I have been called to a congregation!
Informed on Sunday, continues to slowly slip its way into my conscious.
Ordination date set for June 18th in my home congregation.
I'm going to be a pastor - really? geez! yes! how?!?!?
UFF!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Hooting and Hollering
I'm in the middle of my final paper for my graduate school career. Other than one class period today in which I have very little responsibility, it is the last thing that I have to accomplish before I graduate. Yeah, I'd like to get my apartment a bit cleaner, and yeah, I plan to celebrate with banquets and parties, but it is the absolute last weight of academia left. One little page, single spaced (two pages double), with plenty to say. It is now just a matter of saying it so it makes sense.
I was standing on the corner this morning in the rain talking to a friend. We were having an all too serious conversation for 7:15 in the morning the Thursday before we graduate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a second-year student (Middlers we like to call them) come out of his apartment and plod his way down the street until he saw us on the corner. At this point he ran towards us yelling "SENIORS RULE!" I felt like I was in high school, and I loved it!
Here at seminary we have things like special sending worship services and receptions to honor graduates - we stay pretty quiet about it, with little hooting and hollering (although we have a large group of us going to a dueling piano bar Friday night called "Howl at the Moon", maybe some hollering will happen there). So, to have someone who is not a senior excited for us - hooting and hollering - made my day.
Maybe we don't hoot and holler because we are reserved Lutherans. Maybe we don't because we worry that those who are not graduating will feel dejected (I could have used a softer word, but that's no fun!). Maybe some people think it is just not dignified and refined to hoot and holler(why do we have to be dignified and refined all the time anyway?). Maybe we don't because it takes energy to hoot and holler and we are scrambling to conserve our energy for the time when family arrives and when we will sit through a 3 hour worship service during which we graduate. Maybe I just have a powerful urge to hoot and holler because I am reaching for ways in which to procrastinate these last few paragraphs of academia.
So, in an effort to remain dignified, not subject anyone to dejection and conserve my energy I am refraining from hooting and hollering for the moment....at least until this paper is completed.
I was standing on the corner this morning in the rain talking to a friend. We were having an all too serious conversation for 7:15 in the morning the Thursday before we graduate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a second-year student (Middlers we like to call them) come out of his apartment and plod his way down the street until he saw us on the corner. At this point he ran towards us yelling "SENIORS RULE!" I felt like I was in high school, and I loved it!
Here at seminary we have things like special sending worship services and receptions to honor graduates - we stay pretty quiet about it, with little hooting and hollering (although we have a large group of us going to a dueling piano bar Friday night called "Howl at the Moon", maybe some hollering will happen there). So, to have someone who is not a senior excited for us - hooting and hollering - made my day.
Maybe we don't hoot and holler because we are reserved Lutherans. Maybe we don't because we worry that those who are not graduating will feel dejected (I could have used a softer word, but that's no fun!). Maybe some people think it is just not dignified and refined to hoot and holler(why do we have to be dignified and refined all the time anyway?). Maybe we don't because it takes energy to hoot and holler and we are scrambling to conserve our energy for the time when family arrives and when we will sit through a 3 hour worship service during which we graduate. Maybe I just have a powerful urge to hoot and holler because I am reaching for ways in which to procrastinate these last few paragraphs of academia.
So, in an effort to remain dignified, not subject anyone to dejection and conserve my energy I am refraining from hooting and hollering for the moment....at least until this paper is completed.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Marking Accomplishments
The day I graduated from college I plucked my first facial hair. Up until that point I had not noticed the sole, long dark hair protruding from my chin. It, and it's younger brothers and sisters, now encounter a tweezers regularly. Plucking hair has become one of my routines.
Yesterday, 10 days before I graduate from seminary, I found my first gray hair. Both of my parents didn't truly start turning gray until their early 50s. They've had a little bit of gray since I became a teenager, but even now at 57 their gray to brown/black hair is probably 1:1. This is all to say, I thought I had a long time before gray arrived. But now, this one little hair that isn't even very long has arrived.
As I left the restroom at school where I discovered it, I started envisioning myself with a full head of gray hair. There is something regal about a silver head. I know it won't happen for a while, but in some ways, I look forward to having the mark of maturity and good life that comes from a healthy head of silver hair - a bit like I want to have those nice smile lines around my eyes.
I'm not planning on more schooling anytime soon. Which is good - I can't imagine what I'd find by the time I graduated then...
Yesterday, 10 days before I graduate from seminary, I found my first gray hair. Both of my parents didn't truly start turning gray until their early 50s. They've had a little bit of gray since I became a teenager, but even now at 57 their gray to brown/black hair is probably 1:1. This is all to say, I thought I had a long time before gray arrived. But now, this one little hair that isn't even very long has arrived.
As I left the restroom at school where I discovered it, I started envisioning myself with a full head of gray hair. There is something regal about a silver head. I know it won't happen for a while, but in some ways, I look forward to having the mark of maturity and good life that comes from a healthy head of silver hair - a bit like I want to have those nice smile lines around my eyes.
I'm not planning on more schooling anytime soon. Which is good - I can't imagine what I'd find by the time I graduated then...
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Delightful Dan
People who have worked with me in the past have known that I tend to speak of my younger siblings quite often. I think that they are each quite amazing in their own way. I've got a dancing 2-year-younger sister and a brother, 6 years my junior.
My baby brother (from this previous post) will graduate from college in about a month with a BA in psychology and minoring in Philosophy and Religion. He has been accepted into Lutheran Volunteer Corps and will begin a year of service next August. Last Tuesday he called to let me know that he will be going to Oakland, CA and will be working at a place called Thunder Road, a place that works with adolescents overcoming alcohol, drug and nicotine addiction. I am so excited for my little bro' (Dan, thus this post's title) and look forward to hearing his experiences and seeing how he is impacted by this amazing work.
My baby brother (from this previous post) will graduate from college in about a month with a BA in psychology and minoring in Philosophy and Religion. He has been accepted into Lutheran Volunteer Corps and will begin a year of service next August. Last Tuesday he called to let me know that he will be going to Oakland, CA and will be working at a place called Thunder Road, a place that works with adolescents overcoming alcohol, drug and nicotine addiction. I am so excited for my little bro' (Dan, thus this post's title) and look forward to hearing his experiences and seeing how he is impacted by this amazing work.
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