Theology 101: Intro to Seminary or When the Shadows Disappear

This week was orientation for new students at Candler, which meant for me a week full of awkward introductions and overwhelming new information. I don't want to overstate the excitement or understate the value of this time, for the long days filled with meeting good people were certainly both tedious and meaningful.

Aside from the typical orientation events (talking about courses, meeting people, touring the campus), seminary orientation includes worship services, which were definitely a breath of life into an otherwise dry, information laden day. There were also discussions by the professors about theological education, which only increased my excitement for being where I am now.

As engaging as these truly were, I found myself zoning out a little in the middle of the first day as I noticed the sunlight streaming in from the windows, smearing our shadows across the floor.

Shadows that effect the floor - the place, the chapel - but do not belong to it. Shadows that are temporary, that will be moving somewhere else all too soon. Shadows making their mark, but an invisible one in the long run. Shadows belonging to those gathered, or at least dictated by their presence.

But then the light shifted and started coming off the floor and the shadows disappeared.

Suddenly it was bodies, our bodies, which were illuminated, not the shadows. The sunlight radiating around the holy place managed to paint our bodies into the empty space of the chapel. Hosts subsumed their temporary, impactless forms, not departing fully from them, but casting a different image.

And I noticed that it is us who are here now making our mark - as our butts imprint the seats. A mark that at least the next person who sits there will notice.

The sunlight steadily grew and through it all, whether it be shadows or butt, illusory or real, temporary or less temporary, I realized that the light is constant and all pervasive. The sun was there making all possible, giving life and light to our gathering.

And I saw that as the light increased, the shadows (that lack of light) retreated from our midst, and our selves found their true, full expression as we were all the more able to reflect the light and color our world.

A great beginning

I took this picture in my apartment in Dallas in July.  I think I laid down to take a nap and then saw it on the wall.  I wish I knew what it was reflecting off so that I could try it again.  Nevertheless, that amazing light butterfly phenomenon amazed me and encouraged me then as it does now.

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I am all moved in and beginning to be settled in Atlanta.  A new home. I am now hundreds of miles away from anyone I have known. It all seems surreal. Like I just started a new chapter. All the cheesy cliches about big life transitions seem so applicable. And it seems like it all happened instantaneously, like flipping a switch. One minute surrounded by loving friends overwhelmed by support and comfort of knowing people and having things figured out – then the next minute I am on my own, lost at sea with no bearings. It is thrilling and terrifying.

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I picked this one, because I was actually at this concert, btw.

Transition or It's Been Good

This is not only one of my favorite movie scenes, but also describes my current feelings pretty well.  Enjoy!

Sentient Robots or Why Robocop is actually a pretty good movie

I bet that whenever we are finally scientifically advanced enough to produce sentient life in the form of robots, that those sentient robots will be a little different than we expect.

We often think of robots that can think for themselves and know that they are alive as still being automatons and being completely emotionally void. Kind of like Robocop for the first part of his (re)existence. But as we all know, Robocop himself could not function without his emotions getting the better of him.

I sometimes think that people really do believe that the highest level of human functioning is devoid of emotion. And if not that, then they think that at least the normal mode of functioning is emotionless. We constantly try to stifle expression of our emotions, especially in public situations. I myself am guilty of this and tried for many years to be as stoic a man as I could be. That led me through some pretty terrible responses to things that had gone on in my life; and shifted me into the position of an uncaring boyfriend, brother, and son.

Two examples of emotional stifling that have come to my attention recently:

1. 
   
   I ride on public transportation pretty frequently. If you never have, you should. Everyone sits facing one direction and shows no signs of what is going on in their lives. It’s a real blast! Sure, every now and then you get the guy who actually does open up a little, but most people just think he is crazy. I noticed this the most as I was in England last summer and traveling on some form of public transport almost every day. I would listen to some funny podcasts sometimes and felt embarrassed when I would randomly crack up because of something funny. I even went to lengths to try to hide those outbursts. We have simply made public spaces a haven for emotional restriction. But why? And at what cost?

I have noticed this trend here in Dallas as well on the DART. Everyone just sits and stares or listens to music or reads. I have no problem with that, but where is the joy or mourning that we experience? Why do we feel the need to suppress it?

2. 
   
   I believe it was my sophomore year in college during marching band practice. It was a frustrating rehearsal and everyone was up-tight. After one move the band director called the drum line out on something (that most likely really wasn’t our fault), and Michael (our drum line captain at the time) stood up to him and forcefully asserted his stance. Soon, they were yelling at each other. Everyone immediately felt the tension and the first reactions of myself and the drum line instructor were to calm Michael down and stop the yelling. But why?

If you really think about it, Michael’s reaction probably expressed the feelings of just about every other band member who did not have the guts to express themselves (myself included). Also, Michael’s outburst shows that he actually cared about what was going on. He was not content to just sit back and let things continue to be sub-par. True, it was probably also brought about because of many other reasons including pride, but at least he felt something, at least he showed he cared about what we were doing. I’d say a worse reaction would be to just let things drift along while remaining totally removed from the situation.

I have often talked with friends about how much of a shame it is that our first reaction when a baby starts to cry is to get it to stop. This may have good foundations sometimes (i.e. the baby is probably crying because it is uncomfortable), but not so when we carry this mindset out through our lives and always try to comfort people as they cry and do whatever we can to get them to stop crying. Maybe crying is exactly what we need to do. I honestly think that one of my major faults is that I do not cry enough.

I do not mean to imply that we should exist at the whims of our emotions. True, a world in which everyone constantly expressed whatever emotion they were feeling would most likely be a wreck. But do we ever have an opportunity to share? Do we have the communities in place to be open in such a way? And, do we allow a suppression of our emotions to restrict our love of others and eat away at our hearts like termites? Perhaps as we are careful not to act at the whims of our emotions, we should simultaneously be careful to not censor what makes us, us. Both extremes tend to separate us from others, but in our individualistic world, I think the greater threat to true community and true love of others is our lack of transparency as we too cautiously and irrationally guard our hearts.

Take these observations as you will. I just don’t think that our sentient robots would be content without emotion and that they would proceed to find ways to invent emotion for themselves. And we all know where that eventually leads…

1 Corinthians 12:26

Another take on this...

Velocity

'Every body will persist in its state of rest or of uniform motion (constant velocity) in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it' - otherwise known as Newton's First Law of Motion.

I had to teach this to the kids I worked with this summer while discussing gravity, air resistance, and Newton's laws of motion. We of course talked about dropping things, especially small coins from great heights. And I learned something new: that everything has a terminal velocity. The penny being dropped from the tallest building will reach a max speed.

I kind of don't believe this, but I have talked to several people who I trust know their physics and they all agreed. I must have slept through that day in science.

But then again, as I think about everyday life, Newton's laws and my knowledge of velocity seem to make more and more sense.

I have had to drive in Dallas traffic a lot more than I ever have before, and at peak times. In going to work and coming back from work I have begun to notice certain trends in this traffic. One is that people really don't like to change speed. This includes speeding up or slowing down. I'd say that most people can be completely surrounded by cars, and as long as they are all going a steady speed that is the desired speed of that person, he or she will be happy. People only get mad when they are forced to slow down or speed up.

Newton's fist law is commonly put: an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force. And once that occurs, the object will be angry.

People don't like to change their velocity. It does require energy to speed up or slow down, and we often meet some sort of resistance. Maybe we all have a natural rhythm, or maybe it is just our expectations of the way things should work. But when this attitude bleeds over into other parts of our lives, it often results in problems. I don't claim to be an expert, but from what I've seen, coasting typically is not a good option in any type of work, for any personal benefit, and especially for any type of relationship (be it friendship, romantic, or religious).

Besides, things are always more exciting when you change velocity. You either get to slow down and see more and take in more. Or you could speed up and experience the thrill and excitement of the moment.

I went to Six Flags yesterday. There are no rides that maintain the same speed the entire time, because that would be boring. A roller coaster is an attraction because it breaks from the velocity of everyday normal living with slow, building, suspenseful moments and fast, crazy, wild moments.

Sure, discipline and ritual are good, and I believe they work wonders in our lives. But so does a willingness to change velocity. Otherwise we become just like angry Dallas drivers, only in all aspects of our lives.

Goes well with this post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TahH7B_aUZc&playnext=1&videos=0CledNXSvg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX7iwwB9zQ4