An update/time to catch up on life post.
Well I started this post thinking I’d tell everyone about life & how things are going, but now that I’m here I’m at a loss for words.
I have been reading my brains out for the past two weeks. I started seminary classes this past week and it’s been a LOT of reading. It’s a part time effort at least for now. I am enjoying the learning, but the strain of trying to do everything else as well is stressful.
The biggest hurdle so far has been getting over my negative reaction to every concept that’s presented. In Systematic Theology, the question was if guttural barking was ‘allowed’ in cases where it seemed to be brought about by the holy spirit. I pointed out that all speaking in tongues while a gift required an iterpreter for edification, and if it wasn’t edifying it wasn’t worth having. In Old Testament we learned about typology. In my mind, a type is like an integer, string or array, like the ‘types’ from programming languages. In theology, types are a way of pulling out something God does and relating it to something God does later (usually in the New Testament). So the example was the Israelites going through the sea, is a ‘type’ of baptism since they went through water. I said that couldn’t be true since they weren’t fully immersed… I just grinned at my professor, it took him a second to get the joke. Anyway, it sounds like a poor way of categorizing the things God has done, just to compare them to God’s actions later on.
I worry that learning the theoretical bits will take away from the importance of the practical or the hands-on. I don’t want to become the priest who walks on the other side of the road when passing the injured traveler. Also, I want to use this to figure out where God wants me, what places I need to be, if anywhere (else that is).
I suppose the real question is Why am I doing this? Going to seminary, studying to be priest or even deacon at the very least. I’ve joked that I want to do it so I don’t have to worry about what to wear, I just get to wear the same black shirt all the time. It’s a feeling that there are some people both outside and inside the church that need to hear me speak about God. His love for us, his clarity of nature, the worship he deserves, the wonder of his creation around us. “I am but dust and ashes, and for my sake the world was created,” the quote goes. I like to teach and so giving talks about God, dare I say it sermons seems right up my alley. I don’t want to get away from the serving aspects of following God either. I have always felt strongly about serving the poor & homeless, so I want to always keep doing that and not get away from it. I can do those things and not be a priest of course, but for some reason I feel called to ‘be’ more. I have been on this road a long time and I can look back and see how God has taken care of me even when I’ve gone wandering off of his path for me. It makes me sad to know that I missed out on some of the blessings he had planned for me, and at the same time makes me happy to see his love for me in action.
I will be in classes for a while yet, at least a year or more. I still have to support my family… I’m reading through Genesis tonight for my Old Testament class and there was always God’s commitment to the guys (Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and Joseph) and through them their families.
Enough for now. It’s really late and I need to sleep. If you want to see something cool, this is a project I’ve been working on for a couple of weeks now:
