For our last bit of orientation on Friday morning, we were divided into groups to rotate between three rooms.
My group's first stop was good ol' Seminary Hall 101, where we learned this gem:
Critical thinking is "thinking about thinking."
Now if that isn't metaphysical enough, just imagine: we spent a half hour thinking about criticul thinking, i.e. thinking about thinking about thinking.
Surprisingly, it was not a particularly long half hour.
Dr. Melanie Johnson DeBaufre, "MJD", explained the rules of the game. She would put a quote on the board, and we would need to respond to it with only questions. We could additionally respond to other questions - but still only with more questions.
Sort of like this:
Only everyone playing at once, with no audience, no wages as big improvisation stars, and no Wayne Brady shaking his bum.
Shame.
But it was fun!
So MJD wrote this on the board: "You have all you need, if you just believe."
Ready? Go.
Questions poured out, punctuated with the natural rhythm of group collaboration and just a few lulls for silent thought.
Questions like
Believe in what?
What does it mean to have?
What is it to believe?
How will I know when I have it?
How will I know when I believe?
Why is it conditional?
Who is "you" - is it singular or plural?
MJD broke one silence with one of her own contributions:
Why are there quotation marks?
Instantaneously someone's interest was sparked -
Who said this?
- which began a conflagration of new ideas.
When was it said? Where? To whom?
Ultimately we discovered that the quote is a line from a Josh Groban song used in The Polar Express, which a number of us had never seen.
(This right here is the first I've heard/seen of it.)
The text took on still a new flavor when everyone in the room realized some had encountered it before and had some connotations of it, while others would never have known it was anything more than a Hallmark greeting. Even with a simple lyric, our impressions were different. It's certainly only a taste of what we'll discover as we discuss doctrine and history and philosophy.
After our own Questions Only and reviewing an amazing little handbook on Critical Thinking that I wish to God I'd had in undergrad, MJD wrote a new sentence on the board for us to discuss. This time, we were allowed to make statements as well.
Critical thinking is an important practice of ministry or a life of faith.
A hypothetical battle ensued in which we knew MJD was role-playing, but boy was her devil's advocate (no pun intended) going to be a tough nut to crack. It was a greatly informative exchange and it would be difficult to do it justice after the fact, but the most progress we made toward effective communication was one student's input in particular, giving a solid example of how love and kindness are sometimes not enough. She explained how U.S. American missionaries traveled to rebuild homes in Central America, and while they had the best of intentions, accepting the work in these struggling communities took away the wages from the people who lived there. They did not know it at the time, but if they had thought critically about the conditions and the actions they chose to take, they may have found an even more helpful option that would not only reflect their compassion but also a more informed decision.
"...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind..." (Luke 10:27)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
What I Like About You Drew
Best read after this video:
Hey, uh huh huh
Hey, uh huh huh
What I like about Drew -- you treat me right
House me in C204, nice big windows make it so bright, yeah
Students who have welcomed me here
Tell me all the things that I wanna hear... 'bout free food
That's what I like about Drew
What I like about Drew: you're gonna let me dance
And I'll go up, down, jump around, stumble like I'm stuck in a trance, yeah
Profs so great that they make me cheer
Tell me all the things that I wanna hear... work is due! (WHAT?!)
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew
Wahh!
Hey!
What I like about Drew, your security's tight
Evans made us laugh and your lamps look like Narnia at night, yeah
Seminary staff allay all our fears
Tell us when we leave we MIGHT have careers... we say whew
(But please don't play like that, Drew)
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew.....
Hey, uh huh huh, hey hey hey
Hey, uh huh huh, brrr
Hey, uh huh huh, hey
Hey, uh huh huh
Hey, uh huh huh
What I like about Drew -- you treat me right
House me in C204, nice big windows make it so bright, yeah
Students who have welcomed me here
Tell me all the things that I wanna hear... 'bout free food
That's what I like about Drew
What I like about Drew: you're gonna let me dance
And I'll go up, down, jump around, stumble like I'm stuck in a trance, yeah
Profs so great that they make me cheer
Tell me all the things that I wanna hear... work is due! (WHAT?!)
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew
Wahh!
Hey!
What I like about Drew, your security's tight
Evans made us laugh and your lamps look like Narnia at night, yeah
Seminary staff allay all our fears
Tell us when we leave we MIGHT have careers... we say whew
(But please don't play like that, Drew)
That's what I like about Drew
That's what I like about Drew.....
Hey, uh huh huh, hey hey hey
Hey, uh huh huh, brrr
Hey, uh huh huh, hey
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Can I Get An Amen?
It has seemed, throughout my own experience, that God teaches and shapes and transforms someone all the more not in times of great human brilliance but in moments of meekness, humility, and even confusion. If theology - religious discourse, God-talk - were solely a matter of intellect, what could a student of theology ultimately strive to attain but the omniscience of God alone?
And so it is in the spirit of not-knowing, of accepting the immense magnitude of an omniscient God, that I embark on my seminary career. Now at Drew Theological School, just a few days before the beginning of the semester, I realize that even as I seek knowledge, I do not seek concrete answers as much as I seek peace - the acceptance of not having them - and thus a balance between intellectual activity and all other growth.
This morning I seized the opportunity to take a writing exam using a computer. A child of the late twentieth century, my hands are seemingly incapable of handwritten decrees. Having come to accept this as both circumstance and personal identity, the thought of organizing an essay by hand strikes fear into my heart. It seems inevitable that many students planning to pursue ministry have certain roles and places to which they plead with God not to send them. As Dr. Westfield said earlier this week in advising students how best to select a cross-cultural program, sometimes we must go to the last place in which we envision ourselves. And though it may seem a weak comparison, for me, a handwritten exam is much that place. When my computer seemed less ready for the writing test than I was, and I watched as it processed, simply processed, I took out my pen.
I spoke the other day with Larry, an alumnus of Drew. Larry has worked in prison ministry for many years, a vocation he discovered through his wife, who had been set on this particular form of ministry long before it ever struck Larry himself as "suitable" for him - or rather before he believed himself suitable for prison ministry. He spoke about his reluctance and concerns, but also about the dismal place in which he found the inmates. The incredible crossroads that brought them together came out of something seemingly hopeless, and although many found it difficult to persevere, many lives were transformed entirely.
Larry and I discussed being grateful for times of concern because of the growth there. It is being thankful for the flood washing over the earth, for the despair beneath the juniper tree, for the agony of the cross, that in all these things there may be new life. It is the "amen" of assent and approval, the acknowledgment of truth and divine providence, shouted in times of apparent disorder and uncertainty and suffering; the faith that something great is happening beyond the grief, the hurt, the hopelessness, even if the greatness is yet unseen by human eyes. I pray that God will take who I am and do something despite the tohu vbohu, the mishmash, of who I would be - not without my knowledge of God but rather without the presence of God's own wisdom and peace.
Arriving at the threshold of theological education is rather like waiting for my computer to "wake up" beyond the point at which even the computer itself seems baffled. As I set out by hand, still eyeing the stagnant screen, I knew that eventually the computer would find focus and move on, but I knew, too, that I haven't all the necessary wisdom to understand how it works - or why it does not. And so I waited, and adjusted to a method of working that makes me incredibly and wonderfully uncomfortable, adjusted to the idea that perhaps it is easier to set about something along the best course one can find than to fear that the way is not familiar or safe or well-lit, and never take a step.
And when both I and the computer were ready, I began to type.
And so it is in the spirit of not-knowing, of accepting the immense magnitude of an omniscient God, that I embark on my seminary career. Now at Drew Theological School, just a few days before the beginning of the semester, I realize that even as I seek knowledge, I do not seek concrete answers as much as I seek peace - the acceptance of not having them - and thus a balance between intellectual activity and all other growth.
This morning I seized the opportunity to take a writing exam using a computer. A child of the late twentieth century, my hands are seemingly incapable of handwritten decrees. Having come to accept this as both circumstance and personal identity, the thought of organizing an essay by hand strikes fear into my heart. It seems inevitable that many students planning to pursue ministry have certain roles and places to which they plead with God not to send them. As Dr. Westfield said earlier this week in advising students how best to select a cross-cultural program, sometimes we must go to the last place in which we envision ourselves. And though it may seem a weak comparison, for me, a handwritten exam is much that place. When my computer seemed less ready for the writing test than I was, and I watched as it processed, simply processed, I took out my pen.
I spoke the other day with Larry, an alumnus of Drew. Larry has worked in prison ministry for many years, a vocation he discovered through his wife, who had been set on this particular form of ministry long before it ever struck Larry himself as "suitable" for him - or rather before he believed himself suitable for prison ministry. He spoke about his reluctance and concerns, but also about the dismal place in which he found the inmates. The incredible crossroads that brought them together came out of something seemingly hopeless, and although many found it difficult to persevere, many lives were transformed entirely.
Larry and I discussed being grateful for times of concern because of the growth there. It is being thankful for the flood washing over the earth, for the despair beneath the juniper tree, for the agony of the cross, that in all these things there may be new life. It is the "amen" of assent and approval, the acknowledgment of truth and divine providence, shouted in times of apparent disorder and uncertainty and suffering; the faith that something great is happening beyond the grief, the hurt, the hopelessness, even if the greatness is yet unseen by human eyes. I pray that God will take who I am and do something despite the tohu vbohu, the mishmash, of who I would be - not without my knowledge of God but rather without the presence of God's own wisdom and peace.
Arriving at the threshold of theological education is rather like waiting for my computer to "wake up" beyond the point at which even the computer itself seems baffled. As I set out by hand, still eyeing the stagnant screen, I knew that eventually the computer would find focus and move on, but I knew, too, that I haven't all the necessary wisdom to understand how it works - or why it does not. And so I waited, and adjusted to a method of working that makes me incredibly and wonderfully uncomfortable, adjusted to the idea that perhaps it is easier to set about something along the best course one can find than to fear that the way is not familiar or safe or well-lit, and never take a step.
And when both I and the computer were ready, I began to type.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Suncatcher
A reflection written during senior year (2009-2010) as I considered seminary.
---
I often find that the small, seamless moments of daily life are among the most inspiring and truth-bearing. When I opened the shades of the wide window in my final undergraduate dorm, the panes filled with the hues of leaves, and the narrow stretch of wooded wilderness behind the building seemed to pour into the room. I welcomed the natural shade, but nonetheless hung a sun-catcher in the window. It dangled in the only available place – centered on the thick frame rather than within the clarity of the windowpanes, so it seemed doubly impossible that it should ever reflect rays of sunlight, but there it stayed. Its presence seemed to suffice.
One afternoon, I arrived home – everything peaceful, the shades still drawn. But when I stepped into the dimly lit room, I found myself immersed in scattered rainbows. Even with the sun high in the sky, even with patchwork foliage obscuring the view of all beyond it, even as my covered windows seemed to shut out the outside world – light and color filled the room because of a simple glass ornament, in itself barely beautiful to behold. This moment, in its own simplicity, transfixed and transformed me.
I'd like to catch the sunlight in unexpected places – to trust the Lord's will and to embrace the truth that God is there in every moment, whether illuminating the entire sky or peeking between the shades.
---
I often find that the small, seamless moments of daily life are among the most inspiring and truth-bearing. When I opened the shades of the wide window in my final undergraduate dorm, the panes filled with the hues of leaves, and the narrow stretch of wooded wilderness behind the building seemed to pour into the room. I welcomed the natural shade, but nonetheless hung a sun-catcher in the window. It dangled in the only available place – centered on the thick frame rather than within the clarity of the windowpanes, so it seemed doubly impossible that it should ever reflect rays of sunlight, but there it stayed. Its presence seemed to suffice.
One afternoon, I arrived home – everything peaceful, the shades still drawn. But when I stepped into the dimly lit room, I found myself immersed in scattered rainbows. Even with the sun high in the sky, even with patchwork foliage obscuring the view of all beyond it, even as my covered windows seemed to shut out the outside world – light and color filled the room because of a simple glass ornament, in itself barely beautiful to behold. This moment, in its own simplicity, transfixed and transformed me.
I'd like to catch the sunlight in unexpected places – to trust the Lord's will and to embrace the truth that God is there in every moment, whether illuminating the entire sky or peeking between the shades.
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