Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 061 (Movies)

Trying to take it easy today. I know I got one word wrong on the Hebrew quiz, trying to not let it bother me, but it does for some reason. Watched Where the Wild Things Are with Amber, Ian and Nick. I was really excited to see one of my favorite books from my childhood brought to the big screen, but the pacing was kind of slow. It was basically what I expected; how do you really make a full length movie out of a picture book? The visuals were stunning, and it was very heartfelt, though. Overall, I think it was done very well; I just wish there was more plot line.

Amber and I baked some chocolate chip cookies when we got back, then watched Twighlight. Now watching The Wrestler.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 27 (God as a She)

I was woken up this morning by the Apocalypse. Well, that's what I thought anyway. It was actually a bolt of lightning that struck incredibly close to my apartment, and since rain and lightning were the furthest things from my mind given the recent weather and the fact that I was ripped out of a deep sleep by one of the loudest noises I had ever heard in my life, I came to the natural conclusion that the world was ending. Thunder lasts a while, and when you don't know what it is, it sounds very scary. It sounded like the nearby mountain was being ripped in half. Then I saw some flashes of light, realized we were having a lightning storm, and breathed a sigh of relief. You need to understand that I hail from Ventura County, where thunderstorms are very rare. I've probably only watched one or two of them in my entire life. The flashes of light and thunder made it difficult to go back to sleep, so I opened my front door, pulled up a chair and watched nature's light show for a while. This was perhaps not my wisest moment, as I live on the top floor of a four story apartment complex and the railing is made of metal. But, I figured if lightning did happen to strike right there, it would probably find me no matter where in the apartment I was. The Native Americans of the area where afraid to go to the top of Mt. Tamalpais because they thought a witch lived on top of it. I can only imagine what they made of lightning strikes and thunder.

I'm just glad the rain came and cooled everything off. The temperature was actually quite nice today. :-)

I went to the Russian Orthodox vespers service tonight with 3 of my classmates: Julie, Terra and Tom. It was an absolutely beautiful service, but not really my speed. I'm more used to drum sets and electric guitars when I go to church. Nevertheless, it was quite beautiful with all of the candles, incense, icons and chanting. The funny thing is, as "conservative" as the worship service, and I assume the denomination, was, I found it to be very affirming of women. They had icons for the virgin Mary and for Mary Magdelene, women reading scripture and the female voices were the most dominant and sometimes only voices in the choir. Now, as a Presbyterian, I have no problem with women being pastors or of the idea that God is neither male nor female, but I did have issues with referring to God with a feminine pronoun. It was more of a English language limitation thing than anything else. I'm still not sure if I'm 100% OK with it, but I think I'm pretty OK with it now.

One of the Bible passages they read during the service was from proverbs, where Wisdom is referred to as a woman. I had somehow completely forgotten about these passages, but I remembered them as they were read during the service and how dynamic they were. The way I read these passages, Wisdom is an allegory for God, and Lady Wisdom dukes it out with Madame Whore for three whole chapters. The writer of Proverbs had absolutely no problem with thinking of God in female terms, and if that's the case, then neither should anyone else.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 24 (Alef Bet Vet)

Today started with my Spirituality class. We did a contemplative prayer exercise called Lectio Devina. Each semester, the class has a different focus. Last semester it was Contemplative Listening, and I think the semester before that was on Quaker Clearance, but I'm not really sure what that is.

I took the class because I had heard so many good things about it, but to be honest, I had never had any kind of real emotional or spiritual experience while doing Lectio Devina. This time was very different. The way it works is that you are usually with a group of people and there is a leader taking the group through the exercise. The leader reads a short Bible passage, then there is a moment of silence while everyone thinks about the passage. Then a different person reads the same passage, and there is another moment of silence. Then the group is lead through a series of questions about the verse, the first of which is normally to discover what word or phrase really stood out during the reading. Then the leader asks each person to think about how they feel about that word or phrase and then what they think the meaning behind it is, etc. There is typically a few minutes of silence between each question for people to really listen for the voice of God. It's different from meditation, because with meditation, you are using your mind and your imagination to wrestle with a Bible verse or a question or idea, but with contemplation, you are more receptive as the verse works on you. The meaning of "meditation" in Eastern tradition is more like what we mean when we say "contemplation" though, so you have to be careful who you're talking to when you use these terms.

The phrase that stood out for me was "don't worry." The last few days have been pretty stressful as I've been thinking about the requirements of ordination and how much money going to school was going to cost and all of the homework I was going to have. God really used that moment to calm me down and help me to understand that He is in control of it all.

Of course, I began to study Hebrew for the quiz on Friday, and I started stressing out again. But we got a study group together and we found the above video on YouTube. I was really surprised to discover how quickly I was able to learn the Hebrew alphabet once we all started working on it together. I made boeuf bourguignon for everyone and we tested each other using desert plates and dry erase markers. It actually ended up being really fun! I have the Aleph Bet song playing in the background right now hoping to burn it into my memory.

Church History is tomorrow. It's my only class on Thursdays, but we're also having our first weekly class dinner, which of course I'm in charge of. I didn't get to the inquirer forms today nor did I mail out my application to work on the 2010 census, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a more manageable day tomorrow.

Gay Guy in Seminary: Day 13 (Embryonic Souls)

Before I say anything else, it is freakin' hot here in San Anselmo right now!!! Argh! I thought I was getting away from all of the heat!

But, I digress...

Today's topic is probably going to be a little controversial, so before I get into it, I just want to say, this is ONLY a theory I have been playing with; it's not something that I actually believe. I have nothing to back it up, I have never read anything about it or ever heard anyone talk about it; it's just an interesting idea that I wanted to share with everyone.

So, the question of the day is: Where do souls come from?

Most Christians believe they are all created by God, either at the moment of conception, shortly thereafter, or he created them all at once and there's a big holding pen for them all while they wait for a body.

Some Eastern religions teach reincarnation, meaning souls move on after people die to be reborn as someone or something else. However, this view does not account for the origin of the soul.

Other beliefs hold that souls are all pieces of one greater soul, or godlike being, living to gain experiences to be reabsorbed into the main larger soul.

I have to embarrassingly admit that I do not actually know what the official Presbyterian Stance is. When I typed in the question, "Where do souls come from?" into the official PCUSA (Presbyterian Church of the United States of America) website, it came back with 1,300 matches, so it was pretty much a dead-end. I'm sure I'll learn the official answer to this question at some point in my four years here. If I had to guess, I'd say that Presbyterians believe God creates souls as people are conceived. I mean, who knows really?

So, the idea that I had was that maybe we inherit our souls from our parents, half from our father and half from our mother. Replicas of their basic essences come attached to the egg and sperm and fuse into a new soul upon conception. And, since their souls are immortal, the newly formed soul would also be immortal, even though the body is not. Since God created everything, and if this is how God made the world to function, then God is still the ultimate creator of the new soul as well.

The new soul would develop just like a fetus would, going through different stages of growth and development, starting out as something very simple with lots of potential, into something very complex and capable of many things. At our core, we are our souls right? So, wouldn't it make sense that a soul that has experienced more would be different from a soul that has experienced little?

Is this idea crazy, sacrilegious or heretical? Like I said, it's not something that I believe, but it seems like it could be possible. Thoughts anyone?