biblical womanhood: firefighting, sport shooting

God makes us this way, I guess

There is a perpetually open google sheet on my computer where I’ve been tracking my weekly hymn selections for the 10:00 AM principal service. This Sunday will be my twentieth at the parish, and we have yet to repeat a single hymn (with one exception, which was an accident related to an error of copy/paste). I do my best each week to align the music with the substance of the appointed readings, but I’ll confess to stacking the deck with favorites for the first couple of months. I selected “Come Thou Fount” for the first week — my husband’s favorite. More than anything, I wanted him to feel at home.

I’ve never been the hymn-selector before. I’ve never been a solo rector before. In this place, as our resources currently permit, I find myself both promoted and demoted to all things (principal preacher, on-call mouse-catcher, final authority over major parish decisions, the one who updates the building calendar, scholar-in-residence, de facto plumber in chief). It’s been the best of times, and, mercifully, not the worst of them. I’ll confess to sending weird texts to the clergy group chat: does anyone have a bulletin for a bishop’s visitation I could look at? Have any of you ever led an ecumenical service with Mennonites? Should I worry if there are more keys to my building floating around than I have parishioners? Is anyone else really tired? Praying for you guys! Please pray for me…!

For reasons known only within the sublime mechanisms of the imagination of Almighty God, I have joined the local fire department as a volunteer and paid-on-call firefighter and medic. Initially, I visited the station to inquire about an upcoming renewal course for my long-expired CPR/emergency medical certification. The chief was there, and he invited me into his office.

“So you’re looking to do CPR?

“Yes.”

“Are you in good health?”

“I think so?”

“Can you lift 60 pounds?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to become a firefighter?”

I assumed the department must have been desperate and/or fully committed to a bit. But as the question crossed the desk of my tiny town fire chief, the picture emerged from my mind — fully formed and alive — like a strapping Athena stepping from the face of Zeus. Suddenly it seemed to me to be the most natural thing in the world. It was the most perfect, appropriate thing. Well of course I want to be a firefighter. Why on earth do you think I’m here?

This was early May, and now here we are in August, and I’m sitting next to a pager at my desk. I have been called to seven fires, all of which I have actively participated in suppressing. There’s also the weekly litany of alarm calls, car accidents, and downed wires. I don’t know how to tell you about this without it sounding as ridiculous as it actually is, but it turns out that the whole operation has become a great and unexpected joy of my life. There are many stories here already, as one might imagine. I’ll write more about it, I’m sure. I’ve been learning directly from the old-timers at the station, but next week, I start my official firefighting education at the local tech college. Me and a handful of large eighteen-year-old boys. I can’t imagine what they must have thought the first day I walked into the station, but they have been lovably funny and a refreshing cohort after so many years of ministry in a church where the average parishioner is three times their age.

On our first brush fire call, they rightfully made fun of me for forgetting to take off my jewelry. I had galloped into the truck bay and assembled my gear as quickly as possible. First call, didn’t want to look like a dip. But soon there I was — in the field that burned from the south, fully appointed in wildland fire suppression gear, sporting a comically clean helmet (nothing says “new guy” like clean gear) and a bright set of pearl earrings. Kyrie.

Anyway, I love it. Weirdly, I am finding that I am good at it. At that very same brush fire, our crew found that a large fence blocked our access to a critical point of ignition. The guys (all varying degrees of large) made haphazard attempts to crawl under it at a point where the dirt seemed loose. It did not go well for them. One moment staring at the fence, a half second of boot assessment, and about three-fourths of a prayer, and I determined that I could climb it. Without fanfare, I scampered up the side and launched myself onto the other side. From there, I called the guys with the hose and hollered for them to throw the equipment over. I began on the nozzle on the perimeter while they negotiated the fence. When we arrived back at the station two hours later, the lieutenant pointed straight at me and declared, “this is why we need small people.” All kinds indeed.

I have so much more to say about this now that I’m thinking about it, but I will save more stories for another day. I’m hoping to revive this substack a bit, and I’ll confess that I’m working out what it should be. I subscribe to a few that I look forward to reading every week, but I don’t have the sense that I’m meant to provide you all with a list of links or pithy reflections on relevant topics in ministry. I also fear making this space into something of an extended release tweet. I have found brief little prose meditations to be enjoyable for me to write and — hopefully — enjoyable for you to read. But I do sense that a bit of shaking things up might be nice.

It is also relevant to all things that my husband and I have recently purchased a forest. A small portion of a forest, I should say. We are not what you’d conventionally call homesteaders, but the location and logistics of the land will require that we dig a well, put in our own sewage system, and install solar panels as we build the house. Mercifully, my husband builds home for a living, so none of this is beyond imagination. But there may be some misadventures on the horizon, and I might like to write more about what we are learning in the process. Realistically, we will not be able to build until next year, but we already have plans to camp on the land as soon as the sale closes in September. I’m sure we’ll do something appropriately Scottish Anglican to bless the property bounds as soon as we’re able.

We visited another forest just two weeks ago where I spent the day trap and skeet shooting for the first time. I’d like to tell you that I didn’t enjoy it, but I am purchasing…well, the required equipment. It’s an Olympic sport. Don’t worry about it.

God is so faithful and so good. Stay close to Jesus.