Life as a Seminarian

I've discovered the secret...

...to a stress free week. Get all your reading done for class over the weekend!

Now granted this does not leave a lot of time for fun, spur-of-the-moment activities, but come Monday you will be feeling pretty good about yourself.

Alright, now it's time to go study for my test on Thursday.

...on second thought maybe this week wont be completely stress free...

Why it's hard to read Joshua...

I can't stop singing this song in my head (and I'll admit, sometimes out loud). It's very distracting!

And to top it all off, I just watched 30 minutes of Mahalia Jackson videos on youtube...

and for your reading/spiritual pleasure...a litany

God is a father,

Man is a brother,

Life is a mission & not a career;

Dominion is service,

Its scepter is gladness,

The least is the greatest,

Saving is dying

Giving is living,

Life is eternal & love is its crown.

-Unknown

I've been reading all day...

...and I've only learned one thing. I think perhaps Augustine said it best,

"whoever denies the Trinity is in danger of losing his salvation;

whoever tries to understand the Trinity is in danger of losing his mind."

So much time, so little to do...wait, back up, reverse that!

Ok so I'm sorry if i've held any of you in suspense about when my next post would be (as far as I know my mom's the only one who has really suffered) but I don't think I had any clue about how busy I was going to be!

Seminary is fantastic! I love my classes, love my professors, and love the new friends I have been making. My main concern before classes was that since I wasn't a religion major I was going to be so far behind a lot of the people in the class. Luckily it seems that the intro classes I'm taking all share one major goal, to make everyone realize that they don't really know anything about the Bible, church history, and even aspects of God.

So far I have been pushed to take sides on several of the main theological debates and write short papers on them such as, the inerrancy of the Bible and God's omniscience. Now we haven't signed these in blood so obviously we can change our mind...and I inevitably do after we discuss them in class...but writing these papers has been very challenging. I tend to take the "middle road" approach on controversial issues, not really taking one side or the other but picking and choosing from both, and here the professors wont let me. It's been a great learning experience.

Check out this website, www.theraveproject.com Yesterday we had Nancy Clark, the founder of the corporation come into our Social Work class and discuss domestic violence. Through her studies she has shown that a lot of church ministers have expressed that they don't feel educated on the issues of domestic violence. This website gives a lot of information about it; shelters in your community, prayers to use with someone who is a victim, scripture references that can help if someone approaches you about domestic violence, sermon outlines, etc. Look through it and pass it on to your friends and pastor! Right now the foundation has received a 5 year grant to see if they can get their program up and running on its own.

I hope you are all doing well! Hopefully now that I'm starting to find a "groove" with my schedule I can post on here more often. (that will probably help future posts not be as long as this one!!)

Lastly here is a pic of me and my best friend Caroline SMILEY! she just got married this past weekend, I'm so excited for her and Brian!

So far so good!

I've officially completed my first day of grad school! I have all my seminary classes on Tuesday/Thursday which include Intro to Christian: Scriptures, History, and Theology. All of my professors are hilarious, but after day one it looks like Theology is going to be my favorite class. This is actually surprising, and not for the reason most people will think of...the fact that it's theology...but that it only meets on Tuesday evening from 5:30-8:10...prime dinner hours! Can't eat before b/c it's too early and by the time class gets out my stomach is turning inside out. But despite all those obstacles the class is fascinating. This is without a doubt the class that will really make me question what I believe and why, so get ready for interesting questions from that class!

I'm also working this semester at a law firm as an office assistant/runner, basically I do whatever they need which is working out really well. It pays great and everybody likes me because I make their day easier by doing their "busy work." My kind of job!

Tomorrow I go to my one Social Work class, Intro to the Profession. I'm very eager to go to this class because I don't feel like I know a lot about social work, I just know a degree in it would be helpful for the field I want to do ministry in, children and families. So I'm sure my view of social work will broaden a lot tomorrow!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week!

(insert cool sign-off slogan here)

one orientation down, one to go...

Yesterday was the School of Social Work's new student orientation. It was quite humbling to feel like a new student in a school where I just spent the past four years. They handed me my orientation folder with a plethora of vibrant colored sheets of paper, all filled with important information. Seriously 20 trees probably gave their life for the benefit of this orientation.

I got to meet a lot of people in my "cohort" (what the school calls our class) and it was great to hear everyone's stories. We all come from such different backgrounds, but all have a connection through this school, the atmosphere was so comfortable. The first 2 hours were a bit overwhelming, especially since I am doing the dual degree program, thus it's taking me 4 years to go through all of this instead of 2. We eventually broke into 4 smaller groups and my group consisted of all the dual degree students. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was overwhelmed, and we spent an hour discussing the intricate way we are going to fit 2 masters into 4 years...I'm not sure I understand it completely, but it felt better just talking about it.

This degree is going to be so much fun! I didn't realize how big the field of social work is, and it is going to be difficult to decide what I want to do with my life! Oh well, at least I have four years!

Truett orientation starts Thursday, and I couldn't be more excited!

*note to self, the seminary building is the coldest place on campus...even colder than the school of music. A jacket is a must! oh and socks!

social work logo. cool story behind it, but that will have to be for another time.