Filed under: Writing
An exercise in two parts.
Home. Noun.
the place where one lives; the place where one was born or reared; a place thought of as home; a household and its affairs.
Written June 23, 2009: Ontario, CA
Home. Noun.
An old oak tree in a bed of flat stones – one low branch perfect for sitting. Finding that you know all the inside jokes. Ten-year-old spots of black paint on bedroom carpet. The familiar curve of a bathtub. The constant hum of the freeway. The dog-eared pages of a book whose binding has all but worn away. A library to whom you owe two books sixteen years overdue. Being slightly more at ease. Being slightly less at ease. An empty lot with a decade-old sign declaring the future location of a church. Stepping over sleeping brothers to get at fresh eggs and pork roll on Christmas morning. Being unable to get away with anything. Being unable to be anyone new.
Written November 30, 2009: Princeton, NJ
Home. Noun.
A comfy bed at times not wide enough, at times not warm enough. The constant tapped warning of a crosswalk. Leaves crunching in abundance under your feet. Old books on a new bookshelf. A freezer that refuses to actually freeze anything. Sleeping ten feet from where a personal hero preached his very first sermon. Warm smiles greeting you from an ancient doorway. New faces who tease you about the same old things. Great debates held over trays of crappy food. Walking everywhere. Wanting to walk everywhere. The opportunity to be someone new. Discovering that you don’t know how to be.
—
I am exactly seventy days into my seminary career. That’s approximately two months and two weeks (give or take a few days on either side – don’t judge me for my math skills). I am two and a half weeks away from finals (16 days to be exact) for the long Fall term.
I have a confession to make.
For the past seventy days (give or take a few days on either side) I have been bored.
Really, really bored.
I have, in large part, done this to myself. I entered seminary with an undergraduate degree in theology. There is not a required intro survey class available to me that would not have, to some degree, had a strong element of “been there, done that” to it. During the first week of orientation, I made the decision (that would later prove to bite me hard in the butt) not to advance place out of said survey classes. On top of that, I opted to take the Survey of Medieval Church History course as well, which was on the recommended Junior schedule on the PTS website, despite having taken a class with its exact title and two classes whose materials overlapped the subject matter and time period during undergrad.
Why, oh why, did I do that to myself?
One: I wanted to take the same classes my fellow Juniors were taking, that I might further connect to my incoming class.
Two: I wanted to go easy on myself for what I imagined would be a difficult transition into life on the east coast and seminary life in general.
Three: I seriously underestimated my ability to be really freaking bored.
As a direct result of me being really bored, I have become extraordinarily boring. Something has switched off in my brain here and I am no longer actively seeking ANYTHING. I do not learn – I have ceased trying to learn.
This? This is my “I am not ok with this state of affairs” face. (I have many faces.)
So internet, I am changing things.
Be on the lookout.
An adventure has begun.
Upcoming posts on: the so-called feminization of the church, the dominance of gender issues over theological issues (ie, can we talk about something other than my uterus for once, PLEASE?), and photo-posts from my east coast explorations (of which there will be MANY).
—
I want to explain to you what this feels like, sitting in this window seat just shy of two hundred years old as rain like hail pours down onto grass and pavement and trees and splashes me through the old windowsill that I have carelessly and carefully left open.
I am wrapped in a blanket, cold and damp and warm. And happy. For the first time in a month I am.
Happy.
Here.
There is hard thunder rattling through trees far older than even this building I’m nestled in.
There is glee in me. As I sit. As I stare. As I watch and listen as heavy rain falls harder, shouting, then whisper quiet.
Indecisive.
I keep getting surprised by this rain. Blindsided. Unaware until it runs down my cheeks and my shoulders and off my nose how heavy-laden it is.
It is beautiful; breathtaking. Breath-transforming as its fat raindrops take light from my lamp and explode in bright, glitttering color on the asphalt below.
I love this rain and its weighty footfalls.
I am lighter, somehow.
And today I aced my Greek quiz.
—
Filed under: seminary
I have been on the road now for 13 days – seven of those days have contained active driving. California to Tucson to El Paso to Austin to Dallas to Lonoke, Arkansas to Cookeville, Tennessee to Blacksburg, Virginia. Five days in Austin, two in Blacksburg (one of my best friends has been in the graduate program at Virginia Tech for the last year) and then back on the road tomorrow morning for Pennsylvania and finally, finally Princeton.
My truck, all packed up and ready to go - Mom and Dad’s, Southern California
Daisy Mae (my road trip mascot – a gift from a friend) and the middle of… somewhere.
Spending that kind of time alone on the road is bound to make a girl a little addle-minded. For the most part, however, I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve had to myself. A bunch of my friends made me mixed cds to listen to on the drive – I’ve got over 23 cds of new music from close to a dozen people – that went a long way in keeping me entertained. Everything from 80s rock to opera to German pop to the Backstreet Boys (that last one was an exciting discovery – I have very little shame and rocked out openly in my truck). Beyond the music I’ve listened to David Sedaris’ audiobook memoirs (Me Talk Pretty Someday and When You Are Engulfed in Flames) and bits and pieces of the Harry Potter books. I attempted C.S. Lewis but found that, having used that soft British voice to put me to sleep in the past, his audiobooks weren’t a great choice for trying to stay awake on the road.
On the back country roads of Hutto, Texas, on my way to see an old friend from high school (and her two baby daughters!)
After much debating, I finally agreed to let my mom come with me part of the way – we parted in Austin after five days at my grandmother’s house. I spent a couple of days recording my grandmother’s memoirs onto a digital voice recorder and spent hours going through her old photographs – she had been a commissioned officer and nurse in the Navy during WWII – that’s where she met my grandfather, an injured soldier. After hours at her feet (or curled up against her side while she spoke – my grandmother is 87 years of awesome) I have begun to contemplate the possibility of serving some of my active ministry time (prior to PhD work, of course) as a Navy chaplain. It is becoming disconcertingly easy to picture myself in dress whites… but it’s just a thought. A distant possibility.
My grandmother, Mildred “Millie” King Evans, Navy officer, nurse and all around gorgeous woman.
Me and my Grammie – still stubborn, outspoken and fiercely independent at 87. She’s kind of my hero.
I was terribly homesick my first week away – my first Sunday away from church and friends was especially difficult. Today is my second Sunday away and the tug on my heart is a little less noticeable. I think that something changed when I started the second half of this trip alone. I think the part of me that has been scared and sad and lonely blended more fully in to the part of me that is ridiculously excited and anticipatory. I have been waiting for this for so long, have been waiting for Princeton and seminary for so damn long. I am less filled with dread and more filled with hunger than I was even in the months leading up to my departure.
A plague of locusts (or, you know, grasshoppers) at a gas station in Arkansas. I was there for 10 minutes and they took over my truck.
Memphis, Tennessee, after crossing the Mississippi River. Which is not, contrary to prior belief, anywhere in the vicinity of California and/or Nevada.
I am still scared. A little. But academia is where I thrive, theology is my first love and there are slightly-less-than-strangers there who are waiting to meet me so we can have real life conversations that don’t take place through a computer screen.
The Drill Field at Virginia Tech – one step closer to my new home.
So for now I trust in the Lord who is leading me down this path. I am keeping my ear inclined forward to seek Truth. I am trying to remember that to worship my own understanding is the height of folly. I am preparing myself to learn without letting go of all that I have already known.
God help me.
—
Filed under: Uncategorized
This is my second-t0-last night in California and as a special goodbye present, the tri-city area caught fire again for old time’s sake. I will not miss seeing huge puffs of thick, black smoke pouring over the foothills from my bedroom window. Maybe a bit on the nose, though, if Mother Nature was looking to give me a metaphor for my leaving.
Tomorrow is my last Sunday at the little church I grew up in, and they’re sending me off with a small dedication during the service.
I know that excitement will come, eventually. Probably when I’m on the road and heading eastward to the dreams I’ve had since high school. But tonight I am filled with trepidation and a deep, soul-rocking sense of “miss”. I will miss leaving Todd and Monica’s house (like I did tonight) after an evening of raucous laughter, my friends and I dispersing into the night through their impossibly dark front lawn. I will miss holding my bunnies tight and burying my face into the sweet scent of their fur, tiny warm kisses on my nose. I will miss inside jokes and slips of the tongue and smiles and tears and pulling into my parents’ driveway.
I will miss.
And tomorrow I am saying goodbye to the people who have been my second family for a long time running. I am saying goodbye to being instantly comfortable with the people who know and love (or lovingly tolerate) my idiosyncrasies. To people who KNOW me. Who GET me. Who read my face and know what I’m thinking, who know when to smack me because I am making dirty jokes in my head because of something innocently said.
I have wanted to leave this state since I was 12 years old. And now I finally am. I can’t stay; I have to go. I can’t turn my back on all the things that are waiting for me out there on the East Coast.
My head is pushing me forward, but my heart will not stop screaming that it doesn’t want to leave.
—
Been awhile since I blogged.
I’m leaving for my gigantic two-week road trip to Princeton in six days. I am moving out of my apartment in three days. So far, I have only managed to pack up four boxes of books and put my ridiculously huge amount of tv-on-dvd and regular dvds into two different also gigantic cd cases.
Like someone (Mary) recently mentioned, in order to pack up a place, you sort of have to clean it first. I am not good at the former which makes me automatically no good at the latter. There is so much to do that my eyes keep going crossed. So I decided to take a break from staring at the giant mess and empty boxes to write something.
I am excited about this move. Really, I am. No, honest. I’ve wanted to be at Princeton since my first year of college and I’m fulfilling the dream I’ve had of seminary since junior year of high school.
But the timing? It is less than perfect.
I’m starting this journey without someone I always assumed would be there. Jack was the man who got me pointed in this direction, who taught me theology and introduced me to my first love (church history). Over the years he became another father to me, called me his surrogate daughter, loved me and yelled at me when I was being stupid and insecure and pushed me forward when I was scared.
He pushed me and I went forward. I graduated with honors from a university with an extraordinary theological program, having studied under the biggest brain in Christian Apologetics. I found my voice, I found my steadiness. And then, two weeks before I graduated, he died, suddenly though his cancer had us all expecting it – we just didn’t expect it the way it happened.
It took me a year to find my ground again, to figure out where my feet went. And now my feet are headed off to Princeton with nothing but his memory beside me.
I’ve been dreaming of him more often, these days.
There are other things, of course, that are keeping my heart firmly facing the West right now. A very dear friend is very sick and I want to stay and fight beside him with the rest of our friends. There are friends here that I could never imagine leaving, still can’t imagine leaving. And in the middle of all the memories of this place that I’ve been trying to escape for a decade are all the good ones I can’t pull myself away from.
I’m staring at this speeding bullet and have to force myself to stay inside its path. It will not hit me, it will not destroy me, but it will take me with it to the other side of the country, to a new state with new people and new things to learn, away from friends and family and people that I love desperately.
And there’s still so much shit to pack.
This?
This is my panic face.
—
I grew up in a fairly traditional, relatively Reformed Presbyterian church, of the PC(USA) variety. There are, within the bounds of the PC(USA), churches that hold to wildly differing beliefs. It really all depends on what literal church you walk into. I have been in a Presbyterian church that preached television show theology from the pulpit, have heard of PC(USA) pastors declaring that “Jesus wasn’t *that* important – what’s important is that we all get along and LOOOOOOOOVE”, have heard pastors preach feeling good over feeling convicted, embraced over forgiven. This is the far end of the liberal spectrum in my denomination, and such churches certainly aren’t fair representations of the PC(USA) as a whole, though such churches do make up a defining part of the denomination.
The church I grew up in was not one of these churches. I have heard Law and Gospel preached from the pulpit nearly every Sunday (there are always a few that manage to clunk by without much focus on Jesus at all, but those are few and far between – relatively). I learned the significance of the Protestant Reformation and its theology from weekly theological education classes. I learned to treasure the Bible as the inerrant Word of God (with the understanding that errors may arise, are pretty much guaranteed to arise, in human interpretation of the Word). I learned that we are saved by Grace alone, by Faith alone, as a monergistic work on the part of God. I played no part in my salvation other than as the receiver of it. The beloved, helpless, dirty street urchin child of God.
I have called myself Reformed from the moment I began to understand the theology of the Reformation. I call myself Reformed because I believe its understanding and flushing out of Scripture to be more accurate (maybe not entirely accurate, as I am not willing to put all my weight behind any human interpretation) than all others. I believe it clings to the Cross and doesn’t try to bend itself (too much) to the opposing will of Man.
All of this is excessive preamble (I’ve been told I tell stories like Agatha Christie, but without all the people dying) is to explain that I consider myself to be Reformed. I understand and love Calvin, have read and loved Luther.
But there is one part of theology that I hold to that is repeatedly unsupported by Reformed tradtion. I hold, have always held, will likely always hold, that women are not to be excluded from the role of pastoral ministry. That the use of verses like 1 Timothy 2:10-11 (to forbid the ordination of women) are taken out of context, are made into an aberration of scriptural interpretation that doesn’t fit with an understanding of the chapter as a whole, the book as a whole, Paul as a whole.
I have repeatedly been told by friends I admire, professors whose words I have soaked up, theologians I have read and loved, that I am horrifyingly in error in my belief. That by determining that such prooftexts reference a “period commandment” and not an “eternal commandment” (which, I believe, is supported in an accurate translation of the text and hermeneutical interpretation of the context), I ought to be forced to give up my hold on the title “Reformed” and accept “liberal feminist” instead.
But while I am certainly liberal in some things (recycle, reduce and reuse, dammit! It’s not that hard!) I am NOT liberal in my theological views. And I am not a feminist by any means.
But this discordance between my view (the accepted PC(USA) view as well, which is why I stick to this denomination that I am not always happy with) and the view of the rest of the “Reformed” church is frequently a source of personal unrest. It feels wrong for me to insist that, while they are right in so many things, they are truly wrong in this. And yet…
And yet I see in scripture a place for women in ministry. And I see a place in the church for women in ministry. A need in the church for women in ministry. I am not settled yet on the idea that there is a place for women as the head pastor of a church, though perhaps that comes from an transference of the fact that I am not comfortable with the idea of *me* as the head pastor of a church. But I find it almost laughable to think that God is not calling women to a place of ordained ministry in the church and in the world, or that we can deny His call. I have been attempting to deny His call my entire life, and see how miserably I’ve failed in THAT endeavor.
I was raised in my church to have respect, reverence for The Truth. That there will always be The Truth, something that is real and is right beyond human perception. I am wary of allowing myself to adopt a theology in any part that is separate from The Truth, simply because it makes me feel better, more comfortable.
I have struggled since feeling that tug into ministry with the thought that maybe I was doing it for some deep-rooted, self-satisfying desire within myself. After fighting this path into seminary, screaming and clawing and begging for something else for most of the way, I can’t help but think that it is not me (and likely, not the other women like me, or at least not all of them) who are giving into this self-satisfying desire. Perhaps that guilt rests on the shoulders who find their traditional view more comfortable, easier to handle, than to consider that perhaps they’ve been wrong about Scripture this entire time and have been denying half of God’s called servants from completeing the ministry they were born to do.
So many thoughts tonight. Forgive the incoherent ones. They can’t all be winners.
—
Filed under: Writing
Love. Noun, verb.
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; intense personal attachment or affection; strong enthusiasm or liking.
Love. Noun, verb.
Skipping class to buy him calamine lotion. A globe hidden in the back of her truck. Finding out what long distance calls cost after a four-hour conversation. A game of “Baby, if you love me, smile”. Fake crushes on his older brother. Matching freckles. A black and white photograph printed on canvas. Abbreviated goodbyes. A stolen kiss in a movie theater. Stolen fries. Promising he likes her daring haircut; brushing hair out of her eyes – “It’s short.” Pushing a marimba through locked double doors at midnight. Holding the chair steady so she doesn’t fall. Waking from a nightmare into his arms. Playing her Bob Dylan in the emergency room. Writing jokes on his theology notes. Holding her hand as she throws up and kissing her goodnight later anyway. The extra long hug. Chumbawumba. A beat up truck.
—
I found these scribbled in the back of my writing notebook earlier today, written down some time after having a long conversation with my former youth pastor about my reluctance about seminary and ministry in general.
Putting these down here mostly because I’ll lose them if they aren’t in digital format.
In no particular order.
“You look at yourself and you only see the bad parts. You disqualify yourself from ministry before you ever get there.”
“Have your heroes, but don’t try to be them. Don’t try to be Jack. That’s not who you are called to be.”
“Be you in your ministry. Be you always. YOU are who God called, not you trying to be someone or something else.”
“All these things you’re bringing here, to this table, this is who you are. Don’t try to change who you are to fit someone else’s idea of ministry.”
“You use your emotions to hold people at arm’s length. If you could figure out how to use them to bring people in, you could have a powerful ministry.”
“You have great passion and great intelligence, and the two are constantly battling it out inside you. Let your head inform your heart.”
“You are living your life like most people never do.”
“Let the inquirer’s process be about real inquiry. Test it out, figure it out, listen. Make it about real inquiry, not just formality.”
“I think it takes you a long time to trust people. Years, even. And that’s not wrong – for you, that makes sense.”
“Was there ever a time when you felt with God that you weren’t on the outside with your nose pressed up against the glass?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Huh.”
“I think God is pleased with you. I really do.”
Just for safe keeping.
—
I’ve debated with myself about whether or not I’d reveal exactly which seminary I’ll be attending this coming fall. There is a certain comfort in remaining entirely anonymous. (As it turns out, I actually revealed myself as a Princeton seminarian several posts ago. Shame on me. I should pay more attention to myself.)
But half of my excitement (at least at the moment, 2:46am on Friday, June 12, an hour when, if I am awake, I am almost certainly over-thinking and emotional or ridiculously excited about something) comes from the fact that in 79 days I’ll be moving from this craptastic city in Southern California to what I can only describe as Camelot to me – Princeton, New Jersey.
It’s really the little things that are making me choke back squeals.
There are FARMS in Princeton. Real life farms. That I can visit. That grow FOOD. That I can EAT.
And I’m gonna get a BIKE. That’s YELLOW. With a BASKET. Maybe on the back of my seat, as having it between my handlebars might be a smidge too Susie Creamcheese.
And there’s a river. With trees. THAT CHANGE COLOR. Really, it’s the fact that they change color that gets to me. Pretty much the only time we see gold leaves in California is when a) we have a sudden, unexpected chills that completely freak out the local flora or b) when someone accidentally crashes their car into a tree and it dies.
As a result of this severe lack of trees whose leaves change color, over half the pictures I took while I visited the East coast for the first time since I was wee are of leaves.
I do not jest.
I cannot sleep tonight because I am too excited by the thought of yellow bikes, trees with changing leaves, farms with food I can buy and eat and old buildings made of brick and the ghosts of theologians I grew up practically worshipping. I am utterly flabbergasted with the realization that in 79 days, this will be my LIFE.
