Countless gifts of love.

There are many things I have to be thankful for, and one post and one day is not enough.  But today, the day after the day after Thanksgiving, this list of things I am particularly thankful for at this moment will have to suffice.

For being here at Princeton Theological Seminary.
When applied for undergrad, it was a straight-shot.  I knew I wanted a program that offered a four-year directing track/the option to apply as a director (as opposed to the popular model of “go for acting or arts management for two years and then apply to maybe be in the directing program”).  This narrowed down my options to about three schools.  From there I obsessively looked over their programs, and by the beginning of my junior year of high school had decided that NYU/PHTS was the program for me.  I applied early decision, I got in, I went.

The seminary decision was not as straightforward.  I started with a pretty clear first choice, but tried to stay open with my options.  I visited almost all the schools I applied to.  I worked very hard not to make decisions before I had all the information.  Which allowed something really funny to happen:

1. Princeton snuck its way onto my application list.  It was not a place I was particularly interested in before the application process started.  I think it ended up on the list because I thought I should apply to at least one Presbyterian seminary, and I KNEW I didn’t want to apply to Union in Richmond or to Columbia, and it was nearby so I could go out and see it.  I had mic’ed one Princeton professor the summer before my application process started who invited me out to see the school.  Partially, I think Princeton ended up on my list because I felt like I should be applying to more schools.
2. I visited Princeton by way one of their seminars where they invite prospective students to stay on campus for a few days, and by the end of the first day, I hated it. I could not see myself at the school at all, it seemed way too rigid and traditional and conservative.  I was ready to move to Atlanta before going to Princeton.
3. As I stuck it out with Princeton on that visit, the change was 180 degrees.  I began to see that the reason I was uncomfortable at Princeton was because it was challenging me in ways that I hadn’t been, and needed to be.  I saw that my gifts would be particularly valued there because I bring a unique voice (some of my other schools had a lot more students with arts backgrounds).

And somehow this school that snuck its way onto my list, that I didn’t care about for most of my time looking at seminary, is the school I’m now enrolled in.  Through all of the wild, tumultuous journey that is seminary (please see last post), one thing that has been made extraordinarily clear is that this is where I am meant to be.  If I wasn’t meant to be here, it wouldn’t be as hard.

For my theater education.
Let me make one thing clear: it is incredibly intimidating starting an academic grad school program with very little experience in higher-education academia.  While an MDiv, the degree I am getting at seminary, is designed for people going into the ministry and therefore has some practical aspects as well, it is a very academically rigorous degree.  On the opposite end, while my BFA in Drama did include some academic elements, most of my time was geared towards practical application.  Our papers were not rigorous.  Princeton, on the other hand, is a popular seminary for people to go to if they are planning on continuing into PhD work, and there is a completely different set of expectations.  While I knew that the theater training would be essential to my further education, I wasn’t entirely sure how it would play in outside of the obvious: speech class.

Answer: the theater training has been vital in every. Single. Aspect. Of my being at seminary.  From social interactions to class discussions to memorizing for tests to helping me deal with the emotional rollercoaster that is seminary to, yes, even papers.  There will be more about how it has helped in upcoming blogs, but I am starting to make connections to how the basics of my theater directing/design/collaboration background are vital to whatever path I travel in ministry in the future.  The undergraduate program I was in has changed to the point where I can no longer endorse it, which makes me even more grateful I was in that program when I was.

For Montreat.
OK, so I knew that going to a Presbyterian seminary meant that my Montreat time would serve me well.  And indeed—as someone who was not raised in the Reformed tradition, the jumpstart into Reformed thought and theology that pervaded my time there has been very helpful.  And indeed—there is starting to be a running joke on campus about the fact that I have mic’ed … everyone, because people I’ve mic’ed often come by Princeton as guest lecturers, or even work here.  (Next year I get to deal with the fact that I’ve mic’ed my preaching professor.)  But beyond that, I am grateful at the relationships that Montreat has placed in my life, for the people I’ve met, and for my continuing relationship with that place.  Last summer I got to be down there as a small group leader, this summer I’m doing something else down there, and I’m realizing that Montreat has truly become a place where I get to grow up—it is a place where I am always welcome, a place that allows me to grow and experiment and apply what I’m thinking and learning, and always to serve it in new and exciting ways, and I am truly blessed to have such a place in my life.

For my really fabulously supportive friends.
I went back into NYC for Thanksgiving, with my theater friends from the past six years of my life, in our joyous celebration where somehow we gather together comfortably in apartments that are totally too small and laughable kitchens but somehow we all make really amazing food and take a bedroom door off its hinges to make a dining room table and drink and laugh and feast and celebrate.  Coming back to this group has been delightful, and while there might have been a secret drinking game going on with the rule “whenever Colleen starts talking about religion, take a drink,” my rants about the importance of the Old Testament and the misinterpretation of Hebrew were listened to and loved and accepted.  I have groups of people who have my back 100%.  Not just my friends in New York, but the outpouring of love on Facebook from people in Virginia, people in North Carolina, people now across the country.  It is truly humbling, and I know many people at seminary who do not have that kind of support, who have people in their life who constantly doubt and challenge their decision to go to seminary, often with the fear the seminary will ruin their faith.  I watch them handle these people with grace and poise and am amazed and how they do so.  It reminds me that this cannot be taken for granted.  If you are reading this, you are one of those people and I’m so lucky to have you in my life.

Then you realize you didn't know anything

Seminary is… a lot.

Don’t get me wrong—I love it.  I love school.  No one is surprised by this.  I adore being in an educational environment, I love my classes, I love the people, it is just… a LOT.

Here’s a recipe for you: Take your brain, your heart, and your soul.  Put them into a blender on the “crush” setting.  Crush for longer than you think you can stand it.  Empty the blender into a hot cast iron skillet.  Season with curiosity and doubt.  Remove from skillet, and try to reassemble the individual ingredients on three separate plates.

My friend Karen described it by saying, “It’s like there’s an avalanche coming at you and you only have a snow shovel.”  This semester alone I am covering a few millennia of church history, the Old Testament (perspective: that’s 3/4ths of the Bible), and attempting to learn Biblical Hebrew, which, as a semitic language, has pretty much nothing in common with English or any other Indo-European language.  It is a lot.  Some days it is too much.

One week, we were talking about conquest narratives in the Old Testament (the Israelites, after the Exodus/Ten Commandments/Prince of Egypt business, going into Canaan and conquering and slaughtering the people living there because “God gave us this land”), how people used scriptural and theological arguments to support slavery in America, and the background and effect of Stop And Frisk and Stand Your Ground laws.  And I got home one day and just started sobbing because of how it seems that nothing has changed over thousands of years and what hope is there for us now?

And about halfway through my Hebrew midterm I looked at all of these strange letters and none of them made any sense to me anymore except the definite noun marker and I almost started crying and thought, “What am I doing here?  How did I ever think this was a good idea when I am clearly going to fail this midterm?  I’m not used to tests and academia.”

One day, during reading week, I sang at the inauguration of our new President, and it was incredible.  We were in the Princeton University Chapel which is almost unfairly beautiful, it was full of people who cared about theological education and had some of the best congregational singing I’ve heard and we sang a commissioned anthem and the new President spoke of the deep importance of recognition of the arts and beauty in religious practice and I could not have been happier or prouder to be a part of this community.  And then I went into the city to see the screening of the West End production of Merrily We Roll Along, a musical by Stephen Sondheim, and I remembered all the things I loved about theater.  And I felt these two strong loves and still had no idea how they came together, even though I knew they must somehow.  Every time I get an inkling of how I might combine the two, I want to build my life on that idea instead of letting these things exist and learning to live in the tension and confusion.

It’s the feeling of being hopelessly lost.  Nothing about this is comfortable.  It is being confronted daily with how you have failed to live as you are called to live.

Here’s the thing though: in stories of faith, people spend a lot of time feeling lost.

The primary example is, of course, the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.  After the whole exodus from Egypt shenanigans happened, after the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, the Israelites wandered, never knowing where they were going, led by God in the form of a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night.  They were fed each day by a food that appeared each morning called "manna", which is a word we all accept as an actual name nowadays, but in Hebrew the word "manna" is devised from the question: "what is it?"  They had no idea what they were even eating, and if they tried to store up more than would last them a day (or two, before the Sabbath), it would go bad.  They had no idea what they were going, what they were eating, and they could not even plan ahead.  No wonder they kept complaining and misbehaving (see: the Golden Calf incident).

This same theme continues throughout the New Testament.  In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus says:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
 ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Throughout scripture, the followers of God are lost, and even encouraged to be.  God often does not say where you are being led, and the journey often takes longer, is more frustrating and more terrifying than you signed up for.  There are so many reasons that I do not recommend the Christian life for anyone seeking comfort--this is one.  It is living with all the tensions constantly battling within you, because it is a calling not to resolve the tensions but to embrace them and let them overtake you.

It is lonely.  It is confusing.  It is terrifying.  It is constantly feeling inadequate, because in that totally depraved sense, you are.  It is frantic searching for connection.  It is hopeless.  It is anger.  It is night.

But then sometimes, you’re rehearsing in the chapel and you’re not watching the choir director as much as you should be because you are struck by the beauty of the sound bouncing off in ribbons of red, green, yellow, and wonder if there can be anything more breathtaking than voices lifted in praise.

Sometimes you spend hours outside of class in lectures about worship, liturgy and the psalms and feel the coursing of obsession through your veins like you haven't felt in years, but used to keep you awake late into the night as you analyzed musicals, and you feel alive again.

Sometimes you say "YES!" a bit too loudly when someone called out the number of your favorite hymn, "The Canticle of the Turning", at a hymn sing, and are approached at dinner by someone who felt the same way in that moment.

Sometimes you write on yourself in Latin, like you did throughout undergrad, and someone else can read it.

Sometimes you come to choir rehearsal and see the new Presbyterian hymnals for the first time and gasp, grab a copy and begin to stroke it, and then the next three people who come into the room have the exact same reaction.

Sometimes someone who is not in seminary hears something about a Hebrew word that might help validate their sexuality due to the contexts it is used in, and asks if anyone knows anything about it, and you are able to look at the texts (with some help), and give them more information about the word, the meaning, and the context.

Sometimes you find out you completely misjudged someone else and their theology and you have your eyes opened to something you would never have accepted before.

Sometimes you listen to someone else's story and are amazed by the strength of the human spirit.  Sometimes you hear what people want to do and your faith in humanity starts to show its face again, listening to the many ways people work for justice.

I would be lying if I said it was not overwhelming.  I would be lying if I said it was easy.  I would be lying if I said I had any idea of where I was going beyond the small bit that is illuminated by the pillar of light.

But mercy of mercies: the light is there.