Classes are now underway and I have no further reservations about calling myself a seminarian. This morning at 8:30 AM EDT I attended the lecture of Rev. Dr. Scott Sunquist, Historical Studies I. I suppose before continuing to describe the experience of graduate studies I should pause to fill you in on the days between my last posting and this one.
I haven’t done many things over the past few days that merit notice in a journal intended to relate information about spiritual growth and education in seminary. The tedium of being left for a three day weekend on an empty campus gave me extended leave to ponder the wisdom in my coming here at all. My worst enemy these past days has been my idle mind; I have had nothing to do but wish I were somewhere else and wonder if I am forcing myself to be here and why I might be doing that. They say students love graduate school because it keeps them out of the real world for so many more years. This week I would have preferred the real world.
On Friday night over a game of dominoes I learned that sarcasm lives everywhere. The part of me that excels at the quick insult or witty tongue-lashing was in great demand. At one point during the evening one otherwise pleasant female seminarian said to another "if you don't have a pen you could just use your eyes to burn the score into the paper." I supposed like everyone else present that this was a not-so-subtle way of comparing the scorekeeper to a demon. It was hilarious, and while I can never seem to remember my own jokes I'm sure I had a few in there that were just as bad. I do know that I explained to them that I never wanted to be this mean to people again, even if it was in fun. I had had this reputation in high school of being sarcastic for the sake of humor and at the expense of those who were not as quick witted. I spent years moving past it to a spirit of kindness and one that is more accepting of all others only to come to seminary and be riled back into that state of defense by insult.
Sunday morning I awoke in plenty of time for church but couldn't find my glasses anywhere. At 1:30 PM when I finally happened upon them hiding in an upturned box beneath my bed I turned to the Internet looking for a church in the area that might accommodate me that late in the day. I didn't find one, in fact very few of them list service times at all but I did happen upon the web site for Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church. Apparently about a year ago that church withdrew it's contact (or severed communion) with 10 of the 173 local presbyteries of the PC(USA) (Baltimore, Des Moines, Detroit, Genesee Valley, Hudson River, National Capital, Southern New England, Twin Cities, Western New York, and Western Reserve) in response to overtures by those bodies on issues concerning chastity and ordination standards. I had not run into that type of action before.
On to today and the first two classes of my seminary career. I'm tempted here to make note of the chairs in the lecture hall. Some person believed they were designed for comfort, but that person did not consider people over 5'6" tall. This is not a forum for me to note grievances upon furniture, but if I'm ever withheld from posting because I've been hospitalized with back spasms I wanted this to be on the record. Anyway, the first class was Historical Studies I. Everyone including the professor commonly refers to it as “Church History” but if that's what they want to call it should be on the syllabus. I call it Historical Studies I. The general theme of the lecture is that we will not be approaching Christian History from a western perspective because if it ever was a western religion it isn't anymore. Today 2/3 of the world's Christians are not living in western countries (of course you realize that western countries aren't so much determined by position on a globe anymore. Australia and the US are both western but Latin America and China are not.) Also professor Sunquist believes that Christianity spreads and maintains itself far beyond the efforts of the western world alone. Another interesting point: every major issue that has confronted Christendom since the founding of the faith had reared its head for the first time by the sixth century. The role of women, slavery, and doctrinal issues... all were addressed in some way by that time.
Over lunch I asked Dr. Sunquist his feelings on responding to a new generation or the "Emerging Church" from a historical perspective. Had there been mention of responding to a new generation in a previous generation? He equated this kind of thinking to a kind of prophecy saying the mission of the church to stake our resources in the present day. I'm not sure if that answered my question or if I even asked the right question there.
My second class was the lecture portion of Spiritual Formation. I have a few pages of notes but as I look over them I'm really still not sure what this class will be about. The professor asked us to fill out a reasonably complicated survey concurrent with taking notes off her overheads. It was a trying excursive that demanded 3 key goals for the course including a standard by which to measure if the goals were met by the end of the term. It was more of a business model than a guide for spiritual formation. By the end of the lecture she offered her own goals that corrupted any original thoughts I had and I paraphrased hers. I will have to keep a journal for her class, which might lessen my time to update this one.
Convocation was also this morning with a collection going to Hurricane Katrina relief. The final words of the New Testament lesson read from 1 Cor. 1:10-19 (the Message) were "I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots." A funny word to leaving echoing in the chapel before the president stood up to the pulpit.
I hope all is well with all my readers.
<><
I haven’t done many things over the past few days that merit notice in a journal intended to relate information about spiritual growth and education in seminary. The tedium of being left for a three day weekend on an empty campus gave me extended leave to ponder the wisdom in my coming here at all. My worst enemy these past days has been my idle mind; I have had nothing to do but wish I were somewhere else and wonder if I am forcing myself to be here and why I might be doing that. They say students love graduate school because it keeps them out of the real world for so many more years. This week I would have preferred the real world.
On Friday night over a game of dominoes I learned that sarcasm lives everywhere. The part of me that excels at the quick insult or witty tongue-lashing was in great demand. At one point during the evening one otherwise pleasant female seminarian said to another "if you don't have a pen you could just use your eyes to burn the score into the paper." I supposed like everyone else present that this was a not-so-subtle way of comparing the scorekeeper to a demon. It was hilarious, and while I can never seem to remember my own jokes I'm sure I had a few in there that were just as bad. I do know that I explained to them that I never wanted to be this mean to people again, even if it was in fun. I had had this reputation in high school of being sarcastic for the sake of humor and at the expense of those who were not as quick witted. I spent years moving past it to a spirit of kindness and one that is more accepting of all others only to come to seminary and be riled back into that state of defense by insult.
Sunday morning I awoke in plenty of time for church but couldn't find my glasses anywhere. At 1:30 PM when I finally happened upon them hiding in an upturned box beneath my bed I turned to the Internet looking for a church in the area that might accommodate me that late in the day. I didn't find one, in fact very few of them list service times at all but I did happen upon the web site for Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church. Apparently about a year ago that church withdrew it's contact (or severed communion) with 10 of the 173 local presbyteries of the PC(USA) (Baltimore, Des Moines, Detroit, Genesee Valley, Hudson River, National Capital, Southern New England, Twin Cities, Western New York, and Western Reserve) in response to overtures by those bodies on issues concerning chastity and ordination standards. I had not run into that type of action before.
On to today and the first two classes of my seminary career. I'm tempted here to make note of the chairs in the lecture hall. Some person believed they were designed for comfort, but that person did not consider people over 5'6" tall. This is not a forum for me to note grievances upon furniture, but if I'm ever withheld from posting because I've been hospitalized with back spasms I wanted this to be on the record. Anyway, the first class was Historical Studies I. Everyone including the professor commonly refers to it as “Church History” but if that's what they want to call it should be on the syllabus. I call it Historical Studies I. The general theme of the lecture is that we will not be approaching Christian History from a western perspective because if it ever was a western religion it isn't anymore. Today 2/3 of the world's Christians are not living in western countries (of course you realize that western countries aren't so much determined by position on a globe anymore. Australia and the US are both western but Latin America and China are not.) Also professor Sunquist believes that Christianity spreads and maintains itself far beyond the efforts of the western world alone. Another interesting point: every major issue that has confronted Christendom since the founding of the faith had reared its head for the first time by the sixth century. The role of women, slavery, and doctrinal issues... all were addressed in some way by that time.
Over lunch I asked Dr. Sunquist his feelings on responding to a new generation or the "Emerging Church" from a historical perspective. Had there been mention of responding to a new generation in a previous generation? He equated this kind of thinking to a kind of prophecy saying the mission of the church to stake our resources in the present day. I'm not sure if that answered my question or if I even asked the right question there.
My second class was the lecture portion of Spiritual Formation. I have a few pages of notes but as I look over them I'm really still not sure what this class will be about. The professor asked us to fill out a reasonably complicated survey concurrent with taking notes off her overheads. It was a trying excursive that demanded 3 key goals for the course including a standard by which to measure if the goals were met by the end of the term. It was more of a business model than a guide for spiritual formation. By the end of the lecture she offered her own goals that corrupted any original thoughts I had and I paraphrased hers. I will have to keep a journal for her class, which might lessen my time to update this one.
Convocation was also this morning with a collection going to Hurricane Katrina relief. The final words of the New Testament lesson read from 1 Cor. 1:10-19 (the Message) were "I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots." A funny word to leaving echoing in the chapel before the president stood up to the pulpit.
I hope all is well with all my readers.
<><
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