Onground Intensives Done Virtually

This week, in addition to everything else in my life, I've been doing the onground intensive for my spiritual direction certificate program.  I don't have many vacation days, and I may need them later, so I decided to do the intensive from my work office, while also trying to attend to administrator duties.  It's left me exhausted.

The intensive started on Wednesday, and I was already a bit worn out.  On top of my administrator duties, I had spent several hours attending a virtual orientation/advising session and getting registered for seminary classes, along with getting documents and cashier's checks for the condo rental.

I try not to contrast the onground intensive experience that I had on campus in January of 2020 with the two virtual intensives I've had since then.  It's not a fair comparison, I know.  The good news:  the comparison makes me glad that I'm taking the approach to seminary that I am launching this fall.  My instinct was right:  it would have been hard, if not impossible, to do online seminary with onground intensives while still being a college administrator; the programs I was considering required 2 week intensives twice a year, usually at times when it would be hard for me to be away for 2 weeks--not that there's ever a good time to be away for 2 weeks in my administrator experience.

I will also wonder how my spiritual direction certificate experience would have been different if the pandemic hadn't disrupted it.  I find myself so exhausted and not taking full advantage of the offerings.  For example, last night, I sat at my office desk, alone, after the campus closed for the night, trying to do the Ignatian visualizing as part of a Vesper's service:  "Imagine that you are Simeon.  long pause   Imagine that you are Anna.  long pause   Imagine that you are Mary and Joseph, on the road to the temple.  long pause"  Eventually, I just couldn't do it anymore, and it pains me to admit, I turned my attention elsewhere.  If I had been in the chapel, surrounded by my fellow students, would I have been more likely to focus?  Yes.

We are doing the flipped classroom model, which means I worked my way through modules that were basically filmed lectures.  They were good, but less compelling than they would have been in a classroom.  Or maybe I was more distracted.  Or maybe I had already read about many of the topics, and so many of the presentations didn't seem to tell me much that was new.

It is also strange to be going through this intensive after I have decided to go to seminary.  I chose this program originally, after a period of discernment where I thought I was choosing between this program and seminary.  I was fairly sure that I couldn't do seminary in the allotted amount of time and also be an administrator.  In the pre-pandemic days, there were fewer options than there may be now that schools have had to experiment with classes done from a distance.

It's strange to be going through this intensive realizing that I'm now discerning something new.  Would I have been open to the new discernment had we been doing the intensives face to face?  If we had been able to do that, many elements of life would have been different.

I'm still grateful for the experience.  I've learned a lot, and it hasn't been that expensive.  And it's been a better use of time than many of the ways I could have spent it.  Even the shortcomings have made me realize my longings.