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Shit! Dang it! Crap! #@$! The gamut of swear words and fake swear words ran through my head, then were sometimes spoken aloud, then I would feel guilty for saying the real swear words, then I would say, “Sorry, God,” then I felt guilty for being so worked up over something that really I had no power over and wasn’t life threatening by any means. I had been checking my email all morning yesterday for some news from the financial aid director concerning the processing of a student loan which I was originally determined to not borrow but suddenly found myself desperate to have. I need to pay off the signature loan on my truck; that will save me $280 a month. I need to pay off the rest of my auto insurance for the year; that will save me an additional $65 a month. I need to pay off this semester’s student fees balance. I need to send my Clinical Pastoral Education tuition to reserve my spot at my hospital site of choice next summer. I need to buy lunch! I need I need I need…
But that email never came and as the morning wore on, I was becoming increasingly nervous as I was to leave to go home with my friend “Zora” for Thanksgiving. I wanted to have a little money to take with me, in case we went out for coffee, or to pitch in for gas, or generally be financially helpful. For all of what I thought were my good intentions, I felt a wave of panic when the email finally did arrive but not bearing the news I wanted to hear: “Still no check, so expect it Monday.” Monday?! How would I ever make it that long?
Finally, it was time to go and I had to explain to Zora that my loan check did not come in today and, umm, do you think you could buy me some lunch today? No matter how infrequently it occurs, I hate asking for help. I don’t mind it when others ask me and usually if I can, I do help because there is usually this unspoken sense of reciprocity at play. But when it’s my turn, I feel nothing but embarrassment, shame, and this big. I mean, here I am, completely at the care of Zora and her family. The money issue is out of my control, completely, totally. All I am left to do is trust. And be thankful.
Which I think is precisely what God wanted me to feel. Not necessarily shame, but the overwhelming feeling of gratitude when the thanks you give comes from your heart, from a place of being powerless and not having that sense of I-did-by-my-own-doing. I’m not talking about perpetual victim mentality, I’m talking about being at the end of me–the deflation of my pride and control–knowing that anything I think I can provide for myself belongs to God anyway and when I don’t have it, I’m none the richer for it because God still provides for my needs through other means. This was the meat of the Thanksgiving Eve sermon that was preached at Zora’s family’s church last night and was yet again another a-ha, I get it, God moment for me. Seems like I’m always relearning this one every so often.
I had so many good intentions of filling up blog post after blog post of all the amazing wonders and intellectual rigors that make up the life of a seminarian. I have obviously fallen short of that goal. RIgors abound, to be sure, to such an extent that I have not adequately made time to recount them all. My life is definitely filled with studying, attending classes, scratching my head (more often than not), then thinking about ideas that have been discussed, puzzling over them, feeling exhausted by the whole endeavor, taking lots of naps in between classes, thinking, and working… oh, and working 35 hours a week while taking 13 graduate level credits, not recommended.
A couple of weeks ago, I withdrew from my Exegetical Greek Readings class. This was not an easy decision to make because this has some ramifications on the rest of my seminary career. For one thing, I had not come to seminary anticipating I would have to work as many hours a week as I currently do. I had foreseen the need to work, yes, but not to this extent. When the alternator in my truck died a couple of months ago, this was an unforeseen financial setback. At the time I was pushing 25 hours a week with work-study and my job at the cafe. When I was told how much I would have to pay to have the alternator fixed, I asked my manager at the cafe the very same day to increase my hours.
This in turn has caused me to have to make decisions everyday regarding what reading assignments I would and would not complete. What seemed the most imperative to class discussions I gave my attention. What seemed like supporting reading, I pushed to the side. In reality, my lecture notes are what has saved my tail on every exam so far.
In the midst of all of this, I asked God, “What am I doing here? I didn’t come here to just ‘get by.’” The answer came very quietly, “Yeah, quit killing yourself. You don’t have to finish in four years.” Oh yeah… well, I didn’t necessarily want to make seminary a five-year plan, but dropping the most time intensive class has really lightened my load quite a bit. The only thing is, by staying at this seminary, Exegetical Greek is a required course and I will have to retake it next year. Retaking it next year means my middler-year course schedule will be shuffled and some courses next year will have to be shuffled into an additional year.
All of that is fine and well, which brings me full circle, back to the whole work debacle. Do I really want to stay here for a total of four more academic years working a minimum wage job? I have looked around and other jobs that pay more aren’t as flexible with my school schedule. More prayer. More “what should I do”s.
I’ve reopened my admission file with the other seminary I had been accepted to; they happen to have a distance learning Master of Divinity program, designed to be completed 2/3 time rather than full-time, with occasional on-campus two-week intensive courses offered. I am not officially accepted into this program yet, but I am making plans as if I will be. I will continue on with my January Interim course as planned and I will be taking a reduced course load next term as well. In May I will head a few hours north to do my 11-week unit of Clinical Pastoral Education and then in August I will return to Alaska to resume my interpreting work. I expect to begin the distance learning coursework beginning the fall semester ‘09.
Does this feel like defeat? Yes and no. I had really been looking forward to a traditional on-campus type of learning experience and in some ways I got it. I really love the seminary community here (even if one or two of the professors here cause me to break out in hives). But someone wise once told me that going to seminary does not end the discernment process. Seminary is a greater extension of that continuing discernment. Through coming here, I have discerned that I needed to come here, that this year is an incredible year of new personal (I hope) and spiritual growth, but I am a working adult and will most likely have to remain a working adult throughout the course of my seminary career. It makes sense to me that if I have the means of pursuing my education in an alternative format that allows me to work in my previously chosen field (and reasonably enjoy it while making an almost-living wage at the same time) then I need to do it.
Being here for only five months and already planning my farewell doesn’t really sit well with me in some ways. In other ways, though, it feels like the beginning of another new chapter in my life. I’m just excited to have options, period.
This is my friend Susan, from back home. She is one of the most courageous people I know and is an inspiration.
I am a Christian who voted for Barack Obama.
That said, I was so proud of how Obama gave gracious mention to McCain’s concession last night as well as to McCain’s integrity in serving our country. The applause nd cheering by Obama’s supporters instilled in me a sense of pride, that even though they hadn’t voted for McCain they still felt a sense of unity as Americans, that we are all in this together. For the first time in a long time, I felt proud to be an American.
I was equally impressed with McCain’s speech. I thought he was equally gracious in his speech toward Obama. I wish I could say that his supporters who were present could have followed his example. The booing I heard was anything but gracious.
On the home front, I was bombarded with vitriolic emails from my hyper-fundamentalist sister, who criticized my Christian character in voting for Obama, questioned my motivations for being in seminary, and lamenting how Americans could vote for someone–a MUSLIM no less–who wasn’t even born in the United States! Even after explaining as patiently as I could that, yes, Obama was born in Hawaii even though he spent his childhood in Indonesia, and yes, Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and does not espouse Jeremiah Wright’s radical anti-white and anti-America doctrine, I was brushed off with a flippant, “I don’t know where you get your information…”
Even my mother questioned whether or not Obama was really an American. My own parents were slightly more cordial than my sister but any exchanges from them were distant and even slightly icy.
I’m saddened that my family feels it is okay to take out their bitterness and disappointment on me as much as it saddens me that political ideology has become a dogma for them. I pray that there are far more gracious Republicans out there than what I witnessed last night on TV and on the phone/emails from my family.
