irreverent daydreams while sitting in chapel

Irreverent Thoughts while sitting in Chapel
September 9, 2004

Hi everyone,We have Chapel here five times a week, I think. (If I show uptomorrow and there isn't one, well, I guess I'll go back to bed).The understanding so far is that Chapel isn't required, but neitheris it optional. Hmmm... But it has on the whole been quiteworthwhile, and really I do try to pay attention and not let my mindwander. (Luther wrote about that, I learned this week. He said youcan't help it, but that doesn't mean you should stop goingaltogether, or something like that, I think).The other day I noticed the shoes of the seniors who were leadingworship. I notice what pastors wear on their feet often, and havedone so ever since Jack forgot he was wearing bright orange skisocks, which showed up nicely from the pulpit. That was eight yearsago. Anyway, this girl was wearing three-inch strappy heels underher robe. I am not sure whether this was to help her see up overthe pulpit, or to keep her from tripping on the hem of her robe. Ipersonally have not yet worn a robe without tripping over the hem,no matter what I do. Often while carrying the processional cross.If any of you were at Trinity when I was 11, 12, or 13 years old andheard a metallic 'ka-chunk' punctuate the opening hymn on thoseoccasions, that was me, tripping over the hem of my robe andsimultaneously smacking the cross into the top of the doorway.Sorry about the dents.So, I wondered, was that her robe or a stock one from the closet?It actually seemed to fit her. But the other guy's robe only came tohis knees it looked like. Is there a day when we get robes aroundhere? Does it come free with your seminary education? Or is thatordination? Is there a class on how not to trip, or at least how tohem? Does the Altar Guild have a seamstress on call for thesesituations? Why don't they cover these important questions duringorientation?Speaking of things they didn't cover in orientation, what aboutgenuflection? Everybody else crosses themselves during chapel. Thenthere's times when they don't. But by that time I am just catchingon to doing and then I'm the only one. What did I miss? I do tryto show up on time...I told my roommate I watched pastors' feet a lot and she said shedid also, and recounted several interesting cases. (Men with hairylegs, please do not ever wear shorts. It just isn't right). Anyway,Ah. I am not wierd. Actually, I think all of us here at theseminary are getting the affirmation that we are not wierd. Or atleast that we are all wierd together. It seems really necessary bythe time you get here. I remember the guy in college who wrote anote to a friend which I later saw, which said, "There's this cutegirl here but she wants to be a missionary or something, and that'sjust too wierd." Well, at least he thought I was cute. He would'vebeen no good for me anyway, so there.Yesterday we all went to buy books. They were having a party in thebookstore with a 25% discount on all texts. It was wall to wallpeople. That was not so good. There was abundant food, and evenwine and cheese. That was good. We needed it while we stood inline. One of the admissions counselors came down to hang out. Thatwas good too. By the time we'd all stood in line for half and hourand hadn't moved three feet, we needed him to remind us why wesigned up to come to seminary in the first place. I found Icouldn't squeeze between the other people in the bookshelves and getto what I still needed with my backpack on, so I took it off and setit under a table. No one minded, so Aha! I dumped my stack of booksunder there too and just waited until I was almost at the front toretrieve them again. Hands-free, and all the better to eat browniesand taco dip with, my dear. And my mood was much lighter thaneveryone who was still loaded down. I also plied the girl who heldmy place in line with plenty of that free wine, so she wasn'tbitter.I think I'm going to like worship class. Dina warned me about thisclass, and Dr. Bangert warned us all again on the first day that hisclass had a reputation for being strenuous. We have to chant (but Ilike chanting); we have to memorize all the liturgies in all thehymnals and get videotaped doing them. In fact, we memorize themall and on test day, we show up and he'll tell us which one he wantsus each as an individual to run through an entire service for, onsaid tape. Complete with hand motions. No offering collectionallowed, though. (Geez..) That test is just before ThanksgivingBreak. Trinity friends, take note: I'll be in fine form thatweekend if you need help, or if testing goes badly I guess I'll needa hug.I asked if we could practice giving funerals for all the finches whohave hit our new windows (sniffle--adding in yesterday's windstormand a carnivorous crow who snapped one up in front of me as I washeaded to Chapel, it really was genocide. When is the class wherewe learn why God didn't make crows vegetarian? Cruel world). Hedidn't laugh, but he didn't excommunicate me either so I guess thatis good. Oh, and he was going to see about getting some paper birdcutouts to stick in the windows to keep the birds from smacking intothem, so the conversation was not in vain. We also learned a littleabout exorcisms yesterday ("The ones featured in the old movie arejust the extreme form") and the Collect--which we now call Prayer ofthe Day. It's a formula prayer which can be extremely useful whendoing hospital bedside ministry, we learned. In fact, if we use theformula, he said, it will make us sound a lot less like a bumblingidiot. Ah. Guess I'll study that.Bangert said, "There are still some churches out there who primarilyuse the LBW and With One Voice hymnals."Some?Anyway, we have six volumes of 'Renewing Worship' to read throughthis term. And 'Sundays and Seasons,' which looks to me a littlelike a Lutheran 'Dial-A-Prayer' book. Not that that's bad. WeLutherans are not terribly creative folks, especially in the middleof winter.And a WOV and the LBW Minister's Desk Edition. If LBW is obsolete,why didn't we get a discount on the book? Amazon said it was out ofprint. Have any of my pastor friends got an extra on their shelf,gathering dust? I can still return mine to the bookstore in thenext two weeks. How about an Anchor Bible Dictionary?I've noticed that something is causing us to develop dark green'crop circles' on our school courtyard. But I have to wait untillater to write on that one. It's closing time in the computer lab.Good night!

Head swimming in seminary

Hi everyone,Well, orientation week is almost over and it's been wonderful exceptthat my brain is so extremely full. My class has just declareditself the "most awesome class ever." So far, I cannot argue. Wehave some amazing people and have bonded very quickly. Today, infact, we all went to the bookshop and revived one another as we oneby one felt rather faint over the sticker shock of the texts. Youknow, in college, religion books were the cheapest of any major andI think this is how God pays us back.Meanwhile, I have one of the most unusual seminary course loadsever: Beginner's Arabic 1, Jesus and Mohammed, Christians andMuslims, Worship, and Pentateuch. I will be trying to test out ofChurch History and need to cram before September 10th. Wish I wouldhave discovered this sooner. Later, I can take advanced Luther,Paul, and Ethics, maybe advanced Prophets, and many more oddconfigurations. I am grateful not to have to think of those justright now, though.My 'present' roommate and I are getting along swimmingly. (Not sosure yet about 'absent' roomate, who has been so thus far bothphysically and relationally. I guess getting engaged does that topeople). Anyway, we acheived making supper the other night, and hada glass of wine to celebrate our urban domesticity. She is fromsouthwest Wisconsin and as such had a bottle of wine called 'BadgerBlush.' My cross-cultural education continues, and it wasdelicious.Speaking of cross-cultural education, today we had a workshop onhearing the diverse voices at the seminary. To my surprise, thefirst speaker was a conservative white man. He said that he wasplanning to vote for Bush in the next election, knew of no facultymembers who shared his views, and only four students out of thewhole student body. Wow. Aside from a gut sense of relief (thoughI'm no great supporter of Kerry, either), I thought it was actuallyquite good for him to identify and speak about that experience. Iknow I chose to come here over other seminaries precisely because itwas liberal, global, and ethnically diverse, and was overjoyed tosee how much of my class was just such. Incidentally, anotherstudent identified as the 'gay Norweigan man' and said that he roomswith the conservative and has not killed him yet. Yet anotherstudent got up and said he embodied the 'straight white guy' whofelt last year that because of his role of majority power insociety, had less or nothing constructive to contribute to thediscussion, but ultimately found his voice. The third speakerthat really caught my attention as unusual for a forum like this wasthe Masters of Divinity Diaconal Ministry student--there's only fouron campus, and are not really understood yet by the rest of thecommunity. Myself, I think it's a beautiful idea. I'm actuallylooking at changing over shortly. Another reason why my head isswimming and my course schedule is a little disjointed.I speak here about Iraq on the 14th over lunch to kick off the'Global Table Talks,' and my advisor would like me to speak at leasttwo other times this year on CPT and Israel/Palestine. Maybe I'lldo a joint fourth talk with a Presbyterian student who was also inArizona with me this summer.One of my classmates told me yesterday I was her new hero. Yikes.It's flattering, but I don't think I'm ready for that here. When doI get a hero? Being in Iraq is a real conversation-stopper, I'vediscovered. I haven't had anyone say anything that wasn't extremelypositive and supportive, but I do feel a little set apart. It'stempting in some ways for me to not mention it at all, to blend in,to not take the responsibility for speaking out and educating thatcomes with it. But, I think I've already figured out that I willstand out here, no matter what I do, and maybe that is not such abad thing. At least I've found community.We've started a women's Bible study which met for the first timelast night and includes both seminary students and wives-of. It'sreally good, and is also functioning a bit as a support group forus. One of the women talked about how coming here is like being aplant getting watered. I liked the image and went home and got mycrayons and drew a Le Anne-plant under the watering can. I havebeen realizing how in this past year of working in the desert, howlittle 'water' there really was.I am not sure if I mentioned earlier that I have had many fineopportunities to get lost in our building. The most excitingadventure was being locked in a stairwell for half an hour lastweekend. I didn't realize when I left the computer lab that theyclose off all but the main stairwell on the weekends for securitypurposes--there weren't any signs. So, once I got in, I went fromfloor to floor and ended up at the bottom in a glass box with a doorwhich had a sign on it saying "DO NOT EXIT or alarm will sound." Ithought to myself, 'how much more embarrassing do I want to makethis experience?' So I waited until a teenage girl walked by andthen waved to her frantically. She waved back and kept walking. SoI pounded on the door and that got her attention, then she wentaround upstairs and held the door open for me to escape. I thankedher profusely. She was one of the professors' kids.There are many extremely nice kids around here: three teen boyscarried a very bulky cabinet up to our third-floor apartment theother night and I fed them cake and ice cream afterwards. Then whenroomie returned, they bounded down and brought up the groceries fromher car two blocks away. Last night, we had three young neighborgirls in our apartment, one making chocolate chip cookies with usand the other two watching Disney movies. One of the younger girlsasked me which languages I spoke. I replied that I spoke Arabic,German, and a little Spanish. She replied, "I speak Zulu, and shespeaks Korean." At the time, the other girl was on the phone to herfather and I could see that for myself. All three breeze betweentheir mother languages and English. The two Zulu-speakers are fromSouth Africa and live just downstairs. The girl who asked me aboutlanguages, who is perhaps seven, also told me my room was verymessy. Hmm. Maybe tonight I'd better finish unpacking. At lunchtoday another student said his room was a disaster also. Since he'ssure he wants to get ordained, we suggested he hire a churchsecretary sooner rather than later.peace,Le Anne