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Continuing off of the previous post, T.S. Eliot's The Journey of the Magi is another brilliant example of a work of art that addresses the melancholic nature of the Christmas message, although the magi seem to be filled with fear and loathing as much as melancholy. Here's the last stanza, although I recommend reading the entire poem (it's not that long): All this was a long time ago, I      remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This:   were we led all that way for Birth or Death?   There was a Birth,      certainly, We had evidence and no doubt.   I had      seen birth and death, But had thought they were different;      this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like      Death, our death. We returned to our places, these      Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old      dispensation, With ...

For such a festive holiday, Christmas has no shortage of wistful, melancholic songs associated with it: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas , I'll Be Home for Christmas (If Only in My Dreams) , Blue Christmas , and virtually all of the songs on my favorite Christmas album--Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas --are arranged in such a way as to bring out the melancholy. Even the Christmas hymns express this. One of my favorites is What Child Is This , an old English folk melody, which has lyrics like these: Why lies He in such mean estate, Where ox and ass are feeding? Good Christians, fear, for sinners here The silent Word is pleading. Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, The Babe, the Son of Mary. In a religious sense, that melancholia exists because implicit in the incarnation is the crucifixion, as the lyrics quoted above make brutally clear. Furthermore, reading the account of the ann...

This post would have been more timely had I written it during finals week, which concluded yesterday, but I was too busy studying. I had three finals over the course of two days for Church History, Systematic Theology, and Old Testament. I feel good about Church History and Old Testament. Systematic is a wild card. We had to interpret the novel The Shack against the Nicene Creed, identifying and analyzing doctrines covered in the book corresponding to each article of the creed. I'm both looking forward to and somewhat dreading reading the professor's comments on that one. For all you children of the 80s and/or fans of Arrested Development, hair is your moment of zen:

I don't know whether it would seem ludicrous or be deemed proper to have a favorite doctrine, but I have always been fascinated by the Incarnation. The divine choosing to limit itself by entering the physical realm and taking human form strikes me with awe and terror. The Right Reverend Bono and W.B. Yeats, two Irishmen possessed of the power of words, capture this sentiment more powerfully than I ever could. First, Bono: "That there's a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in shit and straw and poverty is genius, and brings me to my knees, literally." And Yeats: The Mother of God The three-fold terror of love; a fallen flare Through the hollow of an ear; Wings beating about the room; The terror of all terrors that I bore The Heavens in my womb. Had I not found content among the shows Every common woman kno...

This past Thanksgiving marked the first time in about five years that we didn't visit family in Connecticut. I spent the three days of Thanksgiving break catching up on reading for all of my classes. In particular, I spent a good deal of time reading Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion --a real page turner. Actually, as far as theological treatises are concerned, Institutes is quite an interesting read. First of all, the scope of the work is expansive and truly systematic in nature. Second, Calvin also manages to go into great depth. Third, while Calvin owes much to Augustine, he also is unafraid to point out perceived flaws in Augustine's theology and carve his own unique path. What I find most impressive, however, is how contemporary he sounds. Maybe I have an excellent translation (McNeil), but Calvin's theology strikes me as being very easy to grasp. He doesn't create his own vocabulary as so many philosophers do. He deals in flesh and blood, nuts...

Seeing as today is probably the last day of the year in which the temperature will reach 60 degrees, I took advantage of the weather and went for my longest run in the longest time--exactly 8 miles. I ran to the Princeton University campus, which because of its primarily Gothic architecture feels more like a seminary than the seminary campus. There aren't many things prettier than a centuries-old college campus on a cool autumn morning. Nor are there many things cooler than Endomondo, the running app I downloaded for my phone. With it I can keep track of my overall time, distance, pace, and mile splits. I'm not setting any records--in fact, I'm running about 3 minutes per mile slower than I ran in high school--but running against my previous times (each workout can be saved) provides incentive. Running was also a way of postponing finishing my church history paper on Anselm and Aquinas. After spending much of yesterday working on it, the conclusion was all I had left to...

Choosing courses for the next semester is like browsing through seasonal clothing catalogues a season in advance. It's the middle of November, but I'm already course shopping for the spring semester. Here's what I filled my bag with: Intro to the New Testament (required) Speech Communication II (required) Presbyterian History and Theology Theology of Karl Barth Theory and Practice of Pastoral Care I decided on Presbyterian History and Theology only yesterday. I was hoping to take either Survey in Reformation History or God in the Old Testament instead, but their scheduling conflicts with Speech II, which I was placed into automatically based on my current Speech I class. Then again, if I'm going to take this Presbyterian theology seriously, I ought to confess that I was predestined to take Presbyterian History and Theology.

As part of my internship at Pilgrim Church, which began last Sunday, I preached my first official sermon today...to 2- and 3-year-olds. The topic was God's promise of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah. I had one goal and one goal only: to convey to them the idea of a promise. When I merely observed their worship service last week, I saw how excited they were to receive stickers at the end. In a stroke of genius, the children's pastor had me hand out the stickers so the kids would warm up to the impossibly tall white man (the kids are all Korean) who towered over them (even seated), and who probably seemed a bit scary. I began this week by promising that I would again give them stickers at the end of the service, which I then sealed with a pinky promise and thumb stamp. I'm pretty sure that gesture crosses all cultures. Just like I pinky promised to give them stickers, God pinky promised with Abraham and Sarah to give them Isaac--that was more or less the idea. I also made use ...

In a sign of how much my world has changed, I saw a headline in The New York Times this evening that referenced the midterms. I fully expected the article to be about college students struggling with the pressure of midterm exams. My midterm results came in: Early and Medieval Church History (A), Old Testament (A-). I'm actually more excited about the OT exam, which had the entire junior class stressed leading up to it. The day before the exam we had a review session with our preceptor. His first words were, "When you get the exam tomorrow, don't panic." Panic was not an emotion I expected to feel, until that is, he advised against it. That burgeoning sense of panic increased when, moments before we received the exam, a random student, who was not in the class, approached the eraser board and wrote, "Remember who you are and whose you are. Blessings from the middlers and seniors." The exam was challenging but not overwhelmingly so. I finished with about...

This past Wednesday I shared dessert with my randomly assigned peer group at the home of a professor. The idea is for a small group of first-, second-, and third-year students to gather and share experiences about seminary life. The professor serves more as facilitator than adviser. I don't remember how it came into the conversation, but at some point I referenced the Gong Show and suggested that it was a forerunner of American Idol. I thought it was an astute observation, but the reaction of more than one student was, "What's the Gong Show?" Are you kidding me? Chuck Barris? Jamie Farr? The Unknown Comic? Her words rang in my ears like the clanging of a gong proclaiming the generation gap.

In an acknowledgement that the amount of reading collectively assigned among all the classes is not feasible (and that's only the required reading, not to mention the "suggested" reading), the administration designates one week in the middle of the semester as Reading Week, in which all classes are cancelled, to allow students to catch up on their reading. I spent the last four days catching up on the reading for my OT class, for which I have a midterm next week. I feel like I have memorized the OT, at least up to 2 Kings, which is the extent of the OT that the class has covered thus far. However, I'm sure that actually taking the midterm will disabuse me of that notion.

That was a favorite expression of my favorite high school teacher--Mr. Rooney. He even vowed that on his tombstone he would have written, "The bear ate me." Last week I got back the grade on my first paper, which was for Early and Medieval Church History. The topic was the Arian and Nestorian controversies in the early church and how they were resolved through the first four ecumenical councils. On the one hand, it was my first academic paper in 17 years, so I harbored some anxiety; on the other hand, I felt that I had a good grasp of the topic, and so I was quietly confident that I would do well. I received an A. I have to admit, I took it as confirmation that I had a handle on this whole seminary thing. John 1, Bear 0. What a difference a week makes. I felt less confident on my first paper for my Old Testament class. The topic was Rahab the prostitute from Joshua 2: Was she a woman of faith, a traitor to her people, or a pragmatist out for her own survival? I chose the ...

One of the things I like about the worship service at Princeton is that the musical director incorporates worship music from a host of different cultures. In my one month at PTS I've heard everything from bluegrass to gospel to Native American to West African to Spanish to Gregorian to Hillsong to traditional hymns. Walking into the chapel for yesterday's worship, I was reminded that communion is served on Fridays. The servers were working out who would stand where to distribute communion. I settled into my seat and began looking over the bulletin to see what the music for the service would be, when suddenly I recognized a familiar four-note arpeggio pattern. The instrumentation, however, seemed different, higher pitched--perhaps a mandolin? Then a female voice sang an ascending line that rose above the mandolin: "I can't believe the news today / I can't close my eyes and make it go away." I looked up from the bulletin so that my eyes could confirm what I ...

Something I told (although not "promised") myself I'd do this semester is attend morning prayer and chapel service as much as possible. Morning prayer is from 8:00 to 8:20, and my first class is at 8:30 four days a week. Chapel service runs from 11:30 to 12:00, while my last class ends at 11:20 on some days and at 10:20 on others. So my schedule is pretty well positioned to make both morning prayer and chapel service most days. For the first few weeks I was a faithful attendee of both, save for Wednesdays when I don't have class. Then I had to write my first paper. Or I needed to catch up on my reading which I had neglected so I could write my paper. Or since the dogs have been staying with me I needed to get back to the apartment and keep them company. Or I became engrossed in conversation with a fellow student after class. I had no problem choosing from any number of excuses. Even at seminary, spiritual discipline is a struggle. I am happy to report that today I...

Last Thursday I attended an Orthodox service with a group of students from my Early and Medieval Church History class. The service was both jarringly different from what I've grown accustomed to in the Presbyterian churches I've been attending for the last nine years, and yet also comfortably reminiscent of the Catholic Mass with which I grew up.   The service was held in the basement of a Roman Catholic church. Our group, comprising about 8 students and two preceptors, entered the church through a back door and instantly found ourselves face to face with the choir and the priest, who was dispersing incense through an implement that I'm sure has a formal name but of which I'm unaware. Icons of various forms--paintings, statues, carvings--lined all four walls. Self-consciously we took our seats in the back. Actually, we didn't do much sitting, because the Orthodox stand for almost the entire service, although they sit for Scripture readings. The priest began the ...

The last time I was a college student, Bill Clinton had just begun his first term in office, Grunge was all the rage (literally), and the Internet was a closely kept secret available only to a few select nerds (which makes me think of The Simpsons episode where Homer goes back to college: "Hey, get a load of the nerd. Nerrrrrrd!"). To my surprise, things haven't changed that much, even if the definition of a notebook has expanded a bit since I sat behind a one-sided desk. Seriously, I did harbor a small fear that my preference for those black composition notebooks with the saddle-stitch binding might date me, but I saw one of my preceptors, whom I would guess is a good 10 years younger than I, using one as well.

I had a passing familiarity with literary deconstruction as an undergrad, enough to understand that it paved the road to relativism. So I was not surprised that some of my conservative church friends expressed concern for me attending a "liberal" seminary like PTS, which would deconstruct the Bible just like any other text and thereby rob it of its spiritual essence. I must say, PTS is very serious about deconstruction. That's the view across the street from my apartment. The seminary is in the process of simultaneously demolishing and rebuilding the Charlotte Rachel Wilson (CRW) housing complex where we live. Our apartment should meet the same fate a year from now, which takes away some of the guilt of having scratched the floors the day we moved in.

Orientation lasted two full days last Thursday and Friday and was replete with seminars, lectures, affinity groups, small groups, lunches, dinners, chapel service, too many new names and faces to remember, and lots and lots of handouts to peruse. (Aside: until recently, I thought that "peruse" meant to read casually, when it in fact means the exact opposite.) I told my affinity group, which comprised second-career students, that since I had left work only the prior Friday, and since classes had not yet started, that I felt as though I were merely on vacation and not embarking on some crazy--albeit inspired--midlife U-turn. Conversely, knowing that come Monday morning I would not be taking an 8:30 bus into New York to get to my office, but rather an 8:30 class (Systematic Theology--ack!), I also felt a bit like the coyote in the Warner Brothers cartoons, who after chasing the road runner off a cliff, finds himself momentarily hovering in mid air before plummeting to the grou...