Dame Julian is kindly requested to perch herself on my shoulder and whisper her famous words in my ear when I get a little frazzled.
The Systematics draft is done - 10 pages plus a page of endnotes and a page of bibliography - and safely in the hands of the prof. Hallelujah!
I'm hip-deep in the next sermon for Homiletics, plus memorizing the text I will preach on - we are expected to say it from memory and try to "embody" it, or perform it, or whatever you want to call it. Memorization is not my forte, so this part of it will be a challenge, but the sermon, for Advent II (John the Baptist telling off the Phraisees and Sadducees after baptizing everybody in the surrounding five counties) is coming along, sort of.
I've got another sermon to write, along with a theological reflection on a particular pastoral situation, for my Pastoral Care class. That's due in a week, so I'd better get cracking on it.
I should also get going on the next Church History paper. Not that it's due really soon, but I've got several other things that will be due later in the quarter, and I hate getting jammed up.
Somewhere in this I've got to do some work on Spanish. I watched "El Gordo y La Flaca" while I was on the elliptical machine today. Still getting no more than every fourth word, and not enough context to figure out what the heck is going on. Oh, well, language study takes time.
We got our forms to register for classes for spring. Third quarter (the first half of spring semester) will be brutal, but fourth quarter should be lovely. The line-up includes wrapping up Church History, Systematics and Homiletics, plus more Field Ed, The Sung Service (that's my treat to myself), Theology of Mission, The Revelation to John, and (gulp!) Christian Ethics. sixteen and a half credits. Not too over the top. All my core requirements will be done, and that will clear the decks for senior year if I decide to do an honors thesis. And if I don't, I can take a few of the courses Pass-Fail and focus on passing GOE's and getting a job.
If that doesn't make me long for Dame Julian's wisdom and calm, I don't know what will.
I'm fluent in Spanish and don't get El Gordo y la Flaca half the time either...I'm not sure it's always meant to be gotten...
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I see the point of requiring you to memorize the passage you're preaching on. Sounds onerous to me, and certainly not something one could easily do when preaching weekly.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong--I want to really be familiar with my text, and live with it, and some of it may be committed to memory along the way. But not the whole thing....
I'll be interested in seeing how you think it affected your preaching after it's done.
Good luck with everything. Middler year is the worst :)
WOW! I bet you juggle well, too! Best Wishes.
ReplyDeleteRDM, we're only memorizing the text once, as an exercise in "embodying the text." I think she just wants us to feel the difference in sermon development and presentation from memorizing it, and to use the text, which is invariably much more dramatic than anything we write, as a way to practice stretching our levels of "drama" in speaking the Word and our own words...not something I would do every time, since I just don't have the time to memorize everything. We shall see!
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