorrow, I can be the man I am called to be, a father to my kids and that great trophy husband my wife can’t live without.  It’s actually pretty cool.

But regardless of how I feel, Christ is born nonetheless.  Yes, we are prepared, and yes we will celebrate.  But for now I am just thankful for the gifts He has bestowed upon me and the family (minus that one US Marine and future daughter-in-law) he has given me to enjoy!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

This picture is just about a month old, and before anyone gets offended let me share that this is my grandparents’ grave, and this is just one of my very regular trips there to fulfill a promise to my grandfather to go there (with my kids) and have fun.  And quite honestly, this is pretty tame.  All three kids have gone there often, and all three can tell you of the fun they have there.

Oddly enough, I have been going there for years, even many before either of them died, as my grandfather would take me there.  No, he was not morbid……he was loving.  And he took me there while he was alive to prepare me for the years I would be there and he and my grandma would not be. He used to say, “Someday you will be here without me, and it will be alright.”  He wanted it to be a place that I could come and remember, not sadness or pain, but the good things.  He wanted it to be a happy place where I could come or me with my family and we could laugh and play and I could share many of the good things and times we had together and their hopes for us all.  And it has worked.  I have been their sad on only two occasions, the days that each of them were buried there.  But even then, I came to my senses (on my grandpa’s burial date abruptly as I snuck there alone after the funeral). I was there and they weren’t.  And I realized that all of those times he took me out there were to prepare me for those two days.  It was an awesome gift.

But more than that, it is a constant gift to me as the cemetery is not a place for me to mourn, but one that I go to remember joy.  My grandpa wanted my kids to play there, and they always have and they still do…..ALL of them.  And in the midst of some of my deepest struggles in my life I have found myself there (sure I pray too and do the whole Church-thing as I am a priest and it’s sort of “required”).  It is a place that centers me and reminds me of what the important things in my life are.

No, it’s not a shrine, nor does it hold any mystical powers, nor are they there as they are at home in heaven.  Only their bodies remain.  But to me it is a place of tremendous joy.  Oh how I miss them! But for the Lion’s Share of my life I was so incredibly blessed. And I thank God for the opportunities I have for the rest of my life to make good on my promise and to hopefully pass on to our children a bit of that blessing for them to enjoy as well.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well this picture is months old, and I am really unaware as to whether or not I have used it before, but those reindeer antlers were at Meijer, and probably on sale, and all three of the kids have no problem looking goofy in public.

But tonight it made me laugh.  It is 3 days before Christmas and two before a lot of church services that for the first time in over a quarter of a century I will not be the Celebrant at.  One of the things that has happened over these past few months is that I have resigned my position as Rector (head priest) of all the churches I helped plant.  But for them I am not worried, as they do not have “new” leadership, but really the same leadership.  The very ones who help plant alongside me are now the very ones at the helm.  And I am now really working hard to assess my role in the future.  I am still technically on staff, but I feel deeply that I could also be a distraction.  But on the upside, we have spent quite a long time lessening my public role and increasing theirs.  For most people attending, I would like to imagine, it is not an uncomfortable transition.

I will confess however that it is clearly one for me.  I was a student, then a priest…….I have been nothing else.  Not Celebrating on Christmas, or really any Sunday is a big change for me and one that fills me with angst.  Yes, I am still the head of the Order, yet in these changes even that had changed significantly.  And all tonight’s picture reminded me of was my desire for the simpler, although stressful yet familiar, feelings of the huge responsibilities of the next week.  I would have looked at it and though, “well thank God I still have this deranged Meijer Rudolph to get me through.”  I could laugh it off and survive it.

But perhaps these transitions really reflect the fact that I am being called to different things.  Time will tell, but I clearly see movement and signs.  I will just pray Fr. PT and the other clergy see the path before them and walk it faithfully.  They are good men, exceptional ones in fact, and they will be a blessing to many I am sure.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I always wondered why our dog Viper never, like most dogs, chews the squeakers out of his dog toys. He is not typical in so many ways, but in this way he distances himself from any other dog we have ever owned. (Okay, we have never “owned” dogs….they are ALWAYS just family)

But I suppose one of the reasons could be that our dogs are part of what you would not consider a typical family.  Our home environment and our life could be seen as fostering this lack of squeaker OCD in our dogs.

Case in point is tonight’s picture, which is of all three of Viper’s chew toys.  For you see although in most families each might have a call name like “squirrel” or “chipmunk” or “bunny,” in ours the names are more descriptive.  Thus you are looking at “The Squirrel of Pain,” and “The Bunny of Peace” and “The Chipmunk of Consternation,” who Ben calls “The Chipmunk of Disagreement” as he cannot say “consternation.”  And of course there is a big difference between disagreement and consternation, but neither Ben nor Viper seem to mind. The both just seem to accept and live well in their relationship filled with artificial rodents.

Quite interesting enough, The Squirrel of Pain is actually not the original.  We feel the original IS somewhere on our property (probably being held somewhere by the cat) but the second one (pictured here) is its replacement, or perhaps better said, the spare.  In theological terms we might call the missing rodent Squirrel of Pain the Great, while the one pictured Squirrel of Pain the Less.  But seeing as Ben (who is just 6) is struggling with understanding consternation, I think my hopes for the whole theological thing may be as realistic as my professional ice hockey career…..it only exists in my mind.

But of it all I do not worry.  Our life is fun, full of adventure and surprise, and lots of old but still functional squeaky dog toys.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

It has been a long and challenging few months for me, but I am happy to profess that I am back in the saddle again.   And although I would have rather just played life straight up, I have benefited quite a bit by this detour.

First of all I want to make clear……no, I did not have some mid-life crisis or did I head off on some journey to “find myself,” in fact I am pretty confident I have known myself the whole time.  It is just that sometimes when there are too many balls in the air one needs to set some aside in order to make sure all of them are not dropped to the ground.  And, so we can also be clear, I felt it was probably a good idea to set a few things like my blog aside over saying to my wife, “listen, why don’t I just stop pulling my weight around here?”  One leads to praise, the other to homicide.  (We should also remember that my wife is a scientist by training and could really make anything look like an accident….I am just thankful she loves me.)

But instead of sharing with you the details, I will leave it to your imaginations.  Sure, I know what that leads to……some will conjure up the negative and some will head towards the positive, but despite that, I will keep those parts of my life private.

On the catch up front however there is much to report.  Scotty is now a Lance Corporal and ENGAGED to a very wonderful young woman (Kenzie).  They will be married this summer.  Steph is now half way through her senior year and will finish with a degree in CHEMISTRY (I need to have her DNA checked) and all while playing for one of the best D2 college lacrosse programs in the nation. Amanda is as busy as ever and has now gotten into Thirty-One products as she loves them.  Viper just had a MAJOR surgery to remove his spleen and is doing great!  And Ben, well let’s just say he is just Ben.  He now has a yellow belt with a green tip in Tae Kwon Do and as I just found out since he just came into my office…..PINK EYE.  He’s showing everyone.

So in a lot of ways life is very much the same.  In the past few months I have done a lot of soul-searching and gained a lot of depth.  And all I can say is that it has been worth it.

I’ll see you tomorrow!

Good night my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

This blog tonight is the “rehearsal dinner” to the big event, my last blog post for 30 days (at least) as I go off to get my life and my thoughts and my ministry focused an together.  It is a serious and daunting task, yet one I seem to have a strange attraction to.  I suppose my mom (God rest her soul) would say that this perception actually show s some sanity, but in all honesty, I do not believe my mom was convinced that a lot I was doing with my life held any particles of sanity at all.  So this is not quite non-fiction, but more of “speculative fiction.”

But tonight my Mother-in-Law arrived and we went out for her birthday which is tomorrow.  She is an incredible woman, and tremendously supportive of Amanda and I, and I appreciate her being here as I move through this discernment/sabbatical.

I will write more tomorrow as I am SO FAR behind.  But I look forward to sharing where I am heading and what the future brings……and its Genesis is all tomorrow.

In the meantime, please enjoy this wonderful picture of Ben and Kenzie celebrating our anniversary without Scott!  He still thinks she will bag Scotty for him!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+