I was home to Minnesota about a month ago to take care of my mother while my brother, her normal caregiver, had surgery on his knee. It was an obligatory trip, my turn to help shoulder the load.

Of course it wasn’t as uneventful as it seemed it would be. A couple of days before I arrived, my brother’s mother-in-law was rushed to the emergency room, nearly died and then was transferred to a palliative care facility. And my uncle Sig had recently fallen off a tractor, busted his artificial hip and cracked his femur down to his knee. He’s still in a nursing home convalescing.

So it turned into a week of revolving doors in and out of medical facilities, going from the hospital to the nursing home, to the neuroscience center where my mom had an appointment (she now has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s), to the physical therapist for my brother’s knee, to the palliative care unit for his mother-in-law.

Just another week in the life of a baby boomer, perhaps.

But there was a bit of interesting news on the home front. My small rural Lutheran church has just gotten its first-ever intern, and this is no cookie-cutter seminary student.

The intern arrived sporting several tattoos, a rather large gauge earring in one ear and an unusually long beard. My brother, the church council president, confided that the young man’s outward appearance had raised a few eyebrows among the “church ladies.” These are women prone to conformity. Even to wear something a little fancier than normal can set tongues to wagging.

Even my mother, whose short-term memory is nearly completely gone, remembered to tell me about the intern and describe what he looks like. And because she forgets that she’s told me, I listened to the story about 20 times or more.

Eager to give the pastoral intern, Jim, the welcome he deserved — and to show they’re not ones to judge a book by its cover — the church ladies did what any self-respecting Lutheran church does on such occasions. They staged a potluck dinner in the church basement.

I happened to be there for the bountiful meal (we brought one of those fruit salads made with Cool Whip that I dislike but my mother insisted on) and had the good fortune of sitting next to the intern and his wife and family. They were a pleasant bunch. Their two younger daughters were animated and engaging; the intern’s wife, who is expecting the couple’s fifth child, talked about working two jobs to make ends meet, and how she was planning to give one job up when the baby came. In short, they seemed to be a cohesive, loving family in the throes of juggling life with Jim’s calling to serve the Lord through ministry.

My brother reports that the intern seems to be fitting in quite well among these conservative parishioners, tattoos and all, and is giving the pastor of the three-church rural parish some much needed assistance.

Jim is a good reminder that it’s inside a person where love, integrity, character and all the things that really matter abide.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at [email protected].