First Semester is Complete! Merry Christmas

     I have completed my first semester of seminary with the feeling of accomplishment, relief, exhaustion and giddiness.  Given the advice to write down on a calendar all the due dates of the papers and exams, the end of the semester looked pretty daunting.  I shared this calendar with my family, so that everybody would be aware of the times when I needed to study and buckle down.  I do believe that this is a habit that will continue throughout my seminary experience.  Speaking of family, mine are rock stars in all of this.  My kids say they don’t even realize that I am at school because their schedule hasn’t changed.  It has, they just haven’t noticed.  On the days where our school schedules didn’t mesh they went to friends houses which was a treat in their minds, but a life-saver to me.  I have a wonderful circle of friends willing to take my kids if there are last minute schedule conflicts.  I have a husband whose work schedule is flexible enough to be home with the kids when needed.  With this I say that God is good, all the time.

    I am feeling like I have made the right choice to come to seminary.  All of the experiences so far have led me to believe that this is the place I am supposed to be.    Through all of the hard work and frustration, finally getting to that ah-ha moment when things become clear is rewarding beyond belief.  Receiving encouragement from my professors has been a lifeline when I am not feeling so confident.  Feeling the camaraderie with my fellow seminarians gives me the energy I crave.  Witnessing authentic dialogue between classmates and professors feeds my soul and calms my spirit.  It is like I am learning to swim, and understanding the basics, I am now ready to move on.  Seminary is teaching me the life skill that I will need when I face the vast sometimes turbulent waters of life and am able to boldly swim with confidence and perseverance.

    I will not be taking a January-term class and am excited for next semester.  For now I am going to enjoy the holidays with my family.

- Sarah Kronkvist, MARL student

In the Nadir

The shadows come in the early afternoon at this time of the year, and the sun’s angle drops them across the landscape in low sweeps, and the light begins to fall away. The sun does not linger, but blinks out at the edge of the world, and we are in the deep. I listen to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” and its plaintive hopefulness, the longing of centuries, comes down through the haunting music and the words. Sometimes I think have more common with the ancients than I have realized; I feel a nearly primal fear at the going of the light.

In my class on The Moral Thinking of Bonhoeffer, we are into the book Letters and Papers from Prison, and it is my turn to present a response to the reading for the week. It is a morning class, and we are back after Thanksgiving week, a little hazy after the holiday. I read Bonhoeffer’s words: “Never before in human history have there been a people for whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable.” I pause, a space that seems necessary. My classmates and I look at each other across the room. It is a small class and that has allowed us a particular depth of discussion and exchange. We have challenged each other and ourselves as the weeks have gone on; I don’t think we ever leave a class session without knowing that something critical is at stake. As I leave the class, I am unable to forget other words Bonhoeffer wrote: “We thought we could make our way with reason and justice and when both failed….” And I think, well, if reason and justice fail…I mean, I believe in reason and justice. But how do I believe in them? As matters of faith? For even now, I see that reason and justice do fail, and fail repeatedly.  Not always. But often enough.  It is not a comforting conclusion.

My Bonhoeffer class is cross-pollinating with my Christian Ethics class this semester; and I find that I love the discussions and the challenges they bring. And I realize, finally, the key reason why I am pursuing this kind of education: it is an education that takes seriously the role of love in human affairs. Not love in an easy, sentimental way, but love as it has been passed to us in our wisdom and faith traditions; not love merely as textbook theories, but love in actual lives lived. Love that calls us somewhere. It will call some of us to parishes and prisons and hospitals, to teaching and preaching; it will call some of us out into the streets. 

Before I leave school for the day, I stop to buy a book that my professor has just published. It is called Burning Center, Porous Borders. That night I open it up and read: “Once upon a time Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said, “Abba, as much as I am able I practice a small rule, all the little fasts, some prayer and meditation, and remain quiet, and as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean. What else should I do?” Then the old monastic stood up and stretched out his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like ten torches of flame. And he said, “Why not be completely turned into fire?”

“Yes, ‘why not be completely turned into fire?” my professor writes. “But what shall we do to be on fire?” What shall we do? The year has reached its nadir. The sun drops below the earth. Justice and reason might fail. Love, St. Paul said, never fails. Do I believe this? Yes. I believe it because there is a community who believes it and who has believed it for thousands of years. At times, it seems that we are crazy to believe it, but I wonder: wouldn’t we be crazy not to?

I fall asleep thinking of fire. I dream that I am holding a camel on a leash; the camel is pulling me west. Not towards a star in the east, but to California. (Okay, it’s a dream. And what Minnesotan doesn’t dream of California? ) I do not know that I will awaken to find out that my dog, my friend and companion of many walks and meditations under the stars, has died during the night. I do not know this yet, but when I do awaken, this community of seminary friends will be there, and they will comfort me.

Burning Center, Porous Border, by Eleazar Fernandez

The story of Abba Joseph is cited in Chittister, The Fire in These Ashes

- Kathryn Price, MA student