T-minus 7 days

I’m moving in a week. This is a mixed bag of emotions for more than one reason.

I’m going to preface what follows with the following statement. In the past 7 days I have taken ‘Ords’, which are basically 4 ugly nasty cruel tests that are, in my opinion, designed to drive the most sane person crazy, and someone like me to madness. On top of this I have had to preach a sermon for class. You have been warned.

I can remember when some of my other friends left Seminary, and while they were still close I didn’t have a pile of really good friends just suddenly up and disappear. So now with me getting up and disappearing, I have that sense of losing a pile of wonderful friends. But right now I just have a sense of loss as I’m having to say goodbye to not just friends but people who I hope to call colleagues in ministry.

Now I have always been a relationship guy and as a confession most of the angry posts from April-May or so finally came back around and I had to look at myself in the mirror and realize I was the jerk. Reconciling relationships or developing relationships are a central point in my life and really drive the core of my being. I finally reconciled that situation and even though it was done somewhere between the tenth and eleventh hour it is done, and I feel peace, and I was wrong … so very very wrong … to be angry.

In some ways I’m trying to tie all the loose ends I have up and feel like I have closure with those around me. I’ve just made 2 new friends on my hall and I’m going to be gone as suddenly as I arrived. It will be sad because they are two very interesting people.

Part of me wants to vent about Ords but at the end of the day I wonder how much of that is a means to answer the specific questions and how much of it is do we know how to use the methods we have learned. I still think some of the questions we were asked came from left field … Deep deep left field … and others were very appropriate for formation. The part that I keep trying to come back to is the pastoral nature of the tests, this succeeds … right now … about 30% of the time. The pastoral parts of the questions are what make the test worth the effort and the experience.

Maybe it is this intersection that is making me think right now. Or maybe it is a need to speak in non-intellectual terms and prose. Maybe I’m just trying to get back to the place where I can talk normal.