Clerical Collar Drama Part 2

Easter is coming around the corner sooner than I would think. And this adds a new aspect to my continuing struggle with the clerical collar: that Easter Sunday 'fresh' look. That was always the time that I thought of doing something new and fresh. And well, it posed a new dilemma in my requirement to be wearing a clerical collar. There isn't a whole lot of flexibility in what one can do for a fresh sunday look in needing to consider this.

To be honest, my real shopping preferences are for books and DVDs. And when I do buy clothes I tend to prefer shopping for shirts, dresses and skirts. Pants and shoes, well I only tend to buy those when I feel like I really have to. Clergy garb doesn't exactly strike me as my preferences either. However when I consider how a female pastor can take some fashion liberities, I identified these particular options: earrings, hair, nails and shoes. I have plenty of earrings and I dont like fussing alot with my hair, so although I am not a huge shoe shopper, I decided that a fabolous pair of shoes would not be a bad idea.

So when I was shopping at Target a few weeks ago, I picked up a cute pair of black heels that fit me that I was able to walk around the store quite nicely in. So I went ahead and bought them, and I tried them on again a day or two ago. They looked good however there was a consideration that I had not made: walking up and down steps. Although it did not seem like a huge problem walking down to the dorm kitchen, it wasn't the easiest thing to do.

Upon calling my once pastor turned professor mother who knows my medical history about what to do about shoes she helped me deliberate this out a bit. At the realization that I am lectoring on Easter, I suddenly had an image in my head of how my balance isn't always that great. I imagined myself falling down the steps at church while trying to look gracious and self confident. Images of spending yet another period of my life in a wheelchair due to a high heels incident did not strike me as the most ideal way to spend Easter. Well, maybe thats the worst case scenario but that is where my mind went. But the shoes ARE really cute, but maybe more appropriate for a fancy party or a nice date than for needing to walk up and down the stairs. So I made the decision to keep these shoes, but when I am doing my needed shopping this weekend looking for yet another pair of shoes that I can use on Easter.

My clerical collar saga continues....and this chapter I feel a little ecclesiastically blonde. I guess thats an improvement over my existential crisis...

Pass/Fail or Drop???

With much deliberation, I finally decided to drop my writing religious drama class. On one hand, it seems like a disappointment because it seemed like a good class. However I am going to do summer school and come back to the seminary for at least one class after doing my internship. So it didn't make sense to do five classes and my teaching parish for the sake of the way I can space things out a bit.

When I deliberated over what classes I may be willing to do pass/fail even if a lot of my peers in seminary like that option, I don't. My undergraduate grades were decent but because of various hits life gave me (pnuemonia, mono, depression) they werent as strong as they could have been. So if I wanted to go back to school to change careers laterhaving good grades in seminary will help me immensely for transcripts. If I decided to do phD work later pass/fail classes could hurt me.

Also in reflecting in doing pass/fail for Greek, I didn't necessarily put into it what I could have should I have done that class for a grade. So grades make me motivated to really master and understand material. Professors generaly have reasons for what they want you to do.

So dropping writing religious drama seems like a disappointment right now, but I now have my Fridays open to catch up on school and personal stuff--time I didnt have before. And I have more time for electives later, this is my last semester where I have a lot of prescribed classes for me to take any way. I'll have more freedom to do that kind of class later. Even though I am not thrilled about government loans, moving around alot and knowing people for short periods of time, the educational aspect of seminary generally doesnt seem long enough. What can I say? I love school!

I Survived Valentines Day

I made it through yet another Valentines day as a single woman. I spent it at my teaching parish actually. I wore red quite by accident to teaching parish services that evening as I had no intention of doing anything to honor such a holiday.

I think that I hate Valentines day partially because I am single. The other part is as a life long student of sociology, I do see the expectations surrounding it to really be commericalized prostitution when I analyze the gender dynamics of it. Plus, diamonds, chocolate and flowers tend to be consumed on this day, all of which are items that tend to be produced under unjust labor conditions. Thats the activist in me speaking.

Yet I think that another part of this is that I do have a certain level of disappointment in being single at this point in my life. There is a part of me that is strongly antigonistic towards the idea of marriage and kids. It makes me wonder how much of that is disappointment speaking and wanting to ideologically console myself. I also wonder if my not being crazy about a parish that has its strength in mission being towards middle class young couples with and without children is hard because I am trying to be okay with myself not being included in that context at this point in my life as well.

However on the flip end of this issue, I would definitely not be in Berkeley if I had found these attachments before. I already have a hard time finding time completely alone sometimes and it would be even harder. I don't have to argue with anyone about how I spend my spare time and how I spend my money, I am pretty independent. I can watch whatever i want to watch on the weekend. And it gives me the freedom to decide if I do or don't feel like going out with my friends, while I may feel pressure one way or another if I was with someone. Its making the amount of places I have to be for my seminary education easier. And it will make my internship and first call placement alot easier as well. I don't lament the opportunities and the flexibility that being single offers me.

Because of this, as much as I wouldnt mind being with someone, I am not going to seek out trying to find someone either. Because "I feel the night is longer when the lad's not right." So I really am "waiting for my dearie and happy am I to hold my heart till he comes strolling by." (Lyrics from "Waiting for My Dearie" in the musical Brigadoon)

Provoking Not For School Reading...

I am reading a really interesting book right now called I Sold My Soul On eBay: Viewing Faith Through An Atheists Eyes by Hemant Mehta which is absolutely fascinating. No, I am not reading it for any class but because when I heard about it I absolutely wanted to read it and I am kind of needing something I want to do after the kind of week that I have had!

The premise is that an atheist put himself on eBay to have someone send him to church. A pastor was the one who bought him for quite a lot of money. The pastor was actually interested in the way an outsider would perceive church. Some of his research is on http://www.otmatheist.com/ although the book goes into a lot more detail. http://www.friendlyatheist.com/ is his main blog which is interesting too.

It is an absolutely fascinating read. I have always thought that doing good works and bringing justice to the world is on one hand what the gospel calls us to do but I do not think that you have to beleive the gospel to be a moral human being either. And some of the websites and the reading I am doing in this book really seems to bring that point to life for me. Not only that, I have felt like things dont always make sense or feel right to me as someone who just wants to understand what I am doing in church. And I think an outsider can bring that stuff to life.

And I do think that its probably important that I understand other ways of thinking about faith and spirituality that is not necessarily progressive christianity in the world that we live in today. While its nice that I am around progressive christians all the time, I do like how significant differences help me understand both more of the surrounding world and myself. Maybe for now its easiest to find this kind of stuff through books and the internet considering all of the demands on my time.

Loan Check Drama

I have had some difficulties with cashing my loan check this week as the name on the check happened to be my nickname, not my legal name. This caused me to do a lot of running around to make sure that funds didn't bounce. Stores were actually happy to take things off my check card and onto my credit card. (Bouncing actually costs them money too). This caused me to pay a cancelation fee for the loan check that originally was given to me in order to get a check reissued. Just when I thought I got everything resolved, apparently the check that was supposed to be cancelled got redeposited without my consent. Fortunately I called my bank and let them know about this. I dont want to get in trouble with my school. Nor am I overly happy with my bank right now. But that makes one more thing yet to resolve now. It will get done. It will get resolved.

I am a diligent student. I generally like to have my work for the next day done before I go to bed at night. I work ahead on papers and such. But all the time that I have put into this whole ordeal made me fall behind on my first week of classes worth of reading. By my personal standards, that means finishing off a reading assignment for class right before class. It makes me realize how difficult it really is to focus on things like studying when basic monetary needs absolutely have to be addressed. Everything else is secondary. Basic needs absolutely have to be addressed in order to be at peace exploring something spiritual or intellectual. Its probably not too shocking that this makes me think of some big picture justice issues, considering that I think I want to do inner city ministries at this point in time.

I also am amazed at the emotional maturity that I have come to. I have handled the whole situation quite level headedly which really has been a bit of a surprise to me. I didnt realize how level headed I really am. Maybe this is one of the ways in which the Holy Spirit has shown me that I have gone through a lot of personal transformation in the past few years!

Back to Classes!!!

I just completed my first few days of class back in seminary. I am surprised at the amount of enthusiasm that I feel, right now at least. Most of my classes are things that I really want to learn or have a growing edge on. Creating this blog is actually a requirement for my spiritual autobiography class. This class actually seems pretty exciting to me really because a fair amount of what we are doing is focusing on the process of writing itself as well as examining how people present themselves. And its actually quite fascinating really. So I have been doing a little research on blogs themselves, seeing what I can find. I must admit that I am glad to find that there are some good blogs on www.sojo.net and www.newyorker.com.

The fact that I can find these on the internet however doesnt replace the act of curling up with a magazine on my day bed at the end of the day with a cup of tea or a glass of wine right next to me while playing Mozart in the background. Maybe for having a heart for justice this can come off as elitist or not very enviornmentally responsible. Its not my intention. The act of reading something good at the end of the day that I can cuddle up with while consuming a favorite drink with my favorite music in the background is truly one of my definitions of bliss. Its something that the internet or a computerized machine will never replace. This is probably not really dissimilar to needing to keep a private handwritten journal when I have a personal computer. Not too different from my desire to find the man of my dreams by the means of something other than the internet and being willing to be single if that doesn't happen.

I am not completely resistant to the internet. I love netflix and amazon.com! I find email and facebook to be convinent forms of communication. I love how quickly I can pay bills online. The internet can be a useful research tool as I know how to evaluate sources. The internet in itself is not evil, but useful. Its just that frequently good intentions on the internet lead to curiosity about other things and suddenly much time is lost. So trying to restrict myself isn't necessarily a bad thing if I am to be disciplined!

Those are the musings that were prompted by my spiritual autobiography class.

As for word and sacrament, my liturgical class, this class is going to answer some of the questions that worship has frequently brought about for me. The project for today was writing my liturgical autobiography which was enlightening to me to the variety and depth of experiences that have been experienced in my short life. My personal question that will be the framework for questions for that class is this: in the age of religious pluralism and multiculturalism what elements need to be kept to be a Lutheran church? Being the daughter of two pastors who created their own mission church probably makes that an even more pressing question for me.

Public Ministry...what can I say? I know I like Tom Rogers. Its not a subject that I'm thrilled about in the same manner as my other classes. Yet my excitement for that is that it goes through things that I know are more of my growing edges when I think about the skills I need to know in managing a church.

And I have already praught at my teaching parish for the semester. I have already gotten together a lesson on the history of baptism for adult education at teaching parish.

Yet...I have two more classes left for the week! I will have to see how this goes. The serenity prayer says "God grant me wisdom to accept the things I cant change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference." This pertains to a lot of things, even time management. So I pray that prayer right now in trying to discern how I am going to make it through a crazy semester!!