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Somedays, I feel like a space alien.
I tried to talk about this feeling in my parish integration class (more on that in a sec), the feeling that I am often just not talking the same language as other people. And am never really sure if I'm communicating what I truly feel or think.
I tried to say in integration class that while I am surrounded by friends, I often feel lonely. This is not for lack of good or close or 'real' friendships, but perhaps I mean that I feel so different, coming from such a different experience, than my seminarian friends. I simply cannot make them understand what I'm talking about when I talk about activism; they don't have that inherent pull or part of their lives. [And I brought this up in integration class, as I often bring up things that happen in my life on campus as a student, because it's a class about integrating ministry with your whole life. Can't go around pretending the twenty hours or so a week I spend on campus doesn't exist, or only involves my brain getting full with abstract stuff].
So, when I tried to bring this up in class, one of my classmates said, I just need to go out and make more friends outside of seminary, that would be good self-care. Well, I think she meant well, but the comment wasn't really helpful. And then I realized she probably just can't get it, it's just outside her experience. Maybe.
This is not the same for when I'm around my activist friends. In fact, I am better able to talk theology with my activist friends than I am able to talk activism with my seminary friends. Perhaps this is because talking about God is doing theology, whereas even getting to the point of talking about activism with my seminary friends, isn't really the same as doing it together.
And that is a problem that I see in the seminaries today: that we talk about activism, but we don't really have ways of encouraging people to go out there and do it. You're really on your own, even if all your professors themselves brag about having marched with MLK or against the war or whatever. There's no 'field studies requirement' built in for talking to Congresspeople, or negotiating interfaith understanding, or human rights accompaniment, or other things for which religious leaders are so desperately needed in the world these days. In fact, it's hard to find a good course on just plain community (or congregational) organizing.
I thought that, and then I read it in a book this morning, that seminaries basically over-educate and under-equip students for ministry with other people. What little training happens is farmed out to practice parishes, and not talked about with professors with much parish experience.
So yes, I feel alienated in seminary, even though I'm surrounded by friends. I feel that I should have something more to say about this, something more profound, but that's perhaps all. Although, I am rather attracted to the title of Dorothy Day's autobiography, 'The Long Loneliness,' and for the parts I've read of it, I think I find it comforting. Loneliness, after all, is not the worst cost when living the life that I have chosen.
peace,
Le Anne
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1 comment:
I think that it is interesting that you mentioned this because I feel this way often myself. I often feel that I have been around "a few more blocks" than most of the people my age in seminary, and have never really found my niche. I can say that I do have very good friends, but 99% of them are on a very different wavelength to mine, and this is not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it does cause that type of loneliness you are experiencing. Similar to you, I was on my own at 17 and have never had the social/familial stability many of my friends have had. I have also always been weirdly devout in one way or another to a faith since the age of 4, and this makes my struggles that much more intense for me. I have suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as having a legal disability. In this sense, I have a profound sense of self for all that I have experienced and seen, and this my dear friend is a gift. To be an alien, is sometimes a good thing, because it means you are doing something right. Had you not done something right you would not be here and you would not feel as passionately as you do. It's just the fear and the intense loneliness and despair that is the killer, how can anyone who has experienced much find relationships with anyone? You just do I guess, because you have to. We don't have a choice. But hopefully, some light will turn on in a friend or an aquaintance who can show us that authentic engagement of the world is still possible. You do that for me all the time, and in that way, you give me hope.
Rachel
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