Coming Up for Air (or, Reading Week)

Reading week is finally here.  (Deep sigh of relief inserted here.)  This is my first term at UTS and I am exhausted. I am pursuing  a MARL (Masters in Religious Leadership) on a part-time basis. 

For those of you who don’t know, reading week is a kind gesture inserted into the middle of the term to allow people like me to catch up and have a bit of a breather from classes, and prepare for the weeks to come. 

I do have a lot of reading this week, but also writing and studying.  My first mid-term exam in Older Testament is coming up.  The professor has gone over all of the material thoroughly and has made herself available via webcast and the class webpage over this next week.  How cool is that?  My small group for Theological Interpretation is finally meeting next week to go over our project on immigration.  I also have to catch up on a book that I haven’t yet finished for that class (oops).  Finally, I have a three page book review to write for Principles in Writing.

All of that seems feasible, but did I also mention that I have a family consisting of 2 kids (age 7 and 9) a supportive significant other, and two dogs?  All of whom need meals, quality time, walks in the park, help with homework, and transportation to and from extracurricular and church activities, to name a few.  I try to delegate as much as I can, but sometimes, the mom has to be the one to get the job done.  I think I also forgot to mention the volunteer activities in my kid’s school and my church that I signed up for thinking that I could work them around my school schedule.  Yeah, right. 

Being exhausted from all of this is thrilling.  The synapses in my brain haven’t been this busy in years.  I’ve got a goofy smile on my face most of the time knowing I am exactly where I am meant to be.  Answering the call to seminary has been an extremely fulfilling decision.  It has opened my eyes in more ways than I could have ever imagine.  Just the diversity of the denominations represented in the student body, helps to broaden and challenge my own theology.  I’ve met other United Methodists, like myself, but also Unitarian Universalists, United Church of Christ, Quakers, undecideds, pagans, evangelicals, Jewish and Roman Catholics, all contributing to the same conversations with meaningful insights.  This is an exciting time to be at seminary.

- Sarah Kronkvist, MARL student

A Full Life, A Blessed Life

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”  - Thomas Merton, 20^th Century Catholic author

I am nearing the end of a six-week Working Toward Prayer class at my church Unity Unitarian-Church. We are all encouraged to deepen our own daily spiritual practice and to work on contemplative living as described by Thomas Merton.  The quote above captures the spirit of engaging in each day as a form of prayer. 

Although many times I do not “know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going” I have no doubt that my courageous step of coming to UTS is the right one. As a Unitarian-Universalist (UU) in a Christian seminary there are many gifts offered from multi-faith perspectives.  My small group in one class is comprised of me, a UCC student, a LDS (Mormon) student, and a classmate who describes her spiritual affiliation as “wandering but not lost.” This diversity of faith here was symbolized at last week’s chapel where a broad array of hymnals were displayed on the altar. This broad-range of faith traditions is part of the fabric of this place—I believe it stretches us all theologically and will make us stronger leaders in the multi-faith world we live in. 

Part of the purpose of this blog is to share our lives as seminarians and to give a sense of an average week in the life of a student. Like so many students, I wear many hats throughout the week. 

During this past week I:

• Prepared for and attended my four classes (Historical Theology; UU Social Action; Synoptic Gospels; and Death, Dying and Bereavement). Topics we learned about and wrestled with included: St. Augustine, racism, Luke, and social media’s impact on grieving. 
• Wrote a sermon which I will preach at the UU church in Rochester later this month.
• Hosted a prospective UTS student over a lunch hour.
•  Met with the core planning group about my church’s strategy for working on the anti-marriage amendment which is up for a vote in MN in Nov. 2012.
• Attended three of my son’s flag football games at Ramsey Jr High and Central High School’s homecoming game where my oldest son played in the pep band.
• Joined the director of the Prairie Star District at our weekly UTS-UU Student Group.
• Presented with a colleague to ten UU ministers about the anti-marriage amendment and the intra- and inter-faith work that lies ahead.
• Attended a classmate’s presentation on his summer travels to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.
• Continued to chair my church’s Board of Trustees nominating committee and spent time managing the teams’ work toward recruiting and interviewing three nominees.
•  Worshiped at a very moving chapel service with the sermon titled “I’m Coming Out.”
•  Spent time at family dinners, walks to DQ, and in transit with my sons and partner, Linda. 

This afternoon I am off to a meeting with a core group of multi-faith leaders who are planning the state-wide faith-based component of the campaign to defeat the anti-marriage amendment in MN.  

Tomorrow I turn 49…if my life is indeed a prayer then all I have to say is amen. It has been a full and blessed week. 

-Laura Smidzik, M.Div. student

Arriving at the Intersection

This week in my class on Major Twentieth Century Moral Thinkers, we considered issues that touched on questions I have asked myself over the last several months.  Increasingly, I am hearing questions about religious affiliation and assertions of faith in the election season here in the United States.  As a person who considered pursuing a graduate program in public policy at the same time that I was considering applying for admission to United Seminary, I wonder: where does my political voice leave off and my spiritual voice begin? Or, can these even be separated? Should they be? 

I have made a commitment that my spiritual path stands firmly in this world, with its grit and grapple, its heartbreak and its joys. And it is a political world. Yet I do not want to conflate politics with God in such a way that I am unable to perceive one for the other.  I think that a spiritual path transcends politics, though for me, it cannot abandon them.  

What I love in particular about a theological education, and specifically this theological education, is that in studying here I arrive at the intersection of deeply moral questions, theological voices old and new, their application to social and political concerns, and my own spiritual path. The diversity of voices from different faith traditions deepens my own efforts in thinking about things critically and spiritually.  

Two weeks ago at United’s Fall convocation, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of United Seminary. As we stood in the chapel for that service, I thought about the men and women who had founded this seminary 50 years before. What had they imagined for this place? What had they dreamed? Perhaps back then they had not quite imagined me, a woman raised in the Catholic tradition, who then attended a  Bible College for three years,  and following that considered herself an  agnostic for many years, only to arrive here. But I, looking back at those men and women, have a sense of what they imagined from the kind of seminary they created -- and I owe them.  I feel a sense of gratitude for the ecumenical vision they embraced.  During my years of agnosticism, I continued to ask the questions that have always concerned me at heart: Who are we? Why are we here? How do we live with compassion and with integrity to ourselves and others in a complex world? Why do we so often stumble in trying to live our deepest aspirations? Even though we are always speaking and thinking within a specific context – as the courses at United make abundantly clear -- I imagine that these kinds of questions are asked in every context throughout the world.  For some years, I thought I was better off asking them alone, without community and – let’s face it – its annoying encumbrances and sometimes grating disagreements. And maybe I did need some time alone for a while.  But ultimately it is only within community that I can practice and test my faith, compare and contrast it with the experiences and traditions of others, and find my way to a deeper place.  It is a richer place as well for all this. 

This is the year in which I need to make a decision about whether to change my degree program to M.Div. Already I’m feeling currents within the scope of the classes I’m taking and of the experiences I’ve had here that I think will help me in making that decision. Sometimes I wish I had all the answers straight up. But that has not seemed to be my path. I think it’s going to be a good year. 

-Kathryn Price, MA student