Hurt

"What have I become, my sweetest friend?  Everyone I know, goes away in the end."

I have spent the better part of today by myself, which is a first for me since my arrival on campus.  Except for my class and two meals, I have been alone.  There are times when I do not mind, if not prefer to be alone.  It is during those times that I can often think more clearly and actually get work done.  But, ever since I have been here there has always been someone around, even just in passing.  Today seems to be a bit empty, devoid of contact...alone.

Over the past month I have spent a considerable amount of time with the people in my First Year Class.  We have attended services together, eaten our meals together, worshiped together, and even hit the town together.  This is the very definition of community, a place of mutual support and love.  I will be the first to admit that every now and then a break from community is a good thing, a healthy thing.  However, I heard this song this afternoon and it has kind of set my mood for the rest of the day.  The song is called Hurt and it is performed by Johnny Cash, though originally written and performed by Nine Inch Nails.  I personally prefer this version over the original.  Johnny Cash recorded the song and the music video in 2002 shortly before his death in 2003.  After being diagnosed with a terminal disease Johnny looked back at his life and legacy and it was impossible for him to not feel pains of regret for some of his actions.  This video so eloquently captures that raw emotion, especially as we see Johnny sitting at the piano hitting one note over and over again, while scenes of his life pass by on the screen.  This is a song that stirs up some very powerful emotions, and it does so to me.

On my desk next to my computer sits a picture.  It is an old picture, if you can consider 1999 old, and though I am not in it I do remember being there.  In the picture is my aunt Carol, my uncle Richard, and my father.  While I cannot confirm it, mainly because I cannot remember another gathering like this one, but this very well may be the last time they were all together in one place.  It is a picture of a family that has been tragically torn apart by the malevolent will of Man and the benevolent will of God.  I looked at this picture while the song was playing and I thought about my own regrets.  I thought about the things that I wish I could take back, the things that perhaps should have been said or done that will forever remain in that place of unknown.  I began to identify with Johnny, but I quickly realized that I cannot live into these emotions and let them bury me.  I must acknowledge them, for sure, but I must not allow these thoughts to cloud my mind and control my actions.  I am here today because of what my father and uncle had given me.  I must never forget the lessons that they taught me or the shinning example of their witness that brought forth the love of God into this world.  It is ok to feel this way and it is ok to be alone, but it is the love and support of community that will bring me back from this place.  It is through community that I am reminded, of my gifts and my responsibility to their memory and to God, to let my gifts shine forth in this world.  While we all may need a break from community every now and then, we must not succumb to the belief that we can live our lives without it.

There will be more days like this, that much you can count on, but for me, it is about what I must do to make sure that I pull myself back to my feet so that I can walk again in the knowledge and love of God and be a shinning example for others like those who came before me.

Origen and Tertullain...what are they saying???

In my History of Christianity course we have now moved from the initial Christian communities and we are now entering the third century.  At this point Christian communities have grown beyond the Holy Land and can be found through Asia Minor, Greece, Rome and a large portion of Northern Africa.  As each of these communities began to grow and spread across the Roman Empire they began to form their own identity.  This identity was usually forged in slight variations of practices as well variations in the understanding of the nature of Christ.  The Christians in North Africa will be different then the Christians in Greece.  We are now immersed in two early Christian writers who are lumped in with several more writers/thinkers/bishops that have come to be known as the Patristics.

As Christianity spread these writers struggled to form the identity of the early Christian Church.  They sorted out different theories surrounding the nature of Christ and the Trinity.  They defended their beliefs and practices against other groups who proclaimed their version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Ultimately they laid the foundation upon which we have created our identity, our scriptures, and our doctrine of the church today.  I am reading works from two of the Patristics...Origen and Tertullian.  These two men are not saints, and at certain times their works were declared heretical, but yet still hold an important role in the understanding of and formation of the Christian faith.  Now I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to read 3rd Century Christian works but they are not easy.  Not easy at all.

The excerpts that I am reading from Origen is from On First Principles.  Now this isn't the first time that I have read Origen.  In fact Mark and I spent a considerable amount of time reading and discussing his commentary on the Gospel of John.  Origen was hard to read then and is still hard to read now.  In this reading he is writing about how scriptures should be read.  He believes that one cannot read the scriptures on just a literal level and that there is more to it than that.  He comments about the spiritual side and that there are things we must figure out for ourselves in order to truly understand what was written.  Now at first glance this sounds very familiar, in that the Anglican tradition is based on this very idea that there is more to the scripture than what it says on the surface.  As opposed to the more modern Evangelical Christians who base their faith on the totality of scripture and that if the Bible says, it must be true.  I was surprised to find out that someone from the 3rd Century was already thinking that way.  However, I ran into my official mentor Jeremy who is focusing on the Patristic era for his MA warned me that the literal understanding of scripture for Origen is different from our modern literal understanding of scripture.  So then what does he mean???

In the excerpts from Tertullian we are diving head first into one of the first descriptions and understanding the nature of Christ and the Trinity.  Now this is some heavy stuff.  At this point in time there are various people making very different claims about the divinity and nature of Christ.  So in order to provide some clarity on the subject Tertullian throws his hat into the ring and defends his beliefs.  In his work On the Flesh of Christ, he writes about how the Spirit and flesh of Jesus did not meld into one being, however the Spirit was dwelling within him, as a separate yet unified entity.  Que???  I get the general gist of his argument and I see how this defense works against the claims laid by others, especially Marcion.  Fortunately we will be discussing this tomorrow in class, bright and early.  There is nothing quite like Christological arguments at 8:00 on a Friday morning.  I will let you know if it becomes any clearer.

Diversity in the Episcopal Church

For my Anglican Life and Tradition course there is a specific focus of the diversity within the Anglican Communion.  We are looking at this focus from different perspectives and right now we are looking at the early history of the Church of England and the initial formation of the Communion.  Over the last three weeks I have been reading articles and books about Henry VIII and the church that he instituted and which was then further developed and defined over the next 200 years.  I have a four page reflection paper due next week that asks me to briefly describe how the diversity of Anglicanism is identified in a chosen set of readings, explain how tat diversity illustrates the nature of Anglican ethos and identity, and then wrap it all up with my own experience of Christian ministry.  That is a lot to fit into a four page paper so I am not actually worried about being able to write something that fits the parameters.  But I have been looking back upon the last few months and the diversity that I have experienced within the Episcopal Church.

Over the past month I have now visited three different churches with three very different communities.  All of this is then coupled with the services that I have experienced in the chapel, usually twice a day, and it is amazing just how diverse the services are within the Episcopal Church which is indicative of the wider church.

Let's take Grace Cathedral.  Given the fact that it is the seat of of the diocese of California and therefore carries with it a certain amount of expectation in the way the services are conducted.  Since they have the resources they have a renowned choir, many different outreach programs, educational opportunities and fully live out all of the "smells and bells" that can accompany a typical Rite II service.  The congregation that they minister to is that of tourists, travelers and there is a core group of regular parishioners who call the cathedral home.

On the other hand if we look at St. Alban's you will find that it is the opposite end of the spectrum.  The church is itself is more modern in design and modest in terms of size of congregation.  There was no incense or parade of choir and ministers, there weren't kids running around, but it was a typical suburban neighborhood parish.  What makes this setting so interesting is the deep relationships that the parishioners share with each other because they live in close proximity to each other and the church.  When I arrived last Sunday it felt like being welcomed into one of their homes as a guest, it was that warm and caring.  The music was familiar and the congregation was invited to participate in the service as much as possible.

If you really want to see the variety in the ways of worship within the Episcopal Church, come worship at our chapel for a week and you will see some interesting things.  I was amazed at first because I wasn't aware of all of the supplemental materials that exists.  These supplemental services are variations on the traditional Book of Common Prayer but that have been developed and adapted over many years.  At our chapel we cycle through these various services over a three week period so that we, as future priests in the church, become very familiar with the diversity of services available.

As you can see there is breadth of options that one can find in the way we do "church" and that from that diversity we can express our faith and worship God in many different ways.  The service is just but one example of how diverse the Episcopal Church is and the Anglican Communion for that matter.  I won't even begin to get into the diversity of ways in which we understand and interpret scriptures...at least not right now.  (A preview of things to come???)

St. Alban's - Albany

So yesterday I decided to visit a church that was relatively close to the CDSP campus in the city/town of Albany.  Albany is located just north of Berkeley and to get into the main street area of the town you must first pass through a tunnel that goes through on of the hills that surround Berkeley.  It is small town, much like the towns that surround Boston with a main drag, Solano Ave, that cuts through the town from north to south.  There are all sorts of restaurants and coffee shops lining the street and the church is a block away from this town center.

Jason had pointed out that there was an Episcopal church with a community that has supported CDSP seminarians for years and that I should check it out.  Because of the close proximity of the church to campus I didn't have to wake up as early which was nice, since for the service last week Jason and I had to be out the door before 7:00 to make it to the 8:00 service on time.  Yesterday I was accompanied by my friend Maura, who is an MA student working towards a degree in the historical and cultural relations of religions.  Since she is not in the MDiv program she is not subject to the same expectations as me, namely attending on campus services and "church shop" on Sundays.  She is a cradle Episcopalian who was very involved in her home parish in Pasadena but she decided she needed a few weeks off.  So, I was a little surprised when she inquired about where I was going and if she could tag along.

The church is situated on the corner of two streets hidden behind a row of trees.  From the outside the church just sort of blends into the surrounding community and would almost go unnoticed if it weren't for the sign out front.  It reminded me a lot of the Church of Our Savior in Mill Valley in that from the outside it looks like a modern building but the inside being very different.

A view from across the street

Once inside we were greeted immediately by members of the congregations and handed leaflets.  Maura and I sat in a pew in the middle of the congregation and looked at the stained glass that surrounded us.  The glass windows were beautiful but very contemporary in design.

One of the windows

The sanctuary

The service was a typical Rite II service.  The liturgy was middle of the road and they hand a choir of about six people.  The congregation seemed a bit older and I didn't see any children either but they may have been in Sunday School.  It looked like an interesting community to serve for field ed and I know that the rector has a lot of experience working with seminarians, but I don't think that it will be site for me. 

We left after the service and we were back on campus to catch the second half of the Pats game.  Not a bad Sunday morning.  I think I will go to a Berkeley parish next Sunday, but we will see and I will let you know.

Staff Meeting

There is a tradition here at CDSP that I have had the opportunity to partake in every Thursday night and it is called Staff Meeting.  This event is the culmination of what is dubbed Community Night and it is a great opportunity to unwind after a long week of studying.  In order to understand Staff Meeting and why it is necessary I must first explain what Community Night entails.

Every Thursday evening we have Community Night and it starts with the 5:45 Eucharist.  This is the one service of the week when we go all out.  Each of the Thursday services is planned two weeks in advance by the people who will serve during the Eucharist.  This meeting usually involves some six to ten people and they design the liturgy.  So for night we used a Eucharistic prayer from the Anglican Church of Canada.  The prayer that was chosen is similar to our own Eucharistic Prayer C, only this prayer was chanted all the way through.  This service is also when we will invite guest preachers to preach, so we had the priest-in-charge from St. Mark's Berkeley because they are hosting one of our students for field ed.  This is the one service during the whole week when we will have a crucifer, two torch bearers, a lector, a lay assistant, a presider and a preacher all processing into the chapel.  The only thing missing is the incense.  Every student, professor, and administrator is encouraged to come, with their families if they are on campus, and it  is usually packed.  It is also the one service when a group of students will act like a choir and sing during communion.  So it really is a big production and the one service where we are expected to attend, though it is not required.

After the service we head over to Easton Hall, one of the several buildings on campus that serves as a guest house for visitors, for a reception.  Beer and wine are provided as well as an array of snack items.  This serves two purposes, first it allows us to gather in community and hang out with each other in an informal atmosphere, and it also allows a group of people to set up the dinning hall for dinner.  At around 7:00 we then head across the street to the dinning hall for a family style dinner.  Since we take up most of the dinning hall we have to wait until after normal dinning hours so that the students from other schools have an opportunity to eat.  Then we come in and take over the building.  the past few weeks the food has been so-so but it is nice to be able to sit down with people that I don't normally see and eat together.  Then once dinner winds down someone goes around to each table and declares that Staff Meeting will occur in twenty minutes.  Staff Meeting originally started as a Theology on Tap type of program, but when the program went mainstream and was copyrighted the students at CDSP decided to change the name and drop the "program" that went along with it to make it less formal.

So after dinner we head to LaVal's Pizzaria and stake our claim to several of the tables that are outside in the courtyard.  We then proceed to hang out, drink beer or wine, and relax.  What makes this so unique is that professors come down and spend time with us.  Several of the professors that I have for my classes have been there, especially my Anglicanism professor who shows up each week.  It is a great time to relax and talk about absolutely anything in a very informal environment.  You really get to know people outside of the seminary setting and the boundaries between student and teacher are torn down, at least for a night.

I really like this tradition because it provides an opportunity for fellowship off campus and with people whom you might not normally spend time with.  However there is one drawback to Staff Meeting.  I have to be careful because I have an 8:00AM history class on Friday so I don't want to go overboard or else I will be paying for it the next day.  Fortunately though my history professor is a regular at Staff Meeting and I figure when he leaves, it is probably best that I leave too.  While we may change what our Community Nights may look like, I do hope that we continue with our weekly Staff Meeting.

Church of Our Savior - Mill Valley

For this week's church visit I joined my friend/adopted mentor Jason to the church where he is currently doing his field ed in Mill Valley.  In a lot of ways it was very reminiscent of my home parish, St. John's, but also different.  Mill Valley is a suburban city, heck it may even be a town, located about 12 miles north of San Francisco in Marin County.  As Jason so eloquently stated, the residents have more money than God.  It is a beautiful community nestled in a valley, go figure, and is filled with giant redwood trees and surrounded by hills.  It reminded me Newton in that they are both affluent suburban communities within close proximity to major metropolitan areas. 

Since Jason is doing his field ed at the parish he is supposed to be there for both of the services on Sunday.  That meant that he was knocking on my door at 6:50 to make sure I was up and ready because we had to leave.  At 7:00 on a Sunday morning, CDSP is still fast asleep.  As we walked to the parking lot we didn't see a soul.  It was a nice ride out to Mill Valley.  The sun was just creeping over the top of the hills and there was actually no fog so it was a beautiful morning.  We cruised across the Richmond Bridge and made our south down the CA101 towards SF, before getting off and weaving our way to Mill Valley.  In all it was about a twenty five minute ride, though we did have to stop at McDonald's for coffee and a small bite to eat.

The church is located just outside the center of town in a very residential area.  Around the corner was a UCC church and a pretty big park just a block away.  I definitely wouldn't mind living there, but I don't thing I will ever make enough money to afford it.  The church itself is very simple in design, at least from the outside.  It wasn't very large, in fact it was probably the size of St. John's.  There was more than enough room for the services but there was no way they were going to fit 200 people in that space.  Off to the left of the main church building were the offices and many rooms used for Godly Play and other youth programs.

A view from the outside of the Church of Our Savior, Mill Valley

A view from inside the courtyard

Inside the courtyard

Wooden statue and small fountain in the courtyard

The inside of the church

Jason left me in the pews so that he could go get ready for the 8:00AM service.  The eight o'clock service is a Rite I spoken service.  There was no music and all of about five people in the congregation, including me.  Does this sound familiar to anyone back home???  I think there were more people serving up on the altar than there was in the pews.  For this Sunday we had a guest preacher, a brother from the Society of St. Gregory.  I have never heard of it before but apparently it is a lay and ordained society that allows men, regardless of age, profession or marital status to become members.  Brother Thomas, our preacher, works in LA for Google by day and then performs his societal commitments during the weekend.  They wear a traditional alb with some brown colored garment draped over their shoulders.  They do carry a rosary and wear a brown beanie.  To me they seemed very Catholic, but I don't know.  Oh and the priest of Our Savior, Richard, is also a member of the order.  Brother Thomas preached a good sermon and we had Eucharist and were done before nine.  Jason then showed me around a bit while we waited for the ten o'clock liturgy to begin.  I also had an opportunity to chat with Richard a little, which was cool, to learn more about the parish and the area.

I picked an interesting week to visit the parish because they had two events occurring simultaneously.  First, this was their homecoming/start of the year Sunday.  So the choir was singing for the first time, the Sunday School started up, so there were a lot of people in attendance.  They also have a whole lot of kids.  I mean a lot of kids.  Their youth program is huge and understaffed, but it was amazing to see so many little ones running about.  This was also the day of a baby shower hosted by the church for the priest's wife who is about to give birth in the next few weeks.  So the Fireside Room was decorated and people kept bringing in dish after dish as they arrived with kids in tow.  

Needless to say, the attendance at the ten o'clock was considerably larger.  Though not completely packed it was full.  Their second service followed the traditional Rite II service.  Liturgically they are a very middle of the road parish in that they stick to the familiar but are willing to try new things.  Again, very reminiscent of St. John's.  Brother Thomas preached again, though he changed it up a bit which was cool, and the choir, about twenty people deep, sang a familiar anthem during the offertory.  For those of you who might know they sang With a Voice of Singing

All in all, it was a great experience and I really want to go back.  As for whether I would do my field ed there, I am still yet pondering that idea.  In many ways the church is very familiar because it is so similar to my home parish.  While I am looking for something different from what I am used to this still might be a good place to serve one of my two years of field ed.  I think that because of the priest.  From what Jason has talked with me about so far, is that Richard really wants to challenge him, push him out of his comfort zone and experience new roles in leadership.  Sometimes with field ed, it is not just the parish that you learn from but also from the priest.  I know that at some parishes seminarians are treated as lackeys or unpaid assistants which is not really beneficial to our education, but I don't get that vibe from Richard and he seemed like a great person to work with.  I will be going back again to see it on a regular Sunday and to hear Richard preach.

I am not sure where I am going next week, but I may opt for one of the Berkeley parishes.  I will keep you all updated.

Primary Sources, how I love you, let me count the ways...

As part of the History of Christianity course that I am taking a large amount of the reading materials that we will be covering comes from what is called primary sources.  These are sources or manuscripts that date back to the 1st and 2nd centuries and contain in them the works of some of the early Christians.  The benefit of reading such material is that we, as students, get the opportunity to read the actual material, though not in the original language in which it was written but a translation, that the men and women of the early Church had written.  Now, I do view this as an opportunity to wrestle with the early texts and an opportunity to gain some understanding of what the Church was like in the years that followed Christ's crucifixion, however they are not an easy read.

I am counting myself among the fortunate few who have had the opportunity to read some of this material before.  While finishing my degree in Human Services at Lesley I had to have a focus, or concentration within the field.  Most of the time people would focus on counseling, social work, or art therapy, but since I wanted to finish my degree as quickly as possible I chose a different route and not have to wait for classes to be offered, which could have taken several more semesters.  Instead of waiting I designed my own focus and designed four independent studies.  One of the courses examined how faith and politics intertwine. In another course I studied how theories of human development, and more specifically child development could help in creating youth programs.  With this I did practical applications of my study within the setting of a Confirmation Class.  While those were interesting classes, it was really the other two that I took with my parish priest, Mark, that prepared me for this course I am now taking.  In our first class we examined texts from the Apostolic period up through Augustine and how the texts gave us clues as to how the early Church was formed.  We looked at how the early Church struggled with it's identity and it struggle to find one common theology from which the whole Church could be centered around.  This course helped me prepare for being able to read these difficult texts...thank you so much Mark.

In my opinion, the hardest part about reading and understanding these texts is knowing that a majority of these texts come from incomplete manuscripts and have holes that have been filled in over time.  But keeping that in mind, and getting used to the way in which these documents were written, which was often in some convoluted way, it becomes easier to understand the purpose of the document and why it was important in the formation of the Christian tradition.

As we continue on throughout the semester we will continue to rely on primary source texts as the main way in which we will learn about the practices of early Christians.   As frustrating and time consuming as it may be, it is by far better to read the actual documents then to read commentary about the document from some third party author.