One down, five to go

It's probably too soon to really reflect on my first semester of divinity school. After all, I did just take my last final yesterday and slept until 11:00 this morning. What I can tell you is that I'm having the time of my life! Even with the craziness of four final papers and five final exams (this is where taking five classes gets to be a little insane), I am so filled with gratitude for all I've learned and the friends I've made, that I not only have no complaints, I can't think of even a downside. Well, maybe being apart from Tim during the week, but his business has grown so busy and he travels so much that we wouldn't see each other that much more anyway! So I can safely say that missing the dogs is the worst of it, but the greeting I get when I go home almost makes up for it!

For those of you wondering just what it is that one learns in seminary, I can tell you that it's most definitely NOT how to be a priest or pastor in a church, at least, not yet. This first semester has been all about content:

• What do the Hebrew scriptures really say, at least through the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History?
• How do we translate those Hebrew scriptures from the original language?
• What were the worship practices in the early church and how have they developed over two millennia?
• How did theologians explain the meaning of this Jesus person in the first 500 years or so of the church which pretty much established orthodoxy for the rest of history for the western church?
• How did we go from house churches meeting in secret in the 1st century to an overblown church that needed reforming in a bad way by the 16th century?

It was in the out-of-class time that we really learned about church, if by 'church' we mean a community of the faithful. Morning prayer and Eucharist every day, spiritual direction groups, dinners with friends, chatting over coffee, supporting one another in our struggles with new life as grad students, mourning with those who lost family over these last months, celebrating with those being ordained or having their children baptized, commiserating with those catching the flu just as exams are looming - it's been a microcosm of the world here in our little New Haven community on the hill. What we don't generally deal with is the part of the real world that will become our ministry when we leave here. Yes, some students volunteer at the soup kitchen and some at the food pantry. Others who are doing their field work as interns are facing issues of pastoral crises and people in all kinds of physical, emotional and spiritual need. But for those of us in our first semester, we get to sort of ease into it, concentrating on learning to be a divinity student. The world will be there, just as much in need when we're done as it is now.

One other thing that we do as first year seminarians is pray, a lot. Maybe we don't have the time to sit in quiet reflection or journal or meditate as much as we once might have, but with chapel two times a day every day and, quite frankly, learning about God all day every day, it all feels like an act of prayer. How very Benedictine, don't you think? Ora et labora. But for the next three weeks, my labora is complete and I can rest for a while and really reflect on these past months before the craziness starts up again. Such joy awaits!