Things are going really well, I’ve managed to keep up with the work and my classes are all very interesting. I’m really glad that I chose to skip over some of the intro courses. I was nervous about jumping right into Systematic Theology in my first term but thankfully my undergrad classes in religion prepared me well.....go ahead, ask me what hypostatic union means, I dare ya!
The big news is that I am now officially “In Care” in my local UCC association – yay!
The interview went well and I made it back to Boston in plenty of time to make my evening class.
It felt good to be home for a few days. My SO has come up to visit every couple of weeks but I hadn’t been home in 5 weeks. The kitty cats were certainly happy to see me! With my SO at work all day and me gone, the cats have been starved for attention. They spend every evening jockeying for position next to her on the couch and if she talks to me on the phone for too long they start fighting. It’s like having a couple of 3-year-olds. Now, if we could just get them toilet trained...
An old friend of mine was in town last weekend so we spent two days traipsing around Boston. It was good to get out of my cell….errrr…I mean dorm room for awhile. I haven’t seen much of Boston since I got here, other than the inside of a few churches. We walked along the Charles and watched the annual Regatta races, and ate way too much food at Quincy Market. She brought along an old friend of ours who is originally from Russia but he's been living in Boston for 30 years. He’s a physicist at MIT and he spends his free time translating the works of Marx into English. Fun, fun, fun!
Needless to say, he didn’t quite get the whole ‘theological school’ thing. While he didn’t quite drop the old “religion is the opiate for the masses” line, he made several comments that were a subtle attempt to bait me in a ‘religion vs reality’ debate. I didn’t take the bait. It’s nearly impossible to explain a faith-based philosophy to someone who has no experience with faith. It’s hard to explain one’s experience of God with someone who believes they’ve had no such experience because there is no God. It’s like trying to explain music to someone who is tone deaf. Sorry, not going there.
As Anselm said, theology is simply faith seeking understanding.
And the fact that I am at a place where I can gather with other believers and spend my days seeking such an understanding, and they call it ‘school', just thrills me to no end.
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