Weekly post

July 18, 2005

Dear friends,
Only a month remains until the start of the fall semester at the divinity school. Orientation is scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 19, and registration is the following Monday. Classes begin, I think, right after that.
Needless to say, I am very excited. Part of orientation will include meeting my adviser and laying out, I expect, a long-term view of what courses to take when. Mark and I have agreed that in terms of studying, it will be best to do much of it on campus at the university library, so that when I'm home I can really be at home and enjoy family life. It is so important to try to maintain that balance! I will probably go in very early each morning to have some study time on campus so that I can be home at a reasonable hour each evening. I can hardly wait to see what my fall schedule will look like!
In other news, I took my 10-year-old son to the Harry Potter release party at the local Barnes & Noble on Friday. That was great fun. The store was packed with children and adults in costume, games and activities were all over the place, and the atmosphere was contagious. At 11:15 p.m., staff cleared us all out into the parking lot and began lining us up in groups of 50 according to the number on the paper wristband we'd been issued (I was number 248, not bad at all). At 11:55, the first group of 50 was let into the store, and at about 12:02, the manager announced, "The first copy of 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' has been sold!!" There were cheers and applause from the crowd of 800 or so. I was let in at 12:15 and joined a line that, as at Disney World, snaked around bookshelves. We all passed the time by plucking various books off the shelves and skimming. Unfortunately, the line moved too quickly through biography and history but got bogged down in chick lit.
Got my copy, and we drove home. The boy went right to bed, but I stayed up long enough to read the first two chapters. By Sunday night I had finished it, and cleaned the oven to boot! I must say, that oven looks good. The boy is about 120 pages in. It will take him about a week to 10 days to read. It's very, very well written and a terrific read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
There will be NO posting next week. On Saturday, we leave to spend a week at a beach house lent to us by friends on a quiet, remote tip of land near the Chesapeake Bay. Key words here are "quiet" and "remote." I don't plan to take my laptop, so please don't worry if you don't hear from us. I will have my cell phone with me in the unlikely event of a major emergency, but otherwise, I'm looking forward to some quiet.
Grace and peace,

Beth

P.S. I hope that if so moved you will post the occasional comment! There should be a link for that at the end of each post. :-)

Weekly post

July 11, 2005

Dear friends,
Although a month still remains until the start of school, I still have several little things I need to do this week. They include going over to Wake Forest to have my student ID made; replying to whether we will attend the orientation picnic; and (amazingly) trying to track down the doctor who gave me my childhood vaccinations more than 30 years ago, because the school requires proof of vaccination. Heaven knows what they'll do if I can't find the records. They don't seem to know either.
I've spent much of last week helping friends move. They were leaving their house under unusual circumstances, and I'm glad to have been able to be there for them. The moving truck arrives today, and they're making good progress on acquiring a beautiful 1921 farmhouse with original oak walls and hardwood floors.
I'm still debating whether to register for Greek right away and get it over with. It's awfully tempting. I trust that in a classroom setting I'd be able to get the hang of it. I plan to work on my vocabulary in the weeks remaining until school starts.
Grace and peace,
Beth

Weekly post

July 4, 2005

Dear friends,

This is the first of what I hope will be weekly posts to my blog. It's Independence Day, and we are having a cookout with friends this evening to celebrate. I hope that you are having a holiday that suits your excitement level!
Last night I made my Fabulous Potato Salad. I haven't made it in a while, because frankly it's a pain in the neck to make, but it's very yummy. It requires, to start with, cooking, peeling and cutting up five pounds of potatoes. (That's a lot!) But occasionally, it's worth it.
I'm still floating about 10 feet off the ground over the news that scholarships and student loans combined will give me a full ride through divinity school. Of course, there is the small matter of paying back the loans. But the Stafford loan Web site has a calculator that tells you how much per month you will have to pay back, and it's very manageable. Especially since it would be hard to make LESS money as a pastor than as a graduate student!

I'm beginning to learn my way around the Wake Forest campus. The divinity school is housed in Wingate Hall next to Wait Chapel, and I expect most of my classes will be in that one building. The administrative offices are in Reynolda Hall, across the Quad, and the library is across the Quad and about a block west. It's a well-designed campus, very pretty, and not hard to find places. The map is also well-designed.

Wait Chapel has auditorium-style seating and seats, I would guess, maybe 700 in the orchestra section with a sizable balcony. There is a tiered "stage" that includes an organ, space for a choir, and an altar and pulpit area. Wake Forest Baptist Church holds services there on Sundays. Wait Chapel was the host for a presidential debate in October 2000. Twice-weekly chapel for divinity students is held in Davis Chapel, a much more intimate space within Wingate Hall.

One day when I was at the divinity school taking care of some paperwork, I passed the dean in the hall and greeted him. He greeted me by name, which impressed me, and invited me to chapel, which that day was being held in Wait Chapel, because it was also to be a service honoring Ed Christman. Christman is a very dear man in his 80s who was chaplain of Wake Forest University for years. It was a very moving ceremony.

The university is hardly deserted during the summer, of course, but it will be interesting to be on campus in the fall once classes start.

Grace and peace,

Beth

The Backstory, Part III

July 3, 2005

In the fall of 2004, in anticipation of becoming a full-time student, I applied to Duke University Divinity School. I had decided that the best course of action was to get my degree at a nearby divinity school, then take whatever courses were necessary to be ready to become a Lutheran pastor. The nearest Lutheran seminary was three hours of hard driving away, and the one I would have wanted to attend was more like eight hours away. I liked what Duke's divinity school had to say about service on its Web site, and the school had a reputation for being theologically liberal. The syllabus made me uneasy, however. Where were the practical ministry courses?

I was so sure I would get in that I didn't apply anywhere else, not that there were a lot of places for me to apply. However, just before Thanksgiving I was turned down. I cried for a little while. Then I downloaded an application for Wake Forest's divinity school. That night, when I prayed, most of what I got was static. What did come through, clearly, was one phrase: "Everything will be all right." I didn't see how, but that's what I got.

The more I learned about Wake Forest University Divinity School, the more I liked. The syllabus was a good balance of theology, Bible and practical ministry courses, and although the university itself had a Baptist heritage, the divinity school was ecumenical. Several people whose opinions I respected praised the divinity school; in its less than six years, it had earned a very good reputation.

I submitted the application in early December and tried to put it out of my thoughts.

In February, I received a letter. I was in! Not only that -- a week later, a letter came saying that the faculty had recommended that I be awarded two merit scholarships totaling about $7,000 a year. Wonderful.

This had been a very long and slow journey until now, but things were suddenly speeding up. As of August, I would become a full-time student at WFUDS. Wow. There was, however, the little matter of the REST OF the money. Tuition was $14,000-some a year, and the school had a handout that listed estimated costs for books, fees, gas, rent or mortgage payments, etc., for off-campus divinity students. It added up to $28,240 a year, including $1,000 in fees and $300 for parking. In June I received a bill for $7,053 due Aug. 1. Although I'd known we would have to pay the school something, the bill made it painfully real.

On June 30, however, I received a letter that was at least as beautiful as the initial acceptance letter. I was getting a small WFUDS need grant, some work-study money and a substantial amount of Stafford federal student loans. Added to scholarships, my aid would come to $28,245 a year -- exactly $5 more than the $28,240 shown on the handout. Hallelujah!

In late 1999, I'd told God that I would need a lot of help if I were to do this. The help that I needed, not necessarily the help I thought I wanted, has always appeared when it needed to appear. My family, friends and church have been incredibly supportive, and God's reassurance has overwhelmed me.

After six years of what I think of as preparation, I'm about to start making serious progress on this journey.

The Backstory, Part II

July 3, 2005

The Backstory, Part II

After the workshop, I went online and asked for preliminary forms from the North Carolina Synod. My journal at the time said, "Until they come, I'm safe. I'm inching along this new path in the dark but haven't totally plunged. Put your hand in mine, God! That will be better than a light and safer than a known way!"

The forms also required an essay. In only five pages, I was asked to discuss my faith journey and sense of call. The best analogy I have is that of a stove burner. For several years, the burner was turned on Low and I was faintly aware of its warmth. But when I first came to the Lutheran church, the flame was turned up, quietly and steadily. All this time, my sense of call was persistently nudging me. This nudging could not be satisfied any other way, to help others grow in faith and to grow myself.

The essay took three weeks. The paperwork took at least that long. It's a German church, folks. There were various forms to be given to the church, and approvals given and so on. After several months of sticking my toes in, I've plunged!

One of the people I asked for a personal reference at church said he doesn't feel as though he knows me well enough to fill out the form. I appreciate his honesty, but it puts me in a bind. The reference has to come from someone on the church counsel. That's a dozen people, but I don't know them all well. I ask a very kind and thoughtful woman I do know, just before the Christmas Eve service, and she agreed right away. She went to Framingham State College and was good friends with Christa McAuliffe.

I think I must be the most dense candidate the synod has ever seen, unable to get the hang of what forms go where! One of the pastors is confused to. I do something regarding the congregational council, but I don't know what. I figure if anything is missing, the synod will let me know. I'm not sure what lies ahead, but I have faith that God is with me as I go.

February 2000: Initial interview and psychological evaluation. !!!
The intervew was with the pastor of a Lutheran church in Winston-Salem. He asked about my spiritual journey, childhood, family and plans. He is obviously good at interviewing people, but I was nervous. He asked me to list three strengths and growth areas. I listed as strengths my ability to connect with people, my energy and enthusiasm, and my strong sense of compassion. My growth areas were my impatience, my temper and my need to pace myself. The synod hasn't seen my temper. Yet.

As part of the process, I was asked to reflect on why I feel called to follow in the Lutheran tradition. My journal reflects that I embrace the theology of the Cross, or what Bonhoeffer called "costly grace rather than cheap grace." For more, I recommend "Baptized, We Live" by Daniel Erlander. I also am drawn to the unique and holy individual and corporate worship, covenant, sacrifice, and journey embodied within the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The psychological evaluation started out with an armload of forms -- personality tests, sort of -- that came in the mail and that I had to fill out. Then there was a five-hour session with a psychiatrist in Winston-Salem, including lots of talking and more forms. The results went on for pages and pages but the bottom line is that he thinks I'm very well suited for this.

The synod candidacy committee people told me about The Fisher's Net, a Web site by which students can be distance learners, taking M.Div. level courses online for credit. It is run by Luther Seminary in St. Paul, and professors from, I believe, all eight of the ELCA seminaries contribute to it. M.Div. is a Master's of Divinity degree, the one that I would earn.

I signed up for my first course in spring 2001. It was taught by a wonderful professor, now, sadly, deceased, James Kittelson, the author of "Luther the Reformer," a terrific biography. It was a course in church history covering about 1400 to 1800. It was a lot of work but great, very challenging and also reassuring about whether I was capable of graduate-level work.

Greek is required at most seminaries and is a prerequisite for a number of courses, so I thought I would take that next. Some online courses work better than others. Learning Greek online just about amounted to teaching it to myself and did not work. I struggled desperately with it through two semesters and part of a third before I bailed out. I lost three semesters in which I could have been doing other work -- because I still had a full-time job, I could manage only one course a semester -- but I think it was the right decision.

I took several other courses, including two in Systematic Theology in back-to-back semesters without quite realizing what I was doing. Systematic Theology is horribly hard, and the pastors were very sympathetic when I told them what I was studying. I made it through both of those fine, however.

Meanwhile, in 2003 Mark began his own dental lab after 25 years of working in other dental labs. He makes ceramic crowns and bridges for dentists and other labs, and Artisan Dental Ceramics had begun to thrive. We talked long and hard about making a change before I finally decided to quit my day job. I waited until late January of 2005, and we got rid of our credit cards and sold one of the cars. I also lined up part-time work. See the link on this blog to Slices of Heaven, a wonderful place that makes specialty breads and that is run by truly special friends.

I signed up for two courses for the spring semester of 2005 online, and it was a challenge going from one course to two. However, it was good practice toward becoming a full-time student.

For the most part, I think that covers the boring logistical business. Tune in to The Backstory, Part III, to resume.

The Backstory

July 3, 2005

How did I get to this point? I'm not entirely sure, myself, but I can tell you what I know about how this change took place.
In 1998, my husband, Mark, and I began attending a Lutheran church. We had moved from a small rural area to a suburban setting and had more than three denominations from which to choose. After reading about the Lutheran church, we thought we would visit one. We chose a large congregation near downtown Greensboro, N.C., and after one visit felt both at home and spiritually challenged. We've been active there ever since. Our son has made his First Communion there and our daughter was baptized there.
We like the history of the Lutheran church and find the liturgically based setting conducive to reassurance, examination and strength, all very important parts of the spiritual life.
For a period of about a year after our daughter was born, I worked nights, and did some volunteer work during the day for one of the pastors, a woman a few years older than I. We talked about her spiritual journey and mine, and I told her how I had been feeling a persistent nudging from God that I should become a pastor.
I had real doubts, in part because I believed that pastoral temperaments were born, not made. I was hot-tempered, impulsive and sometimes thoughtless. These were not good inclinations! As I began to explore the possibility, however, I was reassured by the saying, "God does not call the prepared but prepares the called." Emotional ups and downs, and emotional growth, were normal and could be cultivated.
In the fall of 1999, I attended a one-day workshop at a nearby Episcopal retreat center for those who thought they might be interested in becoming "rostered leaders" in the church. Rostered leaders are not only pastors but also Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses, Diaconal Ministers -- those who lead the church in staff positions as well as ordained ministers.
By the end of the workshop I knew that not only must I become a rostered leader, it was to be ordination. I have long believed and been shown by family example that all Christians are ministers. However, the yearning in my soul would not be tempered with anything less. "I want you in this place," God was insisting.
My first response? "Who -- me?" As God kept insisting, "Yes -- you," I argued with God, in the ignominious tradition of Moses, Isaiah, and others who, when called, said, "No way, God; You must have the wrong number."
First, I had two young children. At the time they were 5 and 1. Second, we needed the income from my job. "If You want me," I told God, "I'm gonna need a lot of help. And You'll have to show me the way."
For Part II, see next blog, creatively titled, "The Backstory, Part II." This includes a fair amount of logistical detail. If you couldn't care less, skip directly to "The Backstory, Part III."

Introduction

July 3, 2005

Dear family and friends,

I am tentatively jumping into the world of blogging as a way for those who are interested to stay up-to-date on my progress through divinity school. As I add to this blog, I will include some insight into what prompted me to make such a drastic change in my life and information about my wonderfully supportive family.

At this stage, I have no idea what I'm doing, so please be patient, and I hope that this will soon evolve into an intersting place to visit.

Grace and peace,

Beth