This week was definitely a full one.
On Monday last week, I had a full 13 hour day, with only time for meals as rest. I officiated my first morning prayer service, which I really enjoyed because I was able to practice chanting in front of a small group, so I knew if I screwed up they wouldn't care. Then I worked at the library, had a lovely lunch with a few of my classmates, worked for the contextual education office and then I had my first spiritual direction meeting on Monday afternoon.
I'm really excited about doing spiritual direction, as well as the counseling I've begun, because I think both are really helpful on teaching me how to deal with transitions, such as this one to seminary. Spiritual direction is nice because it's time where I can really focus on my spiritual life instead of just my classes. I love everything I'm learning, but sometimes I can spend too much time in my head.
After that I had class, dinner, and then another class at which point I realized that my day had been too long and I had to check out a bit. Finally I went to choir, which actually made me feel much better. We're singing a Mozart mass, and it is absolutely gorgeous. However, that meant I left the seminary at 8:30, and I had arrived a little before 7 in the morning. I was going in when the sun was coming up and leaving as the sun was going down. If a day like that happens again, I'll need to schedule in a walk just to get out and move a little.
And that was just one day. Thankfully, my busiest one.
Tuesday was a little calmer, and I had a skype date at the end of the day, which always makes for a wonderful evening. Wednesday was pretty busy again, so I was pretty pleased that this week was Trinity Days and I didn't have to focus on classes on Thursday.
I did get to participate in the eucharist service on Thursday as a torch-bearer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I haven't been able to help with a worship service for awhile, and I do like being involved in that way.The rest of Thursday and Friday were rather quiet, which I definitely needed. Today I made my second to last MIC visit, and then I spent a fair bit of the afternoon crocheting. Taking time to do that with friends on Sunday afternoons is a wonderful way to enjoy a bit of sabbath rest.
Now I'm getting ready for next week, which includes a group presentation and a ten-page exegetical paper.
Wish me luck!
Kathryn
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Busy Week and Many Churches
So another successful week has past.
I'm still keeping quite busy, and this week I've been working on my Exegetical paper for New Testament. I'm studying the story of Jesus walking on water in Matthew, and it is fascinating what I've been able to learn so far. I like that in my New Testament class we will be studying each book individually, and we can better understand the picture each of the gospel writers were giving of Jesus. I am enjoying getting to know the Bible better in this way. In Church History I am also quite enjoying myself as we discuss Constantine and monasticism. I love history, and learning the history of our Church is like learning all the family stories. The class is wonderful and I'm always excited about going to it.
I'm still keeping busy with work and being out with my friends. I'm also still working on balancing all of that out, but it is nice to have the problem of too many social engagements rather than too few. I have successfully become a crocheter as well as a knitter, and I get together with several women on Sunday afternoons to craft and enjoy each other's company.
Some of my most interesting adventures lately have been in visiting churches as I search for my Ministry in Context site. As I visit several different churches, I am finding I can more easily say what kind of church I want to serve in, both now and in the future. Many churches are not very good at welcoming strangers in their midst, which is not to say they are bad churches, but it can get easy to stick with talking to the people you're comfortable with in a church and not notice the new faces passing you by. I also really would like to be involved with a church that is focused on outward ministry. A church that looks at the world at its doorstep and finds ways to work in their neighborhood and show God's love to all the people they encounter. I would like to work in a church like that now so that I can learn how to better lead a church like that in the future.
In other church adventures, I went to a Spanish service this evening. It was really interesting, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how much Spanish I have retained since I took it last several years ago. I was even able to understand the majority of the sermon, which pleased me. I am going to eventually take a Spanish for ministry class here, and Trinity is building a bigger focus on it so that it will be more available. Learning Greek has made me realize that I actually do like languages, so I am looking forward to taking that another semester.
For now I have to get ready for a rather full and long Monday coming up.
Kathryn
I'm still keeping quite busy, and this week I've been working on my Exegetical paper for New Testament. I'm studying the story of Jesus walking on water in Matthew, and it is fascinating what I've been able to learn so far. I like that in my New Testament class we will be studying each book individually, and we can better understand the picture each of the gospel writers were giving of Jesus. I am enjoying getting to know the Bible better in this way. In Church History I am also quite enjoying myself as we discuss Constantine and monasticism. I love history, and learning the history of our Church is like learning all the family stories. The class is wonderful and I'm always excited about going to it.
I'm still keeping busy with work and being out with my friends. I'm also still working on balancing all of that out, but it is nice to have the problem of too many social engagements rather than too few. I have successfully become a crocheter as well as a knitter, and I get together with several women on Sunday afternoons to craft and enjoy each other's company.
Some of my most interesting adventures lately have been in visiting churches as I search for my Ministry in Context site. As I visit several different churches, I am finding I can more easily say what kind of church I want to serve in, both now and in the future. Many churches are not very good at welcoming strangers in their midst, which is not to say they are bad churches, but it can get easy to stick with talking to the people you're comfortable with in a church and not notice the new faces passing you by. I also really would like to be involved with a church that is focused on outward ministry. A church that looks at the world at its doorstep and finds ways to work in their neighborhood and show God's love to all the people they encounter. I would like to work in a church like that now so that I can learn how to better lead a church like that in the future.
In other church adventures, I went to a Spanish service this evening. It was really interesting, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how much Spanish I have retained since I took it last several years ago. I was even able to understand the majority of the sermon, which pleased me. I am going to eventually take a Spanish for ministry class here, and Trinity is building a bigger focus on it so that it will be more available. Learning Greek has made me realize that I actually do like languages, so I am looking forward to taking that another semester.
For now I have to get ready for a rather full and long Monday coming up.
Kathryn
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Trying New Things
It's been another full week here at the seminary, and more things have happened than I expected.
This week I decided to volunteer to take a more active role in the Morning Prayer service put on by Bexley Hall. I will be officiating in a couple of weeks and will both officiate and read the lessons several times this semester. I'm looking forward to it because I really love going to Morning Prayer, as I find it to be a good way to start any day, and I will have the opportunity to practice leading and chanting in front of a small, supportive group of people.
I also ended up volunteering and being selected for a role I wasn't expecting to take on. We have a campus group called Life Together which works on creating a rich community life for the entire campus. I am one of the Junior class representatives to Life Together, and I think it will be an interesting experience. I hope that we come up with ways to keep this community going, because I love the community here so much. That role also meant that I attended a faculty meeting on Friday with other representatives, which was certainly interesting.
Classes are continuing to keep me busy, although the workload is not awful this semester. I'm fairly certain it will be more difficult in coming semesters. I am enjoying most of the reading I'm doing, but of course there is always some classwork I will find more enjoyable than others. One of the more interesting things I am doing is working on an exegetical paper about the story in Matthew in which Jesus walks on water. It's fascinating to read the studies that have been done on the text, and next week I'll be pulling that all together into a paper of my own.
I am also working on a contextual assignment for my Faith Seeking Understanding class, and I am actually going to ask for help with it from those who read this and are members of Abiding Grace Lutheran Church. I am going to be doing my assignment on Abiding Grace, and that includes a timeline of important events and memories from the life of the church. If anybody wishes to let me know something that they think was important in the history of the church, please let me know. My project will be better if I'm not only relying on my own memory. I think that should be an interesting project, especially since I so much love Abiding Grace and I think it has been going through a wonderful journey since its conception.
Other than school things, I am keeping pretty busy exploring Columbus and seeing what it has to offer. This month I am visiting churches to attempt to find what will fit well for me for a Ministry in Context site, and visiting a different church every week is interesting so far. My friend Erica is going with me to many of them, because she does not have a MIC requirement, so we are having a good time finding out what is offered around Columbus. I'm hoping to find a place that will be a good fit for me and will offer a lot of opportunity for me to learn and grow.
This morning I went out thrift store shopping with Erica, and I have found that that may be how I buy clothes for quite awhile. We had a great time, and I bought several things for very little. I love adding new clothes to my wardrobe, but of course since I'm trying to only take out what I need in loans while I'm here, I don't have a lot of extra money floating around.
I'm also still working at the library and on the hospitality team, and both are jobs I really enjoy. I love both libraries and hospitality, so the jobs fit my personality well and getting paid to do my homework in the library is not half bad either.
Now I'm off to do a bit more reading for the weekend, and then tomorrow I'm going to rest and learn how to crochet!
Kathryn
This week I decided to volunteer to take a more active role in the Morning Prayer service put on by Bexley Hall. I will be officiating in a couple of weeks and will both officiate and read the lessons several times this semester. I'm looking forward to it because I really love going to Morning Prayer, as I find it to be a good way to start any day, and I will have the opportunity to practice leading and chanting in front of a small, supportive group of people.
I also ended up volunteering and being selected for a role I wasn't expecting to take on. We have a campus group called Life Together which works on creating a rich community life for the entire campus. I am one of the Junior class representatives to Life Together, and I think it will be an interesting experience. I hope that we come up with ways to keep this community going, because I love the community here so much. That role also meant that I attended a faculty meeting on Friday with other representatives, which was certainly interesting.
Classes are continuing to keep me busy, although the workload is not awful this semester. I'm fairly certain it will be more difficult in coming semesters. I am enjoying most of the reading I'm doing, but of course there is always some classwork I will find more enjoyable than others. One of the more interesting things I am doing is working on an exegetical paper about the story in Matthew in which Jesus walks on water. It's fascinating to read the studies that have been done on the text, and next week I'll be pulling that all together into a paper of my own.
I am also working on a contextual assignment for my Faith Seeking Understanding class, and I am actually going to ask for help with it from those who read this and are members of Abiding Grace Lutheran Church. I am going to be doing my assignment on Abiding Grace, and that includes a timeline of important events and memories from the life of the church. If anybody wishes to let me know something that they think was important in the history of the church, please let me know. My project will be better if I'm not only relying on my own memory. I think that should be an interesting project, especially since I so much love Abiding Grace and I think it has been going through a wonderful journey since its conception.
Other than school things, I am keeping pretty busy exploring Columbus and seeing what it has to offer. This month I am visiting churches to attempt to find what will fit well for me for a Ministry in Context site, and visiting a different church every week is interesting so far. My friend Erica is going with me to many of them, because she does not have a MIC requirement, so we are having a good time finding out what is offered around Columbus. I'm hoping to find a place that will be a good fit for me and will offer a lot of opportunity for me to learn and grow.
This morning I went out thrift store shopping with Erica, and I have found that that may be how I buy clothes for quite awhile. We had a great time, and I bought several things for very little. I love adding new clothes to my wardrobe, but of course since I'm trying to only take out what I need in loans while I'm here, I don't have a lot of extra money floating around.
I'm also still working at the library and on the hospitality team, and both are jobs I really enjoy. I love both libraries and hospitality, so the jobs fit my personality well and getting paid to do my homework in the library is not half bad either.
Now I'm off to do a bit more reading for the weekend, and then tomorrow I'm going to rest and learn how to crochet!
Kathryn
Monday, September 9, 2013
A quick update
I have had a good, but rather busy week, and I'm already well into my next.
Silas and I had a great time last weekend, going to German Village to explore food and books, going to the Columbus Art Museum, and going to a local Greek festival. We also cooked, had friends over and went out to a labor day cookout. It was a very full weekend.
Since then I have had my second week of class and I am getting settled in to a new routine. I'm not too worried about my schoolwork this semester because it seems to match pretty well with my last few semesters at my undergraduate. I am enjoying most of my classes this semester, and I think I'll be able to learn a lot from them. I'm deciding what other groups I want to be involved in, and that can be tough when it means starting with one group and then choosing to leave it.
Yesterday, I went to visit a church in town as I am beginning my visits to find a Ministry in Context site. This will be the church I work at for the next two years, and will hopefully be a good growing experience for me. I liked the church I visited, which was a large suburban church that seems very alive and relaxed. They also seem like they do a lot with community, and it actually reminded me of Abiding Grace a bit.
Now I have to get re-used to Mondays at seminary since we skipped last Monday. I've already worked and I came home to cook up my dinner - fish and spanakorizo (a Greek spinach and rice dish) - which should be delicious. Soon enough my classes actually start, and then I've got choir tonight. Should be a good day, and a good week, but I'm certainly keeping busy.
I'll write more next weekend.
Kathryn
Silas and I had a great time last weekend, going to German Village to explore food and books, going to the Columbus Art Museum, and going to a local Greek festival. We also cooked, had friends over and went out to a labor day cookout. It was a very full weekend.
Since then I have had my second week of class and I am getting settled in to a new routine. I'm not too worried about my schoolwork this semester because it seems to match pretty well with my last few semesters at my undergraduate. I am enjoying most of my classes this semester, and I think I'll be able to learn a lot from them. I'm deciding what other groups I want to be involved in, and that can be tough when it means starting with one group and then choosing to leave it.
Yesterday, I went to visit a church in town as I am beginning my visits to find a Ministry in Context site. This will be the church I work at for the next two years, and will hopefully be a good growing experience for me. I liked the church I visited, which was a large suburban church that seems very alive and relaxed. They also seem like they do a lot with community, and it actually reminded me of Abiding Grace a bit.
Now I have to get re-used to Mondays at seminary since we skipped last Monday. I've already worked and I came home to cook up my dinner - fish and spanakorizo (a Greek spinach and rice dish) - which should be delicious. Soon enough my classes actually start, and then I've got choir tonight. Should be a good day, and a good week, but I'm certainly keeping busy.
I'll write more next weekend.
Kathryn
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