ON GRADUATING from the
Education for Ministry Program
May 2003
YEAR ONE: I learned, among many other things, that we didn’t need a temple, but God said, “Fine! Have it your way, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
YEAR TWO: I reveled in the people. Our group was a modest but healthy, manageable size, and all the people fed me spiritually. Our group was full of pistis and vinegar.
YEAR THREE: I was grateful for Cheri’s arrival, and the year was full of so much learning! I especially enjoyed giving my presentations on Martin Luther and on the history of the Orthodox Churches.
YEAR FOUR: I most enjoyed the return of Mike, and the richness of being able to relive Year Three while experiencing Year Four and intertwining the two.
AND NOW, WHAT’S NEXT?
I am becoming more grounded, more stable.
I am finally leaving behind the ghosts of high school and college and branching out from the original Seattle Me.
I will find a way to bridge my continuing learning with the states of learning present in the adolescents I care for at JYC and HYC.
I am graduating. I am commencing.
I am moving outward into bigger things, riskier things, more dramatic things.
God is less personal now, but that’s so I can banish the old thoughts of the “personal God” in favor of bigger, all-encompassing thoughts.
God is hazier now, but God is less of an old man with a beard as well.
And I? I am, as always, becoming.
Have patience with me, because I haven’t struck out boldly in a long time, and if I do, I may falter.
Don’t give me too much reassurance, because I’m still learning to reassure myself, and I need to be thrown into the fire.
Rumi tells me that God wants us to deny our desires, so we will learn how to give up self-interest. I have work to do in this department.
C.S. Lewis reminds me that dogma isn’t all wrong simply because it’s dogma. I am a very systematic doer, but I am not the most systematic thinker. I can work on this, too.
I am becoming more thoughtful.
I am becoming more courageous.
I am becoming more certain of the Universal Happy Ending that is at the core of my theology.
I am becoming more tolerant of shades of grey, an attitude that will come in handy one day with regard to my hair.
I am called to make growing up a little easier for a number of teenagers.
I am called to be a dad, and a good one, too. I’ve always known this.
I am called to expand some people’s narrow views of Christianity.
I am called to make music, and to share the excitement and emotion of music with the people I love.
Now somebody draw me a bath and point me to the Oreos.