First Day of Classes

Many people believe that your sub-conscious mind can control how you act and re-act.  I have never been a strong supporter of that belief until now.  You see, today was the first day of classes and so after a very quiet restful weekend, I decided to go to bed early last night, around 10:30.  I figured a good night sleep would be nice before starting classes this morning.  My mind and body had different ideas.  At 12:15, I woke up, wide awake, my head spinning.  It seems that I must have listened to many returning students talking about what it was like as a first year student and how it quickly becomes overwhelming.  I was sitting in bed worrying whether I was really cut out for this school thing.  Did I really make the correct decision to come back to school?  As you can imagine, a million questions, very few positive, were going through my head.  After trying to get to sleep with every technique known to man (okay so I exaggerate a little), I was still wide awake.  The thought then occurred to me that maybe I needed to name my concerns and lift them up in prayer.  After all, I have never walked alone in this process so why would I be alone now.  It seems that naming my fears and concerns allowed me to release their tight fisted grasp on me and finally allowed me to go back to sleep, it was 3:30 a.m. by now.

My first class this morning was Fundamentals of Worship.  It is a 1 credit class that the school recommends you audit.  The course description is:

 "A practical course for students beginning their preparation in liturgical leadership.  The course will walk students through the offices of morning and evening prayer and the Eucharistic liturgy from the perspective of different liturgical roles, attending to issues in public speaking, ritual movement, choices and uses of liturgical music, and comprehension of the shape of the liturgy."

In essence, this class is designed to help us lead the worship here at CDSP as well as allow us to explore many of the other resources available to us other than the Book of Common Prayer and the Hymnal 1982.  CDSP was one of the "testing grounds" for the assessment of the Holy Women, Holy Men Book so it is one of the resources used here.  In total, we were given a list of 10 other Authorized Texts for liturgy and 7 texts for musical resources. I have been to four community services since arriving at CDSP and I have already sung two songs in Spanish and one in an African language.  It is a very eye opening experience.  

My second class of the day today was Introduction to the Old Testament, a three hour lecture based class.  I believe the title is self-explanatory.  This specific class is taught at the Franciscan School of Theology by a Friar.  He is very well educated and loves to speak of the archeological aspect of the Old Testament.  He wants us to explore the concept of critical historical interpretation of the scripture.  In this class over the course of the semester, we are expected to:  write four one page reflection papers on a passage from the old testament that the professor chooses, complete a mid-term and final exam, as well as write a 10 page research paper on a topic that interests us in the Old Testament.  We are required to submit our thesis, outline and partial bibliography to him for approval within the next month.  The final paper is due Nov 15th.  I have already started thinking about possible topics and believe that I am going to write something on the similarities and differences among the call stories of Moses and Noah.  I think.  More to come on that topic later.

Overall, my first day of classes was invigorating and helped to put my mind to ease for the time being.  The professor's that I have encountered all seem to want to help us succeed.  They are willing to go the extra mile to help get us back into the academic mindset.  In reading any class syllabus, you could easily become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of reading and work but if taken week by week, I believe that it will be difficult but not impossible to complete.  

Tomorrow is a seminar that CDSP does every semester call First Wednesday.  It is a time for the entire CDSP community to gather to discuss a topic of importance within the church today.  This year's topic is "Word's Matter."  We are each expected to tell a story about a time in our life where we encountered the significance of words either in a positive or negative manner on our life, beliefs or relationship with God. After sharing in small groups, the gathering is completed with a Community Eucharist Service.  

Well it is getting late and I must try and get some sleep tonight.

Peace,

Jay