Back to School

I'm having New Testament withdrawal. After three quarters of intensive NT twice a week, with some great lectures, it seems odd to be without them. Still haven't gotten the final exegesis paper from him, though. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Fourth quarter Hebrew, despite being advertised as a reading course, will be half a reading course, half a finish-the-textbook and memorize more vocab course. Bah.

Lesson learned in another course: do not take a new course the first time it is offered. It's like buying a car in its first model year: they haven't shaken the kinks out yet. My grousing is around an assignment that fully half the class missed the mark on. Pedagogical hiccup, anyone? I love this prof but, as a dear friend said tonight, he can be rather opaque. Yoda-like.

Tomorrow in OT we get to take a newspaper article of our choice and turn it into a prophetic oracle...that's one way to teach us the form. I'm already thinking about the second exegesis paper for her, but I think I may only do some preliminary work until I get the first one back. No point in going all the way down the wrong path if I didn't do what she wanted in the first one.

I've got six more weeks of classes and then my first year in seminary is done. That's a shocking thought. I'm feeling rather like a horse a few miles from the stable, and I'm trying to resist the urge to race toward the stable door, and savor the experience a bit. Some days I feel more savory than others, though. Today I'm mildly salty, I think.

It will be StoneMason's 21st birthday this week. How did this happen? Where did 21 years go?

Looks Like Our Prayers Have Been Answered

We just heard that my father-in-law has just boarded a plane at the airport in Kinshasa and should be back in the States at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. He has nothing but his passport (his suitcase preceded him to the airport nad we don't know if it made it out or was stolen, and his wallet and its contents were taken by militia) but he has his life, and for that we're grateful for God's protection. He says his hearing has been affected by the close gunfire and mortar fire, and he's pretty dirty from spending a night lying out in the dirt of the road, but otherwise fine.

God is faithful. Praise God!

I'll post when he's gotten home (my sister-in-law is planning on confiscating his passport the moment he lands, so he doesn't travel anymore!)

Many thanks for your prayers. We are all so grateful.

Prayers, Please

My father-in-law, a surgeon who spent most of his life in Congo as a medical missionary, recently went back with a team to do hospital assessments. They are stuck right now in Kinshasa, in the midst of fighting between forces loyal to President Kabila and forces supporting his opponent, Bemba. They are in a safe place right now, after a hair-raising night, but we don't know when and how they will get out. They haven't been able to get a response from the local UN office yet, nor, I believe, the US Embassy.

Please keep R, the rest of the team, and the families of all in your prayers.

Break Time Rocks

I probably should have been more diligent about doing stuff during my spring break, but somehow doing nonlinear fun and creative things seemed more necessary.

I did a presentation on icons at a RevGal's church. Great fun and very responsive attendees!

I cooked a monster dinner for some friends from old church and from seminary. Laughed, drank some amazing wine, ate way too much. Remarkably, the house was clean for this adventure.

Drove four hours north to visit with dear L, who is pastoring a church in the lovely exurbs. I miss her! Not good having her so far away!

Had a lovely get-together with an incoming seminarian, another second-career person. She will be a great addition to the community.

Got one of the sleeves done for my green sweater (the first I've knitted for myself in two decades).

Went on a bead-hunting and yarn-hunting expedition with two classmates who are so much fun.

Made an Anglican Rosary with the results of the bead-hunting trip.

Cooked a bunch of Indian food. Yum! It's all gone now. Drat!

Slept a lot.

Got through Jeremiah, Lamentations, Daniel, and Ezekiel.

So this afternoon I will take the Spooky-cat to have her anal glands expressed (yes, I know, TMI) and tonight I'll go rehearse with the choir from my next-year Field Ed site. They're doing a Tenebrae service at the SeniorWorld community nearby to them, and are in need of sopranos.

Tomorrow is doctor day: neurologist at 8:30 am (I'm having a little problem that we hope is not another MS flare-up) and oral surgeon at 11 (the biopsy didn't show lichen planus, although it looks like lichen planus, so now we've got to go to plan B, since the problem is still there). Then off to the airport to pick up a classmate.

Since RevGal's church was so generous with the honorarium for the icon class, PH and I will go out to dinner this weekend. All in all, a proper spring break!

Friday Five: Whatcha Doin'

Here's what's been done:

1. Hebrew final exam
2. Served as lector for eucharist at noon
3. Liturgics final exam
4. Library pilgrimage (see below)
5. Dinner

Here's what's left to be done:
6. Luxurious bath
7. Reading and/or sleep

There should be something in there about cleaning up my house, but tomorrow's another day.

It Is Finished

At the risk of being blasphemous, I quote the Gospel of John in the title. It's in honor of the New Testament final, which focused primarily on Hebrews and the Johannine corpus.

All three exams are done. I already know my grade on the Hebrew one, since our Hebrew prof is an adjunct and doesn't have the pathological inability to get papers back to us in a timely fashion that the tenured folk do. It was a good grade. He was generous. I am grateful.

I think I did reasonably well on the other two, plus the courses that had papers in lieu of exams, but I probably won't find out for a while.

I did my usual thing when I was done, in anticipation of a week's break...

I went to the library and got an armload of non-school books:

The Best Seat in the House: How I Woke Up One Tuesday and was Paralyzed for Life
A new translation of Teresa of Avila's The Book of My Life
Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid
Prisoners: A Muslim and Jew Across the Middle East Divide

plus I've got two books sitting alongside the bed waiting to be finished:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi Wa Thiongo.

What a pleasure to read non-school books for a few days!

I'm going to see my friend L on Monday, and got the OT Prophets on CD, so I can get ahead on my OT reading in the car 4 hours up and four hours back.

We were going top go out for an end-of-quarter dinner, PH and I, but we are in the midst of an icy, sleety, icky storm, and when we stepped outside the house, we dang near slipped on our hinders. Sanity reigned, we stayed home, and PH cooked me a dinner of Swedish pancakes (plattar, with an umlaut over the first "a") with lingonberries.

Exams finished, non-school books to read, and Swedish pancakes.

Life is good.

Procrastinating

Anything but study for the Hebrew final that will occur tomorrow morning.

NT was fine, I think. I was satisfied with what I did on the essay and on the "hot quotes" section.

Two more exams and I'm done for a week.

My brain is full...and Towanda, I haven't got my act together on infinitives yet... maybe I'll get lucky as you did and the prof won't include them.

Just want to sleep and eat chocolate. I have promised myself a "Gray's Anatomy" break at 9 pm, so I'd better get back to work.

Slowly she turns...

Spring Fever

It's something like 75 degrees outside, maybe warmer, and the air is redolent with new growth and the hint of flowers.

Since I have 3 exams over the next couple of days, I don't get to enjoy it. Studying trumps sniffing the air.

I had a get-together with my NT study group - a bunch of extraordinary women with minds like steel traps, a major ability to laugh out loud (esp. at ourselves), and a sense of God amongst us. What a joy! Nice to have a group of friends with whom I can be thoroughly myself. It kept me sane today. I know I will pass the exam, it's just a question of whether I will sound like a seminarian or a fourth-grader.

I'm about to throw up my hands in despair over the Hebrew exam. It seems as soon as I learn a new conjugation or a passel of new words, the old stuff falls out of my brain. Again, I expect to pass, I would just like to feel more of a sense of mastery.

The third exam is liturgics, and I've reviewed the relevant pastoral rites and some of the writing on them. It's open book (the books being the Book of Common Prayer, the Book of Occasional Services, and Enrishing Our Worship2) and there will be some factual stuff plus an essay on the theology of something therein. Not really something one can study for, but I think I'll be fine.

Then...a week off! Or at least sort of. I'll be editing a paper for submission to a publication, so it won't all be fun.

Dinner with friends and a performance of "Joseph and the Amazing etc. etc." at home church with 80 plus kids over the weekend, a trip north to see dear L whom I miss terribly now that she's working 3 hours away, various lunches and get-togethers with friends.

Somewhere in there I really should clean the house. I figure once a semester, whether it needs it or not.

Now if I could only get my danged exams out of the way!

I want to take a nap.

Tired

Nine pages into the ten page Adult Ed paper. If I count the excel spreadsheet of curricula, it gets to ten, but that doesn't feel legit. I know I've got some more footnoting to do. If I had another month to work on it, I'd be able to do it right. It's material I'm really jazzed by, so I wish I could. For now, I'll just have to settle for just getting it done. Bah.

I survived the Hebrew quiz (60 new words). I forgot one word, and got one of the extra-credit parsings half-wrong. I guess I'll stick out the fourth quarter, even though I'm so very tired of memorizing 60 words a week. I think my ego may be getting the better of me, or else I'm just so bonded to my fellow Hebrew warriors in the class that I can't let them go, or I'm hoping the flame will alight on my head and I'll suddenly get it.

Every now and then, we get a transcendent moment in one of my classes. The lecture on ministry to the sick in Liturgics today was one of those moments. That's what happens when you've got a prof whose PhD is in English, but whose theology is equally deep and thoughtful. I've got intellectual chops envy.

Three exams this week: Hebrew, New Testament, Liturgics. I'd be scared if I weren't so dang tired.

Oh.

It's 10:30, almost.

I can go to sleep now.

G'night. (Only a few days til Spring Break. Can't you tell?)

Wading Through

So today I finished the OT exegesis paper. PH read it and helped me make it make sense (sort of). It's not exactly an exciting piece of verbiage, but I think it will do.

I spent the morning
first getting the car through its emissions exam (it passed),
then to the Center for the Ministry of Teaching to go through a bunch of curricula for my Adult Ed paper that's due on Thursday.
Then I came home,
did an accounting for my grant for the Qatar trip,
did a load of laundry,
did five chapters of Hebrew glossary,
made dinner and
am now baking raspberry squares for Coffee Hour tomorrow.

I think I'm overcommitted.

If I survive this week (one paper and three exams), I get to have a week off...but for a presentation for RM's Adult Ed class next Sunday, which will be sheer pleasure.

Then I get to have a week off...but for the editing of the Qatar paper for submission for publication.

Of course, one of my classmates has just finished his doctoral dissertation in another subject area (doing an MDiv while finishing a dissertation must be a sign of insanity). The mighty document, a thing of beauty, is over 900 pages long.

Suddenly, I feel like a slacker.

Humility. It's a good thing.

I'm rehearsing...

,,,for those times when I have to preach on a lectionary text that doesn't light me up at all. Or when I'm so dry that nothing is happening on the page.

The exercise is an Old Testment exegesis paper that's due next week.

It's a passage I know well and love dearly (II Kings 2.1-15), and I've done a bunch of work on it (word study, historical analysis, literary analysis, reading commentaries). I've got a dozen pages of notes and disjointed draft paragraphs in the laptop, but everything I write reads like a Jif peanut butter ad.

So now I'm waiting for the Holy Spirit to drop some great ideas on my sorry head.

Sometime before the paper is due would be nice.

I wonder what kind of grade I'd get for a Jif peanut butter ad?

How Many Trees Were Sacrificed for this Moment?

I should be working on my OT exegesis paper, which, at this point, is a jumble of notes and word study with no discernible theological thought. I should be reading for my Adult Ed paper, on curricula and other tools for congregations relating to conflict and change. That one's a pile of notes right now, too. Both papers are due at the end of next week.

I could also be memorizing the 60 new Hebrew words Mark assigned for next week, or working on my Hebrew glossary of all the words in our textbook. I could also be reading the enormous quantities of Scripture and commentaries our profs have assigned.

Instead, I'm copying stuff. To be precise, I'm making copies of my 20+ page paper on the Qatar trip to give to the committee at St P's (which kindly gave me a nice check to help cover the costs of the trip), and will soon drive over there (25 minutes away) to give a ten minute presentation on what I did on my January vaca...oops, mission trip. So many trees will die whilst I make about 150 pages worth of stuff that may or may not be read, but I guess it's a reasonable thing for me to meet with them...

...despite the fact that I made a 45-minute Adult Forum presentation (complete with pictures) a week ago to a larger group which included the folks who will be there tonight.

Oh well, it's only trees. And it's only time.

Thanks. I feel better. I'll stop whining now.

And the Answer Is...

Seems like many of us in ECUSA are arguing over the "homosexual question." Arguing over whether those whose sexual orientation is toward a partner of the same sex means they are "fundamentally disordered." Arguing over whether to consecrate gay bishops, or ordain gay priests, or only ordain celibate gay priests, or whether gay people need reparative therapy to change back to "normal," whatever that is.

It's really very simple. We go back to Christ, who said, "Love one another."

We seem to have forgotten that.

To me, healthy, normative relationships aren't defined by genitalia.

They are defined by maturity, mutual respect, equal partnership, care through good times and bad.

I've seen good and bad gay relationships and good and bad straight relationships. Why are we being so childish about all this?

Could it, at its heart, be about fear, or power, or money?

I wonder.

Friday Five: Artsy Craftsy

A day late, but...
1. Would you call yourself “creative”? Why or why not?
Somewhat. I'm a musician, but I don't write my own music, I simply perform what others have written. I'm an iconographer, but that's not a form that calls for creativity, it's one that calls for accuracy in copying and praying about what I'm copying. I'm a wanna-be writer, but I doubt I'm breaking any new ground. I have fun with interior design on a miserable budget, and knitting from other folks' patterns.
2. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you currently do that you’d like to develop further.
I'd like to write more, design some of the knitting projects, and write more. It will all have to wait until I graduate from seminary, or retire from ministry, or something.
3. Share a creative or artistic pursuit you have never done but would like to try.
When?
4. Complete this sentence: “I am in awe of RM's writing, Irena's icons, StrongOpinions' sculptures and blown glass and charcoal drawings, my sister-in-law L's quilts.”
5. Share about a person who has encouraged your creativity, who has “called you to your best self.” (I’m pretty sure that’s from the Gospel of Oprah.)
Oh, definitely PH, who cheers me on no matter what I try, and only winces occasionally.

Of course, as I mentioned above, my time for creative endeavors is limited by my hours of classwork these days. PH asked me last night if I had done any creative writing on my time in Qatar. Um, no. The 20 page paper sort of took it all out of me. I did get a wee bit creative on my NT exegesis paper on Luke 14: 15-24 (The Parable of the Great Banquet). Got on a riff about call-and-response music and the call and response motif in the invitation and refusal/accpetance of the invitation to the eschatological banquet. Of course, my NT prof will probably just raise his eyebrows. Maybe that's the limit of my creaitivity these days.

Snowy Days and Sundays Always Get Me Down

Here I sit in Your Nation's Capitol, safe and sound in my little townhouse with a warm laptop on my lap, a warm cat on my legs, and the all-news, all-traffic, all-weather, all-cancellations station on the radio (why, I don't know - I should switch to the all-classical-music station, now that t has been resurrected from the dead). I went to my home church this morning, about 9 miles away, because I was scheduled to do the Adult Forum on my trip to Qatar today. It was a scary ride there, because we are having a Weather Event (ice and snow). I left quite early, so I attended the 9 a.m. Eucharist and then did the Adult Forum. It was surprisingly well-attended given the weather. I wore a traditional djellabiya (similar to the one at right). An odd dissonance between wearing something from the land of sun and sand in the midst of a snowstorm. Folks asked good questions and seemed to appreciate the talk.

Then - home again. By then, the snow and ice was much scarier. I was driving PH's Volvo, which is usually quite good in winter weather, but it was still very slippery. Of course, people were not always driving sensibly. Accidents all over the place. I got to a half-mile from home, and there was a twenty-car pileup on the road. I managed to get around it and to the house. Thank you, Jesus! It was exhausting.

I had some lunch and sat down on the couch, where I promptly fell asleep. I've been very sleepy for the past week or so. I don't know what that's about - hopefully just the winter blahs - but I do need to get some studying and writing done, so I wish I could snap out of it.

PH is in the Windy City for his dad's big birthday party. He was supposed to fly back this afternoon but his flight was cancelled. Not rebooked until tomorrow afternoon. I miss him...

A Lovely Bit of News on Ash Wednesday

My paper on the January term in Qatar awaited me in my box this morning. My advising professor was quite pleased with my work, had some wonderful and thought-provoking comments on the paper, and suggested I condense it for submission to a scholarly journal. After the past three weeks of feeling like I'm just sort of doggy-paddling along with my nose above the water line, it was nice to get an attagirl saying I do good work. Maybe my whole head is up above the water line (at least for this week).

Thanks, Holy Spirit!

15 seconds of fame

This weekend was the Conference on Ministry at Big Old Seminary. A whole lotta folks from around the country and the world came to see if our place would be the right place for seminary for them. I was co-chair of the off-campus housing tours, which showed about 40 folks the usual options for those who for one reason or another don't want or can't live in dorms. All went well with our little fleet of volunteer drivers and tour guides...except for moi. Leaving our last stop, I got my car stuck on a hump of ice sitting on a speed bump. The two front tires were suspended in the air - no traction at all. Mortifying for someone who lived in New england for twenty-five years. I just didn't get enough momentum up in a car filled with people to get it up and over. Fortunately, a classmate ran my folks back to the seminary, and PH and the classmate then chipped the ice out from under my car and freed it. A little humiliation is good for the soul.

Last night we had our Variety Show...various and sundry acts, including a 10-year-old doing Seinfeld's Halloween bit impeccably, a two-year old dressed up in a band major's costume marching across the stage and then melting down, a movie about General Ordination Exams called "The End Times," and a couple of very funny skits. I sang a song about Hebrew class, to the tune of "If I Loved You," from the musical Carousel:

Aleph Beth Gimmel Dalt, He and Yod and Chet
Don't forget Vav but Mark insists it's waw.
Vocabulary lists are longer every week
Ayin aleph, kaph and qof, tet and taw.
Hebrew Studies! I don't think I'll get through BL102.

Hebrew Studies. Day after day I memorize all they want me to know.
Hebrew studies, strong dagesh, chain constructs, Hithpael, BDB is just hell.

I try to read aloud, afraid and shy.
I know the quiz is coming; Why oh why
Did I take it? Wouldn't the Greek have been much more fun?
Now I never will know. Hebrew Studies; Hebrew Studies.

Hebrew Studies. I conjugate verbs in a tongue No one speaks anymore.
Tense or aspect; chattering on 'bout poetic forms, I've become a Hebrew bore!

I want to exegete by reading verse In the original language - what is worse
Is, I love it. Hard as it is, I wouldn't trade Hours spent parsing those words.
I'm in love with Hebrew Studies.

No one threw rotten tomatoes or catcalled, so I guess I survived. Wasn't as difficult as getting the car off the ice.

Weather

I know that Oscar Wilde said that conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative, but here in Your Nation's Capital, we are in the midst of a highly unimaginative conversation. It beats the more imaginative but also more depressing conversation about politics and the war.

We got a wee bit of snow, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch, but now freezing rain and ice have been forecast for the evening and night, into tomorrow morning. The seminary, which NEVER closes (when most of the students and all the faculty are right on campus, why close?) has shut down. I don't know if we will have classes in the morning since there may be a good inch of ice on the roads.

A seminary classmate mentioned at lunch how, on a gray day like today, she just wanted to go home and take a nap. I must be very suggestible, because I came home with grand intentions of getting a lot of reading done, and I promptly fell asleep on the couch with one of my books open in my hands. Serves me right putting my feet up on the couch while reading.

PH is seeing clients downtown, and will have a nasty 8-mile commute home later this evening. He's an excellent driver, but I still worry.

I hate driving in bad weather, especially on ice. I'm glad I'm home, with a nice warm laptop computer and fuzzy slippers on my feet, and a pot of chili on the stove.

It's been a good week at school. I did well on my scary Hebrew quiz yesterday, and I think I also did well on the infamous OT map quiz this morning. Several papers are coming due fairly quickly, I'm doing a presentation at my home church about the trip to Qatar in two weeks, I'm doing a presentation on icons as a spiritual practice at RM's place in three weeks, and there are not enough hours in the day. This weekend is Big Old Seminary's Conference on Ministry. I'm co-chairing the Off-Campus Housing Tours, hosting a dinner for some of our guests, and doing two acts in the Talent Show.

I should be exhausted. I AM in fact exhausted. Why, then, am I so darned happy?

Friday Five: American Idol Version

1) If I could sing like anyone, it would be soprano Anna Netrebko.
2) I would love to sing Anne Truelove's "No Word from Tom" aria from Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress," but that requires reliable high C's, and my days of reliable high C's ...well, they never were...Give me a B flat, however, and I'm your gal.
3) It would be really cool to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. Not La Scala. La Scala operagoers are too mean.
4) If I could sing a dream duet it would be with baritone Bryn Terfel. (sigh....)
5) If I could sing on a TV or radio show, it would be the Saturday afternoon Met broadcast.

Yes, yes, I'm an opera junkie. I admit that I am powerless over it.

Hat Tip: RM

Back in the Semi-real World

I've pretty much processed being back in the States, and being back in Eastern Standard Time.

Getting back into the rhythm of seminary life, however, is a different thing entirely.

True to form, our profs have assigned several hundred pages of reading for this week (yes, I know, it's only bad if I try to read it all). I've just come back from 24 hours away in the woods for the Junior Class retreat, so I'm feeling a compulsion to get a ton of reading done tonight.

Here's what I've learned.

1) Read the assigned Scripture. Make notes on the readings on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

2) Skim the other articles and see if anything leaps out. Otherwise, don't worry about them.

3) Start outlining written assignments as soon as I get them, knowing that the prof will undoubtedly give further guidance that will modify the outline later on in the game.

4) Do the work, but trust that the Holy spirit will descend at the appropriate time to fill in the gaps.

5) Know that this is not a measure of my worthiness for the priesthood, it is simply equipping myself for the work.

6) Pray.
I'm working to live into this.

The retreat was a wonderful break of thoughtful quiet time and fun friendship with my classmates. It was deep in the woods and I was crabby getting there, because it was so far away, but I was glad we had gone there this morning as we saw a pair of bald eagles looping above us on thermal drafts. Of course, the younger crew stayed up way late. I, being an old fart and a morning person, crashed a little after 10 p.m. Just as well, since then I could awaken at 5:30 and watch the sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay.

Good news on the various and sundry practica: I got accepted into my first choice for Clinical Pastoral Ed (chaplaincy training at a local hospital) as well as my first choice for Field Ed (working in a parish). Feels good to get those settled. I'll be doing CPE at the Children's Hospital in DC and Field Ed at a new church plant about 35 miles away.

I'm about a third of the way through my paper for the Qatar experience. It's going slower than I'd like, and I'm worried I'll get swamped by the other classes before it is done. I can tie myself into knots better than anyone I know...

And PH is downstairs crowing because his beloved Chicago Bears have returned the opening kickoff with a TD. It's going to be a long night (and that's before I start working on our taxes).