I can't believe the whole first quarter is over and done with and I haven't written a thing in this blog. A testament to just how busy, crazy, and emotional I've been. Where to start? With the end. I survived and I'm still still standing and ready to go at it again on Jan. 2, 2007. It truly has been a roller coaster emotionally. Everyone seems to be on it -- young and old (er).
What has surprised me? Well, first, because I've been in graduate school and taken comprehensive exams and written a dissertation, I foolishly thought the academic part of this experience would be the proverbial "no-brainer." NOT! It's so different from graduate school which unremittingly focuses in on a subject, narrows and specializes. This is different. It's preparing us for a profession, so it is broad and comprehensive. If we take a course in Old Testament, we need to become familiar with all the resources available to us to deal with the OT in the future. That is a lot of stuff. So, Frank Yamada gave us plenty to think about. And, in Early Church History, AKMA gave us more than enough to read. The net result of all this is that I am pleased that I have learned a great deal in the last 10 weeks, yet I am humbled by all I have yet to learn. Gospel Mission was especially daunting -- an enormous amount of reading, church visiting, and writing about it.
Which leads me to another surprise -- how integral spiritual formation was to the academic content of our classes. I knew there would be spiritual formation occurring, but I thought of it as very separate from the "purely intellectual" function of the classes. NOT! That has been both wonderful and grueling at the same time. This was especially true in Gospel Mission where I felt my world view, attitudes, beliefs, and prejudices being challenged every day. Not a bad thing at all.
Friday, December 22, 2006
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