The following is not meant for entertainment. It’s not content for mining. It’s not for the algorithm or for the Discovery page. This is about what Ministry can’t teach but only experience can.

At the top of the pile is Hutton’s Minister Service Manual. I mean, obviously, right?

I’ve read it cover to cover. Never took notes, just read it.

I’m going to go back through it again because of Wednesday of last week.

There’s something that the Minister’s Service Manual doesn’t really tell you much about and there’s a good reason why. When it comes to grief counseling when you’re running on zero, well, that’s a completely new thing altogether.

There’s nothing mystical here. This is a story of the five-sense world that we inhabit and some of the less-than-glamorous things that can happen.

At some point during the weekend, I’d felt something at work. There was a deep and unsettling calm that happened and I looked up. I let my eyes move around for a few moments. I know that calm and I don’t like it when it pops up like that.

The really shitty part? You probably know what I’m talking about if you’ve been reading this far. I certainly did.

I had to push the thought out of my head. There was work to do and it wasn’t going to wait for me to work out just what in the aether I’d detected. Besides that, I’d already worked it out. It was the rest of it that was the question mark punctuating everything.

We come to Wednesday and it’s a firestorm. Things are just happening faster than anyone can really get to them. With a location down, we were getting everything and having to deal with the total chaos. Things went from bad to worse with alarms going off for this thing or that and being unable to shift from two particular tasks into the next several was a struggle and let me tell you, I’m not using the word “struggle” loosely. The entire day was one, long endurance trial.

Toward the end of it, the frayed ends of my sanity threatened to take over if I didn’t do something to cool all this shit off and quickly.

One of the bright parts of my day is when I see a mother and daughter walk through the door. I’m not gonna mention their names here and you’ll see why.

In short, they come in, give me shit, I give it right back, everyone gets a laugh and the best part, this mother and daughter were witnesses to the first prank my boss ever pulled on me…putting toy money in my spot where real money should be. When I popped open to look inside…there was toy money everywhere. Plastic coins where metal should be, money that looked like stack of Monopoly money.

“What have they done?” I asked as my brain locked up like a Windows 95 computer trying to run Second Life today. I was more confused than a cow in astroturf and I had a line…with Mom and Daughter right at the head of it. They didn’t know. I sure as hell didn’t know. Until my boss popped up with the real deal and yes, laughs were had by all including me. I didn’t expect that in the least.

They never let me live that down. I’ve gotten back better since but that is still a moment of infamy for us all.

Mom came in Wednesday night. I was expecting her to give me a little hell to bring my spirits up, but I could tell by the look on her face, that was not going to happen this Wednesday night.

Before I knew it, she was breaking down, crying on my shoulder, apologizing for it. I didn’t know what the hell that was about. I had to piece it together from what she told me through the tears.

Her daughter had been killed in a horrible car accident.

I was just told that one half of a pair of two of my best friends in the world would no longer walk through that door.

Here I was. Holding Mom. Telling her to stop worrying about my shirt. That I was so sorry while trying to hold it all together myself…and quitting time was still an hour and a half away.

…fuck.

I saw her again on Saturday. I was told many things about the upcoming funeral service. I’m not conducting it. Someone else is.

How did it happen? Her boyfriend and the way he drives. His recklessness got her killed and that’s all I can say about it.

Mom was in such grief that I couldn’t imagine it. I could relate in some way but I can’t imagine it. I know a few things though. Hollow platitudes won’t mean a thing to her right now, her entire world has just been blown to shit and she’s left picking up the pieces.

This is what those manuals never teach you because what they can teach comes from years of experience and those are the most common underlying threads.

The one thing it doesn’t do is convey just how painful that can be for everyone involved. It doesn’t tell you how to keep it together when it’s someone you know. Not a damn one of them can give you the right words to say or the things to do, how to give someone that space and when to hold that space for someone. None of them will ever tell you that.

This is the part of being a minister, goði, vitki, etc that isn’t fun or mystical, it doesn’t given intense experiences from the world of supernature. It’s very real, no matter what anyone else says about it, this can become very real, very quickly.

While it’s great that you can officiate weddings, they never tell you about the funerals, the counseling for someone you know as opposed to someone you barely knew, hardly knew, knew only by reputation or didn’t know at all and you just happened to be there to console the family members or friends.

It’s something I seriously wish were talked about more because of the reality of it. That Deep Calm Premonition…can’t be proven. That’s unfortunate but it’s also probably for the best because if this was Thanatos telling me, “I have to help someone you care about move on” then all I can do is relate that here. You have to make up your own damn mind about that part because that’s not really the center of this. It’s the fact that, even with something like a direct early warning, if it was at all, there are still some things that even the most powerful version of Oðinn will never be able to do, cheat death forever.

We all meet and there’s a comfort in that because I want to give you something to think about.

Think about The Nocturneverse for a second. Look at the vampires. Ever wondered why they cluster together like they do? It’s because, in the centuries that they live, all they have is each other.

I’ll reveal the true horror behind the vampires of The Nocturneverse…immortality. Not capitalized, of course. Not at all. Immortality in The Nocturneverse is a bitter joke and the punchline isn’t funny at all.

You and I have our belief systems and, theologically, we’re probably miles apart. That’s fine. But we do have a point of agreement: We Will See Each Other Again. Whether that’s Paradise, Nirvana, Asgarðr, etc, we all agree that, whatever that looks like, we’ll be reunited with our loved ones.

Not the vampires. Ever.

They lose someone? That person is lost to them forever.

If the vampire is killed? Nope…they chose a twisted mockery of life, eternal…that’s their reward. They don’t get to move on. They’re literally eternally separated from those they’ve loved and lost.

That’s horror. It’s slow-burn but it’s true. On a long enough timeline, you start thinking, “Yeah I might kick over soon but…wouldn’t it be great to go running with the guys again? Wouldn’t it be awesome to catch up with that person again?” Because we have that comfort.

The one thing they’ll never tell you about being a minister. This is the hardest thing to have to ever admit to you but I’m going to.

I can never offer anyone certainty.

I’ll also never pretend to.

Hold each other close. Love the ones you’re with right now.

Even with the brightest of futures ahead of you, tomorrow just isn’t guaranteed.

“Cattle die, kinsmen die, one dies the same oneself. I know one thing that never dies: the judgment of each dead man.”

-The Havamal, Stanza 76.

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