What a blessing it is to have girlfriends! Of recent years, I have been intrigued by Luke 1:56. This verse comes after the annunciation to Zechariah and Elizabeth, after the Annunciation to Mary, just after the Magnificat. Mary has gone to visit Elizabeth, where we learn the power of the presence of Christ. Even as pregnant-with-Jesus Mary enters the room, unborn-John-the-Baptist senses the presence of his Lord and "leaps with joy" in Elizabeth's womb. And then, in verse 56, "Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home." (NIV)
I start wondering...what was Mary doing there? Why did she go to visit Elizabeth in the first place? Why travel from Nazareth to Galilee - who needs to be taking a journey like that in the midst of so much stress? And why stay three months?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The State of the ELCA
It is a weird, weird time to be in the ELCA, and even stranger to be in seminary. It's not something that is very popular to say, but the whole denomination is in a lot of flux right now. Money is extremely tight, individuals and congregations are leaving for any number of other smaller, alphabet soup Lutheran "denominations", others are staying and waiting for better options. There's not a lot of leadership within the denomination - for those inside or outside the seminaries. This adaptation of Luther's "my conscience is bound to the Word of God" to "my conscience is bound to me and my personal opinion" has, in my personal opinion, left a lot of people scrambling.
Everybody has to say that what everybody else thinks or says is okay, even though no one actually thinks that anything other than their own opinion is, in fact, okay. There is miscommunication, distrust, suspicion, and rudeness on all sides. Seminary students and professors have to guess at each other's opinions from classroom vibes or campus rumors. Seminarians and candidacy committees play footsie with each other, trying not to talk about the thing that everyone is talking about and no one is talking about, all at once.
As a new friend of mine has been prone to say, "It all comes down to authority." Who is in charge, who is leading this bandwagon of crazy ELCA-ers, and where is that person (people?) leading us? I wish I knew...
Everybody has to say that what everybody else thinks or says is okay, even though no one actually thinks that anything other than their own opinion is, in fact, okay. There is miscommunication, distrust, suspicion, and rudeness on all sides. Seminary students and professors have to guess at each other's opinions from classroom vibes or campus rumors. Seminarians and candidacy committees play footsie with each other, trying not to talk about the thing that everyone is talking about and no one is talking about, all at once.
As a new friend of mine has been prone to say, "It all comes down to authority." Who is in charge, who is leading this bandwagon of crazy ELCA-ers, and where is that person (people?) leading us? I wish I knew...
"Housekeeping"
I always find it a little strange when people who have blogs that no one actually reads write like the whole world is reading, but I think I'm about to do it. Also, you know how on the first day of class when the professors go through the syllabus and various other organizational and administrative junk and they refer to it as "housekeeping"? Why do they do that? Is anyone vacuuming? Cleaning out the refrigerator? Doing a load of laundry?
Well, regardless, I feel compelled to set the stage for this here blog, now that I've had it for three months and have done virtually nothing with it. I've been re-inspired, I suppose.
I need to write; I love writing; I reflect best through writing. When I'm thinking, when I'm really putting my best effort into it, I write very "tightly" - I pack a lot into concise sentences and turns of phrase. When I'm just sort of meanderingly (?) reflecting, I can be very long-winded. Sometimes I'll even go back and edit these later, because they end up annoying me when I'm not so emotional.
Nonetheless...my goal here is to try to make sure I write for at least 10 minutes a day about...something. (I use lots of ellipses, which I think is actually reflective of how I talk, and how I think.)
I'm writing because I need a place to write down the things I think I think (stealing from, at minimum that NFL column in Sports Illustrated, but probably somewhere older than that...) I'm going to try to stay relatively anonymous here, mostly because of what's called the "candidacy process" in the ELCA.
I'm going to be writing about whatever I feel like writing about: the wrap-up to CPE, internship, stuff I'm reading or thinking, the strange parts of my life, whatever. I'm a writer, and I want to write, and so I can, should, and will write.
I haven't really told too many people about this blog, just because, well, I don't know...But I'll probably tell others about it as I get more comfortable with the idea of blogging, and possibly also less paranoid. And I'll be linking to people much cooler and worth reading than I.
If you're here and want to comment, please be charitable. Ascribe the best motives to me and others, and I'll do the same for you. Heed the admonition in the comments form. The internet does a lot of good, but it is also a really mean and nasty place, and I don't want my little corner of it to be that way.
So, enough cleaning the windows for now. Onward and upward!
I need to write; I love writing; I reflect best through writing. When I'm thinking, when I'm really putting my best effort into it, I write very "tightly" - I pack a lot into concise sentences and turns of phrase. When I'm just sort of meanderingly (?) reflecting, I can be very long-winded. Sometimes I'll even go back and edit these later, because they end up annoying me when I'm not so emotional.
Nonetheless...my goal here is to try to make sure I write for at least 10 minutes a day about...something. (I use lots of ellipses, which I think is actually reflective of how I talk, and how I think.)
I'm writing because I need a place to write down the things I think I think (stealing from, at minimum that NFL column in Sports Illustrated, but probably somewhere older than that...) I'm going to try to stay relatively anonymous here, mostly because of what's called the "candidacy process" in the ELCA.
I'm going to be writing about whatever I feel like writing about: the wrap-up to CPE, internship, stuff I'm reading or thinking, the strange parts of my life, whatever. I'm a writer, and I want to write, and so I can, should, and will write.
I haven't really told too many people about this blog, just because, well, I don't know...But I'll probably tell others about it as I get more comfortable with the idea of blogging, and possibly also less paranoid. And I'll be linking to people much cooler and worth reading than I.
If you're here and want to comment, please be charitable. Ascribe the best motives to me and others, and I'll do the same for you. Heed the admonition in the comments form. The internet does a lot of good, but it is also a really mean and nasty place, and I don't want my little corner of it to be that way.
So, enough cleaning the windows for now. Onward and upward!