Ben was in the city for Fleet Week and I was able to meet him there one evening. He was staying in Times Square and made reservations at a Mediterranean restaurant right around the corner.
Then we went to see Hamilton!
It was phenomenal! We had an incredible evening and maybe the most impressive was that we made out of Times Square on a Friday night.
The boys and I met our friends, the Clark's at Huntington Beach this week to paddle board. It was my first time doing the boards all by myself and I am proud to say that we did it! The boys were very helpful and we had such a fun day!
First, Ben took the boys to basketball while I helped Alison get ready for prom. She met Nico at Starbucks and he invited her to the North Shore Jr. prom...which was at noon.
I heard they had a really fun time and she even knew several other kids there. Afterwards, she went with another friend to the fair.
While Alison was partying, porch fest was going on in Sea Cliff. I went for a run and it was so fun hearing all the bands play and seeing everyone out walking around.
Colin and I biked to get some our favorite cookies and then we went to watch his guitar teacher play in one of his bands.
It was raining some. Did you know that it always rains on my birthday?
And this was the only picture he would let me take.
#lifewithmiddleschoolboys
Oh, I forgot Eli was at Damian's during all this.
The rain was torturing Colin, so he went home and I went to hear the Porch Pickers.
Ben smoked some pork during all this and we had a great bbq dinner when we got home.
Introducing Rev. DOCTOR Benjamin Shear LCDR Chaplain Corps, United States Navy!
This is the commencement ceremony. We were thankful we didn't make the trip down for the ceremony after seeing the weather they were sitting through! Live-streaming in our own home was much better!
I hate how youtube makes anything shorter than 30 seconds a short now, but here's our side of the ceremony:
We had a little celebration at home, in between basketball and going to friends' and work (aka life with teens).
I am so proud of Ben. Beyond working on a dissertation in between counseling sessions, he picked a topic that needs to be addressed that few are even aware of. I'm proud of his bravery to go against the grain and stand up for what is right. I'm proud of his diligent work and I have already seen fruit from it and how it's blessed others around him. He also did this all without telling anyone (okay, he told a few people) and with MINIMAL help from his advisor (like, we were legit concerned the guy had died a few times!). That fact makes this all the more amazing: his advisor said that he was more hands off because Ben didn't need his help and his paper was the best he's read in 25 years and it will now be the example shown for future students AND he has encouraged Ben to have a version of it published!
{Here's his abstract for the dissertation}
Pastoral Counseling in Naval Chaplaincy
Answering the Demands of Pragmatism
Chaplains from Reformed and Presbyterian denominations serving in the United States Navy face the challenge of balancing their call as ordained ministers with meeting the institution's demands. The Navy is a pluralistic institution that uses chaplains to provide for the free exercise of religion and increasingly expects chaplains to care for service members through pastoral counseling as a form of subclinical mental healthcare to keep them "spiritually fit."
This research delves into a twofold predicament. First, it investigates the demands and constraints inherent in the ministerial role. Second, it examines the pressures compelling chaplains to adopt a pragmatic ministry model. This study offers a critique of pragmatism as it relates to institutional counseling ministry and provides an analysis of the tension it creates for ministers from the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition.
To relieve the tension between the duties of a minister and the demands of pragmatism, three alternate biblical modes of pastoral counseling are examined: mercy, apologetics, and evangelism. Each of these modes has four accompanying tasks as an expression of the ministry of the Word: instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, admonishing the sinner, and comforting the afflicted. The three modes culminate in the tri-modal pastoral counseling framework, a pastoral counseling method where a minister meets a non-Christian's spiritual needs as a private ministry of the Word by manifesting God's kingdom through general and special revelation. This framework offers an alternative to pragmatism when counseling non-Christians that is consistent with a Presbyterian and Reformed theology of ministry and is effective at meeting immanent and transcendent spiritual needs.
