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.