Day 231 (Happy Easter!)

Gonna keep it short today because I have been sitting in front of a computer screen for WAY too many hours today. I just finished my Prophets paper and am looking forward to turning off my computer for the night. I started it around noon today, and because of my natural tendency to prefer distractions to homework, took me until about 9:00 pm. Now, I just have to finish my Theology reading, O_o.

I went to my Baptist church this morning, hoping for some kind of special Easter service, especially since I haven't been there in almost a month. It was pretty much the same-old, same-old. I was also kind of disappointed in the sermon because it was mostly an apologetic on how Jesus actually did raise from the dead. I spent most of it wondering why he was trying to prove to a bunch of people sitting in church that Jesus' resurrection wasn't faked. I came to the conclusion that should we encounter a non-believer asking for proof, then we would have some kind of answer for them, but I was always taught that you could never prove the events of the Bible. Doesn't the ability to believe come from God? Maybe it's a Baptist thing.

I've been eating peepshi to sustain myself through the paper-writing process and I think it's high time for some real food. Happy Easter everybody!!!

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 152 (Halfway Point)

Thus ends the 2nd week of the Hebrew intensive. Blogging super late today because I was super distracted. Went for a super long walk with Tom & Kimberlee after class, collected pine spike and candy cap mushrooms, although I am going to do a little bit more research to make sure the mushrooms I think are candy caps actually are candy caps before I eat them. Then I showed Tom The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, and he showed me The Bear, which is a ridiculously anthropomorphic movie about bears for anyone who hasn't seen it. Wrapped up the day with lot of Magic: The Gathering with Rus & Tom.

Tomorrow morning's the bid "coffee date" with the Baptist minister. Not sure what's going to happen, but I'm sure it will be interesting. I'll keep you posted. XD

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 147 (Fire and Brimstone)

I went to Abiding Way for the 3rd time today. I kind of felt like I had to because the pastor there called me almost 2 months ago inviting me out for coffee, but I never called back 'cuz I got sick, then there was finals, then my phone broke and I went home for the holidays. We're gonna have coffee this Saturday... and I'm a little bit nervous.

I know they're Baptist..I KNEW that they were Baptists, but I kept telling myself, "They're in Marin County. How conservative can they be?"

Well, the answer is basically as conservative as you could expect Bapists to be. I wasn't expecting to hear it, especially considering how laid back these people seem, but the pastor delivered a full-fledged "Fire and Brimestone" sermon today. For those that don't know what that means, the liberal Protestant way of describing these types of sermons are "Turn or Burn" sermons. In other words, he was saying, "If you don't already accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you better convert right now or you might go to hell." Seriously.

This highlights the fundamental difference between Baptist faith and Presbyterian faith. What Baptists teach is that it is each person's individual responsibility to "believe," meaning they essentially have to do the work of saving themselves. Presbyterians teach that God is the one that moves in individuals to allow them to believe. Even as I write this, I am aware of how this contradicts my own beliefs, but that is not the point of this particular blog entry.

To get to the point, I don't like "Turn or Burn" sermons. I don't like it when someone threatens you with an eternal damnation in their effort to convert you. I don't think that is what we are supposed to do... but again, it boils down to a difference in theology. I appreciate that they are doing it out of love because of their very real fear for what could happen to your immortal soul.

And then (just when you thought perhaps it wasn't so bad), he criticized how society accepting homosexuality as a part of life saying, "That's just the way it is," lumping it together with adultery. How are these two things even in the same ballpark?

Saturday should be interesting.

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 100 (100th Post!!!)

In honor of the 100th blog entry for Jesus High for the Gay Guy, I offer 100 things I have learned so far while in seminary.

In no particular order...

1. Seminary is hard.

2. Making new friends is always cool.

3. If you cook it, they will come.

4. The Bible may not be exactly what you think it is.

5. The Bible is exactly what you think it is.

6. Magic: The Gathering is still one of the best games ever invented.

7. It's easy to be away from home when you are too busy to think about it.

8. Procrastination is part of who I am; there doesn't seem to be any sense in fighting it.

9. As much as I would like one, I may need to accept the fact that I do not have a green thumb.

10. SFTS is one of the most liberal places on the planet.

11. San Francisco Presbytery is not.

12. While it seems like I am able to drink large quantities of alcohol, all it takes is one glass of wine for me to feel tipsy.

13. In certain instances, you can substitute apples for onions.

14. Mace is essentially nutmeg on crack.

15. If you don't do laundry on a regular basis, you have to start wearing clothes that you don't usually want people to see you wearing.

16. If you put off refilling your prescription for too long, you come dangerously close to not being able to take your pills.

17. Just because you can ditch class, doesn't mean that you should.

18. Straight A's are not worth the trouble.

19. God is not as much of a stickler as I thought he was.

20. The Holy Spirit just might be female... what that means in "divine" terms, I have no idea.

21. Living next to a bell tower that goes off at 8:00 in the morning sometimes sucks.

22. Living next to the dumpster when the garbage truck come by at 6:00 in the morning sucks even more.

23. Service at a cafe will be less than stellar if the cook does not show up for work.

24. Grocery store bakeries suck.

25. A good burger is a wonderful thing.

26. Everyone worships a different way. God is still God.

27. Baptists are not as scary as people would have you believe.

28. Neither are pagans.

29. A light saber should be nowhere near a pagan ritual.

30. Neither should fake candles.

31. If there is a ghost at SFTS, it is most likely benign.

32. It is physically impossible for me to read 300 textbook pages a week and still be able to do everything else.

33. Chicken fat makes the best chicken soup.

34. Sometimes, when people are telling you their problems, the best thing to do is just listen.

35. People have issues and you just need to accept that.

36. The kitchens at Oxtoby may be small, but you can still cook wonderful food in them.

37. If someone drinks a bottle of wine or more a day, they probably have a multitude of wine corks lying around waiting for someone crafty to use them.

38. You can never predict when the mail will come in San Anselmo.

39. People in Northern California are "idiosyncratic" drivers.

40. Mt. Tamalpais only looks like a sleeping woman if you are looking at it from the right angle.

41. The Bay Area is one of the most stunningly beautiful places I have ever seen in my life.

42. The ferries from Larkspur to San Francisco are slower on the weekends because they use the older ferries.

43. Taking the bus is not any faster or cheaper than the ferry, or so I've heard.

44. Pawpaws taste like mango.

45. $30.00 chocolate doesn't really taste much different from $10.00 chocolate.

46. A 5 second video really can be one of the funniest things you've every seen. (I'm talking to you "dramatic groundhog.")

47. People say they will visit you, but they won't.

48. People visiting is fun, but it totally kills your study time.

49. Living on the 4th floor gives you a really great view of your surroundings.

50. Living on the 4th floor makes it hard to do laundry.

51. If you leave rice in a rice cooker for 2 weeks, it will become dry, brown and hard.

52. That stuff that cleans mildew off of grout actually works!

53. Compost buckets smell really, really, really bad.

54. Just because you think something is really cool/fun/beautiful doesn't mean that other people will think the same.

55. Decaf still has caffeine in it.

56. If you really focus, you can write a 5 page paper in 2 or 3 hours.

57. If you don't, it will take the whole day.

58. Driving in San Francisco sucks.

59. Parking in San Francisco sucks.

60. The public transportation is supposedly good, but I haven't really tried it yet except for the ferries.

61. facebook can and will take over your life. (This means you farmville, even though I've never played you.)

62. So will Magic: The Gathering. O_o

63. The longer you put off doing the dishes, the harder it is to start them.

64. A dryer sheet in the bottom of a trash can will only help so much.

65. You will not get a ticket for smoking marijuana in Marin County. (Disclaimer: I do not know this from personal experience.)

66. Bigotry is alive and well.

67. Large corporations are by and large evil incarnate. If anyone has proof to the contrary, please let me know.

68. Even when you think there is a slight possibility you may run into someone you know when you go somewhere, it is still shocking when it happens.

69. The only way to get comfortable speaking in front of people is to just do it.

70. When you need to print something to turn in 5 minutes before class, the printer will not work.

71. Just because someone calls themselves or is referred to as a bishop/priest/father/pastor does not necessarily mean that they are.

72. When someone says that Disneyland is not the happiest place on earth, this has no effect on its actual status as the happiest place on earth.

73. Just because a guy wears a certain type of shoe, it doesn't mean that he's gay... or does it???

74. Tickets for the Winchester Mansion are WAYYYYYY overpriced.

75. Price matters, even if someone else is paying for you.

76. If a place offers free food to veterans on Veterans' Day, then that place will probably be busy on Veteran's Day.

77. Just because a person is old, that does not give them an excuse to be rude.

78. Learning is easier when it's fun.

79. You really can relate bunnies to most things.

80. If store employees see an underage person touch your wine bottles, they will not sell the wine to you.

81. But, you can always go back to buy them later.

82. Books/articles will not read themselves.

83. If a person's beliefs are strong enough, they will often be incapable of hearing anything contrary to those beliefs.

84. They will also think you are stupid/unreasonable/crazy.

85. Just because a church body is in California does not mean that it will be liberal.

86. Just because people are from the South does not mean they will be conservative.

87. Niacin will make you sweat profusely.

88. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a cheap and quick breakfast.

89. If a group of people is of any kind of decent size, you will find people that like Firefly.

90. A dot is a lot more significant in Hebrew than it is in English.

91. People thought EXTREMELY differently about things 100/500/1,000/5,000 years ago than we do now.

92. Drugs have as much to do with the context within which they are used as their chemical component.

93. Icons are not as strange as protestantism would have you believe.

94. You cannot plagiarize yourself.

95. If you study long enough, you will get a study high. (Thank you ketones.)

96. A new wool rug will shed like crazy. (I have yet to figure out when it will stop shedding.)

97. If the wind blows something off of your balcony once, chances are it will do so again.

98. Although $5.00 for lunch isn't that bad, it's a lot of money when the food isn't that good.

99. Real falafel is green.

100. It's called "breaking the seal" for a reason.

LOL, when I started this post I was totally prepared for going back and changing the title because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to think of 100 things. I could probably make the list longer, but I won't torture you all. On the bright side, you don't even have to go to seminary to learn any of this, now! So far, this seminary thing has been an amazing ride. Let's see what the next 100 days bring!

Gay Guy in Seminary Day 091 (Baptists Part Deux)

Ryan and I went to Abiding Way again, you know, that Baptist place. Still haven't had the talk with the pastor because we were in a hurry to get back so we could do homework. Ryan said he wasn't feeling the service as much this week. I kind of understand what he was talking about, but it was okay for me. There wasn't as much energy this time, and the people weren't as engaging, but it might have been because they moved the service 45 minutes earlier and people might have been disoriented. Plus, a pretty large group left immediately after service to start the Bible study groups.

I still feel like I might be called to be part of the community there. At the very least, the worship style is something that draws me, even if it isn't as exuberant as I would like it to be. The songs choices are similar in style to those that we sing at my home church. I actually like the fact that I don't know most of them because I like discovering new praise songs. And the length and style of the sermon was pretty much on par with the kind of sermon Ronnie would deliver back home.

They announced today that they were going to start Bible studies. If I am going to be part of this congregation, I really want to be part of it, and that means Bible study and community events. I noticed today that some people didn't quite know what to make of the two students from the Presbyterian seminary in their midst. They were probably asking themselves if we realized we were in a Baptist church. But, if you think about it, Protestant theology doesn't vary all that much, say like the difference between Buddhist and Jewish theology. This isn't to say that there aren't some significant differences between Presbyterian and Baptist theology.

I guess the most obvious one, because of the name of the denomination, is the differing beliefs of Baptism. Presbyterians baptize babies; Baptists don't. For Baptists, baptism is a sign of obedience, an outward symbol of your personal profession of faith that brings you into the believing community. For Presbyterians, baptism is a covenantal sign of a person's relationship with God that emphasizes God's grace. I know, a lot of you are asking, "So?" Well, these are the kinds of issues that will come up in a Bible study. These are the things that I will have to talk about if I hang around these people for any length of time.

I, for one, am all about people having different beliefs, especially on issues that don't really seem to affect salvation. (I realize the previous statement was sacrilegious for some people, but just go with it.) Does everyone really have to believe the same thing? Why can't we all accept that we love God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and let everything else be? We don't all have to believe the same thing, in fact, I'm pretty sure there aren't 2 people on earth who really truly believe the exact same thing! We don't have to all believe in everything ins exactly the same way in order to accept each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, jeez!

And then, there's the issues of predestination, communion and the receiving of the Holy Spirit, not to mention the fact that I'm gay...

*sigh*

I know I said this last time, but it bears repeating. How conservative can they be, seated as they are in one of the most liberal places in the country? Am I just a glutton for punishment? First my presbytery, now this? Should be interesting.