many many things

Again, I haven't posted in a while. Such is grad school life, it seems, and it saddens me. But I'm giving up TV for Lent (clearly haven't made good on the last post), so...I should be speaking or writing to you personally soon.

Things with school haven't been very good, this semester, academically at least (socially is fine, which is a change). I had my first exam in 3 years this past Friday (since I've been out of school, and since I had none first semester). I did not study well at all, but hopefully it went ok. I think I still have retained my studying efficiency that I had somehow developed my senior year...i.e., I think God's got my back during exams & studying, because it's not me. I have two more exams this week. I probably should be studying instead of writing, but I feel this is too long overdue. I'm still frustrated because I don't feel like I'm being offered the courses I need to get the education I want - the school discontinued most of the courses they had advertised, and upon which I had accepted a position here, because the special grant funding those courses had run out.

The research project I was working on and which had gone well first semester tanked in January. I was just supposed to run one little experiment - what my previous work had been driving at - and ran into a million little issues, and it just didn't work. Frustrating. Then my other advisor, with whom I'd been planning another project, decided it was going to be too much work to get the fish he'd recommended. So, another project idea got thrown around last week...which we again have none of the materials or test animals for...so who knows. This also feels frustrating because I feel like I'm going to be far behind in my research, as I'm still doing none of my own and, right now, likely won't get another project off the ground this semester.

Teaching, at least, is going fine.

I've joined my church here, which is great...but it's going through a lot of changes because it's growing. I think I've turned into a bit of a commitment-phobe with all of my moving around and not being settled.

This has also played out in discouragement with small groups - I've been here since August, and still haven't found a small group Bible study. And I think the problem is that I'm looking for "small group" and "inductive Bible study." Many small groups just talk, no study...and the ones that do study, I have a hard time with the study.

I know that inductive Bible study isn't "the right way" to study the Bible, but it's what I'm used to, and I do find many merits to it (and faults with other ways of studying). One is that it levels the playing field and is welcoming of seekers, new Christians, and long-term Christians, because no knowledge (except maybe a historical background and Strong's concordance/word meanings) are brought in. Here in Atl, conversation usually devolves into much discussion of theological concepts and traditional church question/lessons. I'll be honest, even though I've known Jesus for 5 years and kindasorta went to church, all of it still makes me feel like an outsider, because I'm not well-versed in it. I don't even really want to imagine what it would be like to a new Christian, to go to one of those studies. And so with truly inductive study, both seekers and new Christians and long-standing ones can engage meaningfully with the Word, regardless of background knowledge.

And, secondly, I don't think Bible study is the place for our theological opinions. I find there to be something far more humble, supplicating, and honest about coming to the text and asking God to speak to us, rather than us coming to the text and telling each other and God what we think it means and how we relate to it. I'm pretty post-modern...but the (pre-modernity? modernity? pre-post-modernity, at any rate) of inductive study, the reliance on what's there instead of what I think...is so refreshing and revealing. I get out of my head and into the Word, out of my own head and into the Godhead, to truly listen and meet with Him. If all we do is sit around and ask "what do we think about this passage and how does it relate to us?", we're essentially studying ourselves, and not the Lord who wrote it.

I don't get this hung-up about studies that aren't directly focused on the Word, although I do have issues with some doctrine that exists based on logic or to fill a purpose, rather than being drawn directly from God. But it matters to me that we study the Word in a way in which we can actually hear from God.

In short, I miss PennIV. I miss Superblock and JamPakt, in all of our brooding self-awareness and oddities. I miss the community, and the closeness, and the ability to share...and the deep listening to God's word. I miss our Monday night Bible-study planning meetings so so very much.

And I miss camp, where I was free to be myself...a condition I'm finding much easier at work than at church, because I'm around the folks at work more, and that duality and sense of repression saddens me. I miss being not-quiet and making dumb jokes and playing with snails and being organized and people understanding and loving that, and having that same reciprocal relationship with everyone else.

I miss lots of people and social and religious concepts/themes/traditions/whathaveyou.

the end for today.