Whirlwind

Last weekend consisted of a whirlwind tour of Illinois, which looked something like this:

I arrived in Fulton at about 5:30 pm on Friday, stayed with my parents that night, and left for Galesburg at about 8:30 am.  I arrived in Galesburg around 10, and spent the day catching up with some wonderful people (and met a few new ones!)  I grudgingly left the Burg around 8 pm, and arrived back in Fulton somewhere around 9:30 after getting stuck behind a combine for about 20 minutes.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning were spent in Fulton, and I arrived back in Holland around 9:30 last night.

Sunday morning, I went to church in Fulton and was finally introduced to Second as a seminary student and a classis candidate.  I kind of did things backward before I left, and the consistory recommended me to the classis without telling the congregation first.  Thus, my pastor and I finally told them this weekend.  The reactions I got were interesting:

The very first person I saw after church (who has known me since before I was born), said good-naturedly: "Well, I didn't see THAT coming!  But, I guess, neither did you..." 

Most others offered congratulations, which I thought was a little awkward.  "Congratulations, you're called to ministry!" just sounds a little weird. 

The best reaction of the day came from the mayor's wife, who said something to the effect of "Yes!  We need more strong women in the church.  Good for you!" 

Luckily, no one said anything to me about being female in ministry.  I'm sure that there are a few who aren't really OK with that, but they didn't say anything to me on Sunday, at least. 

All in all, the weekend was a successfully awkward break from thinking and papers, and I so loved seeing so many smiling, familiar faces.  Now, I'm back in class, back to my routine, and it's still blowing my mind.

Old Testament is by far my favorite class.  We spent more than an hour yesterday trying to define the word 'holy' in a way that we could understand, so that we could really get into the text with the same mindset as the people who wrote it.  (Or at least as close to that as we can get.)  One of my biggest pet peeves is when people use words that they don't really have a definition for. I don't think we really got a solid definition, but it was a good conversation at least. 

Now, in my Church History class, we're somewhere in the midst of Gnosticism, and we're studying the origins of the creeds and church structures, which the nerd in me is just giddy about.  This shouldn't surprise me, but all of my classes are kind of flowing together.  What we talk about in Theology and Worship finds its way into Church History and Congregational Studies.  Greek words keep popping up everywhere, and theological ideas like recapitulation are finding their way into all of my classes, it seems.  (Sidebar: recapitulation, on a basic level, is the idea that Jesus undid everything that Adam did wrong, thus putting the Head (Jesus) back on the Body (God's people.)  I'm a huge nerd, and so I love throwing around words like soteriology and recapitulation. I promise to not turn my posts into theological treatises.)


Now that I've successfully delayed studying for my Greek quiz for another 20 minutes, here's another edition of plus/minus:

MINUS: I do far too much driving.  I wish I could bike or walk to Servant's, but 30 miles is a bit too much. 

PLUS: I really do love my classes--even Greek!