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

Encounters

About four o’clock yesterday I quit studying at the library and headed home for an early dinner with friends.  A couple weeks ago on a Saturday my wife and I had attended the first of a three-session anti-racism workshop.  After tonight’s dinner we were all supposed to head out for the second installment.  Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to realize that I was probably not up for taking time off from my studies to see more of my blind spots and explore the world’s problems in yet more depth. 

The couple with whom we were having dinner are on-and-off-again Unitarian Univer­sal­ists.  Though I am the most religious of the bunch of us, we are deeply interested in each other’s lives.  So when Peter asked about my week, I found myself talking about how overwhelming but thrilling it had been to do my midterm for Christian Ethics. 

I still remember sitting in the library poring over Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” for the third time.  It is always bracing to be in the presence of his courage and vision.  But, this time, because I was formally studying it, I was struck by his rich knowledge of the philosophers and theologians that he was drawing on – from memory in his prison cell, initially.  I found myself wanting to also absorb Plato and Tillich in breadth and in depth.  But even more beautiful was the way that over and over he would take criticisms leveled by other pastors against him and the civil rights cause and reframe them as mandates which should be self-evident to anyone who carefully looked at Paul’s letters and Christ’s actions.  The process of retracing MLK’s steps through this great letter left me awed by his mastery of rhetoric and hungry to be more grounded in scripture.  That communion with such a great mind and spirit leaves me feeling like I’m in the right place.

The scramble to finish everything before the deadline – followed by detailed responses to the four case studies for my Final Integrative Seminar which were due a few days later – has also left me dead tired.   After everyone else left for the racism workshop and I had finished the dishes, I crashed on the couch for a couple hours.  Once my wife returned, we watched an episode of Commander In Chief – our decadent plea­sure these days – before I switched gears and returned to my studies.  For the last couple hours before bed, I read John Howard Yoder’s classic analysis of the gospels in which he lays out his fascinating picture of a thoroughly political Jesus.

This morning, after studying more and doing some of my work as a computer pro­grammer, I biked over to the hospital.  Each visit is different.  Each day is its own adventure and brings its own lessons. 

- Karl Jones, MDiv student

Wonderings Under the Autumn Moon

Two evenings ago after days of taunts and false alarms, I found the first flakes falling I knew that the curtain was closing on my evening walks. At the beginning of the semester I was assigned readings about spiritual practices. One of the first of these practices required creating a time of solitude or reflection at the end of the day. I gave it a try and got quite used to it. Now it’s getting cold. 

I can feel the days get dense and narrow near the end of autumn. They are already getting crushed into tiny units of clock time white-washed in fluorescent light where it only gets sunny and warm imagination. 

This year’s long autumn tempted me with a secret cache of time and I took it. I stole off most evenings before bed into the suburban streets of Fridley kicking the fallen leaves just to hear them tumble and scrape against the concrete while I thought about Carolyn Pressler’s OT notes wondering what it means that anyone still reads the Hebrew Bible- that anyone even wrote it in the first place. In the long autumn I started to ask again what it mean that I am still reading the Bible, now that it opens up to me like a handful of tiny, bright stars sprinkled across the night sky, drawing me underneath its canopy so I can feel around and listen for new sounds. 

What did those writers hear that made them into humans formed and aroused to life by the hands and breath of deity? What did they see that made them look again, certain that there was something else? 

Did they see what Sojourner saw and that her mother saw when they looked up to the night sky? I’m looking and listening too, even to the leaves I’m kicking about with my feet while I think about Augustine and poor brother Luther. They did finally find an end (or at least a beginning to the end) to their tortures underneath that canopy as well. Whatever was said that inspired writing about an Abraham and a Moses must have also intoned with a surplus of resonance that outmatched Augustine’s desire and consoled Luther’s conscience with grace enough to account for the remainder. I think Augustine, Luther and Calvin did make some headway for us. They rendered aid to consciences seeking a place to rest. But what next? 

Something remains that I can feel in the fallen leaves while the moon beams at me from behind soft charcoal clouds. I can feel it in my bones and I can hear it in Billy and Nina’s Strange Fruit and I think I see pieces of it in James Cone as well. The brother is right, you know, about Niebuhr’s investment in Jim Crow’s status quo. And I also think he is right that in the United States the cross of Jesus Christ is the spectacular lynching extravaganza that betrays a fatal flaw in Protestantism’s narcoleptic conscience that I still struggle to fully apprehend. 

That makes me think again about the social context of Luke’s Gospel that Marilyn has burned into me and I remember that someone in Rome seems to have believed that frequent public hangings could permanently arrest movements toward liberation and sustain Rome’s idea of peace. Is it not an obscene joke that some American Christians recently believed that their place in the American dream would be secure if only congregations of White lynch mobs could be washed in the blood of crucified Black people? Crucifying Black people did not save expectant congregants eagerly grasping their children by the hand gazing with devotion upon our charred and dismembered remains in dark woods and crowded town squares and I wonder if they ever understood why not. 

Then I ask the autumn moon and the fallen leaves and the one who made me notice them if it is not time to stop making their problem my problem too.

- Jermaine Ross, MDiv student

Be Strong and Courageous

Pursuing a Master of Divinity is not for the faint of heart.  Since the beginning of the semester, I have watched my father’s health continue to decline as he completes his sixth month of receiving hospice care.  I have made an effort to be there as much as I can, which isn’t very much; I have spent two months at my clinical site watching life’s drama unfold as families make what is literally life or death decisions, and I have six more months to go.  I have struggled to keep up with my studies with very little to show for it except for piles of books and reams of paper with random sections highlighted in hopes that it will have helped me with the midterm I’m turning in tomorrow (a few days prior to when this entry will post on our blog.)  I have continued to work full-time.  On top of that, I nearly got in a car accident on my way to class when I was so sleep-deprived that I pulled in front of a car that managed to swerve to safety despite my poor and dangerous driving.

It’s the last thing that put me and my family over the edge.  While I can – and have – taken a fair amount of abuse to get through seminary, it’s when I put someone else’s safety in jeopardy that we realized something had to give, but what?  I certainly am not going to cut back what amounts to a handful of hours with my dad and providing respite for my mother.  Because of financial aid and scholarships, there are a minimum number of classes I have to take each year.   Even if everything goes as planned, I’ll just be skimming by, and once before I had to pay back financial aid for some classes when I couldn’t hit the minimum – it’s too painful to do again.  I can’t quit the clinical pastoral education (CPE) component; I need the credits and also it has truly become the part of my week I love the most, where I’m actually able to minister to others and see some purpose for why I’m doing everything else.  What about the job?  Well, my spouse was laid off some months back, so we need my paycheck, and perhaps more importantly, the benefits.  Despite repeated requests to be allowed to cut my hours, my employer can’t swing it.  As it is, there are already about 30% fewer of us in our area doing about 50% more work than in the past.  I’ve already tried sleeping in my car (see paragraph above) and have learned that’s not a good choice, either.

It turns out the car is part of the solution.  Well, not the car, but the commute. Despite the reduction in household income, we’ve determined that the best solution is that I rent a room in Minneapolis that’s about 15 minutes from work and 10 minutes from my clinical site.  So, for the next six months, we’re paying a mortgage – and rent – so that I can at least have the chance to sleep nearly 8 hours a night, 4 nights a week.  While others were taking time off during our reading week break and catching up on their lives and relationships, I was apartment hunting and transporting part of our household to a small room that is about as different a setting from our quiet rural home as I can fathom.

One of the patients I was assigned on my first day as a chaplain intern died this morning.  I was with him and his family last night.  He hasn’t been conscious for about two weeks, but I’ve still gone in and shared his favorite verse – Joshua 1:9.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Over the last few months the two of us have reflected on the meaning of this verse for those of us who are crossing over to foreign lands.  It was the last thing I said to him before I left last night, in hopes that there was still some part of his being that could hear me.  While I have no doubt he believes this in his bones, I wanted to affirm for him – and for me – God will be with us wherever we go.

 - Jayne Helgevold, MDiv student

 

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