The problem with writing these thingys so far apart is that, by the time I get around to writing one, so much has happened, I don’t know where to start. It’s 2:00 in the morning. For whatever reason, I can’t sleep. I’m supposed to teach a Sunday school lesson tomorrow, except my lesson plans are at the assistant teacher’s house. Oops. I also have a Christmas cantata tomorrow night, including a solo, except I’m recovering from what seems to have been a cross between a sinus infection and a killer cold, and my voice is all shot to bits. You should have heard my attempts at singing at Saturday’s performance. Scratch that. You shouldn’t have heard my attempts at singing. You’d have thought, “why’d they give that guy the solo?”
I guess the biggest item, really, on my personal “current events” list is that I am not currently enrolled in seminary at this present time. Maybe a month or so ago I posted something along about my absolute surety that rest was an important thing. I was terribly behind in my studies then, but I was confident that I could apply myself and easily catch up. Funny thing about applying yourself. It only happens if you have enough time. I could tell amazing stories, but I won’t just yet. Suffice it to say that my requirements at work and my commitments at church were more than sufficient without the added burden of trying to plunge myself immediately into the pursuit of another degree.
It’s a really great story, at the end of it, though. I was going to the final class with a sinking suspicion I wasn’t going to be able to complete everything in time, and I was planning to have a nice chat with the professor to find out what my options were. I get to the school, and there’s nobody there. Not even a mouse. I pound on some doors until I find one that’s open and barge in on the painters who are making a mad dash to finish the fresco before the chapel’s grand opening. I wander around aimlessly, looking for an administrator who can tell me what’s going on.
It turns out that all the classes for the semester have already finished. The very last class (my class) met last week. I read the calendar wrong. The fourth weekend of the month does not necessarily fall directly behind the fourth Thursday of the month, particularly when the fourth Thursday of the month is Thanksgiving Day. My final exam was due in 3 days. I had missed the class where they discussed the information covered in the final exam… by a week.
I emailed my professor and asked him if there was any hope. He referred me to the dean. By this point another week had past, in which I worked nearly a 50 hour week. Did I study just in case I had a chance? I don’t think so. I wrote the dean and essentially said (in much more flowery words) “Look, man. Even if you gave me an extension, it’ll be two or three months before I can even start to turn things in.” The dean writes me back and says, “Here is a one time offer. I will allow you to withdraw from the course even though it is too late…This must happen by the first of next week.”
Believe me. I hopped on it. Little miracles are miracles too.
Now that that whole mess is over, I really have to start asking questions. Presumably, my decision to enroll in seminary at this particular time was a poor one. 1500 additional dollars of debt without a single academic credit to show for it has got to say at least that. I’m not going to say, “Oh no, that was the will and plan of God!” My other option is to say that keeping my job was the bad idea, and I just have some real problems with that. At 25 a man has got to stand up and take responsibility for his own finances. I just can’t let the debt mount any higher.
So was I supposed to go to seminary? Am I supposed to go to seminary? Was my encounter months ago with the living God nothing more than the fermentation of an addled brain? I can’t say that it was. I mean, I really can’t. the only thing in this world that I really know that I can hold on to. If I unravel them, then everything is an addlement of the brain. What is my purpose, that God has not given me? What is my nature that God has not defined for me? Everything that I am has come from an encounter with the living God. Take that relationship away, and it isn’t just that my life changes, I simply cease to be. Descarte said “I think therefore I am,” but he was wrong. Nothing can exist, except in relation to something Other, to Someone wholly different, and unchanging. Without a proper frame of reference, everything falls apart, the center cannot hold.
Sorry about sliding into philosophy there.
My only hope for now is to say that “I see Him, but not yet.” God has begun so many good works in me, and I must trust that he will be faithful to complete them all.
neumatikos 