Re-purposing Halloween

I think Halloween can be a great Christian holiday. Not along the lines of Christmas or Easter, but Halloween has the potential to instill some great Christian virtues. Generosity and the importance of community being the main two. This evening a group of PTS students went trick-or-treating for canned goods to donate to the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. We went to a local neighborhood, knocked on people's doors, and asked them for canned goods. There were a couple of groups. My group [pictured] included Tinkerbell, a hippie, Hancock, and Supergirl [me]. Along the way we also accumulated a small amount of candy. I got three fun-sized candy bars, a pixie stick, and a bag of cheez-its. Not as good as when I trick-or-treated as a child, but it's nice to know that I can still dress up in something geeky and be rewarded with sugar. As our group was traveling through the houses, we were talking about how much canned food we could collect if a whole youth group who went to several different neighborhoods.
It's something to think about, anyway. Halloween is really fun as kids, and tonight was really fun, too. We don't have to give up Halloween as adults. We can still trick-or-treat with children. I took my nephew trick-or-treating last year. [So much fun!] If we can help people while having fun, it's a wonderful thing.

Beautiful Fall Day

Today was a beautiful fall day. So instead of doing work or studying like I probably should have been doing I went for a long walk. I went all around Princeton University's campus and looked at the light and the colors. It was absolutely beautiful. There were a lot of people touring the campus, and if I had come here in the fall I would have fallen in love with Princeton even faster than I did. The past few days have been rainy, and that made today even more special. It was a great second day of Reading Week [more on that later].


"My words are tied in one
With the great mountains,
With the great rocks,
With the great trees,
In one with my body
And my heart."
Yokuts prayer

Women's Center

Today is the open house for PTS' Women's Center. If you're around PTS today come on down to the lower level of MacKay. We have baked goods and coffee. The Women's Center is open whenever MacKay is, and the room is for meetings, study groups, individual studying, and hanging out. The Women's Center is devoted to many different issues including a women's studies concentration for both Masters of Divinity and Theology students. Currently we are planning a special event for women's history month this spring. As the Women's Center turns 40, we are looking back to the women and men who have made the ministry of the Women's Center possible. If anyone has been involved with the Women's Center in years past, please contact me. Even if you just know the name of someone who was on the board of the Women's Center, please let me know. We are looking for stories about how the Women's Center was started; any events that took place; any professors, staff members, students, pastors, or community members who were involved in any ministry the Women's Center or Men's Auxiliary has done over this past 40 years.

Augustine

This week in my early church history course we are studying Augustine and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. In our reading I came across a thought that many people have been talking about in the past couple of weeks with their own voices and words. Here is Augustine's:

"Why are you relying on yourself, only to find yourself unreliable? Cast yourself upon him [God], and do not be afraid. Make the leap without anxiety; he will catch you and heal you." [8.27]

It is getting to be the time of the semester where some of us are finding ourselves overwhelmed. Some by coursework, some by problems in their relationships they did not foresee, some by scheduling conflicts. Questions are rising up... how do I pass my classes while working, while being away from home, while being separated from my children, while doing field education, while doing traditional or non-traditional ministry, while retaining my own sense of identity, while dealing with issues in therapy, while keeping my relationship with God healthy, while finding time to exercise, while adjusting to living in New Jersey, while attending services, while, while, while... everyone has their own questions.

Many of us are getting caught up in the 'how' instead of the 'why', and many of us are staying balanced. I find myself drawing on parallels in my course readings that I see reflected in the life of the community, such as Augustine's quote above. How wonderful it is to know that we are unreliable! How freeing! We are free to be ourselves and free to allow God to be God in our hearts.

Picture: "Saint Augustine and Monica" (1846), Ary Scheffe
[Monica was Augustine's mother.]

Dry Bones

Every junior at PTS has to take two semesters of Speech. I am in a fantastic class that meets on Monday afternoons, and for the past couple of weeks we have been working on phrasing and emphasis, important things that may get overlooked during public speaking. The verses we have been working with are Ezekiel 37:1-14 known as the Valley of Dry Bones. It is very interesting to look at these verses not from a theological or historical perspective but simply from the questions like "What is important to emphasize" and "How do I speak these sentences to have them make sense to a listener?" It's difficult, and there are millions of possibilities especially once I realized that the translation my professor handed out is different from the one I had been practicing with.

Fun twists occur all the time here. Whenever you feel like you are made of dry bones, God breaths on you. Last week I was feeling very tired and frustrated, and then I went to a chapel service which brought me back into the Presence of God. I can feel my heart being opened by the people and the opportunities here. There are times when I stop to pray and no words come, but I can feel the beating of my own heart... and that's enough. I feel like I've always loved God, and now I'm falling in love with God. I always thought those mystics were crazy talking about being in love with God, but now I get it. I want to spend every minute of every day with God. I want to dance and sing with God. My bones are covered in flesh, and God has breathed on me. It's a wonderful feeling.

Spiritual Direction

Spiritual direction is awesome. It is a relatively new idea to me, but spiritual direction itself is not new. It is not counseling or therapy. Spiritual direction is deepening one's understanding of God's Presence. This can happen in retreats or small groups within churches or one-on-one with a spiritual director. PTS encourages students to seek a spiritual director for many reasons. Anything to get me to see and feel God more clearly is a wonderful thing. In the hectic schedules of our lives, it is important to set aside time to listen for God and to process God's working. Spiritual directors come in many different forms. They are clergy and lay people, male and female, younger and older, and in a huge range of faith group associations. If you are looking for someone to walk with you on your journey and be present with you, a spiritual director is a good choice.

More information can be found at http://www.sdiworld.org/

The Exodus

I am currently writing a paper for my Old Testament class about The Exodus. Not just any part of Exodus, The Exodus--The incredible event where Moses led the Israelites out of slavery from Egypt. This is one of the pivotal events in Biblical history. But right now I'm not thinking about history. I'm thinking about our lives as Christians. We live in an Egyptian world. We are expected to live up to Egyptian standards. We have lived under Egyptian rule since we were born.

But we are not Egyptians. We are foreigners. We are the children of God. Being led out of Egypt does not mean that the pressures of Egyptian society go away. Instead, we choose to be members of the covenant with God. We choose to become servants to God instead of slaves to Egypt. We choose to live under God's standard rather than Egypt's. We choose to start on a journey trusting in God to lead us instead of living the same way we always have. Not everyone's journey will be the same. Some will be the leaders like Aaron, some will be builders of the Tabernacle, and some will turn to the Golden Calf and experience the blanket of grace through a second covenant.

God bless our wanderings.

Pastor slain

Today the Presbyterian Outlook arrived in the mail room. When I opened it, I was shocked to see the headline "Presbyterian Pastor Slain in Quadruple Homicide". The link to the story is below.

Please pray for the Niederbrock family and Walker's Presbyterian Church in Hixburg, Va.

http://www.pres-outlook.org/news-and-analysis/1-news-a-analysis/9227-pastor-and-others-slain-by-horror-core-rap-music-fan.html

Fire

Today at worship we sang a song that had a verse about God's fire refining our souls. Here at PTS I am on a journey, and I'm trying to figure out what will bring me closer to God. The Holy Spirit is on fire in my heart. If any big changes happen, I'll let you know.

Touring Choir

Today was the first Sunday PTS' touring choir went on tour. We sang at the First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck which is only a short ways away from the seminary. We were welcomed graciously and warmly. It was a wonderful morning. We sang at two services with incredible music for World Communion Sunday. Songs from around the world and from here at home. We will be traveling this semester and next semester to spread the love of God through music.


Picture by Andrew Long

Requirements

For ordination, there are more requirements than those requirements to graduate with a Masters of Divinity. For example, PTS requires students to have two Field Education internships, at least one of which is in a church setting. My presbytery also requires one of my Field Education experiences be Clinical Pastoral Education or CPE. CPE is normally done at hospitals either full time for twelve weeks in the summer or over an entire school year for 10-15 hours a week. CPE is a specialized education where students learn how to minister in an interfaith context during crisis parts of people's lives. It's a way to start ministering to the wider community during seminary while under supervision of experienced chaplains. Of course, it's not just seminary students who do CPE. CPE is done by lay people of all faiths, those preparing for ordination in many faiths, and already ordained people. I am planning on doing my CPE this coming summer and am currently in the discernment process of which location I can best serve at. Also, I am in the process of discernment for what church to do my Field Education at next school year. This may seem like a quick turn-around, but many Field Education placements fill up quickly.

For more information on CPE, visit http://www.acpe.edu/
or http://www.cpsp.org/