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no news.

3 Mar
Today is the day that the bishops of region three gather to divide the graduating seminarians between synods.  Rumor has it they meet and then phone calls begin to those they have acquired.  Bishops call at different points throughout the day [if not the next day] so we were told to be patient.  I’m trying …
Morning:  anxious.
1:30pm: class begins.
2pm: first classmates begin receiving phone calls from bishops.
[class continues.  lindsay is not focused.]
4:30pm : walk to the post office.  no news.
5pm: chat with fellow classmates over their region three assignments.  no news.
6pm: quilt a few rows.  Alias.  dinner.  no news.
7pm: stalk classmates on facebook to learn of their synods.  no news.
7:23pm: still waiting.
7:31pm: to be continued.  as I continue waiting.

giant to-do list day.

2 Mar
That is today’s official title.

The to-do list is giant in length and – quite literally – in size.

Wednesdays are my no-class days.  My catch up and work ahead days.  My sleep in a bit, tidy up, and rewind days.  And specifically today – the giant to-do list day.
I’m a list junkie.  I make lists for everything.  I love crossing off completed tasks.  And if the list doesn’t look quite right or gets to messy, I’ll totally rewrite it with my favorite pen and on pretty paper.  I usually make lists on quarter sheets of scrap paper.  But not today.
I made the giant to-do list last night before going to bed last night [note the title] and I must say that I’ve done a stand-up job of checking off items already this morning.  I’m on my second mug of coffee, working hard, and it’s only 11am!
Update blog?  Check.

assignment.

24 Feb
It’s a funny process, really.  And unless you’re inside of a seminary or in the church, it’s hard to understand and grasp.  You mean that you don’t get to pick where you get your first job?  It’s hard to think of another chosen occupation where that is the case.  You mean that you can put down preferences for where you want to go but those aren’t necessarily honored?  Pretty much.  
It’s a night the seniors at Luther Seminary had been anticipating for many months or even four years.  It grew closer when we filed our paperwork – the paperwork that the bishops and synod representatives read to best decide placement – at the beginning of December.  I was excited to be a part of a planning committee that put together the festivities last night and thus I’ve had opportunity to think about the night for many weeks, as cakepops were made, scratch off tickets printed, and food ordered.  Finally, the night was here.
The placemats and possibilities.
The senior class shared in a meal together before THE envelopes – in which were letters that held our regional assignment – were handed out to each person awaiting direction.  From my perspective, it was a fun night.  Energy was high, both on the nervous end and the excited end of the spectrum.  After the envelopes were handed out, the atrium erupted into hugs, phone calls, greeting one another and sharing the number that the envelope contained.  From there, we worshipped together – praising, lamenting, being held in our calling and in God’s arms.
My envelope contained this letter and the number three.  Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota.  I feel content knowing that I’ll be staying in the midwest, perhaps the tiniest bit disappointed that it wasn’t a five, but completely hopeful and trusting that somewhere within those three states is a congregation for me to serve.  Throughout this manner of assignment, we’re reminded to “trust the process.”  The saying is often mocked by seniors; it can be super frustrating.  But I do trust the process.  I know from previous experience that what I want is not always where I’m meant to be; I cried, protested my move to first SD and then Dawson, and yet, what came of it was the best internship for me.  A good reminder that I don’t always know best.
And now we wait more.  It was great to be given some guidance for what will happen after graduation at the end of May but really, I know now that I could be placed in Minnesota (fingers crossed), South Dakota, or North Dakota.  That’s one giant piece of land.  At the end of next week, hopefully there will be given more information to help me better plan and prepare for the next step in life.
I’m excited.

Can I complain?

15 Feb
I realize there are probably more fruitful avenues for my time and for this blog, but can I complain?
[There is often critique of personal blogs – that they write only of lollipops and rainbows, and give the perception that the life behind the writer is swell.  You officially can no longer say that about my blog.  Also note, I write this not as a pity post.  But it’s where I am tonight.]
Mondays are my nine-hour day of class and we’ll just be honest – I’m mighty crabby at the end of the day that begins at 8am and ends at 9pm.  [If I were wise, I wouldn’t even be writing this right now.  I would be in bed … curing my crabbiness.]  Three three-hour long classes is just a lot on which to focus.  Three hour classes are no good for me to begin with; get me to the end of hour two, and I’m as good as gone.  That’s just a simple fact of Lindsay as a learner.  Multiplied by three plus little introvert Lindsay time and it’s best – at that point – that you don’t engage me in conversation.  Maybe even run in the opposite direction if you see me approaching? 
The kicker of the Monday classes – I feel dumb.  Totally and completely dumb.  Academic theology, Bible knowledge, theological frameworks – I don’t get it like my classmates do.  I never have understood it like others … but now I’m even tired of faking it.  Ask me to speak in class and it’s like the horrid movie – Dumb and Dumberer.  I’m so ready to be done with classes.  To be done with seminary.
Professors don’t notice me; why should they?  I don’t talk because I feel dumb.  [And I have nothing to say.  Literally – brain empty.]  I feel like I’m shoved to the back of my senior class.  I have friends who are called out and seen as leaders to take on special projects and have special relationships with professors.  I have a hard time thinking of even once that a staff member or professor saw me as a leader who could be given extra responsibility or tasks.  [Okay, one.  The Cooking Pastor video.]  I think this is the kicker – I have underlying fears that this will continue as I journey in the first call process.  I’m really not great at first impressions or even second impressions.  [I often joke that to know me is to love me, but to know me takes a long time.]  Will bishops of synods see me as incapable of leadership and not as capable of pastoring a church as my classmates are capable?  Will they see through my cover-up and realize I don’t know all that I should?
Deep down, I know I’m totally capable.  I can be a leader.  I know that I have practical, applicable knowledge and buckets of creativity to use.  But between meetings regarding first call assignment, two classes that made me feel dumb, and one class on women in ministry leadership, it has been a day of feeling insecure.  Of feeling unnoticed.  Internship gave me confidence in myself and in my ability to do ministry – confidence that I feel I’m losing.  Confidence that falters when I remember that next time I’m doing ministry in a congregation, it’s the real deal.  Can I actually do it?
I need to find my feet again and stand upon them firmly.
So if you see them, please let me know.
I’d like to locate them before I start making horrid first impressions to bishops who phone me on my mobile.

love and hate.

9 Feb
The buying of books for a semester of classes.  I love it and I hate it.
I love it because of my secret love affair with books.  I’m the girl who dreams of floor to ceiling bookshelves, and my favorite part of Beauty and the Beast was the library in the beginning.  I love the look of new, crisp books.  I’m filled with hope for the learning that is to be had and the experience each books invites.  They’re just pretty.  (And this is the gal who bought a kindle?  I don’t regret it – in the long run, I think it’s a good way for me to go.  But I still love a book book.)
I hate this purchase too.  I hate the cost.  I’m incredibly thankful that this is my last semester of hundreds of dollars in books.  This picture doesn’t cover all of it either – I have two classes that don’t start until the second half; I didn’t buy those books today.  I’m borrowing books for another class from a friend who had it last semester.    And let’s face it – they’re pretty on my shelf now but soon, as readings are assigned for classes, I’ll likely despise a few of them and probably fall asleep while reading.  

timeline.

8 Feb
Here’s the timeline:
Tomorrow: Begin my last semester of classes at seminary. [!!!]
February 19-22: A long president’s weekend in Arizona, visiting two college friends and seeking a warmer-upper.
February 23: Receive regional assignments at senior dinner.  Hopefully the region inside of the envelope will be a three or five.
[classes, blah, classes]
Following weeks: Contact from the bishop of the synod I’m assigned.
[classes, blah, classes]
May 29: Graduation!
[Sure.  A few more events will pop up within those times but those are the ones I’m currently anticipating!]

jterm shelf.

18 Jan
Genesis to Revelation course.  Check.
Here’s hoping with free[er] afternoons and more time to complete class readings [the top four books, below the pink Message Bible], I can get to some other books on my J-term shelf.  The Evangelical Lutheran Book of Worship?  Woohoo!  [Just kidding.  On the shelf for reference only, not for reading front to back.  And for use in the upcoming Hymn Bracket.  *church nerd alert*]  All of these for-fun books in this stack I’ve started at one time or another, only to stop reading because of other distractions; they quickly get pushed to the back of the shelf and the back of my mind.  Goal: Completion. [Or at least dabbling in a few more chapters.]

letters.

13 Jan
One of the classes I’m taking this January is a two week course, ending tomorrow afternoon, called Genesis to Revelation.  The course is as it says – each afternoon for three hours, we go through the Bible.  The whole thing.  Complete canon.  Genesis to Revelation.
It’s a great course, the ultimate goal being to make your own study Bible.  The professor lectures, sings and screams in animated fashion as we make our way through the Biblical narrative and it’s our job as students to mark the heck out of our Bibles.  Make notes.  Underline.  Highlight.  Make connections.
That’s been the best part of the class for me – the connections.  The connections between people, between places, between me and the Biblical story.  Think about it.  Where does John the Baptist do his ministry?  At the Jordan, where we last saw the prophet Elijah.  Jesus raises a widow’s son at Nain, just as Elijah and Elisha did years before.  King David had ran across the Mount of Olives, away from Jerusalem, running from his enemies.  Hundreds of years later, we read that Jesus – a different kind of king – crosses the Mount of Olives en route to Jerusalem to confront his enemies and ultimate death.  
The class is only two weeks long and the Bible has 66 books contained between its covers.  We move fast.  Today we made our way through modern-day Turkey, Greece, back to Jerusalem and finally to Rome with Acts and Paul’s letters.  Paul wrote a lot of letters.  Letters to churches and letters to specific people.  Letter of joy, of Christ’s love, and letters in the midst of conflict.  Letters filled with emotion. [For I wrote out of much distress, and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love I have for you.  2 Corinthians 2:4]  Letters were how Paul connected with those he could not immediately see.
There is something to be said about a letter.  In our time when communication is so immediate, letters are a lost art.  In Paul’s time, it was all he had to communicate with those distant churches and friends.  Letters are lasting.  They’re not lost in cell phone waves or cyber space.  We still read Paul’s letters nearly two thousand years later and in his words we feel the connection he had to other Christians and we feel our connection to Christ’s love.  
Letters remain.  I received a handwritten letter from my dad while at college the Friday that preceded the Sunday of his death.  He was never one for computers or email but he was so wonderful at writing letters in his perfect printing.  For the letters to include $20 and conclude with “Buy your friends pizza” was pretty standard.  That letter was the last communication I had with him, and I’m glad I have those words in print, to reread and to remember.
I have a terrible time getting rid of any letter I receive.  Knowing the time, the thought, and the energy that went into its writing, its creation and the motive behind its sending, I hold onto it.  It comes to the point where they fill a shoebox here, a wire basket there.  But I can’t throw them out.

Letters connect us.  I wrote two letters tonight.  [You’ll see my modern church history study guide hiding underneath the letters.  Guess where my priority was … um, not with defining fundamentalism and reform Judaism.  The test isn’t until Tuesday; I have time.]  One long overdue letter is to my Dawson penpal, C.  Another I wrote to someone I’ve never met.  I follow this blog.  Gussy.  She’s younger than I but a complete inspiration in her sewing creativity and the way she has built her business.  She’s lives in Minneapolis and I secretly want to meet her for coffee.  I think we would be the best of friends.  But for now, she invited blog readers to write to her.  So I did.  A connection.  
Letters connect us.

one year ago –

12 Jan
The earthquake in Haiti.
The Luther Seminary community paused at 3:45 this afternoon for a brief time of song, prayer, and to hear the bells toll for 35 seconds, reminding us of those who died and the rebuilding still happening.
I remember talking about it at work that day last year.  The following day, as we were continually swallowed by news reports on the devastation and climbing death toll, I recall the stewardship board allotting immediate funds to go towards the relief effort.  I remember driving to the Cities to attend a prayer service organized by Ben Larson’s friends and classmates from Luther.  I came back to Dawson to write a sermon.  I remember preaching, praying, and hugging that Sunday.
Today I’m remembering and I’m praying.  
I’m hoping you’ll do the same.

approved.

12 Dec
The final step in the candidacy process leading up to graduation and ordination –
approval.
The last approval interview is done with the candidacy committee in one’s home synod.  For me, that meant a trip back to Madison for my meeting on Friday afternoon.  *deep breath*
I walked into the conference room at the synod and found ten people around the table, the seat at the head of the table reserved for me.  *gulp*
Other colleagues of mine who have already gone through approval told me tales of three people.  Four people maybe.  There were definitely ten around this table.  Let the interrogation begin.
We talked about internship – the joys and the frustrations.  We talked about where I was hoping to be placed.  About how I handle conflict and about cardigan sweaters.  (No joke.  Cardigan sweaters came up – but it wasn’t me beginning that conversation.  I only contributed.  And was wearing one.)
Then this young pastor on the committee leaned forward with his large black-rimmed glasses and asked, “What is God up to?”
What is God up to?  I repeated back to him.  It’s a question we ask a lot here at seminary but one often asked within a specific context, not within the world in general.  Holy big question, Batman!
I know what my answer was (and I suppose it was satisfactory since I was approved by the committee); what’s yours?  What is God up to?  In the world?  In your church?  In your life?  Where do you see God working?
An appropriate question at any time, I suppose now it is all too appropriate with the approaching of the Christmas celebration when we call our focus to Immanuel, God with us.  The coming of God into this world.  God is up to a lot through the incarnation, work and person of his son, Jesus.  This holiday season we celebrate God with us and the light that shines in the darkness.  
It’s your turn to answer.  What the heck is God up to?
[Sidenote: As my Grace co-workers knew all too well, my connections between real world and tv/movie land are frequent, sometimes unwelcomed, and often met with blank stares.  Nevertheless, we’ve reached the explanation of a connection again.  Being approved can only make me think of the Target lady skits from SNL, in which the Target employee will yell in a nasal tone with enthusiastic hand gestures, “You’re approved!” when credit card payments go through.  Ignore the credit card payment part and yell with me, “You’re approved!”  Hey.  Thanks.]
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