Younger Student, Older Student

We are almost at the one year anniversary of the day I discovered Wesley Theological Seminary's track on Theology and the Arts.  I spent much of the rest of that week-end exploring the school and the track, and I was so inspired by that week-end that I started all the processes that led me to being a seminary student.  

And last night, I started my first class in that track:  Speaking of God in a Secular Age.  We began by introducing ourselves, then we had an introductory lecture, and then our professor highlighted aspects of the syllabus to keep in mind.  Wow--we are in for quite an exploration!  We will be looking at language itself, and the limits of language as we try to describe the Divine.

I chose the class in part because it fit with my schedule, in part because my advisor recommended it, and in part because I really wanted a class in my specialty track.   It also seems like a class that will be a good fit with the virtual synchronous delivery format.  While I would love to take a class in Chapel Visuals, that seems like a better in person class (and it is being held in person, if the seminary shifts back to in person meetings this term).

This week, as I've written out my introductions for each class, I've reflected on my seminary journey thus far.  In August when I wrote my introductions, I talked about going to the University of South Carolina for graduate work, but I didn't say that I earned a Ph.D.  I left that out for a variety of reasons: because I didn't want to brag and because I didn't want to sound pretentious and because I didn't want anyone else to feel intimidated (go ahead and laugh, but I really did think about that) and because when people find out I'm an English major, they often comment about how they better watch their grammar around me.

But as I made my way through my first term in seminary, I have realized how many students are here after earning a different set of advanced degrees and having had at least one non-pastor career.  At least two of my fellow students have Ph.D.s in Linguistics, and many of them have advanced degrees in some variation of Psychology.  Many of us are coming from education fields, which are likely pastor adjacent for most of us, meaning that we are living our faith in similar ways as a teacher as we would as a pastor.

Part way through last term, I thought about the older students I had met in my grad work in English.  Most of my fellow grad students were my age, in our 20's, most of us fresh out of undergraduate school.  But there were a few who were older.  I think of one woman, we'll call her LH, who returned to grad school after she had done the bulk of the work of raising her children; she seemed easy going and full of wisdom.  When my spouse got his first motorcycle, one of my friends hopped on, but said he couldn't actually operate it because he had hand injuries; come to find out, he was a Vietnam era vet, who had gotten injured as he trained to go to Vietnam in 1975, back when I was in 5th grade.  He is the reason I understand the difference between a Vietnam vet and a Vietnam era vet.  

As I think about my years at USC, I wonder how many of my fellow students were older, but they just didn't let the rest of us know.  I think of a creative writing guy who seemed young because of the age of the women he pursued, but come to find out, he was in his 40's or maybe older.

I thought of my USC grad school years again last night during the first class lecture, which covered ideas about language that I once might have found intimidating and baffling.  Now, even though I'm aware of all that I don't know during a lecture like that one, I have faith that I will figure it out.  When I was in my 20's, I didn't have that faith while at the same time feeling that I should already know what I didn't know, which would have made me feel even more insecure.

While I miss some aspects of my 20's, like my ability to run long distances on non-arthritic feet, I feel lucky to be able to see this time of my life, my mid-50's, when I feel secure in my intellectual abilities and mostly secure in my emotional abilities (more prone to anxiety than I would like to be, but better able to soothe myself).