Outside of class I am challenged with personal growth issues that I first grew aware of in CPE (like finding a voice and learning to have confidence in the gifts God has given me, one of those being a leader - I find that using my gifts for leadership is especially challenging among my peers). I am challenged (and blessed) with living in a small community once again. I am challenged in caring deeply for someone 2,000 miles away and in looking toward an unknown future with him.
(There are a number of challenges our seminary system presents for single people, and married people, in the way it is setup...I believe all the parts are important (academic study, CPE, internship, a short cross-cultural experience, Teaching Parish), but it seems like there must be a better way...one more conducive to today’s person with financial challenges.
[Side note: did you know Lutheran seminary used to be free once upon a time? It was that way for my grandfather when he was in seminary so many years ago. Today we pay almost as much as a private school education, with tuition, room, board, insurance, and all the necessities. It’s ridiculous. There is help out there, but even the help isn’t across the board for everyone, nor is it very helpful for some. I am so frustrated with the scholarship philosophy currently, which favors students at some seminaries over others by having each school raise it’s own money for scholarships, instead of having a general pool of scholarship money for all eight ELCA seminaries. To me this system says that we care about students at some schools more than others. This is not consistent with our theology! I am so thankful to have gifts from family, friends, congregations, and PLTS to be able to be here.]
To explain why I think the seminary process isn’t so user friendly: “traditionally” it is expected that students complete four years of seminary - either at an ELCA sem. or at any school of your choice, but the latter requires a year of study at the former to be ordained in the ELCA, a requirement that seems very fitting. The third of those four years is for internship, unless the student has a legitimate reason for requesting a fourth-year internship (which sometimes then still requires a semester at sem. after, before being up for a congregational call). This means that for the first two years and the last year, a “traditional” seminary student can expect to be in one place (for me, Berkeley), unless the student decides to transfer for whatever reason. The third year is spent somewhere other than that one place, unless one restricts (which you also have to have reason to do...like your spouse works where you need to be, etc. Just wanting to stay in one place is not acceptable.) Let me say that I am not against moving or doing ministry in different contexts, especially different locational contexts around the country. The challenge for me, a single young person who is interested in finding someone to spend my life with, is that if I were to find someone that I was interested in at least exploring a future with someone, it is almost impossible that we could be in the same place for two or three years, thereby struggling to explore that future from a distance, which I have to admit is very hard to do. [For married or engaged people, there is a similar challenge that I won’t go into for the sake of this blog getting terribly long.] I am not saying any of this is impossible, but you’d think that we could work to make the system a little more “user” friendly. Some of my criticisms of this process...)
I am trying to take the current challenges (remember? I mentioned them so long ago at the beginning of this post.) head on, wrestling with them, and actively seeking to grow from them. I started going to therapy last week, and I am very excited about the potential gained from such experiences. I have already been exposed to so many opportunities to work on my personal growth, and it seems like therapy will be another step of intentionality about facing my challenges.
